A talk about manuals in another thread got me thinking. . .
This may not be the best or most complete method, but it's pretty simple and works for me, I thought maybe this might be handy info to share, though not pertinent to any networking conversation. I'm in the iOS sphere, but this might be able to be adapted easily to Android and other systems.
Between my hobbies, tools, and all the assorted stuff I have that requires periodic, yet quick, reference to OEM documentation/manuals, continually googling stuff from my phone didn't ever seem to be the easiest way to pull up a wiring diagram or some part number that I knew I had somewhere.
I also liked having the manuals as PDFs accessible from my computer/s because pulling them up on a large screen and being able to search them for words & phrases is particularly nice.
So I developed a very easy system to organize and share my manuals across devices.
1. From the desktop, I search for the manual I'm looking for (say "vizio m471i-a2 manual"), boom it's the first link that comes up. I save the file as a PDF, and then on OSX I drag that PDF right into iTunes and itunes imports the PDF and places it in "Books." (In preferences you must have "books" visible and I recommend these prefs as follow)![]()
2. You can edit the file name and description directly in itunes. I recommend cleaning up the names to make the easily identifiable.
3. Next time you sync your iOS device, tell it to sync books to your device.
4. You can also browse and find PDF manuals from your iOS browser and it will prompt you to "add to iBooks?" if you click yes it will be added and synced to your library).
5. But I have other computers/devices that aren't iOS and I want to sync them too. . .so I created a new folder in Dropbox called "manuals," and in OSX I created a symbolic link from my itunes > media > books folder to the "manuals" folder that's already inside my dropbox folder. Now I have instant Dropbox/iOS sync and can view & search all my manuals very easily from any Mac, iOS device, PC, anything that has Dropbox on it.
6. Both OSX & Win have great PDF preview within the actual OS/file navigation, which is really nice to be able to preview and browse the internal pages of these documents without even cranking up a separate application.
It has made life a lot easier and I use it all the time.
Screenshots from iOS safari, iOS Books app, OSX preview (opening a PDF), iTunes, OSX finder list view.
![]()
This may not be the best or most complete method, but it's pretty simple and works for me, I thought maybe this might be handy info to share, though not pertinent to any networking conversation. I'm in the iOS sphere, but this might be able to be adapted easily to Android and other systems.
Between my hobbies, tools, and all the assorted stuff I have that requires periodic, yet quick, reference to OEM documentation/manuals, continually googling stuff from my phone didn't ever seem to be the easiest way to pull up a wiring diagram or some part number that I knew I had somewhere.
I also liked having the manuals as PDFs accessible from my computer/s because pulling them up on a large screen and being able to search them for words & phrases is particularly nice.
So I developed a very easy system to organize and share my manuals across devices.
1. From the desktop, I search for the manual I'm looking for (say "vizio m471i-a2 manual"), boom it's the first link that comes up. I save the file as a PDF, and then on OSX I drag that PDF right into iTunes and itunes imports the PDF and places it in "Books." (In preferences you must have "books" visible and I recommend these prefs as follow)
2. You can edit the file name and description directly in itunes. I recommend cleaning up the names to make the easily identifiable.
3. Next time you sync your iOS device, tell it to sync books to your device.
4. You can also browse and find PDF manuals from your iOS browser and it will prompt you to "add to iBooks?" if you click yes it will be added and synced to your library).
5. But I have other computers/devices that aren't iOS and I want to sync them too. . .so I created a new folder in Dropbox called "manuals," and in OSX I created a symbolic link from my itunes > media > books folder to the "manuals" folder that's already inside my dropbox folder. Now I have instant Dropbox/iOS sync and can view & search all my manuals very easily from any Mac, iOS device, PC, anything that has Dropbox on it.
6. Both OSX & Win have great PDF preview within the actual OS/file navigation, which is really nice to be able to preview and browse the internal pages of these documents without even cranking up a separate application.
It has made life a lot easier and I use it all the time.
Screenshots from iOS safari, iOS Books app, OSX preview (opening a PDF), iTunes, OSX finder list view.
