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The first reliable note-taking application for Mac is Apple Notes. Since Apple Notes is a part of Apple’s productivity suite it comes pre-installed on every modern-day mac computer. You can attach all sorts of media files like photos, videos, documents scanned from your iPhone, hand-drawn sketches, audio recordings, and much more to your notes.
As of Apple's launch of the iPad Air 3 and the iPad mini 5, all-new model iPad devices support Apple Pencil. That's the 9.7-inch iPad, iPad Air, iPad Pro, and iPad mini. Whether you need to take handwritten notes, annotate documents, record audio, create sports playbooks, and more, the App Store has a number of fantastic apps for note-taking. Here isç the cream of the crop based on our extensive testing.
Starting out? Try The Notes app
The iPad's default Notes app is perfectly suited for use with Apple Pencil. It has text recognition search, inline scanning and annotation, and sketching or handwriting support. With Apple Pencil 2, you can assign the double-tap tool to either erase or the last tool used. It has more limited features than the best third-party notes app — you can't sync your notes anywhere but iCloud, and there's no easy way to link various notes together — but if you're just jotting down a quick note or sketching an idea, the Notes app is that perfect quick-hit app. Sort of like having a napkin with you at all times.
Notability is the best for general note-taking
Uninstall adobe genuine software integrity service mac. Notability is a fan favorite of many note-taking aficionados, including me. It has an excellent interface full of tools for handwriting, drawing, annotating PDFs, making shapes, highlighting, moving objects around, adding audio, integrating photos and web clips, and more. If you want your note-taking experience to feel more real, you can choose from a number of different paper styles, including grids, which is very useful for vector line drawing. You can share your notebooks to just about every major service and print them, along with importing notebooks from Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or a WebDAV service. Notability also offers iCloud sync support and a companion Mac app.
Because it's so feature-rich, it can seem a little intimidating to newcomers. Luckily, Notability has a really nice tutorial that guides you through its features when you first open it.
It also works flawlessly with the Apple Pencil — whether you're writing, sketching, or drawing shapes. It's an excellent, well-designed app if you want a little bit more power than what the default Notes app provides.
GoodNotes is for the power-using note-taker. It is packed to the brim with a robust list of pro features. I'd never heard of the app until developer Chris Liscio pointed it out, and I'm so happy he did.
For starters, GoodNotes offers a truly massive selection of paper types for its digital notebooks, including lined, graph, design, and music notation; there are even advanced options that let you upload custom templates. Better still, most templates are available in specific paper sizes (if you're working for print). GoodNotes also offers a ton of different cover styles and choices, all of which can be written upon and further designed.
Like the other apps in this roundup, GoodNotes supports writing and drawing with the Apple Pencil — along with a number of third-party stylus options — using two different digital writing tools: a digital fountain or ball pen in a preset or custom color spectrum.
GoodNotes also has built-in handwriting search recognition and text conversion (done via MyScript's engine, which also powers MyScript Nebo).
Note: As friend-of-iMore Jason Snell has pointed out, apps like GoodNotes do this largely by guessing your words. You might get a hit for 'app' after writing the word, but searching for 'ape' might bring you to the same page.
If you're looking for a more extensive option than Notability, GoodNotes is a feature-rich app well worth the download.
For Office users, OneNote is great
Microsoft's note app is more of a note storing receptacle than a full-featured note-taking app. That being said, it's got plenty of useful features for iPad owners with an Office 365 subscription. Even if you don't you can import and edit documents for free. You just need a Microsoft or Skype account. With OneNote, you can share links to your notebooks to the public, email a PDF of your notebook to others, and annotate documents with your Apple Pencil. In a single note, you can sketch an idea, add photos and audio, type notes, create calendars, and more. It's similar to Evernote but is designed to work seamlessly with Office 365.
PDF Expert is the king of PDF annotation and markup
Though you can quickly highlight, edit, and markup PDFs on your iPad using the built-in Markup extension, if you regularly need to annotate PDF files, you should consider PDF Expert instead. It's got a list of comprehensive markup tools to make things easier for you. You can open up PDFs from iCloud or pretty much any other online service with the PDF Expert app, fill out forms, and sign documents; you can also work with items with a digital pen, shape tool, underline, strike-thru, or highlighter option, as well as create 'stamps' for often-used wording. All of these changes, after saved, are not only fully editable in PDF Expert, but in apps like Adobe Acrobat and Preview — so you can move from Mac to PC and back again with your iPad.
PDF Expert also lets you edit the structure of PDFs themselves: You can rearrange pages, delete sections, extract parts of the PDF, and even add new blank pages to your documents. Once you're finished with a PDF document, you can even zip it (or multiple documents) with PDF Expert's built-in compressor, and password-protect crucial documents.
Should you want to further tinker with your PDFs, Expert offers a Pro upgrade in-app that allows you to physically edit the text, images, and links inside a PDF, as well as redact information.
If you need handwriting recognition, get MyScript Nebo
Forget mere note-taking: If you want your scribbles converted to text, you're going to need an app that supports handwriting conversion. We've come a long way from the Newton and egg freckles, but the apps available for such things are still few and far between. Apps like Notes and GoodNotes scan your text for search purposes, but don't offer outright handwriting recognition. In contrast, there are apps like MyScript Nebo, which offers full handwriting-to-text conversion.
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MyScript has been a big name in handwriting recognition for years (including a handwriting recognition keyboard), but the Nebo app is the company's first attempt at an app designed for Apple Pencil and iPad Pro, and it's excellent. It's simple enough to use and offers a silky-smooth digital pen tool in multiple colors. In addition, users can add photographic and video content, diagrams, and equations alongside handwriting or digital text.
Nebo's notebooks can be converted a paragraph at a time or as a full notebook; those conversions are entirely non-destructive, too, so you can preserve the handwriting if the type conversion isn't perfect. You can also export notebooks as text, HTML, PDF, or Word documents. Sync is available through MyScript's proprietary service, as well as iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox.
Here are some other great note-taking apps that don't necessarily fit this list, but are still worth mentioning in their own right.
- Evernote, Free with in-app subscription: Like Microsoft's OneNote, Evernote is an incredible import repository for organizing a ton of data, notes, documents, and sketches. But to take full advantage of its sync capabilities, PDF annotation, and more, you need a monthly subscription. Evernote is great if you need all the features a subscription provides, but not quite worth jumping in for the free version.
- LiquidText, Free with in-app purchases: LiquidText is a brilliant concept for organizing and annotating PDFs but it's a little too specialized to be considered equal to PDF Expert.
- Noteshelf, $13.99: This app combines many great features from Notability and GoodNotes, including custom page templates and audio recordings, but the writing tool isn't quite as good.
- Notes Plus, $9.99: Notes Plus is a strong entry in the handwriting recognition category with support for Apple Pencil — but it's a little clunkier in the looks department, with iffy palm rejection.
- Whink, $4.99: Whink is a great entry-level handwriting app, and it's still quite nice, offering nice pen tools, audio and photo integration, and basic document annotation. But the stock Notes app is a better overall recommendation for most users.
Your favorites?
These note-taking apps are the perfect fit for iPad and Apple Pencil users. They're not the only ones in the App Store, though. Do you have a favorite you'd like to see on this list? Put them in the comments!
Updated April 2019: Updated for Apple Pencil 2 and support for iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 5.
Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.
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Today we will discuss Microsoft OneNote and Bear Notes in detail. These days note-taking on virtual space has become quite common. People are now working/studying from home and so they have a constant online presence for meetings and attending lectures. And that requires taking notes for their respective work. For that, we have a lot of note-taking apps available. But how to know which is the best one for a Mac.? Most of the people these days are using Macbooks. The reliable and brand-oriented laptops from Apple are always a great tool for professionals. However, it is equally important to use applications that provide a lot of features and are easy to use.
So, in this guide, we will compare both OneNote and BearNotes based on various factors. While Microsoft’s product is a free one the other one is not entirely free. This itself is a great deciding factor for the users. In today’s tech-savvy world, people look for various other features other than only the pricing structure of the apps. Hence, we will also look at other features the note-taking apps are offering.
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Best Note Taking App Mac College
1Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac in 2020
Best Note-Taking Apps for Mac in 2020
I have tabulated the advantages and probable disadvantages of the applications below. Before we begin our comparison, you may download any of these apps for your Mac. The download links are available below.
![Apps Apps](/uploads/1/2/7/2/127269409/860333599.jpg)
Downloads
Great Note Taking Apps Mac Free
- Microsoft OneNote | Download
- Bear Notes | Download
While Microsoft One Note is free to download with all the features, Bear Notes only provides basic features in the free bundle. If you require all the features it has to offer, then you need to buy its monthly($1.49) or annual($14.49) subscription.
Comparison of Benefits and Downsides of OneNote from Microsoft
First, we will take a look at the various advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft OneNote.
Advantages | Downsides |
It can easily work in tandem with other Microsoft Products | No backup system for Windows 10 version |
supports latest hashtags to make the keywords stand out in any project | Minimal design |
You can append text anywhere which makes it flexible | Not available for Linux |
Better search features to keep track of myriads of notes that you create over time | Strictly requires a Microsoft Account |
Multiple tabs for multiple notes that you create | The app is not open source |
Supports the device where you can use stylus/digital pen to write | Search functionality can be improved |
Supports Encryption | Sorting has to be done manually |
Support for Font Customization | Depends upon 3rd party apps for features like Find and Replace |
Great cross-platform support. It is available for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android. desktop and web | You cannot create/delete or import custom tags from Windows OS to other OS |
user-friendly and easy interface similar to the usual Microsoft style design. | Not possible to anchor the annotations to any image in a note |
Can convert handwritten notes to regular text format | Issues in Syncing happens between platforms |
Import events can be imported to the notes | |
Several themes and background |
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Comparing the Pros and Drawbacks of Bear Notes
Now, let’s check out what Bear Notes has to offer and on what grounds it should improve itself
Pros | Drawbacks |
Supports hashtags to highlight important keywords | Strictly supports macOS (OSX) and iOS, no cross-platform support |
Instant preview of the notes | issues in synchronizing notes between both the mobile and PC platform |
The paid version with a monthly subscription is cheaper | You can create only 1 note at a time |
Supports multiple formats like PDF, TXT, HTML | The free version has limited features. |
My Opinion on Best Note Taking App
Best Note Taking Apps Macbook
I would suggest going with Microsoft OneNote as it is free and has loads of features. Most people use the notes app to quickly jot down points in a meeting or a lecture. So, if writing is the only purpose, then it’s better to stick to something that is free and comes from a branded source.
Besides several people use Microsoft Windows OS. So, they have a dedicated Microsoft mail ID. One sign-up and you can easily start taking notes right away. Though I would have liked it if it was open source for further customization from the user’s end.
I’m not saying that Bear Notes is bad. But the pricepoint is not convincing. Also, the platform support is limited, and no multi-note creation feature. Though they offer a free version, its features are limited. It’s good for them who just want to jot down notes and later cut/copy them to other editors. That’s also time-consuming. Hence, my vote is for OneNote for its cross-platform support, free availability, and interactive user interface.
So, that’s all about deciding which is the best note-taking apps of 2020 for Mac. I hope this guide will help you decide between selecting OneNote or Bear Notes as your tools of the trade for online lecturers and meetings. Which one would you choose and why.? Let me know in the comments section below.
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