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Forum Discussion
Editing PDFs in Dropbox from my iPad
I'm trying to edit/markup PDFs that I have stored in Dropbox from my iPad. I'm using an Apple Pencil that's capable of "markup."
The adobe integration was meant to be the answer for this; however, Adobe is now charging extra for the ability to edit.
Apple allows you to edit Dropbox PDFs nicely through files; however, this seems to be hit or miss as sometimes the files won't open or get re-directed to Dropbox.
Are there other ways to edit PDFs from the iPad and have it sync with Dropbox? This would seem like it should be a top priority for an added feature. OneDrive, for example, has the functionality built directly into their app. Any help would be much appreciated.
A work around: use the "files" app on the iPad which should show dropbox as a folder, then view the pdf and markup there.
I Just bought an iPad Pro and pencil for sole purpose of doing task you have described and have same problems. Love to know if you found a work around.
- I have the same problem. The entire idea with iPad Pro is to be able to use the pen in pdf files etc. Now Dropbox and Adobe don’t allow me. If there is no solution I need to drop Dropbox. Can anyone at Drop box please answer this question
That's all I needed to know.. if I can't use the pencil/iPad effectively within DropBox then it's time to move back to OneDrive.
This comes a bit late, but hopefully in the meantime you've found PDF Expert? Fantastic app for editing PDFs on the iPad, syncs almost effortless with Dropbox, which you can browse right from the app. Hope that helps!
- Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Hi there GS321,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this with us!
Although there isn't much I can suggest on this, you can have a look at our official integrations in case you find something that helps you achieve what you're looking for.
I'll also leave this thread open in case any other like-minded users have any ideas or third party apps that they can recommend.
Finally, you can also post on our Share an idea section if you have any thoughts on a feature that you'd like to see.
Let me know if you have any other questions and I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible!
I downloaded Notablilty and upload my pdfs drop dropbox to Notability in order to mark them up (its a beautiful, smoothly working app and I highly recommend it). You can then share this marked up file back to dropbox/adobe/Files in iPad etc. Its not a perfect solution (even irritating sometimes if you have multiple files) but Adobe and Dropbox dont leave much choice at the moment.
It's crazy how the linked page talkes all about what it can do, without telling you how to set that up.
On your ipad, you have to download Adobe Reader after you download Dropbox app. Then you access the dropbox folder FROM ADOBE READER.
Then you can access pdf on your dropbox directly, and annotate/commnet on it without making local copy.
It's April 2021 and this is still a problem. I am switching to OneDrive.
I have the same problem. I have Acrobat Pro, and I used to be able to do this, but now it's not cooperating. Even when I click Edit, it only lets me select and move objects, not mark up by hand. This is super frustrating.
