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iPad Pro Pencil input - what note taking app to use

J

judahde

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 14, 2015
92
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Since the intention to use MS OneNote with the Apple Pencil is a bust - see this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...manage-convert-to-text.1937785/#post-22247053

I'm now looking for a note taking app that will work well with the IPP and Pencil. Apart from working well on the IPP, the other major requirement is that I be able to view, manage and edit the notes on my iMac 5K and 2015 Macbook (so cloud synchronization is a must).

Thoughts?
 
TurboPGT! said:
The best option will probably be OneNote after its next update or two..
Click to expand...

Agreed, but it's a no-go for now. Learned a long time ago not to make present decision based on future features.... often they either never arrive or are available waaay in the future.

So what other recommendations does anyone have?
 
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judahde said:
Since the intention to use MS OneNote with the Apple Pencil is a bust - see this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...manage-convert-to-text.1937785/#post-22247053

I'm now looking for a note taking app that will work well with the IPP and Pencil. Apart from working well on the IPP, the other major requirement is that I be able to view, manage and edit the notes on my iMac 5K and 2015 Macbook (so cloud synchronization is a must).

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Notability and Notes Plus are two that spring to mind, although Notes Plus doesn't have a Mac app AFAIK.
 
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Then there's Evernote. I just went back and my old account is still active.

For starters, the pen pressure works in Evernote.
 
I really like Evernote, but want to use lined paper. Penultimate suits that purpose for me. But it doesn't support split view right now, so notability is winning out. Things will probably change when my Pencil comes in.
 
I like zoom notes, and it has lined paper, and does split screen, but I don't know if it supports the pencil or not. Since the pencil I ordered won't get here for a month or so, it is not pressing me right now.
 
So I discovered that OneNote may work for me after all. The trick is to select the "Draw" tab to allow for use of the pencil. There is a "Text Mode" button in the upper left corner which can be toggled, to switch between the Pencil and typing.

There is no conversion from handwriting to text, but that's not really a requirement for me. It was earlier due to the issue of text and handwriting co-existing on the same page. Using the above approach, one can write over top of text, which is what I want. It acts like a physical paper notebook. Pretty happy so far.
 
I used to use "UPAD" a couple of years ago while I was in college, and it worked really well for me. I was able to upload PDF documents to it to mark them up as well as make notebooks for handwriting my notes. I was also able to upload my own "paper" to use as the background.

It could become a bit slow if you had a lot of pages within one notebook, although I suspect it would work better on the iPad Pro. I haven't checked yet tbh, but I'll see if they've continued to update it. I remember thinking the UI could use a bit revamping.
 
arminta7 said:
I really like Evernote, but want to use lined paper. Penultimate suits that purpose for me. But it doesn't support split view right now, so notability is winning out. Things will probably change when my Pencil comes in.
Click to expand...

Would someone already with an iPP take a screenshot of Evernote? Really curious to see how they took advantage of the additional resolution.
 
Microsoft Office Lens has OCR. Now that I've "figured out" the use of OneNote, I'm happy with it.

As others have described on other threads, the IPP is not the only device to use. I have an iMac 5K, a 2015 Macbook, an iPhone 6 Plus and the IPP. All of them now work together seamlessly using iCloud, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.

The bulk of my scanning is done with a Fujitsu ScanSnap. But for on the go document snapshots, Microsoft Office Lens is now the application I use. Before that came out, I was using Scanbot on the iPhone was very happy with it.

The Pencil for note taking in OneNote is incredible. Very natural to me. The only downside is if you're in a quiet meeting, the Pencil does click on the screen as you write. It's not loud, just not a sound people are used to.
 
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Today was a good day for note taking. Plenty of meetings and only brought the IPP with pencil. Any docs I needed to retain I photographed into OneNote.

Later I did heavy typing with the desktop in OneNote. Went to the Bank and pulled up a note on the iPhone.

The system is working well. Well, almost. Lost the cap for the Pencil . Had toe retrace my steps and finally found it under a conference room table.
 
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I've tried OneNote and Notability so far. Both work well.

I arbitrarily chose OneNote to take notes for an all-day on-line investment conference from Morningstar last Saturday, all using the Apple Pencil on the new 9.7" iPad Pro. Even though I had never used the Pencil before (and I'm still learning), this experience went very well. Will probably never use paper and pen again for notes.

As someone mentioned above, select the "Draw" function in OneNote to use the Apple Pencil. I like to select lined paper for the background - helps to keep things neater.

I was very impressed. This went much better than expected. When taking handwritten notes of lectures over the years I have always been frustrated that I couldn't quite keep up during the particularly interesting or "meaty" parts of the lectures. While taking notes with the IPP and Pencil, I quickly realized that I could just jot down "shorthand" placeholders or even just the first letter of the word or item, then go back later and insert the correct text using either the pen or keyboard. It's more elegant to do this using the IPP/Pencil than using paper and pen.

Over the last several months I spent many hours reading and watching videos of various stylus reviews. None of them were perfect, or even good enough ... until the Apple Pencil. I'm glad I waited.
 
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judahde said:
Today was a good day for note taking. Plenty of meetings and only brought the IPP with pencil. Any docs I needed to retain I photographed into OneNote.

Later I did heavy typing with the desktop in OneNote. Went to the Bank and pulled up a note on the iPhone.

The system is working well. Well, almost. Lost the cap for the Pencil . Had toe retrace my steps and finally found it under a conference room table.
Click to expand...
You definitely need a Pencil Cozy. The magnet is not all that strong.
 
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