Preview

[Jupiter7]

Hello, Can anyone help me with these two related issues, please? Pages, Numbers and Preview all appear on my iPhone 6s and iPad 2. I have put Pages onto the Cloud Drive App on my iPad Air 2, but I cannot find a way to put Preview on it. Further, I can’t actually view what is open in Preview on my Mac on the other devices.

Any enlightenment will be very welcome!

 

[Jupiter7]

PS. In the second sentence, I meant to say in my iCloud Drive App! Sorry.

 

[twerppoet]

While the Preview folder shows up in iCloud Drive, the app is OS X only (on your Mac).

Preview on the Mac is an underated app. It does some serious PDF editing and annotation, and will handle most other image formats as well.

You can use iCloud Drive to access PDF files stored in the Preview folder, but you'll have to use a third party app to edit them. I like PDF Editor (actually Documents 5 with PDF Editor linked).

 

[Jupiter7]

Thank you Twerppoet for your explanation and recommendation. Is the Preview folder in the Cloud App on the older iPad and my iPhone 6s just redundant so to speak? Could that be why Preview doesn't appear automatically in the Cloud App on the newer iPad Air 2? I actually use Preview a lot on the MacBook.

 

[Jupiter7]

Since typing that reply I have been further trawling through the Help section on Preview and I see what you mean about the stored PDFs. Thanks so much for throwing the light on this!

 

[twerppoet]

I'm not sure why the Preview folder would not appear in the iCloud Drive app on your iPad Air 2. As long as it is using the same iCloud account as the other two devices and MacBook, the Preview folder should be there.

Check the iCloud Drive settings in Settings > iCloud and make sure it is on, and that all your devices are set up the same.

 

[Jupiter7]

All the settings are as they should be and Numbers and Pages are present on the iPad Air 2 Cloud App, but only appeared when they had something in them and were individually activated. I think I may need to actually store something in Preview before it will reveal itself in the App and let me activate it.

 

[twerppoet]

Could be. Can you see the folder in iCloud Drive on the Mac, and does it have anything in it?

 

[Jupiter7]

Yes, Preview appears in iCloud Drive on the Mac. I have a document displayed in Preview, but if I open the above folder it just gives me the option of a new tab.

 

[twerppoet]

Yes, Preview appears in iCloud Drive on the Mac. I have a document displayed in Preview, but if I open the above folder it just gives me the option of a new tab.

I'm not sure what you mean by "if I open the above folder it just gives me the option of a new tab".

My best guess is you are looking at iCloud Drive in the Finder on your MacBook. For comparison here is how the iCloud Drive Preview folder looks on my iMac.

BTW, I used the Preview folder on the iMac to get the screenshot to the iPad. It took longer than I thougth ti would, but the file did sync.

 

[Jupiter7]

If I open Preview in iCloud Drive via Finder I get a box with:

Open in new tab
Move to Trash
Compress Preview
Make Alias
Copy Preview, etc.

I have always used Preview as viewing apparatus rather than one for editing and saving. I still have a lot to learn.

 

[twerppoet]

Hmm.

I know you checked your iCloud Drive settings on the iOS devices. Did you do the same on the MacBook? System Preferences > iCloud > iCloud Drive (Options), and make sure Preview is checkmarked.

 

[Jupiter7]

Yes, it is checked.

 

[twerppoet]

Well, I'm out of ideas. I suppose it might have to do with permissions settings for the folder. You can check permissions for files by choosing Get Info on the file, but for folder you probalby need to use the Terminal.

Or you could use the Disk Utility (Applications > Utilites) to check and repair permissions on your MacBook. Set aside some laptop downtime if you do. It can take a while.

Note: There used to be a sperate tool that just tested for file permissions, buit it looks like it's all been rolled into First Aid at this point.

Probably none of this will help. I'm just grasping a straws now.

 

[Jupiter7]

Well, thank you very much for all your suggestions. I will keep experimenting with it and let you know if I have any success.