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Best iPad Note Taking app !!

The best app for note taking in iPad is:

  • Notebooks for iPad

    Votes: 17 4.6%

  • UPAD

    Votes: 28 7.5%

  • neu.Notes

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • Penultimate

    Votes: 65 17.5%

  • FastFinga

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • Noterize

    Votes: 7 1.9%

  • Noteshelf

    Votes: 49 13.2%

  • Note Taker HD

    Votes: 43 11.6%

  • CourseNotes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • PhatPad

    Votes: 2 0.5%

  • Notebooks for iPad

    Votes: 8 2.2%

  • WritePad for iPad

    Votes: 4 1.1%

  • Other (Please mention)

    Votes: 147 39.5%
  • Total voters
    372
epicmar said:
It looks interesting and the website indicates that they are going to add handwriting soon. Does it have enough potential usefulness to be worth getting it at $4.99?
Click to expand...

Quite honestly, without a handwriting/inking option, I wouldn't bother downloading it if it were free.
 
By far the best and most complete app i have used, is Notability. it allows you to handwrite and type, but the big plus for this is you can record your classes while you type, and if you miss something, go back to the line that you missed and play back your recording, it saves each line at the time that you typed it in the recording, SUPER awesome.
if they had a mac version i would be using it even if it cost $20
 
Tartarus said:
<snip> ... is Notability ... <snip>
it saves each line at the time that you typed it in the recording ... <end snip>
Click to expand...


Wait ... say that again ....

Are you saying that if you record something while taking notes ... then the recording can be indexed by things written on the page during the recording? So, if I have a one hour recording, and I write something on a page at 20 minutes into the recording, then I can jump to the 20-minutes-into-the-recording spot ? How do you do that from something written on the page?

That does sound neat, if that's what your saying.
 
Last edited:
richimages said:
Wait ... say that again ....

Are you saying that if you record something while taking notes ... then the recording can be indexed by things written on the page during the recording? So, if I have a one hour recording, and I write something on a page at 20 minutes into the recording, then I can jump to the 20-minutes-into-the-recording spot ? How do you do that from something written on the page?

That does sound neat, if that's what your saying.
Click to expand...

you tap the play button in the toolbar, next to the record button, then click on the line you want, and it jumps to that point in the recording. it is SO useful you wouldnt believe
 
I used SmartNote for the longest time, but have recently switches to Evernote for all my note taking. I just ordered a new Moleskin notebook with the Evernote capability of adding a PDF file of the pages to its app with the new photo capture feature. There are times when an old school notebook is easier than my iPad, especially when I will be adding a lot of sketches and drawings to my notes.
 
pcomac said:
notability sucks. it says it syncs with dropbox but it doesnt work
Click to expand...

Works fine here. Worked so well that i turned it off because it saved every file even if you were just renaming it. (ie renaming name1 to name2 would save a new file called name2 rather than moving the preexisiting file). Similar files began aggregating pretty fast, so i opted to update each file manually.

You can see it updating (uploading to dropbox) every time you exit a file after editing when autosync is on.
 
So I attended a trade show last week and sat down for lunch to type up some notes.

1st try: Notes Plus:
I am a fast typer, so I used a text box instead of handwriting and typed away. All well and good until I reach the end of the first page...it can't handle a page break? Really? The text box just keeps expanding over the page end, I can't even see it! This is catastrophic. Even if I do it manually by starting a new text box on the next page...when I go back to the first page and add a few lines to the first paragraph, the rest of the text gets pushed off the page again. That's when the copying/pasting between different text boxes and different pages begins...terrible!

2nd try: GoodNotes:
So I just copied/pasted everything I had typed into a text box in GoodNotes, and sure enough, the text box expands over the bottom end of the page as well.

At this point I am just losing time, so I open Quick Office and copy everything into a doc. This program is not your ideal note taker and it does some peculiar things, but at least it can handle freaking page breaks!

So is there any Note Taking app out there that doesn't have these problems?
 
Maydaymay said:
I am a significant note taker. I am in meetings at least 6 hours a day and take a lot of notes. I've tried several handwriting apps, typing apps, combo apps, and for me, the largest thing missing from most of the apps out there is organization. I really want to like Evernote but i don't like that it MUST sync...there are some things I don't want sitting unprotected in the cloud. I tried NotebooksHD and wanted to like it but just wasn't crazy about the UI and appearance. NotetakerHD is great for handwriting but I thought the organization of the notes was not good and you cant search through handwritten notes.

I use AwesomeNote now, mostly for it's great organization features. It can organize notes by date taken and allows you to create custom folders. You can search all notes using keywords as well. It allows freehand sketch (although this feels like an afterthought and could be better) and insertion of pictures.

Where I use it unconventionally is that I don't take notes in the ANote any longer. I take my notes using a mindmap app called iThoughtsHD. If you are not familiar with mindmaps check them out. They are a visual way to take notes that is intuitively how your brain organizes things. What i like about iThoughts is that you can email a completed MindMap to meeting participants (or yourself) and the email contains a .png of the mind map and an outline of everything typed. I then insert the image into ANote and paste the outline in the note page. Now everything is searchable and the image exists for recollection. Here's an example of how it looks within ANote:

View attachment 280908

Mindmap example here
Insert notes
And sub notes
You can add more info
About anything
Separate topic here
And subtopics too
Mindmap examples
Each node can have a note attached
You can set a task to a node as well
Even reference relationships

So overall I find that taking notes using mindmapping is very intuitive and flexible, but must be done with a keyboard. So if you like to freehand write, this solution won't work for you. AwesomeNote is a great note taking and storage app for all the notes you need to review and recall.

I also use GoodReader a ton....to store all documents I want to review/have access to. I also use PDFExpert to annotate pdf documents. Its very easy to use and does a good job marking up pdfs.
Jeff
Click to expand...


Very Good Post. Thx. :cool:
 
I recently discovered MagicalPad which I quite like - it combines meeting notes view/ outlines/ mind maps etc. No hand writing, though.
 
Taustin Powers said:
So I attended a trade show last week and sat down for lunch to type up some notes.

1st try: Notes Plus:
I am a fast typer, so I used a text box instead of handwriting and typed away. All well and good until I reach the end of the first page...it can't handle a page break? Really? The text box just keeps expanding over the page end, I can't even see it! This is catastrophic. Even if I do it manually by starting a new text box on the next page...when I go back to the first page and add a few lines to the first paragraph, the rest of the text gets pushed off the page again. That's when the copying/pasting between different text boxes and different pages begins...terrible!

2nd try: GoodNotes:
So I just copied/pasted everything I had typed into a text box in GoodNotes, and sure enough, the text box expands over the bottom end of the page as well.

At this point I am just losing time, so I open Quick Office and copy everything into a doc. This program is not your ideal note taker and it does some peculiar things, but at least it can handle freaking page breaks!

So is there any Note Taking app out there that doesn't have these problems?
Click to expand...

I've tried your MO in Remarks. Once my text entry reached the bottom of the page, the text size was resized to it's minimum to allow more entry. But in the end, inevitably, the text fell of the page without creating a page break.
You do have a point but, on the other hand, if your notes only contain text, I would use a text app like Pages.
 
GerritV said:
You do have a point but, on the other hand, if your notes only contain text, I would use a text app like Pages.
Click to expand...

Well, that's what I ended up doing this time (Quick Office). But I would really love the ability to add handwritten notes, diagrams and such to the text.

I just checked Notability, and it does page breaks when plain typing notes. Not with the text box feature, but the normal typing text mode. I like their handwriting engine too, but I hate the way the zoom window advances...that's where Notes Plus and GoodNotes were awesome. Oh well, since handwriting is secondary for me, Notability might be a good compromise.

I have yet to try Noteshelf. Been keeping away from it thus far cause it can't import PDF's, but I might still give it a shot.
 
Taustin Powers said:
Well, that's what I ended up doing this time (Quick Office). But I would really love the ability to add handwritten notes, diagrams and such to the text.

I just checked Notability, and it does page breaks when plain typing notes. Not with the text box feature, but the normal typing text mode. I like their handwriting engine too, but I hate the way the zoom window advances...that's where Notes Plus and GoodNotes were awesome. Oh well, since handwriting is secondary for me, Notability might be a good compromise.

I have yet to try Noteshelf. Been keeping away from it thus far cause it can't import PDF's, but I might still give it a shot.
Click to expand...

Just found out that Notes Plus actually does the page brake, unlike Noteshelf.
 
Tartarus said:
you tap the play button in the toolbar, next to the record button, then click on the line you want, and it jumps to that point in the recording. it is SO useful you wouldnt believe
Click to expand...

Only works for typed notes, though, not handwritten. I haven't found an app that can do it for handwritten notes, yet.
 
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