Thumbnails in Paperpile for iOS

Paperpile for iOS doesn’t seem to show any thumbnails at all - you need to open the PDF to see it. For us visual types, a thumbnail browser would be excellent - or at the very least the ability to see the paper thumbnail somewhere. Could this please be included in the next/a future iOS Paperpile app version?

Thanks for your feedback, @Dan_Hackley. Could you share a bit more detail on what would make the ideal thumbnail view for you: are there any example apps that you think do this perfectly today?

Hi Suzanne,

In terms of the ideal thumbnail view - I suppose that this would be a thumbnail grid view, with the paper title (ideally user configurable info) below each thumbnail. This view would be an option, with the current list view being an option also.

Alternatively or ideally in addition, a small thumbnail as part of the list view would be an option.

The Mac native files app allows a few views including thumbnail, list, columns etc. Many Apple apps have some kind of thumbnail view. The Mac Photos app, where thumbnails are central to the experience, probably does it best. The thumbnails are dynamically resizable, you can change the spacing between them, and you can get it to show info below them. The files app can show thumbnails but unfortunately you can’t resize them and they’ll a little too small to be useful.

In terms of document apps on the Mac that do this well, Devonthink pretty much nails it. Again you can view by thumbnails and resize them to suit. Unfortunately the thumbnail experience on the Devonthink iOS app is not good.

Part of the idea behind all this is that for many people, myself included, it’s much easier to quickly identify papers and documents visually rather than by reading lines of text. I know that if it’s purely articles in the app, the appearance can be a little homogenous. But if other types are included, books in particular, then seeing the covers whilst browsing is extremely useful.

Hope this helps!

Dan

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