Pangur docsPangur for iPhone and iPad
The iPhone and iPad app has its own screens for capturing, reading, asking and writing on the same account as the web. This page describes how the app is organised, signing in, its settings, the iPad layout and shortcuts, and the few tasks that still open on the web.
Pangur for iPhone and iPad is an app built for the phone and tablet, working on the same account and libraries as the web app. It has screens of its own for reading, asking and writing, and it also photographs and scans, records audio, and keeps items on the device for reading offline. A few tasks open a web page inside the app, with Back and Done to return. The app needs iOS or iPadOS 18 or later.
The sections of the app
The app is divided into sections, which you choose from the menu.
| Section | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Capture | Photograph a manuscript's folios, scan a book's pages into a PDF, choose photographs from Photos, or record audio, onto a reference in your library or catalogue. See Photograph a manuscript. |
| Library | Browse, search and add to the library; read, highlight and annotate; open the reading room. Items can be viewed as a list, by the catalogue, by arrangement, or as those kept On this device. |
| Ask | Ask questions of your library and return to earlier conversations. |
| Write | Write drafts with the binder, the desk, focus mode and versions, and plan their sections. |
| Analyse | Build, run and review corpora. |
| Research | Your notes, saved answers, summaries, reviews and outlines. |
| Publish | Make and publish exhibitions. |
| Settings | Your account, plan, notifications, offline storage and help. |
Each section keeps its own place. If you switch to Ask and then back to Library, you return to the item you had open.
The menu
On iPhone the menu slides in from the left edge and pushes the section aside. On iPad it is a sidebar beside the section, which you can hide. Besides the sections, the menu holds Activity, your recent conversations and drafts, the current project with a menu for switching projects, and your account.
The menu's search field, Search library and work, finds things in the current project by name: library items, drafts, research, conversations, corpora and exhibitions. It searches after a pause in typing, and tells you when nothing in the project matches.
The Library and items
Add to library in the Library offers Import files, Record audio, Videos from Photos and Write a reference, and says which collection new items will be filed in. Searching the Library finds items as you type. Choosing Search also looks outside your library, for example in OpenAlex or ESTC, or by DOI, ISBN or link.
An item opens with four tabs: Read, About, Study and Transcribe. The header has Cite, Share and a More menu with Edit record…, Copy to project…, Keep offline and Delete…. The Read tab lists the item's copies, with Add a copy, Make reading copy and Pages and parts (copies are explained in Resources, copies and surrogates).
Uploads
Files you add from the phone go into an upload queue, which you can watch on the Uploads screen. Uploads carry on in the background and while the phone is locked. They use mobile data by default and respect Low Data Mode. Each row offers the actions that fit its state, such as Open, Retry, Cancel and Remove. A file that Pangur stored but could not identify is marked "Stored; needs a reference", with Resolve to choose or make its reference.
Signing in
When you open the app signed out, choose Sign in. The app offers Continue in browser, which opens Pangur's sign-in page in a browser window so that you can use saved passwords, passkeys or a sign-in you already have there. Your password is entered in the browser and is never sent to the app. Not now closes the screen.
If Pangur cannot be reached when the app opens, the signed-out screen offers Retry and Read what is on this device, which opens whatever the app has kept offline.
A new account with no project sees a welcome screen with two choices. Start with an empty project makes a project called "My library" unless you name it. Import from Zotero copies a zotero.org library into a new project; Pangur asks zotero.org for read-only access and never changes the library there (Import from Zotero).
Several accounts
Settings ▸ Accounts lists the accounts signed in on the device. You can switch between them without signing out, and each keeps its own projects and library. Choose Add another account to sign in to another, and Switch to this account or Sign out on each. Sign out of all accounts signs every one out.
Signing out
Sign out in Settings asks you to confirm, and tells you that any other account signed in on the device takes over. Signing out removes that account's offline copy of its libraries from the device. Changes that had not yet been sent are kept, and are sent when the same account signs in again.
Settings
The app's Settings has these parts:
- Account: your name and email, and Accounts.
- Plan and billing and Usage. A plan bought through the App Store shows when it renews, with Manage subscription and Restore purchases. A plan bought on the web is changed or cancelled on the web, at pangur.io under Account and billing (Billing).
- Appearance and Notifications. With Tell me when background work finishes on, the app notifies you when, for example, a PDF is found, a collection is imported, an export is ready or an answer is written. Finished work is always listed under Activity, whether or not notifications are on (Background work and notifications).
- Institution access: the Institution name, EZproxy base URL and an optional OpenURL resolver used when importing paywalled works.
- Assistants and command line: the address of Pangur's MCP server and how to install the command-line tool. Connectors for Claude and ChatGPT are added in those assistants' web or desktop apps rather than from the phone (Connect Claude, ChatGPT or a coding agent).
- Show me around replays the guided tour, and Show tips again shows the app's tips again.
- Under This device: Activity and Offline (Working offline).
- Support, which sends a support ticket and lists your tickets, Documentation, and the app's Version.
On iPad
On iPad the menu is a sidebar beside the section, which you can hide, for example to write at full width. An item's tabs are a segmented control, where on iPhone they are a menu. In Write, the desk docks beside the page, and the Desk, Find on desk and Focus buttons are on the toolbar. The iPad app turns to every orientation, and the iPhone app works in portrait and landscape.
Keyboard shortcuts with a hardware keyboard
| Keys | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ⌘K | Write | Find on desk |
| ⌘. | Write | Focus, or leave focus |
| ⌘B, ⌘I | Draft editor | Bold, italic |
| ⌘F | PDF reader, reading room, transcription | Find |
| ⌘G, ⇧⌘G, Esc | Find bar | Next match, previous match, close |
| ↑ ↓, Return, Esc | Find on desk | Move, choose, close |
| p, n | Analysis review desk | Previous or next mention, when not typing |
| c, r | Review desk inspector | Confirm or reject |
| ⌘Z, ⇧⌘Z | Review desk | Undo, redo |
The web app's shortcuts are listed in Keyboard shortcuts.
Tasks that open on the web
Most of Pangur works natively in the app, but some tasks are done on the web, and the app either opens the web page for you or says where to go.
- Exhibitions. The app edits text, heading, quotation, manuscript leaf, chronology, sources and typed map blocks, and existing images. Galleries, audio, video, document panels, tables, charts and maps from a dataset open the web editor, and Visitor view opens the web preview (Make an exhibition).
- Analysis review. The review desk has Open on the web for actions it does not offer itself.
- Transcription. A line whose markup needs checking tells you to review the alignment on the web.
- Drafts. The app has no Update citations and no Word download, so use the web app for both (Cite and export references).
- Mac-only features. Importing the Zotero app's library from the same computer, downloading a PDF through your institution's sign-in, and saving rotations back to Photos belong to Pangur for Mac.
Viewers in an organisation project
In an organisation project where you have the viewer role, the app shows the controls for changing things but disables them, with a note that viewers can read, ask and export. Pangur's server refuses such changes from any surface, so this is not something the app alone decides (Project members and roles).
Pangur for Mac
Pangur for Mac is the web app in a Mac window, with extra windows for Photos, the local Zotero library, recording, institutional downloads and the command line. This page covers installing, signing in and updating it, and what each Mac window does.
Share to Pangur from other apps
The share sheet sends PDFs, documents, recordings, photographs and web pages from other iPhone and iPad apps into a Pangur project. This page explains what it accepts, how it identifies what you share, and how it signs in.