How To Export Your Remembary Diary
Friday, March 25, 2011 at 12:03PM Remembary 1.4 Update:
Export has been changed a whole lot in the latest version of Remembary - so much so that it has its own button and popover now.
To export, tap on the 'export' button - the rightmost button on the left side of the top bar. You'll see the export popover:
You can now pick the range of the export, based on the currently selected day, so if you're looking at June 16th, 2004, picking the "Year" will export all of 2004, while "Month" will export June 2004.
You can then pick the export target. The export file is always saved to the iPad first, where it can be synced to your computer through iTunes as described below. You can also send an email with the export as an attached file, or if you have a DropBox account, you can send it to your DropBox storage (it even creates a "Remembary" folder for you automatically).
The Original Post
For something as important as your personal diary, it's always a good idea to have a backup somewhere. You might also want to print out your diary on paper, or even bind it together into a book. Remembary lets you do this, but a lot of people have been having trouble figuring out how to do it. Here's how it works:
1. First, tap on the 'gears' icon on the left side of the top bar. This brings up the diary prefs popover. First, tap on the 'export' icon on the right side of the left collection of icons on the top bar.
2. Tap on the "Export Diary to Text" "Export" button. Depending on how much you have in your diary, your iPad will churn for a while, perhaps up to a minute. This is normal - it's loading up everything in your diary! Just wait while it runs. The export happens in the background now, freeing up Remembary so you can continue writing or browsing. If you keep the popover open, you'll be able to see the export progress. Eventually the text box will come up with "... exported to Remembary[date range].txt".
3. Plug your iPad into your computer, then go to iTunes and select your iPad in the sidebar. Pick "Apps" from the page that comes up.
4. Scroll down to the bottom part of the "apps" page, and you'll see a list of apps that allow file transfers. One of the apps in the list will be Remembary - click on it.
5. In the list on the right, you should see your dated Remembary export files in there. That's your diary! Drag that file out to your computer's desktop. Now you can do whatever you want with it - open it in Word, Pages, or TextEdit, and format it to your heart's content, print it out, or just keep in a safe place.
Yes, I agree that this is a somewhat awkward process. Upcoming versions of Remembary will include options for exporting only a specific day, week, month, or year, emailing your diary, or syncing it to DropBox or MobileMe.
If you're still having trouble (or have any questions or comments at all) don't hesitate to fill out the contact/support form or send a note on Twitter or Facebook.
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Reader Comments (4)
Dropbox integration would be great. The current process isn't bad necessarily, it is just basic for how most apps work to sync back to iTunes. Also, the text output is boring compared to the Remembary interface, which is awesome. RTF a possibility? PDF?
Do you have any plans for an iPhone version or a desktop version?
Thanks for the feedback Adam!
Yes, the current backup process isn't the greatest, and yes DropBox integration is planned for the next release (probably live in early May).
There are several plans for better output formatting: one is PDF, which will look *a lot* better. Another is an XML-formatted output that can then be imported again. There are also plans to allow you to order printed and bound editions of your diary, perhaps through in-app purchase - but that's a few more releases down the line!
As for iPhone and desktop: Remembary has been designed around the idea of the big screen tablet / iPad touch interface. A desktop version wouldn't have the touch interface, and an iPhone version wouldn't have the big screen. This doesn't mean there won't ever be a version of Remembary for these other platforms, but it's not planned for the near future.
If you're looking for a similar social-media-connected diary on the iPhone, you might want to check out Momento, it has a slightly different focus than Remembary, but it's very polished and nicely done.
Thanks again for the feedback, and I'm really glad to hear you like Remembary.
Thanks for the reply, Andrew.
I actually own Momento and I like it a lot. I guess my reason for asking about the iPhone version stems from using Momento. It is sometimes not terribly convenient or realistic to pull out my iPad to jot down a quick note or take a photo and comment it. Momento is great for this more "on the go" journaling. I know that isn't necessarily what Remembary aims at, but it would be nice to sync the two. If Momento could sync into Remembary, or there was a Remembary iPhone app, that would be ideal for me. Then I would have the on the fly stuff from my phone to complement the more in depth journaling I do with Remembary on the iPad.
I suppose when you get photo feeds integrated more tightly into Remembary, this may be a moot point. I could just pull my FB or Instagram feeds into Remembary along with comments. As it is right now though with the outside interface in RSS, it isn't quite as tidy as I'd prefer, but I understand if that isn't part of your development future either.
Hi Adam - the latest version of Remembary just came out, with much better export support (export by day/month/year, sync to DropBox, or send in email), and an innovative approach to images/videos. If you get the chance to try it out, let me know what you think!