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Needs a new notetaking app. Suggestions?

J

Junkdumpster

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 21, 2012
20
0
Hey all. I hope I'm posting in the right place.

I'm looking for a new notetaking app for classes. I'm currently using Notability for notetaking as well as InClass for my to-do list and schedule management, both of which I'm really enjoying, but there's a few features I wish at least one of thiem had that I haven't found in other apps I've tried. So I'm asking for suggestions. Here's some things that I'm really looking for that are both present and not present in either of these two apps alone that I'd like to see in a replacement app:

-Ability both to type and to draw/use handwriting.
-Wristguard while handwriting, since I drop my hand on the page when I write
-That thing where your handwriting is automatically shrunk to fit the notes page
-Bullets, sub-bullets, sub-sub-bullets, italics and bold fonts
-Ability to include images, as well as graphs and charts
-The ability to post my schedule and file my notes accordingly
-A built-in to-do list with notification reminders
-Dropbox integration (or any commonly used file storage similar to it).
-(Optional) A cross-platform app for use on my iPhone as well, just so I can review my notes even more on the go than is convenient with the iPad.

-Finally, and this would probably be the toughest, the ability to store my files (or in this case, my professors files) in-house. In order to be a true all-in-one organizer, I would have to be able to store lectures and a syllabus, be it in a word document or PowerPoint, in the same app. I'm not opposed to reformatting them into PDF's or something if I have to.

Does something like this exist, or is this all asking too much?
 
Notability has most of the features you mentioned. Definitely worth taking a look at.
 
Like I said, I'm using Notability and am very happy with it in general. I'm really just hoping to find something to also keep track of my schedule, that has a basic to-do list, and could store PDFs and/or word and PowerPoint files.
 
hasanahmad said:
notability and/or penultimate
Click to expand...

Did you even read the thread?

OP: I use my iPad for university note taking, so I may be able to give you some advice. You might wanna try Noteshelf. While it lacks some of the features you mentioned "No to-do list, no bullets, no schedule" it still has the rest of what you want. The app is very pretty and still very functional. I have both Penultimate and Notability, but they aren't as good as Noteshelf in my opinion. It has Dropbox and Evernote integration as well as Twitter. It can turn your notebooks into PDFs or Images for export. It also has text entry, image importing, a camera button for your iPad's camera so you can just take a snapshot and put it in the notebook, multiple pen colors and a highlighter as well. The UI is much much better and more usable that Notability in my opinion.

For the schedule thing, you should try out iStudiez Pro. Its basically a school/college/university class calendar. You can put all your classes and class schedules and it will track them in its calendar. You can also insert your exam dates and your homework and it will remind you via notification when its almost due (You can set this reminder to your liking, a day before, two days before..etc).

Lastly, the obvious; Evernote. Everything I handwrite gets exported into Evernote anyways, so when I'm on a class that has nothing but pure writing to do (as in, not a math class), I'll just write directly into Evernote. It has everything you want in terms of text entry. Bold, Italic, bullets, sub-bullets and lots of other things. I'm personally really good with the iPad's virtual keyboard, but there are keyboard solutions out there for those that aren't.

So overall: Noteshelf, iStudiez Pro and Evernote are what I mostly use for my note taking. I just swipe between apps when I need to. Its not as ideal as having everything in one app, but we gotta adapt to this crazy world.
 
Another app you might like for school...

Even though it's an iPhone app, Grades 2 really helped me in University keep track of my grades and set goals.

http://appshopper.com/education/grades-2

You put in everything from the syllabus and then as you get grades on things it will tell you what you need on everything else to hit your targets. Great motivator I had a 4.0 since using it.
 
First off, maybe I should have been more specific. I'm using a first generation iPad, so if there's any advantages (direct camera link) or disadvantages (lag on the new ipad) of these apps, disregard them.

I just tried out paperport notes. While I wasn't incredibly impressed, it did have the biggest thing I was looking for in that it allowed me to also store word and PowerPoint files (even if PowerPoint files looked a bit ugly with certain themes). I'm not in love, but it might do in a pinch.

As for note taker hd, it's a nice app, but I've tried it before and it just doesn't have the features I'm looking for. For the price I pay, I can have notability, which I like more, and another app which will include the other features.

Noteshelf looks nice, but lacks the features I need. Notability is better at typing, which is more important to me, and I do prefer the interface. And for six dollars, I'm not willing to buy it just to test out.

Thanks for the responses so far. Does anybody else have any more suggestions? I know I'm being incredibly picky.
 
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