Taking notes is an important part of any student’s day. Whether you’re taking notes in class, jotting down ideas for a project, or just making a grocery list, you need to be able to write down your thoughts as they come to you.
But if you’re like me, then you’ve probably struggled with how best to take notes on an iPad. Sure, it’s easy enough to type up a few words here and there, but eventually you’ll want something more than just plain text. If that’s the case for you, then this article has what you need!
In this article we’ll cover five apps that make it easy for students like us to take notes on our iPads.
Best Apps For Taking Notes On Ipad
Using a tablet like an iPad to take notes has become increasingly popular – and the technology has rapidly evolved to meet users’ needs.
There’s no real “standard” note-taking app anymore – there are basic ones, but beyond those is a wide array of apps with bonus features that are no longer limited by what a normal pen and paper can do.
Since many of these more advanced note-taking apps cost money, it makes sense to do a little research before you commit. Here are our picks for the five best note-taking apps for the iPad, each boasting its own unique strengths.
Quick note: Many of these apps’ best features involve handwriting on the screen. You can do this with your finger or a stylus, but if you expect to handwrite often, we suggest buying an Apple Pencil .
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
OneNote lets you combine photos, text, and annotations.
OneNote lets you combine photos, text, and annotations.
Notability
Notability by Ginger Labs has won multiple awards, including an Editors’ Choice award on the Apple App Store – and for good reason.
This versatile app has plenty of options to take notes your own way, including 45 different canvases to start your work on and the ability to incorporate voice recordings into your work. What users love most about it is how smooth it feels when sketching or writing by hand.
Cost: $8.99
App store user rating: 4.8 stars
Layout options: 9 different styles of paper, 5 paper colors, optional reference sideboard
Organization: Individual notes can optionally be separated with dividers, much like in a binder.
Multimedia integration: Yes
Bonus features: PDF annotation, easy drawing and sketching, voice memo recording
You can draw and design notes in the Notability app.
You can draw and design notes in the Notability app.
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
You can get really creative with the GoodNotes 5 app.
You can get really creative with the GoodNotes 5 app.
Evernote
Evernote is incredibly versatile, as it’s not just a note taking app, but a storage app too. With Evernote, you can upload images, external notes, and texts all to one file. Evernote also makes it convenient to include web page clippings and voice memos in your notes. In fact, several other note-taking apps allow you to export directly into Evernote – so if you use another app for another purpose, you can still integrate them easily.
More important, though, is Evernote’s easy accessibility. Because it’s run via a web browser, it can be accessed from not only your iPad, but any device that connects to the internet.
Cost: The basic version is free, but only allows you to sync your notes to two devices, and has just 60MB of upload storage a month with a 25MB limit on file sizes. Evernote Premium, which you can sign up for in-app, is $7.99 a month, and gives you a whopping 10GB of storage per month with 200MB of uploads a month. Premium also provides syncing to unlimited devices, offline access to notes, and a host of other features. There’s also a business plan for workspaces that want to use Evernote to collaborate.
App store user rating: 4.4 stars
Layout options: A large selection of basic templates are available, and Premium lets you upload custom templates as well.
Organization: You can create folders and subfolders, or use the comprehensive search function to find what you’re looking for.
Multimedia integration: Yes
Bonus features: Integration with other apps, web-based access, manifold uploading features, optional Premium or Business upgrade
The Evernote app has great organizational capabilities.
The Evernote app has great organizational capabilities.
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
The Whink app has a fairly minimal interface.
The Whink app has a fairly minimal interface.
Deciding which app to use 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.
best note taking app for ipad for college students
If you’re a college student, keeping your notes (and yourself) organized can become increasingly difficult with every class, job, club, project, or other task that gets added to your to-do list. With everything you have to remember to do and all the classes you have to study for, those random Google docs, that pile of sticky notes on your desk, and those messy notebooks may not be enough to help you keep track of everything. If you need a better way to stay organized, keep reading.
CONTENTS
OneNote
Evernote
Apple’s Notes app
Google Keep
Simplenote
Whether you prefer to type or handwrite your notes, you have more options for note-taking than just using a word-processing app or paper notebooks. In fact, we’ve gathered a list of the best note-taking apps for college students below. We found options for your lecture notes and your to-do lists, so you’ll be sure to find something that works for you.
OneNote
OneNote Notebook example screenshot from Microsoft.
Microsoft
OneNote is Microsoft’s dedicated note-taking app, and it’s the only one on this list that most resembles an actual notebook. In OneNote, you can create separate notebooks, divide up your notebooks into sections with colorful tabs, and add pages of notes to each section. You can also search your notes, add videos and images to them, highlight them, and add drawings and annotations to them. There’s even an Immersive Reader mode that will read your notes back to you.
You can use OneNote as part of a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, or you can use the free OneNote for Windows 10 app that should’ve come preinstalled on your Windows 10 device. (You can also install the OneNote for Windows 10 app via the Microsoft Store.) The free Windows 10 app may not have as many premium features as the version that comes with a paid subscription, but it’s still a great option for college students on a budget.
Evernote
Sketching and annotation feature on Evernote.
Evernote
Evernote is great for college students who need an all-in-one solution for organizing their life (schedules and to-do lists) and their lecture notes and assignments. With this app, you’ll be able to keep track of your tasks and their due dates, connect Google Calendar to it, share your notes, annotate your handouts, and review your notes on all of your devices.
Evernote comes in two budget-friendly options for college students: Evernote Free and a student-discount version of Evernote Personal. Evernote Free is limited, but it does come with a lot of useful features, including the ability to sync your notes on up to two devices, unlimited notes, access to a dashboard with up to three widgets, a search function, and in-note tasks, and you can insert other file types like PDFs, images, and other documents.
Evernote’s student discount program allows students with a valid school email address to get a full year of Evernote Personal for 50% off. Without the discount, Evernote Personal costs $8 per month. You’ll have to pay to use Evernote Personal, but it does come with tons more features. You’ll get everything in Evernote Free, plus an increase in storage for your notes, more widgets for your dashboard, reminders and notifications for your assignments, offline access, and more.
Evernote is available for MacOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.
Apple’s Notes app
The Notes app being used on MacOS.
Apple
Apple’s Notes app isn’t just for apology posts on social media. Yes, you can use it to take notes and create to-do lists, but don’t let that simple interface fool you. You can do so much more than just type notes and lists into it. You can also share your notes, add photos or other files to your notes, search for a specific note, scan documents, add tables, and even sketch drawings and add shapes.
Best of all: It’s free, and it’s already included on iOS and MacOS devices, no need to download.
Google Keep
Showing how to add a new note to Google’s Keep web app.
screenshot
Google has its own answer to Apple’s Notes app, and that’s Keep. Keep is free to use and comes standard with a free Google account. Keep isn’t really built for your lecture notes, but you can keep track of your assignments and other to-dos with it. It’s actually a great way to digitize that pile of sticky note reminders on your desk.
You can set reminders (either location or time-based) for tasks you need to complete. You can write grocery lists or other to-do lists and share them with others so you can collaborate with them to complete tasks. You can even search your notes and reminders by things, colors, or type of note. And all of your edits and new notes will sync across all of your devices. You can even add images and create audio notes.
Keep is available for Android, iOS, and as a web app. (It was also available as a Chrome app, but Google ended support for the Keep Chrome app earlier this year.)
Simplenote
Simplenote app on Windows.
Simplenote/Automattic/Microsoft Store
Simplenote is a great option for those who want a note-taking app that has the user-friendliness and clean interface of a simpler notes app like Keep or Notes, and that can display longer notes (lectures, drafts, etc.) in a much more readable way. Simplenote’s interface combines the best of notebook-style apps like OneNote and sticky notes apps like Keep. It’s also totally free to use and is available on Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, and Linux.
Simplenote lets you share your notes, search your notes with tags, and access your notes on multiple devices.
Notion for Education
Notion for Education desktop app screenshot showing an example of organized class notes.
Notion Labs, Inc.
Students and educators may want to take advantage of Notion’s free app program, Notion for Education. Notion is known for being a solid, comprehensive “all-in-one workspace” product that mostly requires a paid subscription to use it. (There is another free version, called Personal, but it has limited features.)
But students and educators with valid school email addresses are in luck because the Notion for Education program allows them to have access to the Personal Pro premium subscription for free. With Notion, you can organize your lecture notes, to-do lists, and assignments and add other elements to your notes, like code, images, videos, or equations. You can also publish your notes online and create to-do lists and reading lists. The Personal Pro subscription also comes with unlimited pages, blocks, and file uploads, plus version history and unlimited guests.
Notion is available for MacOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.
Conclusion
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