Tuesday January 23, 2024; 4:38 PM EST
- I bought the Boox Note Air 3C for the ability to better hand write notes in digital ink and to read with less eye strain. Reading and writing with any mobile device means you are going to need a way to get files on and off the mobile device. Curiously, Boox treats synchronization of the native notes apps different from annotations made with the native reading app. #
- Part of the set up process is configuring the Note Air 3C to use one of several different public clouds by what Boox calls "binding" your public cloud account to the device. I choose OneDrive and after binding that account a new "onyx" folder was created in my OneDrive files that has a subfolder named "NoteAir 3C" and within that are two subfolders, "Notepads" and "Reading Notes." As far as I can tell the only thing that ends up in these folders is the output of the native Notes app. #
- The "Notepads" folder contains PDF copies of each notepad one creates in Notes, I believe this corresponds to the sync format option I select in the Sync Settings of the Notes app. The "Reading Notes" contain copies of Notepads that are associated to the "books" (PDFs or ePub) that one is reading and created via the split view mode. It appears that once the handwritten notes notepad is first created in split view you can then open that notepad like any other and continue reading, but basically that one file is what opens when you select to open handwritten notes in split view.#
- I should add that during the device set up you also create an account in what is called the Onyx Cloud that has servers in the United States and Europe. Here too, only PDF copies of your notepads are synced along with data about PDFs and ePub books you read. As far as I can tell the reading data is basically what page you are on and what percentage of the "book" you have read. It looks like there is an ability to turn off syncing of notes to the Onyx account, but there is a warning about manual sync being disabled after you turn it off. It looks like you can also configure to sync the ".note" file that is a BOOX exclusive format, but you can only select one of the format options.#
- Bottom line is that PDF copies of the notepads that I create on the Boox Note Air 3C are written to OneDrive and can also be written to the Onyx Cloud or can be configured to only be written to the cloud storage of your choice. What is not written to either of these locations are any books, PDFS or ePub, that you copy to and possibly annotate on the device. Because you can annotate PDFs, it is common to use PDFs as templates for specific formated notepad like daily planners or meeting planners, however what is important to know is what you do annotate is not automatically backed up to any of the sync locations you may have created for your Notepads.#
- So far I have not found where the notepad files are actually stored in the storage of the device. The only files I can see via the Storage tab of the device are the book files (PDFs or ePub) that appear when I tap Documents from the storage tab, but what displays on the Storage tab appears to be a label for file types and most like the files you see in Documents are actually stored in the Books folder on the device.#
- One can add or "push" book files to the Note Air using the BOOXDrop app, which is a web browser that runs on the device that you can access via a home network using the IP address provided by the app, but this doesn't provide an easy way to sync annotated books back to another device. What I have done is install SyncThing on the NoteAir and peered it with a server running in my home network. I also have SyncThing installed on my desktop computer and have configured the desktop, server, and NoteAir to share a folder. The folder I am sharing on the NoteAir 3C is the Books folder, and so whenever a file in that folder changes the changed file is synchronized to my server and also with the desktop computer. I can then open that PDF on my desktop when I want and well as easily copy/sync PDFs from my desktop to the Note Air. #
- I don't keep SyncThing continually running on the Note Air, though I could configure it do so, but that comes at a cost of battery life. I prefer to manually control synchronization by starting up and existing the app. I use SyncThing in this same way on my Pixel 7a smartphone to make a local backup copy of my photos. #