Syncing between computers
I currently use another product to do much of what Papers seems to do. I am interested in switching, but I can't tell if papers will sync between computers (my desktop and my laptop). This is crucial for me in the way I work. When I look for syncing info, all I can see is syncing to mobile devices, but not computers. Does Papers 2 support this feature in some way?
242 Posted by pdv on 03 Dec, 2011 09:25 AM
After my failed attempt to sync iPad with mac2 I tried to sync iPad again with the first mac1, doing a unidirectional sync. Although all pdf's were transferred only a minority (nearly 40 from 2200) actually showed up afterwards on the iPad. I tried once again, with the same result. I then did a bidirectional sync, which did transfer the pdf's.
Book chapters were duplicated on the iPad from the first attempt and after the bidirectional sync also on the mac1 of course.
Support Staff 243 Posted by matias on 06 Dec, 2011 05:06 PM
Hi there
I'm afraid there's an issue in 2.1 with the "Mac to mobile" syncing mode which causes the symptoms you describe with the the PDFs not being visible after a second sync. There are two ways to work around this issue:
1) Swapping to the bidirectional syncing mode.
2) Upgrading to 2.1.9 which fixes the "Mac to mobile" syncing issue. A prerelease of 2.1.9 is now available (you can get notified of rereleases with the "Inform me about available pre-releases and test versions of Papers2"). We hope to release the final 2.1.9 update hopefully by the end of the week. Please remember however that this currently available update if a prerelease and therefore you should not use it for critical use and should back up your library before switching to it.
Once again, I'm very sorry about the problem thanks you for your patience!
Matias
matias closed this discussion on 21 Dec, 2011 01:50 AM.
fresco re-opened this discussion on 21 Feb, 2012 06:45 PM
244 Posted by fresco on 21 Feb, 2012 06:45 PM
Bravo with Papers for Windows., but what about this crucial feature that your current customers wish to have on their Macs, across their Macs now! I bought multiple licenses of Papers for Macs just with the hope and expectation that you guys would pursue this feature sooner rather than later. I am increasingly disheartened to see that Mekentosj has demonstrated no effort at actually pursing this feature that Sente has had from day 1.
245 Posted by tombai on 22 Feb, 2012 02:31 AM
Would placing my Papers2 database (and nested Skim notes files) on a networked drive something that will work without experiencing data loss?
I am trying to be able to access my work from two compters in my home on my wiereless home network.
(Airport Extreme with USB 2 drive attached)
Thanks for the feedback from other users on the reliability of housing the P2 database and Skim files on a networked drive.
246 Posted by 153957 on 22 Feb, 2012 06:53 AM
@tombal That should work fine, as long as you don't loose the network connection while working with the library and you don't open it on both machines at the same time.
It is basically the same as using Dropbox to sync it, except that you don't have to wait for dropbox to update when you switch machines.
247 Posted by tombai on 27 Feb, 2012 10:48 PM
Ahh, that's a good point about losing network connection that might corrupt my database. I'll go the route fo a removable thumbdrive after all. hanks for the ideas there.
248 Posted by philip on 29 Feb, 2012 10:19 PM
can anyone help???
I moved my papers2 library to dropbox as per above and waited until dropbox had finished.
Now however, every one of my imported pdf files of the articles has 'gone'. I get the yellow triangle saying PDF File missing.
I tried moving the library back to its default place inside library but they are STill missing!!! nearly 4000 articles :-(
249 Posted by David on 29 Feb, 2012 10:50 PM
Same problem as Philip- no pdfs associated with library on dropbox. It had been working fine but I loaded papers2 on a laptop and upgraded my programs to 2.1.7 in between so don't know if that might have been involved. The papers2 on the laptop needed to be redirected to the dropbox library which is when I notice the issue. I will be going back to a time machine backup on my home mac to see if this alleviates the problem.
250 Posted by Xavier Contreras on 01 Mar, 2012 11:06 AM
Hi all,
did you move your library together with all the folders whose name are years (which contain PDFs) into dropbox and then told papers2 to point to that as its library?
(and then told the same thing to the second computer while deleting (well don't empty recycle bin right away though) old folders in this second computer) this worked well for me, haven't had problems with dropbox, it works fine for me.
good luck
251 Posted by bill on 06 Mar, 2012 06:40 AM
Any thoughts of using the iCloud Application document storage?
252 Posted by Jarrett Byrnes on 14 Mar, 2012 09:38 PM
I wonder if some form of cloud storage - maybe via LiveFE - would allow papers adds to become an altmetric. Currently, Mendeley adds are listed by the altmetrics community - http://altmetric.com/bookmarklet.php - but Papers is not. Which is a shame.
253 Posted by Gabe on 17 Mar, 2012 01:18 PM
Just want to jump in and also say that it would be great if papers comes up with a way to sync collections across computers. A little jealous of my mendeley using colleagues but do love the papers interface.
254 Posted by Jeff Laguna on 21 Mar, 2012 03:11 AM
Just chiming in as well. It would be great to have iCloud or Dropbox integration to ease syncing across computers and devices.
Thanks for all of your hard work. Papers2 is my favorite discovery since starting my doctoral program 4 years ago.
255 Posted by Nick on 22 Mar, 2012 06:38 PM
Another voice for this feature. Trying to keep Papers 2 in sync between my two macs remains a headache. Unless anything has changed since I last tried, software like GoodSync (which I use to keep everything else identical) wont sync the Papers 2 library. Some native way of easily keeping Papers 2 libraries in sync would be wonderful.
256 Posted by Ryan Ringle on 24 Mar, 2012 01:07 PM
Yet another voice adding to the cacophony. Although I prefer Papers2 in almost every way, Sente's seamless sync across devices means that Papers2 sits fallow on my machines.
257 Posted by wsy on 25 Mar, 2012 07:26 PM
I was hoping for an iPad app that would manage PDFs located in DropBox much like Papers2 does with its Macintosh application. I don't want to store the files on the iPad, just access them in a searchable way. Papers for iPad does not provide this functionality - you need to know in advance which pdf you want to read and know where it resides as well. Perhaps this is not possible with the way the iPad works? Thank you!
258 Posted by AJ on 28 Mar, 2012 03:28 AM
When I use dropbox to sync between two macs, everything syncs perfectly except if I make highlights on the pdf on one mac. For example, Mac 1 will have highlighed regions in the pdf, dropbox will sync any other changes made to note/suppliment section, but the highlights made on mac 1 will not appear on mac 2. Any ideas why this might be happening?
259 Posted by moorehead on 31 Mar, 2012 02:28 PM
To echo AJ's comment, I'm having not only highlights and notes disappear, but the papers themselves vanish from the database. the PDFs are still on my hard disk, but not in the database.
260 Posted by michael on 02 Apr, 2012 01:12 AM
One more Papers 2 user very much needing a synchronization solution. I like Papers quite a lot, but sync has become a big enough issue for me that I'm looking at other solutions (e.g., Sente).
261 Posted by cpt on 02 Apr, 2012 04:27 PM
another concurring view...as we move into a multiple device, clouded world, this is increasingly vital
262 Posted by JSC on 04 Apr, 2012 08:49 AM
Agreed. Would be great to implement syncing between my iMac and MacBook using DropBox/ SugarSync/ iCloud (or have all of these as options!) To be honest, it would be a great start if syncing your library could only be done on my home network... although cloud based will be the way forward!
263 Posted by Jon on 11 Apr, 2012 04:44 AM
I also thought I'd add my vote. Syncing between Macs and particularly with iPad via iCloud (or dropbox) would be fantastic! It's really essential. Combined with freehand annotations on iPad, it would be wonderful! We need to be able to 'scribble' on our manuscripts, as we would do with a paper copy, and the iPad is the perfect tool for that. Hopefully Papers will support this soon. In any case, it is brilliant software.
264 Posted by Kyle on 17 Apr, 2012 09:26 AM
I raise my sword for easier syncing in Papers - and encourage all other readers to do the same. It only takes 2 minutes, no account necessary.
265 Posted by Mads on 18 Apr, 2012 07:53 AM
Because there is no synchronizing feature, which is very important for me, in Papers I am thinking about changing to Mandeley. With the new version I think it starts to be a very hard competitor to Papers. Would be nice with a comment from the Mekentosj-team about when they think this feature will be available ...
266 Posted by mikelach on 19 Apr, 2012 11:38 AM
Just chiming in here again… syncing between Macs and iOS devices is increasingly important to me and doesn't work as well as it needs to with the current versions. Putting my entire library on iCloud (perhaps with the option to store links to PDFs instead of full PDFs to save space) would be a godsend. Much better than DropBox or the like, since it's so automatic.
267 Posted by bsprecher on 20 Apr, 2012 07:30 AM
I just got myself an ipad, so I would really like this to not be an issue!
268 Posted by Chris on 20 Apr, 2012 04:03 PM
Throwing my hat in the ring on the sync issue. I came here to check out Papers, hoping that it (unlike DevonThink Pro Office) can sync across computers. I was disappointed to learn that it cannot.
Putting the database in Dropbox and risking corruption when Papers is open on two machines is not acceptable. It's common for me to leave applications open on my Macbook Pro and Mac Pro at the same time.
Papers looks like a great program, but until sync is ready, it's unusable for me.
269 Posted by Xavier Contreras on 21 Apr, 2012 09:59 PM
hi,
To be fair database corruption on dropbox is not a dead-end since dropbox keeps older files. It happened to me once since I started more than a year ago and it was possible to just replace with an older file. But it's definitely not a good long-term option for everybody.
So I agree with most comments here that syncing between computers via cloud is an important feature that I hope they'll think about implementing soon in a reliable manner (plus then it can be used to sync ipad too, without having to plug it to computer), once papers 2.2 is out which is a great update with several nice features.
However I must say that I'm afraid that if they try to do it themselves it will be hard to get enough free online space. Competition for example provides only 1GB I think which can be easily filled and I don't want to have to pay extra money on a monthly basis or choose what can really be synced. So maybe integration with an existing cloud could be nice although again I'm not sure it's good for a paid program to use a free service. Anyway I'm sure they'll find the best way to do it.
good luck and sorry to pollute an already too long topic
270 Posted by Florian on 25 Apr, 2012 04:19 PM
Synching between iMacs-MacBooks! Absolutely essential! I was even happy with the ancient approach of exporting library in Papers 1 and load that exported file on my other Mac. But that feature is gone without an alternative. This is disappointing but so far you guys made me quite happy so I put trust in you that you offer at least an ancient-style syncing possibility.