FAQ


Is there a user manual ?


Yes, please click the link for “User Manual” on the right side of the screen.


How to include presenter notes in PDF presentation slides and view them during my presentation?

  1. Open your Keynote or PowerPoint file with the Keynote app on Mac.
  2. Select File > Export > PDF and choose “Export Slides With Notes”.
  3. Check “Print each stage of builds” and UNCHECK all other options (please make sure NOT to check the options for “Include slide numbers” and “Include date”).
  4. Click “Next” to enter file name and select the destination folder for the output PDF.
  5. Transfer the output PDF to 2Screens’ local folder on iPad through iTunes file sharing function.
  6. Open 2Screens app on iPad and make sure “Fast PDF Mode” is turned ON in the “Tools” menu.
  7. Select the PDF from the Folder menu.
  8. After the PDF is loaded, click on the “PN” button on the bottom bar menu to show/hide the semi-transparent yellow area where the presenter notes are shown.

Why are my presenter notes shown as garbage characters?


Currently the app can correctly extract the text of presenter notes written in single-byte characters (i.e. English or Western character sets) only. Presenter notes written in double-byte characters (e.g. Japanese or Chinese) cannot be processed correctly.


How can I move the presenter notes to other areas on the iPad screen?

  1. Touch on the “pin” image on the top center of the presenter notes’ yellow box for one second.
  2. Move your finger to drag the pin with the yellow box to any area you want.

Is “Slide Navigator” available for PDFs loaded from other app?


Slide Navigator is not available when a PDF is initially loaded from other apps. However, once a PDF has been loaded by 2Screens, there is a copy automatically saved in the “Inbox” sub-folder under the Home Directory of 2Screens. Slide Navigator will be available next time when you load this local copy. You may also move the file to other sub-folder as you like.


I have large Keynote files which cannot be opened successfully on iPad. Any workaround?


Large Keynote files usually cannot be opened on iPad, even with many other “Reader” apps. With the launch of 2Screens v1.6, now we have a better solution for conducting presentations with very large Keynote files. The app has been modified to support the use of down/up buttons on the bottom menu bar and also the 2Screens Remote app for switching between graphic files in the same directory. So large Keynote file with hundreds of slides can be exported as images (on Mac) and transferred to the iPad for presentation. We find that this effectively solves all problems of slow loading and crashing due to the memory constraints of iPad, though, it takes 2 more steps for the conversion, which are summarized and shown below:
  1. On Mac, export the file by selecting File > Export > Images > Next , and save the output slides to a new folder
  2. Rename this folder to one with a suffix ".app", e.g. myslides.app, so the folder appears as a single file on Mac
  3. Transfer the file to iPad as usual and it appears as a sub-folder in 2Screens.
  4. Images inside the sub-folder can be selected for presentation.
In addition, one can achieve some sort of animation effects, like displaying points one by one in a slide, by selecting the option “Create an image for each stage of builds” before exporting Keynote presentation as images.

With the implementation of our own PDF rendering engine since v1.7, user may also choose to export large Keynote/PowerPoint files to PDFs by the Mac Keynote app before transferring the slides to iPad for presentation as the PDF engine is able to handle very large file effectively.

One may also take full advantage of all the new functions launched recently by using PDF slides for presentation because new features in v1.7.1 (thumbnail generation and slide navigator) and v1.7.2 (slide show and showing presenter notes from PDFs exported from Keynote in popup window) are only supported for PDF slides (in FAST PDF mode) as well as image files.


How to transfer files to iPad?

  1. Connect iPad with the computer and open iTunes
  2. Select your iPad device, click on the "Apps" tab
  3. Scroll to "File Sharing" Section, select “2Screens” on the App list
  4. Click the "Add" button to bring up the directory dialog box
  5. Drag and drop selected file(s) onto the dialog box
  6. The file(s) are copied to the app’s Documents folder immediately

How to view files on iPad?

  1. Open 2Screens on iPad
  2. Tap on first icon (the Folder icon) to list the files under 2Screens’ local folder
  3. Select the file to view

How to transfer folders to iPad?

(NOTE!! This only works on Mac computers)
  1. Rename the folder to one with suffix ".app"
  2. The folder then appears as a single file on Mac
  3. Sync to iPad in similar way as file transfer
  4. On iPad the ".app" file will appear as a folder
  5. Rename the folder as you like

How to create sub-folders in 2Screens’ local folder?

  1. Open the folder list by clicking on the first icon (the Folder icon) of the tool bar
  2. Click the blue round arrow button next to the title (“Home Directory”) to open the "Actions" menu
  3. Select "Create Subfolder" and enter the name of the sub-folder to be created
  4. Navigate back to previous page and you will see the new sub-folder

How to move one or more files/folders to another folder?

  1. Open the folder list and navigate to the source folder which holds the items to be moved
  2. Click the second button with an outbound green arrow on the upper right corner of the folder list
  3. Select the file(s) and folder(s) to be moved (selected items are marked with a tick)
  4. Click "Done" and then another popup menu is shown for selecting the destination folder
  5. Navigate to the destination folder where the selected item(s) should be moved
  6. Click "Done" and then the selected items are moved to the destination folder

How to delete files or folders that are stored under 2Screens?

  1. Open the folder list and navigate to the sub-folder which holds the item(s) to be removed
  2. Swipe horizontally on the item and then a red “Delete” button is displayed
  3. Tap on the “Delete” button to proceed with deletion, or tap elsewhere to abort

How to connect with 2Screens Remote?

  1. Turn on Bluetooth function on both the iPhone and iPad
  2. Load “2Screens - Presentation Expert” app on iPad
  3. Load “2Screens Remote” app on iPhone
  4. On iPad, tap on the “Tools” icon on the upper right corner of the screen and switch the option for "Remote Control" to ON
  5. On iPhone, tap on the "Connect" button on the upper right corner of the screen
  6. The bluetooth connection screens are displayed on both devices
  7. On iPad, select the peer with the device name of the iPhone
  8. On iPhone, after 5-30 seconds (be patient!) when the dialog box with "XXX would like to connect.” is displayed, tap on the "Accept" button
  9. Connection is established and the status message shown on the iPhone screen will change from “No active connection” to “Connected with XXX”

How to prevent connection lost with 2Screens Remote?

  1. Open the “Settings” app on both the iPad and iPhone
  2. Select “General”, “Auto-Lock” and set the idle timeout to “5 Minutes” or “Never” to extend or completely disable the idle timer during the presentation.
  3. Reset Auto-Lock as appropriate after your presentation so that the iPad/iPhone screen can be auto-locked again.
(From v1.6 onwards, the app is able to prevent the iPad and iPhone being timed out when an external screen is detected, or when bluetooth connection is established when running the apps. The idle timer will also be restored once the apps are stopped. So the above settings are no longer necessary.).


I followed the above procedures but doesn’t find that the devices see each other. What then?

  • iPhone 3G running on iOS4.0.x always suffers from low memory problem. Rebooting the iPhone may help to free up some memory and thus enable Bluetooth function to run properly. If problem persists, please also reboot the iPad.
  • iOS4.1 can better manage memory usage than 4.0 so it helps to mitigate the effect of low memory on iPhone 3G. Upgrade is highly recommended.
  • All iPhones running on iOS4.0.x usually have Bluetooth instability issues. It is confirmed that upgrading to iOS4.1 solves all such problems so upgrade to iOS4.1 is the only and best solution.

How to remotely control page switching through bluetooth keyboard?

  1. Pair your bluetooth keyboard with your iPad before starting the app
  2. Open the app and load a multi-page document, e.g. a PDF, PPT or Keynote file, or a web page
  3. Turn on the on-screen menu by tapping on the central part of the iPad screen
  4. Tap on the “Page” button to show the entry field for accepting page number
  5. You can use the bluetooth keyboard to control page switching without touching on the iPad screen by following keys:
  • "n" or Space or Enter -- go to next page
  • "p" -- go to previous page
  • "s" -- go to start of document
  • "e" -- go to end of document
  • "x" -- turn on/off output to external screen
  • “t” -- switch to another tab
  • “l” -- play slide show starting from current slide
  • a number followed by a Space or Enter key -- switch to the designated page
  • The above keys also work when the iPad virtual keyboard is in use

How to open mail attachments with 2Screens Presentation Expert?

  1. Touch on the mail attachment until a popup menu with selections for “Quick Look” and “Open In...” is displayed
  2. Select “Open In...” and then “2Screens” from the app list
  3. The attachment will be opened by 2Screens
  4. You can also find the attachment being saved in the “Inbox” folder under the home directory

My Keynote file is listed as a directory on the app’s local folder instead of a file. Why?


This happens when the Keynote file was originally created with Keynote'08 on Mac.   The file elements are stored in a folder structure with .key as suffix but the folder is not compressed in the same way as Keynote'09 files.   Mac Keynote'09 app recognizes this format and handles transparently but iPad doesn't.  You may see the same situation if you transfer this .key file to other "Reader" or "Filer" apps.

A workaround is to open this .key file using Mac Keynote'09 app and then save to a new file so it will then have Keynote'09 format.