Noteful: Note-Taking on PDF 4+

After the disappointment from GN6, I made the change to Noteful. I love all the extras even if I don’t use them as much such as the ruler, UI customization, tags. As a digital planner, I really like the style customization option and the washi tapes are cute. Adding stickers is not as easy as with GN. If you use the add image option it doesn’t allow you to add a picture straight from files, it needs to be on your camera roll which I don’t like. I would love to have an option such as GN elements where I could save my hand-drawn stickers saved as 1 element that I can easily copy. In Noteful is tricky because only the lasso will do it and you have to Make sure to get everything in the selection. The Duplicate option is a game changer and I hope it never goes away. Hopefully they move the delete option a bit forward on the list and make it red or bold. The nesting bookmarks for outlining your digital notes it’s amazing. I use this to create a digital notebook for my lab notes since lab notes can get messy quick this keeps everything nicely organized. Even though I have some pet peeves, these don’t negate the fact that this is a well built, well thought out app and that’s why it gives 5 stars. Also, the developers update every other week and it does seem like they do read suggestions from users.

I ran across Noteful by accident during recent pandemonium around GoodNotes/Notability updates that people hated. To be fair, I didn’t really hate either of those updates I didn’t really get the panic, y’all act like the sky is falling because a toolbar was improved, but still, it made me curious when I saw many really positive reactions to Noteful. I was curious enough to investigate, and I’m glad I did!! There are certain little annoyances that almost any app has and the same was true of GN/NB, both of which I went back and forth but never truly loved (actually Zinnia was in that loop for me). Incredibly, Noteful checks all the boxes and adds stuff I wouldn’t have thought of!! I actually love it beyond any of the others I used and that’s saying a lot because I love my journaling enough to pretend I love my notes app no matter how annoying it is but in retrospect overlooking minor inconveniences is not the same as loving an app and guess what? I deserve to love my notes app in addition to, not in spite of, my journals. I would almost take a star off for not being able to create links but, meh. They need to add that though, it’s a huge and as far as I can see the only glaring thing missing. Oh and actually I would like to adjust the shape outline and fill color/transparency separately. That’s all!!

I'd really like to thank the developer(s). This really is a joy to use. All of the features that I need, with no unnecessary ones, and an extensive free mode to let me fall in love with it naturally. At this point, I have tried every note taking app and this one is the best deal. The biggest reason for me has got to be the shape input. I don't think the AppStore listing sells this feature hard enough, so here's my experience. 1. Draw approximate shape, and hold at closing vertex 2. While still holding, adjust size and rotation. 3. Release pen to enter vertex edit mode, where the shape can be fine tuned. (Once you've stopped editing vertices though, the shape is locked in) No other app gets this right. Shape input is *so* natural, versatile, and consistent. The only improvement I could ask for is allowing the editing of a shape that has already been finalized. I understand that if the shape is no longer a vector object that this makes it impossible, but a nerd can dream. - A very very happy customer

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Wonderful news: They have continued improving this app. The new keyboard shortcuts are quite handy, even if some of them are placed on the right-side of the keyboard. I hope they offer options for customizing these hotkeys soon.