The first time you start using Dropbox with Texpad, the app has to be linked with your Dropbox account. You can do so by tapping on 'Linked with Dropbox' in the Settings' pane, or by accessing the Dropbox section in the Files pane.
If you have the official Dropbox app installed the following dialogue will appear
Select Allow in the bottom right hand corner to authorise Texpad to access files in your Apps/Texpad folder,
Restricting your document storage to the Texpad folder may seem inconvenient. There is a workaround that allows you to leave your documents where they are and simply create links to them in your Dropbox's Texpad folder. As an example, let's assume your documents are stored in a folder called MyNextPaper on your desktop and your Dropbox Texpad folder has location ~/Dropbox/Apps/Texpad. You can create a link to folder MyNextPaper in the Texpad folder by running the following command in the OS X Terminal:
ln -s ~/Desktop/MyNextPaper ~/Dropbox/Apps/Texpad/MyNextPaper
After this you'll be able to treat the two folders ~/Desktop/MyNextPaper and ~/Dropbox/Apps/Texpad/MyNextPaper as if they were the same (indeed they are same). The second folder will of course show up in your Texpad iOS' Dropbox and allow you to work seamlessly on your files.
As a precaution, remember to backup your data where possible.
Since Texpad 1.6.2 we have migrated from the Dropbox's old Core API to their new Sync API. This was necessary to solve a number of bugs that have arisen since iOS7 and improve our Dropbox support. Unfortunately, Dropbox do not allow full Dropbox access to Apps using the new API, it requires all Applications to use their own App Folder. That is to say when you next boot Texpad it will create a folder named Texpad
in the Apps
folder, which can be found in the root of your Dropbox. You will need to move your files into that folder to continue using them with Texpad. See above note about creating symlinks to your existing folders.
Linking with Dropbox on older iOS devices (iPad 2 or equivalent) when the official Dropbox app is not installed on the device appears to be causing serious issues with the device such as crashes. Our investigations show that this is due to a memory bug in iOS' web viewer that is used to link to Dropbox when the Dropbox app itself isn't present. If you're experiencing this issue, the only solution that appears to be fixing the problem is installing the Dropbox app, signing into your account in the app and then asking Texpad to link with Dropbox.
Although this problem does not affect newer devices, we strongly recommend installing the official Dropbox app as the stability of the native web viewer is causing other issues.