Sonny Software

I'm a new Bookends user and so am still learning about the software. I recently purchased and installed Bookends for macOS and, in parallel, for iOS. I imported my library from Sente and that process went very smoothly, which I was relieved to see!

I then clicked on the cloud icon in the bottom left corner to begin syncing with iCloud. After this had been completed, I tried syncing with my iPhone and found the reference details were synced but there were no PDFs, although the attachment icons were present. I looked in the iCloud Drive folder on my Mac and did indeed see a "Bookends" folder. Inside, there was a single file: "Bookends Cloud Test.txt." I had also been monitoring my network activity and was sure the PDFs were not being uploaded during sync.

I then came across the user guide page (http://www.sonnysoftware.com/bookendsontap/docs/ ). When going into the Preferences and looking at the attachment location, I tried selecting "iCloud Folder For iOS Sync." I noticed one or two references began to say they couldn't find the attachment (this may be a coincidence) and I thought I should stop to avoid causing any issues.

To set up iCloud syncing, what should be my next steps for Bookends under both macOS and iOS after importing my Sente library (under macOS)? When syncing, will the macOS and iOS versions of Bookends each keep local versions of the attachments too, or only access the documents from iCloud?

Thanks in advance for your help!

You need to move the PDFs yourself (drag and drop) from their current location to the Bookends attachment folder for iCloud to sync them and Bookends to recognize them.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks for replying so quickly, Jon!

The PDFs were stored in:

~/Documents/Bookends/Attachments/Sente Attachments

and I have now moved them up a directory level to:

~/Documents/Bookends/Attachments/


I opened Bookends and checked that it still found the attachments (i.e. no broken links), which it did. Following that, I monitored the network activity but didn't see much happening. To force a sync, I chose "Sync Now" from the cloud icon, but saw only brief network activity. As a double-check, I looked in the iCloud Drive folder and it looked the same, nothing has been uploaded. I then tried syncing the library with my phone to see if that triggered anything. The library on my phone includes attachment icons, but there are not any PDFs to view.

I tried specifying the folder option again ("iCloud Folder For iOS Sync") and forcing another sync. Nothing seemed to happen, so I tried quitting and restarting Bookends, then forcing a sync again. So far, the PDFs stay local to my machine.

It's probably the case I've missed an important step somewhere! What is the next thing I should try?

The correct attachment folder where your PDFs should be moved (by you!) is iCloud Folder For iOS Sync.

Jon
Sonny Software

Oh, OK, thanks! We had misunderstood one another.

So, if I understand correctly: instead of moving the PDFs to the local Bookends (Attachments) folder, I should copy the files to the Bookends folder (no need to create an "Attachments" folder) in iCloud Drive, and then it should work. I will give that a go and see if that resolves the situation!

Only PDFs in the *Cloud Drive* Bookends folder (with the icon) will be uploaded to iCloud and be available to iOS devices.

Jon
Sonny Software