The Documents app is hugely popular on the iTunes Apps
Store but do you really know about the different things you can do with this
versatile app. For starters, Documents is a document viewer but if you are only
using the app for reading your PDFs, you’ve only scratched the surface. Here’re
a list of things that you can do with Documents on your iPad or iPhone.
1. As a document viewer and media player
You can use the Documents app to open
a wide variety of files on your iOS device. It supports PDFs, images, common
audio & video formats, Microsoft Office documents, EPUB ebooks and even
HTML web pages.
2. For transferring files between computer
and iOS
If your computer and iOS device are
connected to the same Wi-Fi network, you can quickly transfer files of
any type wirelessly between the computer and iOS device without any
limitations. Open the Documents app, enable Wi-Fi Drive under Settings and
enter the provided IP address (or Bonjour name) in your computer’s
browser.
3. Access your Cloud Storage
Documents can connect to your Dropbox, Google Drive,
OneDrive and other online storage accounts. Thus you can easily access all your
files stored in the cloud from one place. Single tap any file and it will
download to your iOS device for offline access. You can even download and store
entire folders from the cloud inside your Documents app with a tap.
4. Upload and Sync Files
You can can upload files of any type from the Documents
app to your Dropbox or Google Drive by drag and drop. Long press a file inside
Documents and drop it over any connected cloud account available in the
sidebar. You can also enable 2-way sync so a folder inside Documents will
always stay in sync with a specified folder in your cloud storage (or an FTP
server).
5. Save Web Pages as PDFs
The Documents apps has a built-in web
browser that, like Google Chrome,
can save pages directly as PDF files while preserving the layout and
formatting. Alternatively, you can choose the download the page as a raw HTML
file or use theWeb Archive format
that saves the HTML, CSS and JavaScript in a single file.
6. Download Internet Files on your iOS
Device
The web browser on your iPhone or iPad does not
allow direct file downloads. Thus if you try opening a link that points to,
say, a .WMV video or .RAR archive file, the browser would neither be able to
handle the file nor would give you an option to save that file. You can however
use the browser inside Documents to download any file from the Internet – just
paste the file URL in the address bar and it will prompt you to save the file
locally.
7. Mail more than 5 Photos
Apple has imposed a strange limitation in their Mail app
and it won’t allow you to select and email more than 5 pictures from the Camera
Roll in a single message. You can however get around this limitation with the
help of Documents.
1.
Either allow Documents access to your
Camera Roll, tap and select any number of pictures now and use the mail option
to send the selected pictures via the Mail app.
2.
Alternatively, you can import pictures into
a folder inside Documents, select them all and choose the ZIP option to create
a single archive which you can attach to your email.
8. Move files between iPad and iPhone
If you happen to carry multiple iOS devices, you can use
Documents to move files from one device to another. Open the app on both
devices, go to Network and connect to the other device. It will be listed under
Available devices when both your iPhone and iPad are on the same network. Now
select the files and folders that you wish to send to another iOS device and
tap upload.
9. As a text editor
While you are in the Documents app, tap the Edit button
and choose “Text file” under the Create New menu. You get access to a notes
editor that supports both plain text as well as rich text formatting. You can
create text file as well as edit existing ones.
10. Fake your browser
Some websites may refuse to open on your iOS because they do not support
Safari. You can easily get around this problem by opening the site inside
Document’s browser and changing the user agent to a supported browser. This is a useful feature and is not available
inside Chrome or Safari for iPhone and iPad.
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