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Note taking on the iPad Pro?
- Thread starter JawneeWin
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I too have now scrapped my regular note pads 
My only issue - learning to get comfortable writing on a sheet of glass. Its such a hard surface to use compared to the tactile feel paper and pen gives. Its like walking on ice, you're a lot more aware something isnt normal.
My only issue - learning to get comfortable writing on a sheet of glass. Its such a hard surface to use compared to the tactile feel paper and pen gives. Its like walking on ice, you're a lot more aware something isnt normal.
The Apple Pencil can no longer be used to scroll, open apps, and other general navigation including apps that weren't designed for it.
I too have now scrapped my regular note pads
My only issue - learning to get comfortable writing on a sheet of glass. Its such a hard surface to use compared to the tactile feel paper and pen gives. Its like walking on ice, you're a lot more aware something isnt normal.
My handwriting is already terrible on paper with pen. Its even more atrocious with the pro so i have just dedicated more time to practice and do it more often. like grammar school
well, in the olden days of regular ipads and crappy blobby styluses, i went through the 'i will go digital in work' phase.
i forced myself to master the Notes Plus app, which at the time was ahead of it's class, but it was an effort, especially with a rounded stylus.
Now, considering the Pro is lightning fast at opening and switching, the stylus is uber fine tipped, and the apps have massively progressed in terms of fluidity, and general usage, note taking literally is 1-2 clicks maximum away, which can be performed in milliseconds wherever i am on my Pro. Like as soon as the phone goes and i need to take fast emergency notes, the Pro with notability and Pencil is faster to access than my pen and paper! even switching between the works standards of Office and Excel to Word and Numbers at home (and back again) is a painless task.
Scribbling a brief for my team, emailing it, pdf'ing it or just auto syncing it to the company dropbox is awesome. Even just hitting the in-app print button and sending it to my laser copier from the Pro is magical
as i say, i tried it on my ipad2, but it really was a pain. slow, numerous clicks, and clunky. it worked, but it was an effort. Now, it's a natural thing for me. the Pro and the Pencil is (or is very fast) becoming of age
i forced myself to master the Notes Plus app, which at the time was ahead of it's class, but it was an effort, especially with a rounded stylus.
Now, considering the Pro is lightning fast at opening and switching, the stylus is uber fine tipped, and the apps have massively progressed in terms of fluidity, and general usage, note taking literally is 1-2 clicks maximum away, which can be performed in milliseconds wherever i am on my Pro. Like as soon as the phone goes and i need to take fast emergency notes, the Pro with notability and Pencil is faster to access than my pen and paper! even switching between the works standards of Office and Excel to Word and Numbers at home (and back again) is a painless task.
Scribbling a brief for my team, emailing it, pdf'ing it or just auto syncing it to the company dropbox is awesome. Even just hitting the in-app print button and sending it to my laser copier from the Pro is magical
as i say, i tried it on my ipad2, but it really was a pain. slow, numerous clicks, and clunky. it worked, but it was an effort. Now, it's a natural thing for me. the Pro and the Pencil is (or is very fast) becoming of age
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What about when you are in a drawing app, and you want to switch between different writing implements? Can you tap the icon for the writing implement with the Pencil to switch? If 9.3 disabled that, that would suck.
Apple's media apps in general are a dead end. Things go in and don't come out.
So I would need to use a stand alone pdf app like pdf expert I think was the name. It looks slick but most of my work is done on pdf. I should have researched more before getting notability if it doesn't have this feature.
I'll use it but nowhere near as much as I thought I would if no pdf import option.
I'm pretty sure Notability can import PDFs (don't use it myself), just not from iBooks. But if you have your PDFs in Dropbox, let's say, I'd think you could import it into Notability from there.
I mean, no app is going to be able to import PDFs from iBooks, because it doesn't have an export function.
You are right. After some exploring I see the options you can import from. I have never used Dropbox so I will need to check it out. Thanks so much
You may also be able to copy the PDF from computer directly into Notabilty using iTunes. Haven't used iTunes in a while so can't remember exactly where it was, but when you hook up your iPad, there's a section somewhere that shows all the apps you have on your iPad that can accept files from the computer.
Glad to hear that Dropbox works for you. Also, if you are downloading PDFs from websites, you should be able to use "Open In..." to send them directly to Notabilty.
Just out of curiosity, how were you getting the PDFs into iBooks if you weren't syncing them with iTunes?
I opened a PDF that was emailed to me.
Clicked send to and iBooks was an option. It saved there and I can see it but can't open it in notability to mark up.
I was able to import from the Dropbox method.
Well, when you click on the PDF attached to an email, you should see various apps you can send it to, including iBooks and Notabilty. You may have to scroll through the icons before you see Notability, if you have many apps that handle PDF. You can scroll all the way to the end of the icons, and you'll see a "more" icon. Tap that, and you can reorder the icons. So for instance, you can make Notability the first icon, and drag iBooks to the last position.
I had some meetings today after getting my iPad last week and the first 10-15 minutes of the meeting was talking about the iPad. Most were mocking or making fun of me for having a "toy" and having an excuse to get a pro instead of just using paper and pen as they laughed at my pencil. The others thought it was fantastic and said they were going to get one.
Not sure how to take the company I was in as they were a lot of executives and higher admin type people and they made comments like "we obviously pay him too much" which stung a little. Sucked considering I am already more organized than I have been all year and I used notability with email in the multi screen and it was fantastic going over a proposal in the meeting and not shuffling papers.
I guess they will get used to it but this was one of my worries when I got it and the big form factor in meetings and being ridiculed but it's well worth it. The pencil was amazing marking up a pdf proposal mid meeting and so much better than my generic paper and pen combo previously.
Not sure how to take the company I was in as they were a lot of executives and higher admin type people and they made comments like "we obviously pay him too much" which stung a little. Sucked considering I am already more organized than I have been all year and I used notability with email in the multi screen and it was fantastic going over a proposal in the meeting and not shuffling papers.
I guess they will get used to it but this was one of my worries when I got it and the big form factor in meetings and being ridiculed but it's well worth it. The pencil was amazing marking up a pdf proposal mid meeting and so much better than my generic paper and pen combo previously.
Too bad about the joking attitude, but like you say they'll get used to it. As I mentioned in another thread, today I used the iPP to work out a mangled sentence with my boss and a co-worker, and it worked very well, as all three of us were able to see the document at once, and I tapped in the corrections as we talked, using the on-screen keyboard. I've done this before with iPad Air, but it's so much easier doing this with the larger screen of the iPP. I'm not sure if my boss registered that the iPad I was showing him was larger than usual, lol. But I'm very glad I have the iPP, and happy to hear it is working out for you as well.
I usually don't dictate but I'm dictating this reply. It is a mix of hand corrections and my spoken transcription.
My experience with notating with my iPad Pro is only OK at best.
I have tried using the notes app.
-Palm rejection not so good, it is too easy to mix and match my finger strokes and pen strokes
-I imported a photo into my notes so I could draw on top of the photo. I could not.
– Finding notes that have been drawn with my pencil is utter nightmare
- One needs to be able to group notes into a workbook structure.
- I don't see an easy way to take the handwritten notes and converts it into actual text.
In the past I've had very good success on my Windows tablet using Microsoft Visio of all things. To me this is still the best. I like to get technical drawings that include shapes and connected objects and diagrams. Mixed into this I could have my ink as well as text typed notes. I can't believe I'm hoping Microsoft converts Vizio over to the iPad. I've even tried to use my iPad remote desktop to my old Windows tablet to get access to my existing notes and Visio there.
I am very impressed with the vector drawing program called Graphic which has note like taking capability. However suffers from not having notes grouped into a workbook I can we quickly found. It also doesn't quit your ink be converted into text. It also doesn't allow objects to be connected to another for example in an organizational chart.
My experience with notating with my iPad Pro is only OK at best.
I have tried using the notes app.
-Palm rejection not so good, it is too easy to mix and match my finger strokes and pen strokes
-I imported a photo into my notes so I could draw on top of the photo. I could not.
– Finding notes that have been drawn with my pencil is utter nightmare
- One needs to be able to group notes into a workbook structure.
- I don't see an easy way to take the handwritten notes and converts it into actual text.
In the past I've had very good success on my Windows tablet using Microsoft Visio of all things. To me this is still the best. I like to get technical drawings that include shapes and connected objects and diagrams. Mixed into this I could have my ink as well as text typed notes. I can't believe I'm hoping Microsoft converts Vizio over to the iPad. I've even tried to use my iPad remote desktop to my old Windows tablet to get access to my existing notes and Visio there.
I am very impressed with the vector drawing program called Graphic which has note like taking capability. However suffers from not having notes grouped into a workbook I can we quickly found. It also doesn't quit your ink be converted into text. It also doesn't allow objects to be connected to another for example in an organizational chart.
I'm having great luck with OneNote ... I use a mixture of Macs and PCs, with an iPhone and iPad. OneNote works on all of these platforms (some better than others, but all of them are constantly improving) and being able to access my notes regardless of what I happen to be using at the time is pretty awesome. The inking seems to work fine but I don't have much to compare that experience to yet, haven't really tried much of anything else.
I've tried EverNote a few times but just couldn't get past the UI and lack of text tools, I'm about 70/30 text to stylus input and I find OneNote works quite a bit better for text input. I don't do much web-clipping, I believe this is where Evernote really shines.
I've tried EverNote a few times but just couldn't get past the UI and lack of text tools, I'm about 70/30 text to stylus input and I find OneNote works quite a bit better for text input. I don't do much web-clipping, I believe this is where Evernote really shines.
You mean the Notes app is "ok at at best"... the iPP is undeniably awesome at handwritten notes. You just need a better app. Try one off my list: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/app-for-strictly-taking-notes.1950982/#post-22474535
Take a look at omingraffle if you like Visio. As to the workbook structure I use Goodnotes to take notes. Can organize the workbooks into categories as well. Change up paper types within the notebook, add pictures, mark up PDFs inside a workbook.
Try Omnigraffle. It can even let you open and edit your Visio drawings.
I am sure my boss will be fine when I am more organized then ever and can mark up all the PDFs she sends me and send right back with instant feedback.
It was more in jest and fun but it was like I was called out during a big meeting. Then the pencil came out and the room erupted lol.
It is fine and will take some time to get used to for everyone.
It was more in jest and fun but it was like I was called out during a big meeting. Then the pencil came out and the room erupted lol.
It is fine and will take some time to get used to for everyone.