I have both Bookends and Devonthink on my mac.

I keep my pdf files in Dropbox. They are managed in Bookends and indexed in Devonthink.

I also have PDF expert on my IOS.
I have struggled to maintain a workflow between my ipad and mac because the syncing feature of PDF expert is weak. I have also tried iAnnotate. Both are not good for a larger collection of pdf files. Both are incapable of searching the file names unless the files are downloaded to the ipad.

Now, i am thinking to buy one of the two apps for my ipad.

Do you guys have experience with them? Which one works better for huge collection of files. The plan is just to search, read and annotate the pdf files. I don't really care about the reference management. Can I search the file names (on the cloud) without downloading the files locally into the ipad in DTTG?

Then in my opinion you're better off with DTTG. DTTG can do download on demand -- in that case it only syncs metadata (name, tags, etc.) but not the actual file until you tell DTTG to get it for you. Read DTTG help for the full scope on how that works.

http://www.devontechnologies.com/download/extras-and-manuals.html

BUT -- since your files are on Dropbox, indexed in DEVONthink, then when you grab one on demand you'll get that instance added to DEVONthink to Go. This doesn't mess up your indexing in any way, but for some folks it can be a little hard to get their mind around what's happening.

@Dellu wrote

The plan is just to search, read and annotate the pdf files. I don’t really care about the reference management.

I'd agree with Paul on this. DTTG is your (highly flexible) friend.

Thank you guys.


I should have listened to your advise. I honestly do not understand how Devonthink would work for syncing and reading. My primary worry is that I don't import my pdf files: and I index them. Plus, I want the files to be available on the ipad for offline reading (on demand downloading doesn't work for me).

After some contemplation, I went on to buy the BE on Tap (=BOT). One reason is I love the BE of the mac. it is such an amazing software, I somehow hoped that the same would be the ipad version. Well, it is not.

1) iCloud is the only syncing option: other clouds are not supported
2) even for iCloud, the Pdf doesn't seem directly download to the ipad. It takes a couple of seconds, even up to minutes to open the pdf. It seems actually to download on demand.
3) using iCloud drive in the mac messes up the default pdf readers. For some reason, Apple forces the *open with* option for the default applications if the file is stored in the iCloud drive. I cannot directly open my pdf files in Preview or Pdf expert. They always open in Bookends. This is not horrible. I don't like reading in BE: i read in PDF expert.

I end up removing the app--moved back to PDF expert's cranky syncing system.

Dellu wrot

My primary worry is that I don’t import my pdf files: and I index them. Plus, I want the files to be available on the ipad for offline reading (on demand downloading doesn’t work for me).

Well, then DEVONthink to Go is still the solution for you. Indexed documents are copied to DEVONthink on iOS, but they remain indexed on the desktop. DEVONthink takes care of updating the desktop version when it synchronizes with DEVONthink to go.

And, better still, since DEVONthink to Go supports iOS Document Provider you can work with your document in other iOS apps and the changes wend their way back down to the original indexed document on the desktop.

(Every developer is responsible for the way they implement Document Provider -- so perfect two-way communication with DEVONthink to Go is not always the case. In my opinion, so far, the most reliable 3rd party app for most use and that supports Document Provider the way Apple intended, is Documents by Readle.)

Dellu
DTTG2 is a very good app, I agree, but in all fairness to BEOT you have set up something wrong here.
You can configure to either download all PDFs, or only PDFs up to a certain size or PDFs of references in a group (folder) of your choosing etc etc. BEOT is extremely configurable.
Syncing is fastest when iPad and Mac are connected to the same Wifi, the PDFs are not synced through iCloud then.

I am not trying to persuade you to give BEOT another try if you like your workflow, but the difficulties you describe are definitely atypical.

Prion

I note that Bookends is compatible with DEVONthink in any case, so if the various cunning synchronisation ploys described on the Sonny Software website don't work for you, you might find you can integrate it with DEVONthink Pro/DEVONthink To Go (brief mention here: http://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookends/thirdparty/thirdparty.html

Paul Korm wrote:

Well, then DEVONthink to Go is still the solution for you. Indexed
documents are copied to DEVONthink on iOS, but they remain indexed on
the desktop. DEVONthink takes care of updating the desktop version
when it synchronizes with DEVONthink to go.

Thank you Korm. I will give Devonthink to Go a shot at some point. I am a bit tired fo the hassle for now. I am using the Documents and PDF expert. Thank you for the help.

I agree. The app seems well poslished and rich. I also love the desktop version.

But, the fact that opening the PDF lags a couple of seconds, even minutes was unbearalbe. But, anyways, it could be my own miskae. I fully agree that BOT is very promsing app.

3) using iCloud drive in the mac messes up the default pdf readers. For
some reason, Apple forces the *open with* option for the default
applications if the file is stored in the iCloud drive. I cannot
directly open my pdf files in Preview or Pdf expert. They always open in
Bookends. This is not horrible. I don't like reading in BE: i read in
PDF expert.

Bookends 12.8.1 now solved this problem:

5. Set a default PDF reader in preferences. This is useful if you are using cloud sync with Bookends for iOS. In that instance the Finder will try and fail to open any PDFs in the attachment folder in Bookends itself. You can prevent this by assigning a default PDF reader in Bookends preferences.

Bookends has the most amazing developer. He always has wonderous eyes to see into the mind of the user.