Notebooks – Write and Organize 4+

My favourite notes storage app

Use this daily and have used it for years. I recommend it as a notes app for students, for example. It’s delightfully straightforward to use, with features that matter and just as importantly not cluttered with features which don’t. I would appreciate improvements: black should be an option for font colour, grey too would be handy. Highlighting could be quicker and with more choices. Pasting URLs defaults to just showing a bit of the URL and to show the full URL you have to use the ellipsis menu and select "Paste link". I’d vastly prefer it to be the other way round. A button to go straight back to the master "Notebooks" level would save time. I haven’t mastered the tags and links. The delightfully good hierarchical file system does make some notes hard to find without tags etc. But I use it in preference to umpteen better publicised apps I’ve tried. Pity it doesn’t come top in App Store on search for "Notebooks" but way down.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your review, we're glad to hear you are enjoying Notebooks. - Regarding your suggestions: (1) black is the default font color, and black and grey are already available for selection. So I am afraid I am not sure which font color you are referring to... (2) When pasting links into formatted documents (I suppose that is what you are using) we assume that users typically want to insert the "title" of that link as text rather than the plain link, hence our design decision. To get the full link, you can also use "Paste and Match Style", while "Insert Link" more carefully examines the copied URL and tries to make the best of it :-) (3) To quickly jump to Notebooks' top level you can tap and hold the "Back" button in the top left corner. (4) For finding documents you can use Notebooks' global full text search, which turns up everything, independent of position in hierarchy or context tags. (5) Position in search results: I agree ... if we started today we might give "Notebooks" a different name, but changing that after 14 years on the App Store, I don't know ;-)

Excellent app, unique features

This app is packed full of unique features. The ones I appreciate the most include the ability to manually change the order of documents (ie unlike most apps, you don’t have to auto sort by date or name, you can place documents in the order you want them, like in a paper file), you can turn any document into a task (making it easy for e.g. to track documents you want to read or which require edits) and it can auto extract tasks from written notes (amazingly, when you check these actions off, they are also marked as complete in the original note - perfect for meeting minutes).

It also has one of the nicest rich note editors, with table and contents list support.

Documents can be filed in folders (“notebooks”) or tagged (curiously, tags are called “contexts” but I just think of them as “tags”, unrelated to GTD principles).

It has a lovely split screen feature to view two documents at the same time.

It’s hard to find any gripes with this - the icon could do with being modernised, but I honestly can’t think of anything else.

I’m a lawyer and use this to manage my key documents, reading lists, tasks and case notes.

Outstanding Notes App

I have tried lots and this is, by a million miles, the best Notes app. It’s elegant and simple to use, but has masses of deep features to tune it to exactly how you want to work. I have used it everyday for probably 8 years and wouldn’t be anywhere near as productive without it. Given the quality and depth of functionality, It’s worth many, many times the purchase price. And the real deal clincher is my 2,500 notes are totally portable and not locked up in some proprietary database.