Import and Export through Finder (macOS 10.15) or iTunes

When your iPad or iPhone is connected to your computer via USB or wirelessly, you can import documents (no folders) into Notebooks by dropping them from Finder on the the Notebooks icon. The documents are stores outside of Notebooks‘ visible hierarchy, but when you open Notebooks, they are automatically imported. – Although not very feature rich, it offers a quick alternative that does not require any connection to a wireless network.

Import from Mobile Mail, Safari and other Apps on your iPhone or iPad

Many applications provide the “Open in…” command which allows you to open and view a document in a different application. This can be very helpful for email attachments and documents you find while browsing the web. – Notebooks is capable of opening and storing many document types, so it should appear in the list of available applications in most cases.

If you are using Notebooks on an iPad, you can drag and drop items into Notebooks, too. This works for email messages, attachments, photos, text selections and more.

Import Documents from Safari with the Notebooks Bookmarklet

Notebooks offers a convenient option to import a page or document you are currently viewing in Safari (or Chrome). This requires a little preparation, though:

Copy the text below and save it as a bookmark in Mobile Safari.

javascript:window.location='notebooks://grab/'+escape(window.location)+'&title='+encodeURI(document.title);

You can also specify a target for the imported document:

javascript:window.location='notebooks://grab/'+escape(window.location)+'&parent=path%20to%20target%20book&title='+encodeURI(document.title);

The best way to do this on the iPhone/iPad is by adding an arbitrary bookmark and then modifying its title and URL, following these steps:

  • in Mobile Safari, save an arbitrary page as bookmark
  • open Bookmarks
  • tap on “Edit” on the lower left corner
  • now tap on the title of the bookmark you want to change
  • you will see two cells, one with the title, which is activated for typing, and the other one with the URL; if you want, change the title first
  • then, tap on the URL (you may need to tap and hold a bit), delete the text and paste the javascript from above.

Alternatively, you can drag the following link to Safari’s bookmarks on your computer and then sync the bookmarks to your iPhone/iPad.
Add to Notebooks

To import a page or documents that you are viewing in Safari, tap on this bookmark; Notebooks will launch and grab the page.
This works well for images, HTML, PDF and other documents that are currently displayed in Safari. However, it may happen that HTML documents look slightly different in Notebooks and that inline images do not appear; this is because Notebooks does not import embedded images or elements. In such cases you might try to select and copy the contents of the page in Safari and save it as web archive using “New from Pasteboard” in Notebooks.

By the way: the same bookmarklet works on your desktop, too, and imports the page currently displayed in your browser into Notebooks for Mac or PC.