Notebooks – Write and Organize 4+

Documents, Tasks and Files

Alfons Schmid

    • 4.6 • 67 Ratings
    • $24.99
    • Offers In-App Purchases

Description

Notebooks is a comprehensive writing app with a powerful text and Markdown editor, which you can use as personal Wiki, Zettelkasten, file and document organizer, task manager, PDF/eBook creator and much more—all in one place. You can seamlessly transform quick notes into actionable tasks, combine text fragments into chapters of a book, organize research material, and keep business documents separate from personal diaries without ever switching apps. Stay focused and unleash your creativity with Notebooks’ versatile and intuitive features. - You'll quickly come to appreciate this unique combination of features.

• Notebooks stores all your documents as regular files in standard formats. You are always in control of your documents, never need to worry about how to export them, and they remain compatible across devices and over time.

• Create formatted documents with styles, attachments, tables or checklists, and add a table of contents if you like. Choose between a variation of ready made document styles, or create your own, if you want.

• Write your documents in plain text and allow Notebooks to automatically handle lists, highlight and center the current line on screen, automatically insert closing characters for (, {, [, " and more. - Plain text is a universal format which can be used on any device without any specific software.

• Use Markdown to create formatted documents from plain text. Notebooks supports *MultiMarkdown* and its own flavor of *Discount*. – Click any word in a formatted Markdown text and start writing at that position. You can even create checklists (- [ ]) and tick them off in formatted view. Syntax highlighting and a set of dedicated extra keyboard keys make Markdown editing easy.

• Use your Apple Pencil to sketch ideas or annotate images and PDF documents.

• Use Notebooks' advanced editing capabilities to work on documents which are stored in other apps.

• Compile selected documents or the contents of whole books into a single document, an eBook or a PDF document.

• Link between documents in Notebooks. In Markdown you can even use Wiki style links ([[ ]]). When clicking a link to a document which does not yet exist, Notebooks suggests to create it. And when you move or rename documents, Notebooks makes sure the links remain intact.

• Create as many books as you need to structure your projects and details. Nest books as deep as you like, there is no limit in Notebooks. If you ever loose track, Notebooks' full text search helps you quickly turn up even the most hidden document.

• Turn books into task lists to display document as tasks which can be ticked off. Assign due dates and alerts, and divide projects into nested sub projects, which makes them easier to handle.

• For simple lists you can use checklists in formatted documents and Markdown.

• Assign Context tags to books and documents to create shortcuts that are accessible for a smart book at Notebooks' top level. – Notebooks can even extract context tags from the contents of documents as you create them.

• Import all documents and files you want to keep close at hand, no matter whether PDF, email, web pages, MS Office or iWorks, photos, videos, music and more.

• Scan documents and extract text using OCR (iOS 13)

• Sync files between iPads, iPhones, Mac or PC.

With all these features, Notebooks may quickly become your go-to repository for everything you want to keep close at hand.

User Comments:

“Notebooks is a wonderful App, which is so much better than the dozen other note apps I tried. It is sophisticated, in an unassuming way, so that you find yourself greatly rewarded and being productive without sacrificing time/effort to the App. I cannot tell you how much productivity I have gained. I am having a huge amount of fun, I use it constantly, more than the phone on my iPhone in fact."

“You are GTD in every way that makes it efficient and makes me efficient.”

What’s New

Version 12.6.1

This update fixes an issue on older iOS versions and brings some improvements for the integrated document styles.


New in version 12.6

This update introduces new options for document styling (using custom CSS classes), enhances Markdown syntax highlighting, improves MathJax compatibility, adds more flexibility when importing or bookmarking URLs, and ensures more reliable transfer of large numbers of documents to the Apple Watch. Moreover, context tags within code blocks are now ignored.

Custom Classes for Document Styling

Notebooks now supports custom CSS classes for formatting Markdown and formatted documents, in addition to traditional styles like headings, bold, italic etc. Custom classes can be applied through the paragraph formatting menu in formatted documents, or with the `> %...%` notation in Markdown. - For more details, please refer to the documentation.

Formatted Documents

- The formatting menu now includes heading levels 5 and 6, plus custom classes defined in the current document theme.
- Improved drag and drop functionality from other apps.
- Fixed double-tap issues: Selecting words with a double tap now works correctly in edit mode.

Markdown

- Auto-suggestions for custom classes: `> %` followed by TAB.
- Headings use variable font sizes with syntax highlighting.
- Improved checkbox detection in rendered view.
- Enhanced MathJax compatibility, especially for inline math with subscript and superscript.
- Handle `.mmd` and `.mermaid` file extensions as Markdown for Mermaid rendering.

Document Themes

- New: Support for Custom Classes. Please refer to documentation for details.
- Handbook Theme: Introduce custom styles "Sidecar" and "Box".
- Default Theme: Empty items in numbered lists no longer overlap, and add custom style "Caption".

Document List (Book)

- When saving a URL as bookmark, Notebooks now retrieves the original title, if available.
- "New from Pasteboard" better detects copied URLs and asks how you’d like to import them.
- Pinning a document now reliably moves it in the correct position.

Contexts

- Context tags are now ignored in fenced code blocks (Markdown and plain text) or in *code* sections (formatted documents).

Watch App

- Improved reliability when transferring a large number of documents to your watch.

Misc

- Dark App Icon
- Many more interface refinements.

Ratings and Reviews

4.6 out of 5
67 Ratings

67 Ratings

moorhouse.d ,

Awesome - Get it now!

When you want only one notebook. I use this for all my note taking and reference storage. All data is stored locally and available - no proprietary file formats. Have used this since the first beta release and it has continued to grow. I am able to store anything, turn anything into a task, extract tasks from notes. The addition of wiki-style links takes it to the next level. The default theme is business-like, it can be customised using css, but don’t expect shiny / extrovert design.
This integrates well with Shortcuts on my phone, but this feature needs some more development to take advantage of all that Notebooks can offer. Great App.

nadacat ,

Export have no WORD option

The switch from reading to annotation is poorly implemented. This means that when annotating, the app will take you to the first page of the document. Similarly, when switching back to read mode, it will take you to the top of the document again. This makes for a poor reading experience. I think it's trying to be too many things and forgets essentials. Or maybe they do not see reading as an important feature. The only option is to go back to Devon ThinkToGo that have not updated for a long while now. They skipped ios13 entirely, does not have multiple windows nor dark mode. Yet, it still does basic tasks very well. (Such as reading and being able to annotate, organise files, etc).

Edit: The developer claims it is ios problem. It is time to work with another writing engine ... this is because apple will try to make everyone use Apple notes when we would like options as well as Apple notes. They will not fix these issues quickly enough. Please fix so that I can use this wonderful app! I'll be happy to switch from devon

Edit: This app is the only Markdown app that allows styling by css right in the app. Therefore, this WOULD have been my go-to writing app if can only export WORD, not just PDF.

Developer Response ,

We are well aware of that "break" when switching to annotation mode. We use the annotation tools built into iOS/iPadOS, but the catch is that they don't give us an option to set the start page. We reported that as a but to Apple more than a year ago, still waiting...

Kattermole ,

Why isn’t this more popular

For me, this is like one of those big fat notebooks with everything in it. You know the kind, held together with an elastic band.
Except, this is electronic, the pages don’t fall out and it is easy to find stuff. No skill required. I love the nesting notebooks.
I keep…well, anything I want to refer to really: my commonplace book; lists of books I read, want to read, book reviews; recipes; receipts; manuals; etc. etc. and so on and so forth. There wouldn’t be an elastic band big enough.

And now it works with iCloud, it’s perfect.

App Privacy

The developer, Alfons Schmid, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Supports

  • Siri

    Get things done within this app using just your voice.

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