Better Notes: Handwriting
Handwrite, sketch & mark PDFs
Free
Turn handwriting, typed text, PDFs, shapes and recordings into a beautifully organised, private notebook—without an account or subscription.
Better Notes is a focused idea studio for handwriting, sketching, typed notes and PDF annotation. It combines the freedom of paper with the organisation and editing tools of a modern native app.
WRITE NATURALLY
Capture smooth, pressure-aware ink with fountain pen, ballpoint, fineliner, pencil, calligraphy, brush, reed pen, marker and highlighter tools. Adjust colour, width and stabilisation, then erase by stroke or precisely through ink.
BUILD PAGES YOUR WAY
Choose blank, ruled, dotted, grid, Cornell and margin paper. Mix A4, A5, Letter and Legal pages in portrait or landscape—even inside the same notebook. Add, duplicate, bookmark and reorder your thinking page by page.
MORE THAN HANDWRITING
Add editable styled text, shapes and images. Move, rotate, recolour and organise content across independent layers with visibility, locking and opacity controls.
ANNOTATE PDFs
Import a PDF, write directly over it and keep its links intact. Export finished work as PDF, PNG, JPEG, Markdown or plain text whenever you need to share or continue elsewhere.
RECORD THE MOMENT
Attach audio to a page during a lecture, meeting or brainstorming session. Rename recordings and jump back to the page where each recording began.
FIND AND ORGANISE IDEAS
Create spaces and nested folders, add tags, mark favourites, revisit recent notes and recover items from Trash. Search notebook titles, tags and typed page content from one fast local library.
PRIVATE BY DESIGN
Better Notes works locally and offline. Your notebooks and recordings stay on your device unless you choose to export or share them. There is no required account, advertising or behavioural tracking.
BUILT FOR APPLE DEVICES
Enjoy a responsive light interface designed for touch, Apple Pencil, pointer and keyboard. Better Notes supports keyboard shortcuts, accessibility labels and Reduce Motion.
Make space for your next thought—and keep every stroke editable.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
The developer, Luke Mclaughlin, 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.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Luke Mclaughlin
- Size
- 11.2 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 18.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 18.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 18.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 15.0 or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 2.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Luke Kevin McLaughlin