Saving a web page as a pdf to Scrivener in iOS 13

Hello

iOS 12 provided an easy way for me to convert web pages to pdf in Safari and get them into Scrivener for iOS: tap the square share icon with the vertical arrow, choose ‘create pdf’, then tap it again and the menu would offer me an option to ‘copy to Scrivener’. Very neat and convenient.

IOS 13 seems to have removed the ‘create pdf’ menu option, replacing it with a two-button press to take a screenshot. If I then tap on the screenshot and select ‘full page’ I have a pdf of the entire web page. A bit more fiddly than the old way but it works. However, if I now tap the share icon again ‘copy to Scrivener’ no longer appears as an option and I can’t find any way of adding it. it’s not there to be added if I select ‘More…’ and it’s not a listed source under ‘Save to Files’.

Am I missing something, or do I have to resign myself to saving the pdf somewhere else and then importing it to Scrivener?

I realise that I can still import web pages from Safari as before, or use ‘Save pdf to Scrivener’ on my Macbook. But this was a very useful procedure for me and if there’s a way of reproducing it in iOS 13 I’d be grateful to hear it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Gary

I used to do it via the print command, and I find it was better because it already gave the PDF the right title coming into Scrivener. You go to the print dialog, then you pinch in on the preview of the page, and if you go to the share sheet from there, you can also send to Scrivener (unless this also changed). I realize this option still has the most steps, but considering it already names the file correctly in Scrivener, I saved steps into Scrivener iOS not renaming the file.

While it looks like they have removed the built-in command, it also looks like you can create your own replacement, via Shortcuts. Here is a screenshot of my settings:

  • Both of these actions, “Make PDF” and “Open In”, are found in the same Documents shortcut category. (Now that I look at it closer, it seems like they print the category name next to the icon rather than the action name! That’s surely not intentional.)
  • The shortcut metadata settings (accessed via the button at the top), are to “Show in Share Sheet”.

The rest is up to taste.

sidderke - thanks very much for the suggestion. I couldn’t reproduce your handy little sequence, though, which might be my clumsiness or misunderstanding. Once I bring up the print dialogue box no amount of pinching the page image seems to do anything. So I’m not sure whether I’m doing it wrong or whether the option has indeed been removed in iOS 13. As you say, it has the added beauty of naming the file correctly.

AmberV

Thanks very much. I’ve never used Shortcuts, so I’ll take a look. is Scrivener definitely there among the Open In options?

In the meantime, does anyone from the Scrivener team have any ideas on why the Copy to Scrivener has been lost from the default options in iOS 13?

AmberV - after a bit of stumbling around I’ve now made my first ever iOS shortcut and it seems to work.

Thanks again.

sidderke - I’ve sorted the pinching now, thanks very much.

I find that, depending on the complexity of the webpage, taking the screenshot and then copying to Scrivener (which I’ve now added via a shortcut) can produce a cleaner document, although the file name is lost.

Anyway, thanks to you and AmberV I now have three ways of getting a webpage into Scrivener for iOS as a pdf.

Thanks to all for some useful tips! It’s worth noting that both Sidderke’s pinch technique and AmberV’s shortcut work equally well in Firefox.

Thanks indeed everyone for the tips. Sometimes I put an article in Reader Mode if it’s available to get a cleaner layout.