Continuity Markup now showing in Preview

I have an iPhone XS max with iOS 13.5.1 and a MacBook Pro mid 2015 with macOS Catalina 10.15.5. That should satisfy Continuity Markup system requirements.

I can do Continuity Markup with Quick View, with Screenshot's Floating Thumbnail, but, surprisingly, not with Preview. The icon is simply not there to click.

Any suggestions how to fix this?

Both devices were recently restarted.

Solution 1:

The Apple documentation about Continuity Markup is not as clear as it could be. The only way to get Continuity Markup to work is follow the steps in this Apple Support page.

You just can't open a doc in Preview and get this to work. The Continuity Annotate button you indicated will not be displayed on the toolbar unless you follow these steps. It's not one of those buttons that are displayed all the time in Preview.

1. Continuity Sketch and Continuity Markup work when your compatible devices are near each other and set up as follows:
   • Your Mac and iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.
   • Your Mac and iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch are signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID using two-factor authentication.
   • Your Mac is using macOS Catalina, and your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch is using iPadOS or iOS 13.
2. From the Finder on your Mac, find the PDF or image that you want to mark up. Then take one of these actions:
   • Select the document, then press Space bar to open a preview window. Click the markup button at the top of the window.
   • Or Control-click the document, then choose Quick Actions > Markup from the shortcut menu. From the markup toolbar at the top of the preview window, click the annotate button, in my case it was the iPad icon .

When this is done, the document will open on the iPhone/iPad automatically and you can start making changes. Changes made on one device will be shown in the other device, too.

I followed the steps and was able to see my iPad icon in the toolbar and get this feature to work:

Solution 2:

I agree that "Preview" applications doesn't support Continuity Markup, for no reason. Continuity Markup only works on "Quick Look". So pressing Space bar on the file (opens Quick Look) is ok. But double-click (opens Preview) not good for iPad annotations.