EndNote for iPad

The ability to annotate pdf is a must. And also to be able to connect to more choices of cloud based services such as Sugarsync…

Simply being able to sync attachments with the app must be possible- right now, you have to individually tap to download each attachment within each individual reference.  Not a solution for large libraries!  This is a fundamental first step before maintaining annotations.

Here is a bug I found- when you tap to download an attachment, don’t touch anything else!  When I would try to open an adjacent reference (to get another download started), the app crashed.  On startup, you have to wait for it to sync again before you can do anything- this is annoying.

Strongly agree about the need to be able to download ALL attachments. I have over 1000 and don’t relish the idea of tapping each one to download.

Strongly aggree with all of Geoff22s suggestions. 

Yes - this is a bit clunky “… don’t relish the idea of tapping each one to download.” - we actually have some web services in place that we plan to hook into the app in an update soon. We really just wanted to wait and hear from real cusotmers that they want all attachments [up to 5GB worth anyway] downloaded at once. We have now heard this.

Of course, the moment that we implement this feature, I can almost guaranetee that someone else is going to post here saying that they did “…NOT want all file attachments download and that EndNote is filling up all of the memory on their iPad.”   :slight_smile:

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team

So it is obvious, you need to have a toggle option or you need to ask everytime!  – But someone will want something in-between!

SImply put - there MUST be an easier way to sync-upload PDF’s to the iPad app.

  • Possible suggestions
    • somehow set the “favorites as  a group” so one can move/copy multiple entries into “favorites”
    • allow an entire group to be set as a “favorite” (the settings menu already has a "manage my groups feature)

Secondly - annotations need to sync to the document through the clound and to the desktop library.  One method would be the integration with other app’s - eg I could open my pdf in goodreader (which I can already do), and after having anotated the document it saves it - back into my endnote iPad Library, which then would sync it to the cloud and to my desktop… (note - one can already do something like this with goodreader-you just load/remote-sync your endnote pdf folder from dropbox.  any edited files end up in your desktop library.

I seriously think a single library file format is ideal.  eg - the same library/files used on the ipad sync to the cloud sync to the desktop.  I was very excited to see the “link to dropbox”  but I was honestly hoping I could simply browse to my library (which is already in dropbox) and open it!  How easy would that have been?!?!

I agree - after waiting 4 hours to desktop synchronise my library with Endnote Web (I only have ~750 references with PDF), I found that the iPad app didn’t download the PDFs. This really seems like a serious flaw - do I have to mark everything favourite manually (!) or go through them all individually? Is there a better way?

Great app. I have three feature requests:

  1. indication and sync of read/unread status with the desktop version

  2. indication in the list of references of whether an individual reference has a pdf attached for possible download

  3. Implementation of standard iPad autocorrection (auto-capitalization, double-tap space for period, etc.) in the text entry field, especially the notes field. 

Hello Mick_c,

I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience you’re encountering with EndNote desktop synchronization.

Taking 4 hours to synchronize your desktop machine is not typical, and may be indicative of some other problem. 

Unless your Internet connection speed only allows you to upload about 5 GB or likely much less in a 4 hour period, something else may be going on with either your computer, your router, or your account.  Also, problems with your Internet Service Provider can potentially affect connectivity as well, which could slow your connection down considerably.

Please check to see if any of these issues are the case, which is the most likely source of the problem.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact EndNote Technical Support directly.

Thanks,

Steve

Power users will want the attachment download ability. (I do.) The 5 GB storage limit is also an issue. I have a large library that is over 10 GB and I have no way now to synch to my iPad. A direct synch option to a desktop computer would be a suitable work around. There is actually no reason to go through the web for this.  I’ve been using Papers but the sych is also a work around and prefer to stick with EndNote. 

Hi, I downloaded the Ipad App - this is very helpful. 

A few issues with it for future versions:

– I’m worried that I will eventually hit the 5 GB limit. I can understand that you don’t want to make indefinate space in the cloud for all of our pdf files, but why not just let us sync directly between the ipad and the desktop (the way the Papers app does). This way you could leave the internet out of it.

– I would like the pdf files to be automatically downloaded to my Ipad, without the need to manually download each one. I was hoping to be able to look at files when I am “offline”. This is actually one of the main reasons for using this app - so I be productive even when I am away from the internet. It takes planning to make sure that I pre-download all the files that I need before I go offline - it would be nice if I could be sure that they were already there.

– I noticed a problem difference between how the paper groupings are stored between the desktop and the ipad versions. On the desktop, I arranged my papers into major “groups” and then subordinate “subgroups” within those major groups. When I ported this all over to the ipad, only the “subgroups” are used - this means all the subgroups within my major groupings are shuffled. It would be better to just have the same grouping structure between the ipad and the desktop versions.

Except for these issues, the app is just was I was hoping for!

Thanks for the input. These are mostly reasonable suggestions that we have on our to do list - some a bit easier to do than others. Based on feedback we have heard thus far, these are the priorites we are working on for EndNote for iPad:

  • Fix a crashing bug when attempting to log-in that a few folks are experiencing  - we have a fix in place and hope to get an update to Apple in the next week or so

  • Improve Search indexing to be sure that Keywords are always picked up - we have a fix in place and hope to get an update to Apple in the next week or so

  • Automatically download PDF attachments  when synchronizing to iPad - we think we have a fix in place for this but it will take a bit of time to get this all implemented 

  • Improved PDF annotations - we have an idea of how to do this but this is not a quick win and will take quite a bit of work.

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team

I agree with some other users that the 5 GB limit on file attachments is too low. Please add a mechanism for requesting additional space. I have approx. 10,000 references and filled up the 5 GB immediately. Of course, the suggestion of a direct sync with the computer would alleviate this issue.

A few follow-up comments:

By “…add a mechanism for requesting additional space” - you mean enabling users to buy more file storage space on EndNote Web? How much storage and at what reasonable price point?

As for “…direct sync with the computer…” - this does not exist. Yes, it is possible for some users to connect an iOS device with a Macintosh computer but this does not actually synchronize the two - it simply allows them to move data. We have invested tons of time, effort, and money in a cloud-based synchronization system [that thousands of customers specifically requested] that works across many different platforms. This is a much more efficient approach.

I’m quite happy with the new iPad app. Sync with EndNote Web works perfect. I agree, that a automatically download pdf function is a must. PDF annotation is very basic and could be improved. I would love to see some more features like in other annotation apps like GoodReader or GoodNotes (in my opinion the best annotation functions). Further automatic sync of annotation is a must. Manually sync over dropbox (ex-import) is very time consuming. I know that is a lot of work but I look forward to the update!

I work on many different projects and I group them as group sets in EndNote. I would love to see the same sets of groups also in the iPad app. In the iPad version I have a bunch of unsorted groups. Group sets that can be showed or not would enhance the overview of the literature.

Thanks for the input.

Improved PDF annotations and Group Sets are things we are working on now. Yes - they will be a fair amount of work but this will be a worthwhile effort that will positively impact many of our customers.

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team

I agree with the comments posted thus far on annotation and more flexibility for syncing.  On the syncing issue, the way I like to work is to download attachments to my iPad EndNote so that I can read them on my commute.  Once read, though, I want to delete them from my iPad (to save space) but not from my PC.  As it works now, there is no easy way to do this.  I have worked out a very clumsy workaround (i.e. save the pdf from my PC EndNote to my hard disk, delete it from my iPad, remove the reference from my iPad favorites, sync - in which case it is deleted from my PC, and then re-attach it to my PC EndNote reference).  A flexible syncing setup should be able to address this and the other issues raised on the forum.

All in all, though, a very welcome app that works pretty well.

As always, thanks for the input.

Hmm - this is quite tricky. The basic idea of “Synchronization” is that (ideally) everything is synchronized everywhere - wiht one click of a button. Asking to sometimes have PDFs available on one platform but not others could be a real challenge. This is sort of what we have tried to accommodate in the current implementation of the iPad app - to help save space in iPad memory. But it is a one-way solution and, as everyone can see from the feedback, not a particularly satisfactory one.

We need to think about how we can try to make this more flexible.

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team

Well, on my outlook, I select the folders I want access to when I am on the road, and updated on my laptop, and others, that I CAN access if I need them, but requires me to vpn in or webmail in.  Couldn’t there be a Group specific choice that synchs those that are needed, but not them all, or could be retrieved from the cloud.  Also, on my(soon to disappear Blackberry, frown)  phone I can chose if I want to synch one way or the other or both… with outlook. … But I am not an iPad user, so not sure how these translate to that device.