The Document Window on iPhone and iPad

The document window on your iPhone or iPad displays a row of buttons along the top, and another one along the bottom of the document. These rows are called Navigation Bar and Toolbar (or sometimes just header and footer). By default, both of them are visible, but on an iPad, Notebooks provides a setting to move the content of the toolbar to the header, leaving more space for the document. Moreover, you can switch to Fullscreen Mode (see Gestures below), which hides both, header and footer, and provides a distraction free mode for writing.

The Navigation Bar

The row of buttons along the top edge of the document is called Navigation Bar.

① < Back Button
This is the leftmost button on an iPhone, and it takes you back to the containing book.
Fullscreen
On an iPad, where the document has its own window, the leftmost button is the Fullscreen button, which fades out the left column with the document list, and leaves maximum screen space to the document.
To return to normal view, tap the document once with two fingers.
② Document Title
The document’s title appears in the center of the navigation bar. On iOS 16 and later, the title has a menu attached. For details, see below.
③ Task State
If the current document is a task, an icon representing its state appears next to the title.
  • Tap the icon to change the task state.
  • Tap and hold the icon to set or clear its due date.
④ Info
Tap the info button to display and display the document’s properties and modify its attributes.

The Title Menu

On devices running iOS 16 or later, you can tap the document’s title to display a menu with the following options:

Go to…
Displays a hierarchic list of all books, and—optionally—the list of recent items. So this is ideal if you want to return to a previously opened document, as in a history list, or jump to any book without explicitly navigating the hierarchy.
Favorite or Pin to Top
Set or unset the document as Favorite or pin it to the top of the document list.
Rename
A convenient way to change the document’s title without opening its Info. You can also change the document’s file type by adding a specific filename extension to the title.
Move
Presents a collapsible list of all available books and allows you to move the current document to different location.
Show as Document
If the current document is contained in a task list, this option allows you define whether the document should appear as task or as regular document.
Set Due Date
If the current document is a task, you can use option to set or clear its due date.
Copy…
This is a submenu with options to copy the document in various formats, like the document itself, its link, its content as plain text, Markdown or formatted, etc.

On devices running iOS 15 or earlier, the document’s title still acts as a button to display the list of all books and Recent Items, so you can quick jump to another book or a document in the view history.

The Toolbar

The toolbar is the row of buttons along the bottom edge of the document window. On an iPad, Notebooks give you the option to move the buttons to the navigation bar, which leaves more space for your document.

⑤ Delete
Move the document to the Trash, or—if you disabled trash in Notebooks‘ settings—permanently delete it.
⑥ Magnifying Glass
Find and replace in the current document. The button is grayed out for document types which do not support find.
⑦ Process
A menu with actions and options to process the document, creating duplicates or other representation of it.
⑧ Share
A menu with options to export, copy or share the document.
⑨ New
Create a new document.

Gestures

When viewing a document, you can use the following gestures:

Swipe left to right – or right to left – across the document
Moves to the next or previous document. An info bar briefly displays last modification date and sequence number in the current book.
While editing the document, you can use this gesture to dismiss the keyboard.
Swipe up and down
This gesture scrolls the content of the document up and down as expected. Notebooks remembers the scroll position and jumps to it the next time you open the document.
Tap once with two fingers
Switches to full screen mode. Tap again to return to normal view. On the iPad, when you tap a PDF document with two fingers, Notebooks switches to a more comfortable PDF view with thumbnails.
Tap and hold with two fingers
Scrolls to the bottom of the document. To scroll to the top, just briefly tap the status bar (this is a standard iOS gesture).
Tap the title in the navigation bar
Opens the Title Menu with access to actions for the current document. In addition, you reach the Go to… dialog from here, which allows you to quickly open any other book. This dialog also shows the list of Recent Items, if enabled in Settings.
Tap and hold the Back button (iPhone, or iPad with Column View turned off)
Open the list of parent books for the current item; tap any of the entries to jump to the corresponding book.