As of Apple's launch of the iPad Air 3 and the iPad mini 5, all-new model iPad devices support Apple Pencil. That's the 9.7-inch iPad, iPad Air, iPad Pro, and iPad mini. Whether you need to take handwritten notes, annotate documents, record audio, create sports playbooks, and more, the App Store has a number of fantastic apps for note-taking. Here isç the cream of the crop based on our extensive testing.
- Best App For Taking Notes With Apple Pencil On Mac Download
- Best App For Taking Notes With Apple Pencil On Mac And Cheese
- Best App For Taking Notes With Apple Pencil On Mac Download
The iPad's built-in Apple Notes app has some new features, including, scanning, attachments, and photos. But if you're curious about what else is out there, here's a look at some of the best iPad note-taking apps of 2020. Some can even turn your handwritten notes, no matter how sloppy, into text that others can read.
Starting out? Try The Notes app
The iPad's default Notes app is perfectly suited for use with Apple Pencil. It has text recognition search, inline scanning and annotation, and sketching or handwriting support. With Apple Pencil 2, you can assign the double-tap tool to either erase or the last tool used. It has more limited features than the best third-party notes app — you can't sync your notes anywhere but iCloud, and there's no easy way to link various notes together — but if you're just jotting down a quick note or sketching an idea, the Notes app is that perfect quick-hit app. Sort of like having a napkin with you at all times.
Notability is the best for general note-taking
Notability is a fan favorite of many note-taking aficionados, including me. It has an excellent interface full of tools for handwriting, drawing, annotating PDFs, making shapes, highlighting, moving objects around, adding audio, integrating photos and web clips, and more. If you want your note-taking experience to feel more real, you can choose from a number of different paper styles, including grids, which is very useful for vector line drawing. You can share your notebooks to just about every major service and print them, along with importing notebooks from Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or a WebDAV service. Download photoshop for mac os x 10.8.5. Notability also offers iCloud sync support and a companion Mac app.
Because it's so feature-rich, it can seem a little intimidating to newcomers. Luckily, Notability has a really nice tutorial that guides you through its features when you first open it.
It also works flawlessly with the Apple Pencil — whether you're writing, sketching, or drawing shapes. It's an excellent, well-designed app if you want a little bit more power than what the default Notes app provides.
GoodNotes is for the power-using note-taker. It is packed to the brim with a robust list of pro features. I'd never heard of the app until developer Chris Liscio pointed it out, and I'm so happy he did.
For starters, GoodNotes offers a truly massive selection of paper types for its digital notebooks, including lined, graph, design, and music notation; there are even advanced options that let you upload custom templates. Better still, most templates are available in specific paper sizes (if you're working for print). GoodNotes also offers a ton of different cover styles and choices, all of which can be written upon and further designed.
Like the other apps in this roundup, GoodNotes supports writing and drawing with the Apple Pencil — along with a number of third-party stylus options — using two different digital writing tools: a digital fountain or ball pen in a preset or custom color spectrum.
GoodNotes also has built-in handwriting search recognition and text conversion (done via MyScript's engine, which also powers MyScript Nebo).
Note: As friend-of-iMore Jason Snell has pointed out, apps like GoodNotes do this largely by guessing your words. You might get a hit for 'app' after writing the word, but searching for 'ape' might bring you to the same page. Yahoo messenger free download 10.
If you're looking for a more extensive option than Notability, GoodNotes is a feature-rich app well worth the download.
For Office users, OneNote is great
Microsoft's note app is more of a note storing receptacle than a full-featured note-taking app. That being said, it's got plenty of useful features for iPad owners with an Office 365 subscription. Even if you don't you can import and edit documents for free. You just need a Microsoft or Skype account. With OneNote, you can share links to your notebooks to the public, email a PDF of your notebook to others, and annotate documents with your Apple Pencil. In a single note, you can sketch an idea, add photos and audio, type notes, create calendars, and more. It's similar to Evernote but is designed to work seamlessly with Office 365.
PDF Expert is the king of PDF annotation and markup
Though you can quickly highlight, edit, and markup PDFs on your iPad using the built-in Markup extension, if you regularly need to annotate PDF files, you should consider PDF Expert instead. It's got a list of comprehensive markup tools to make things easier for you. You can open up PDFs from iCloud or pretty much any other online service with the PDF Expert app, fill out forms, and sign documents; you can also work with items with a digital pen, shape tool, underline, strike-thru, or highlighter option, as well as create 'stamps' for often-used wording. All of these changes, after saved, are not only fully editable in PDF Expert, but in apps like Adobe Acrobat and Preview — so you can move from Mac to PC and back again with your iPad.
PDF Expert also lets you edit the structure of PDFs themselves: You can rearrange pages, delete sections, extract parts of the PDF, and even add new blank pages to your documents. Once you're finished with a PDF document, you can even zip it (or multiple documents) with PDF Expert's built-in compressor, and password-protect crucial documents.
Should you want to further tinker with your PDFs, Expert offers a Pro upgrade in-app that allows you to physically edit the text, images, and links inside a PDF, as well as redact information.
If you need handwriting recognition, get MyScript Nebo
Forget mere note-taking: If you want your scribbles converted to text, you're going to need an app that supports handwriting conversion. We've come a long way from the Newton and egg freckles, but the apps available for such things are still few and far between. Apps like Notes and GoodNotes scan your text for search purposes, but don't offer outright handwriting recognition. In contrast, there are apps like MyScript Nebo, which offers full handwriting-to-text conversion.
MyScript has been a big name in handwriting recognition for years (including a handwriting recognition keyboard), but the Nebo app is the company's first attempt at an app designed for Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, and it's excellent. It's simple enough to use and offers a silky-smooth digital pen tool in multiple colors. In addition, users can add photographic and video content, diagrams, and equations alongside handwriting or digital text.
Nebo's notebooks can be converted a paragraph at a time or as a full notebook; those conversions are entirely non-destructive, too, so you can preserve the handwriting if the type conversion isn't perfect. You can also export notebooks as text, HTML, PDF, or Word documents. Sync is available through MyScript's proprietary service, as well as iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox.
Here are some other great note-taking apps that don't necessarily fit this list, but are still worth mentioning in their own right.
- Evernote, Free with in-app subscription: Like Microsoft's OneNote, Evernote is an incredible import repository for organizing a ton of data, notes, documents, and sketches. But to take full advantage of its sync capabilities, PDF annotation, and more, you need a monthly subscription. Evernote is great if you need all the features a subscription provides, but not quite worth jumping in for the free version.
- LiquidText, Free with in-app purchases: LiquidText is a brilliant concept for organizing and annotating PDFs but it's a little too specialized to be considered equal to PDF Expert.
- Noteshelf, $13.99: This app combines many great features from Notability and GoodNotes, including custom page templates and audio recordings, but the writing tool isn't quite as good.
- Notes Plus, $9.99: Notes Plus is a strong entry in the handwriting recognition category with support for Apple Pencil — but it's a little clunkier in the looks department, with iffy palm rejection.
- Whink, $4.99: Whink is a great entry-level handwriting app, and it's still quite nice, offering nice pen tools, audio and photo integration, and basic document annotation. But the stock Notes app is a better overall recommendation for most users.
Your favorites?
These note-taking apps are the perfect fit for iPad and Apple Pencil users. They're not the only ones in the App Store, though. Do you have a favorite you'd like to see on this list? Put them in the comments!
Updated April 2019: Updated for Apple Pencil 2 and support for iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 5.
Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.
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Have you taken full advantage of your iPad? With its portability and smooth touchscreen, you can use Stylus or even your finger to quickly make a note or annotate PDF books and files. With the release of Apple Pencil, it becomes easier for us to take handwriting notes just like on a real paper. The iPad, undoubtedly, is a great device for digital note-taking. But to get an iPad is only half the battle. You got to own the right apps to serve your needs. There are lots of note-taking app alternatives in the App Store. Instead of looking here and there, why not get a list of best note-taking apps for iPad directly? To do this job, I have downloaded and tried a large number of apps for note-taking, and then selected the best ones and narrowed it down by 10. Here are my top picks. Let's check it out.
Bonus Tips: To Take Notes with any eBook on the Following Note-taking Apps
Note-taking apps are especially useful for reading a textbook or reference book. Compared with ebook reader apps, the note-taking apps are more multi-functional besides annotation. The most important and distinctive feature of these apps is the handwriting experience just like you are working with a real piece of paper.
If you want to use these apps to take notes with your DRM-protected ebooks purchased from Kindle, Kobo or Google Play, you need to decrypt such books and convert the ebook formats to PDF. Here Epubor Ultimate, a powerful tool combining both DRM removal and ebook converter, is highly recommended to you to help solve this problem. All you need to do is to add your books to the software, choose the output format as PDF, and then click on the 'Convert' button at the bottom. For more details about decrypting ebooks, you can read A step by Step Guide on How to remove DRM from eBooks.
1. Notability
Notability is one of the best note-taking apps for handwriting and sketching. It combines handwriting, drawings, photos, gifs, typing, audio records, custom shapes in a single note. Perfectly compatible with Apple Pencil, Notability allows you to take notes like writing on papers with an actual pen. Compared to other note-taking apps, the distinctive features of this one include the support of audio recordings, A OCR search scanning both text and handwriting notes, handwriting to text conversion, and Multi-task which enables you to take notes while reading another document. Also, it's easy to import and annotate PDFs or webpages. It can be the best all-purpose App for general note-taking, I think.
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac
Price: $9.99
2. Goodnotes
Goodnotes, an alternative to Notability, is a note-taking app that focuses on handwriting. Thus, those who want to improve the experience of taking handwritten notes on iPad with Apple Pencil or other styluses must check out Goodnotes. Its important functions, including varied paper types and effortless document managements, distinguish it from other similar note-taking apps. Also, the global search lets you search and find any text or handwriting information from your whole library and open the document right away. This can help you always find what you wrote before. It's amazing, right?
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad
Price: $7.99
3. OneNote
Microsoft OneNote has a lot of functionality, but actually it's a good note-collection app rather than the greatest example of a handwriting note-taking app. The specialty of OneNote is that it allows you to share your notes across all of your devices with Microsoft Office. Also, it offers a special collaboration experience to let you work with your team or friends who have Microsoft accounts, which could be a big plus for lots of people. If you are an Office user, OneNote is great and it's free.
Supported devices: iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows
Price: free
4. MyScipt Nebo
MyScript Nebo, recommended by Apple many times, has been a big name in handwriting recognition. It's a good recommendation for those who like to use Apple Pencil. Less of a handwriting note-taking app, it's more like a handwriting converter which turns your handwritten notes into text, titles, paragraphs and bullet points for better organization of notes. This app also features in rich diagram creation options for professional presentations. The notes you take can be exported as Text, PDF, HTML and Word.
Supported devices: iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows
Price: $7.99
5. Marginnote
Marginnote, a brand new e-reader to better study and digest your books, integrates powerful tools for book annotation, mindmapping and flashcards to help you build up your reading notes. Compared with other note-taking apps, the biggest difference of Marginnote is its function of MindMap. It's easy for you to auto-create MindMap from excerpts or just drag PDF selection, pictures, texts to Mindmap. In this way, you can organize multi-book reading notes all in one map. Also, it seems to be the only note-taking app that allows you to annotate both PDFs and Epub files.
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac
Price: $6.99
6. PDF Expert
PDF Expert is an essential app for people who regularly modify or work with PDF files. This app is primarily focused on PDF editing, but it can work efficiently as a note-taking as well if you need to annotate PDFs. It boasts a variety of annotation tools like readymade 'stamps', highlight options, shapes, diagrams and etc. Moreover, you can rearrange pages of your files, delete some sections, or even add new blank pages to your PDF documents. Also, you could utilize the signature function to sign your documents and set a password to protect them.
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac
Price: $9.99
7. Whink
Whink, as the most pleasing iOS note-taking app, offers a refreshingly modern UI design. It's an all-in-one app to take handwriting notes with Apple Pencil or other styluses, which makes the process like writing on a real paper. Besides basic document annotation, Whink can also record audios so that you can record your meetings, lectures or conversations while taking notes. With iCloud sync, there is no need to worry about losing your notes since all of them will be saved over the cloud. This app is a little bit cheaper than others, so it can be one of the candidates for note-taking.
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad Avi movie player for mac free download.
Price: $4.99
8. Noteshelf
Noteshelf, a fabulous option for both students and professionals, is another handwriting-focused note-taking app. It combines many features from Notability and Goodnotes such as a range of pens and highlighters, custom page options and audio records. Compared with its competitors, Noteshelf is able to sync with Evernote. Therefore, it might be a better choice for those who already work with Evernote and want a superior handwriting feeling.
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac
Price: $13.99
9. Apple Notes
Apple Notes, being pre-installed on every iPad and iPhone, is entirely free to use. It can be a good choice for daily note taking since it's simple, efficient and easy to open. However, there are not many features that other apps offer like OCR searching, handwriting to text conversion or different pape templates. It's true that there are many apps that can do more, but there are few that are as accessible as Apple Notes.
Supported devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac
Price: free
Best App For Taking Notes With Apple Pencil On Mac Download
10. Evernote
Evernote has been one of the best note-taking apps on lots of platforms for years. It's a great app to collect multiple inputs, including images, texts, recorded audios and clippings of web pages. The iOS app is free to download, but the free tier is restricted to syncing only two devices and uploads are limited to just 60MB per month. If you want to switch between more than 2 devices, you need to buy the Premium tier. The cross-platform availability, thus, becomes the biggest selling point of Evernote.
Supported devices: iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows
Price: free
A Comparison Chart of the Best 10 Note-taking Apps for iPad
Best App For Taking Notes With Apple Pencil On Mac And Cheese
Here is a comparison chart of 10 note-taking apps above. You can have a quick look at the accessible functions and features each app provides.
Name | Goodnotes | MyScript Nebo | PDF Expert | Noteshelf | Evernote | |||||
Price($) | 9.99 | 7.99 | free | 7.99 | 6.99 | 9.99 | 4.99 | 9.99 | free | free |
PDF Annotation | v | v | v | v | v | v | v | v | × | v |
Handwriting/Text Recognition | v | v | v | v | v | × | × | v | × | v |
Handwriting to text conversion | v | v | v | v | × | × | × | v | × | × |
Audio Recordings | v | × | v | × | × | v | v | v | × | v |
iCloud Sync | v | v | × | v | v | v | v | v | v | × |
Varied Paper Types | v | v | × | v | × | v | × | v | × | v |
Apple Pencil Support | v | v | v | v | v | v | v | v | v | v |
Mind Map | × | × | × | × | v | × | × | × | × | × |
Multitask | v | × | v | v | v | × | v | v | × | × |
Export Formats | PDF, RTF, No'te | PDF, image | TXT, PDF, HTML, DOC | PDF, Anki, DOC | TXT, PDF, HTML, DOC | PDF, image | none |
Best App For Taking Notes With Apple Pencil On Mac Download
Michelle writes some tips and tricks for eBooks, audiobooks, eReaders and software. She seeks the methods to enjoy eBooks and audiobooks more freely and wants to share everything new she has got with you.