Learn how to use the iPad’s Shelf to open and close documents, including opeing them in split view or a slideover.
Did you know you could view all the open documents from an app in a shelf on the iPad? You can take one of those documents in the shelf and open in splitview or a slideover, and you can close any of the documents in the shelf. The shelf was introduced with iPadOS 15. Learn how to manage your open documents, and open documents, in this video on the iPad’s shelf.
Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to take a look at how we can use the shelf to manage an app’s documents on the iPad. With the shelf, what we’re able to do is open up multiple documents from the same app. We can close documents from within an app. The shelf feature was introduced with iPadOS 15. Let’s see how we work with the shelf on the iPad. Let’s go to my iPad.Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, the shelf was introduced with iPadOS 15. So you do need to be used in at least iPadOS 15 in order to manage your documents with the shelf. So what am I talking about? What is this shelf? Well, let’s take a look at my iPad. What we’re going to do is look at the Numbers app on my iPad.
I’m going to open up the Numbers. It opens up to a document that I’ve opened here. Now, if I want to open up another Numbers document, all I need to do is show the shelf. And then from there, what I’m able to do is create a new are open up a new Numbers documents. So how do we show this shelf? Well, if we go all the way up towards the top, you’re going to see, we have these three dots here.
This is where we can open up our apps in split view or use a slide over, but also when we tap on this, what we get as a little shelf down towards the bottom of the iPad. So I’m going to tap on these three dots here, and you’re going to see that we have a shelf down towards the bottom. Now what I’m going to do is I’m just going to get out of this and now I’m going to zoom in so we can take a closer look at that shelf.
So I zoom in here. We can see I’m zoomed in, down at the bottom. Now, what I’m going to do is click on those three dots. I’m going to tap on those three dots. When I tap on those, we can see we have table and chart and new window. So if I want to open up my table and chart, which is what I have open right now, all I have to do is just tap on it.
But also what I’m able to do is tap on new window. And what it will do is it’ll allow me to open up a new numbers. So I can open up multiple documents just by tapping on the, so let’s go ahead and tap on new window. So I just tap on the. And now I have my new window from here. Let’s go and zoom out here a little bit from here.
What I’m able to do is create a new spreadsheet. I can also open up a blank spreadsheet or open up any one of my other documents. Basically I’m in my files app. If we go over to the left, you can see, I can open up my iCloud Drive. I can open up my iPad. If I had Google on here, I’d be able to open up my Google drive.
So now let’s go and open up my simple. I tap on this and it opens it up. So now I have two documents open within the numbers app. If I show all of my open apps, it’s also going to show me all of my open documents. So I just swipe up with three fingers here and I hold slightly and I can see all of my apps.
You’re going to see I have numbers here. And then I also have numbers here. So here are my two different documents. Also, I’m going to click on this to bring it to my budget here. I’m also able to see all of those open documents within the shelf itself. So now all I need to do is just tap on these three dots.
And when I do watch down towards the bottom here, you’re going to see, I have both of those documents as well as a new window. I can open up another document. So now I just tap on these three dots. And you can see down at the bottom, I’m able to open up my table and chart. I’m able to open up my simple budget and I can open up a new window.
So let’s go ahead and open up a new window. We’re just going to create another new document. And now we’re going to go with a blank one. So now I have three documents open within the numbers app. If we swipe up and hold. So. We can see we have my numbers here. I also have a numbers document here, the blank one.
And then I also have my simple budget. Now from here, what I’m able to do is open these up in split view. So if I want to open up my simple budget along next to my blank, I just drag this up and I can open them up in split view. I’m going to go back to. I just dragged us over to the right and we’re back in full screen.
All three of those windows are still open. When I go up to my three dots here, if we look down towards the bottom, you can see, we have those three documents open as well as my new ones. I can also drag any one of these on top of my window to open it up and split view or in a slide over. So I’m looking at my budget right now, and I want to open up my table and chart along with this and a split view.
All I have to do is just drag this and I go over to the right and now it’s in split view. Now I can also replace any one of these open documents with another document using that same shelf. So now I just go up to my three dots here and let’s say I wanted to open up my blank spreadsheet. I want to replace it where my charts are.
So I just drag this over to our, my charts are, and now when I let go, it just replaced that split view. The last thing we can do with it is open up a slide over. So I’m going to slide this over to the right. We’re looking at my one window again. I want to open up my charts in a slide over not any split view, but I slide over.
I go up to the top here. I show my shelf and then I go over to my table and charts and I just drag this up. I do not drag it to the edge. If I drag it to the edge, it’s going to open up and split view. All I have to do now is just let go. And we can see it opened up in a slide over to close the slide over.
I just bring my cursor all the way over to the right swipe and it removes it to show the side over again. I just bring it over to the right and it shows it again. So I’m going to hide it here. And then the last thing I want to mention is if you have multiple documents open, so I have three documents open within the numbers.
When you open up that app. In my case, when I open up my numbers app, what it’s going to do is show me that shelf immediately down at the bottom. So let’s go back over to my home screen. I’m just going to swipe up here. I’m looking at my home screen. Now what I do is I tap on the numbers app. And when I open this up, watch what happens at the bottom.
You’re going to see that shelf. So I tap on the stove. And we can see that shelf down at the bottom. I can see my two open windows, as well as my slide over. I can tap on any one of those to open it up. Now, I know I mentioned that that was the last thing, but I forgot about this one. You can also use the shelf to close a document.
So let’s say I no longer wanted to have my blank document open. Well being that I’m looking at my budget here, what I’m able to do is close my blank. When you can’t close your open document, the one that you’re looking at. So I would not be able to close my simple budget here, because this is the one that I’m looking at, but I am able to close these other two documents.
How do you do that? Well, all you have to do is just drag this up. You just do this in one swipe. You don’t want to hold it because then it’s going to open it up in a slide over or in a split view. Well, you just want to do is just swipe up on it. So I just swipe up. And now we can see a closed. It let’s do that one more time.
I want to close my table and charts here. All I have to do is just swipe up and now it is closed. So now I just have my one document open. If I were to look at all of my open apps, you’re going to say I only have my one numbers document. So that’s how we work with the shelf or manage our documents using the shelf on the iPad.
This was introduced with iPadOS 15. Basically what we’re able to do is use the shelf to switch to our different open documents within the same app, we can open up new documents, we can open them up and split view by dragging them around. We can open them up in a slide over. All we have to do is just drag them around.
If we want to close a die. As long as that’s not the document that we’re currently looking at, when you’re looking at the shelf, you just swipe up to show the shelf. You just tap on the three dots at the top of the app. When you do that, your shelf will show. So that’s how we manage our documents using the shelf on the iPad.