Research paper writing can be time consuming if you write everything from scratch. Notes Plus’s paper note taking app for iPad pro provides a free statistic calculator to help you organize your ideas faster so you can write faster. Although Apple provides its own Notes app with iPadOS, this is only intended to provide a simple and basic functionality. Luckily, there are other notepad applications developed specifically for use on the iPad Pro which further develop and improve on this functionality – and here are a few of the best note-taking app for iPad devices around today.
Notes Plus is the best note taking app for iPad, with Apple Pencil. Notes Plus combines an elegant notepad interface with the power of a word processor. The result is a versatile app that can help you take notes in class or write your next novel, with powerful features like Linked Notes, multiple Style Sheets, Spelling Checker, Table of Contents, Export to Word/RTF/HTML/EPUB, or Copy to Notepad.
Microsoft OneNote
OneNote is like the Microsoft version of the Apple Notes app, though users say it fits so well into Apple’s ecosystem that you’d never guess it’s not a native Apple app. It’s still a mostly basic notes app, where you can quickly scribble down what’s on your mind on a digital sheet of paper.
However, OneNote does beat out Apple Notes on a few key features — namely, Microsoft Office integration and easy collaboration features, plus a few extra pencil formatting options.
- Cost: Free
- App store user rating: 4.7 stars
- Layout options: The infinite canvas allows you to endlessly scroll out to widen the frame. You can also use traditional lined “paper” if you’d prefer.
- Organization: The app lays your notes out like a binder so they can be easily organized by topic.
- Multimedia integration: Yes
- Bonus features: Collaboration/sharing via Microsoft accounts, PDF annotation
Notability
If we had to recommend just one iPad note-taking app, it would be Notability. The app offers a delightful writing experience, yet it also makes it easy to embed images, annotate PDFs, and even record voice memos.
Sketching and drawing in Notability is easy and downright delightful. Being able to doodle and quickly sketch out illustrations is one of our favorite things about taking notes on paper. Notability does an excellent job of emulating this experience, while also allowing you to do things you can’t do on paper such as resizing and moving your drawings.
In addition, Notability includes a variety of flexible layout options. This allows you to, for instance, have a slide or reference material open on one side of the page while you take notes on the other.
And beyond the layout of individual pages, you can also organize your notes using digital “Dividers” (which is perfect if you’re used to taking notes in a physical binder).
Finally, Notability gives you plenty of options for exporting and sharing your notes, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and AirDrop.
Price: $8.99
GoodNotes 5
GoodNotes 5, like Notability, also has an Editor’s Choice Award on the Apple App Store, and it functions quite similarly to Notability, with just a few distinct differences. It’s not quite as smooth when writing or sketching, but it does have a more robust framework for organizing things.
GoodNotes seems to think of itself less as a single notebook or binder for multiple ideas, and more as a bookshelf for organizing different notebooks that do different things — like, for example, a day planner, a traditional notebook, a sketchbook, or a folder full of marked-up PDFs on a certain subject.
- Cost: $7.99
- App store user rating: 4.8 stars
- Layout options: Limitless — GoodNotes provides several templates for you to choose from, but you can also create or upload your own.
- Organization: Like your computer, GoodNotes organizes your notes in folders and subfolders. The app also allows you to choose different covers for each note or notebook.
- Multimedia integration: Yes
Bonus features: searchable text, Presentation Mode using AirPlay or HDMI, adjustable pen sensitivity, PDF annotation, magnify text to jot notes in margins.
Apple Notes
We couldn’t discuss iPad note-taking apps without mentioning Apple Notes. The app comes free with macOS/iOS devices, and it does a great job of letting you type or take notes by hand. The app’s drawing features are also solid, making it easy to add sketches and illustrations to your notes.
Aside from being free, the biggest advantage of Apple Notes is its deep integration with iOS. If you use iCloud and other Apple devices, you can effortlessly switch between taking notes on your iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
Plus, everything you create is automatically backed up to iCloud, and you can even create voice notes using Siri while you’re on the go.
Price: Free
Noteshelf
Noteshelf was our favorite note-taking app for the iPad before we discovered Notability, and it’s still a superb option.
It has many of the features we love in Notability, including the option to annotate PDFs and multitask with the iPad’s split screen. You can also record voice notes to go along with your handwritten notes, which is perfect for recapping a lecture or meeting at a later date.
If you speak/write multiple languages, you’ll also be pleased to know that Noteshelf can recognize handwriting in 65 different languages. This makes it a powerful tool whether you’re taking a language class or learning a language on your own.
Finally, Noteshelf lets you export your notes to iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Evernote. The option to export to Evernote is noticeably missing from Notability, making Noteshelf our top pick for serious Evernote users.
Apple Watch users will also benefit from the app’s ability to record voice notes using the Noteshelf Apple Watch app.
Price: $9.99
Penultimate
Developed by Evernote, Penultimate is designed to be the go-to note-taking app for Evernote users. It has all the standard note-taking features you want, including a variety of layouts and the ability to search your handwritten notes with optical character recognition.
If you already use Evernote, then you can seamlessly add Penultimate to your workflow. Once you sign into the app with your Evernote account, all your notes will automatically sync to the Evernote notebook of your choice.
While the additional writing features of Noteshelf still make it our preferred note-taking app to use with Evernote, Penultimate remains a solid choice (especially if you’re looking for a free app).
Price: Free
Whink
Whink touts itself as the “gel pen” app — along with the standard writing tools, Whink also boasts a pen that writes just like a gel pen on the surface of the page. The gel pen comes in unlimited colors for those who like to get creative with their notes. It also has vector ink so notes don’t get grainy when you zoom in to write in the margins.
Other than that, the app is pretty bare bones — and most of its users consider that a positive. Whink is the perfect note-taking app for minimalists who still want something a little more versatile than the free apps, without having to pay for extra features.
- Cost: $4.99
- App store user rating: 4.1
- Layout options: Notes can be taken on lined or unlined paper.
- Organization: Notes are organized into distinct notebooks with different covers.
- Multimedia integration: Photos and audio recordings only
- Bonus features: Multitasking ability, zoom in to write in margins, PDF markup, supports diagrams
Nebo
The advanced note-taking app
REASONS TO BUY
+Affordable price +Handles more complex documents+Exports to multiple formats
REASONS TO AVOID
-Requires an official Apple Pencil
For note-takers with needs that go beyond the basic, Nebo can handle the challenge. While plenty of note-taking apps allow text to be entered, Nebo can also easily structure notes, allowing you to add paragraphs, titles and bullet lists for organization.
It also handles ‘rich content,’ such as diagrams, sketches (with different colors and pen widths), flow charts, and formulas, letting you integrate them into the document. Once completed, documents can be exported in a variety of formats, including Word, PDF, and even HTML.
Nebo is available for multiple platforms, including Windows 10, Android, and of course iOS.
Conclusion
When deciding which note-taking app to use on your iPad, you should first consider what you’re using it for — that will help you choose the features that are most important to you.
For example, if you want to use the app to take notes for a class, you may consider an app with binder or bookshelf organization style. If you’re a messy note taker, you might want an app that has some kind of infinite canvas available, so you never run out of space. If you’re an artist, you’ll likely want to base your decision on versatility of pen styles, or how smoothly the pen writes.
Ultimately, the perfect note-taking app for your needs is going to be the one that feels like it would adapt to you — not the other way around
The key is to use a quality stylus, a screen protector that mimics paper, and, most importantly, the right note-taking app.