Name: Notes Plus
Rating: 3.56238 (1611 reviews)

User Reviews for Notes Plus

3.56 out of 5

1.6K Ratings

4 years ago, EmaNekaf23

Love it!

I'm one of those authors who can think and write better while writing by hand than by typing, but I always hated having to go back and type my notebooks after writing them. The handwriting to text feature saves me /hours/! The other features make it easier to change things and move things around faster than you could in a normal notebook. Pro tip: The handwriting to text feature converts cursive with better accuracy than print even if your cursive is terrible like mine. You don't have to write in cursive, but I'm all about making changes to save time, in this case when you are cleaning up the converted text. There's only reason I'm giving this four stars instead of five. On a previous notebook app I used that was discontinued and is not supported by newer versions of iOS, it gave the option of creating a custom dictionary (Aside from that, I consider it for the best that I had to switch apps, because Notes Plus is superior in every other way). As a fantasy author, being able to have technoloy recognize fantasy terms was incredibly helpful on the other app. I keep hoping Noten Plus will add a custom dictionary. I guess I'll have to keep waiting. For the time being, I still recommend this app with no hesitation.

7 years ago, HC Stevens

Should have normal responses

I like the idea of this program and much of it works relatively as you would expect. However, I like to combine text with writing and the text part of the program is glitchy causing me to save, quit and restart often in one writing session. A few suggestions I hope get fixed SOON: when selecting a location to type in the T mode, the pages automatically scroll up, up, up, up every time and don’t select where I am touching. Weird and super frustrating. Also, when you select to delete a page, which the app creates blank pages seemingly randomly as you type or move text/notes, the app says you can’t. Undo this option but it doesn’t confirm the page you want to delete, so you just cross your fingers the right page gets deleted. Some times the text pages don’t have borders or are zoomed in randomly while other pages are the opposite, and as you scroll your work appears to have disappeared, then slowly reappears on the page. Hope you wait to make sure the page isn’t blank and then delete it! Lastly, if use return to move a section of text, the app will spread that section over multiple pages, often leaving just a few words on a few pages with the rest of the words on a few more pages. What?! Lastly, there is not option to save your document as one document. Instead, it is saved and exported with each page being a separate document. Why in the...?! Please fix these things, makers of Notes Plus!

7 years ago, Idaho1976

Best writing to text app, but lacks in other areas for college

Notes plus is a good app, but it defiantly has some issues. No drag and drop is an issue. As a medical student, I use multiple note apps. One to take all the notes in, and another to condense all the notes. For this I like to copy small parts of diagrams, and place these pictures next to a brief description of the drug or disease. Notability is the only app that I have seen do this. I can paste these pictures into some apps. The lag on Notes plus on pasting more than one picture between apps is 5 minutes. Notes Plus also seems to struggle more with larger documents. Yet I like the smoothness of the writing in this app. The Handwriting to text is best in Notes Plus. Selecting which pages to import is also nice. Being able to see more pages than notability is nice. The search feature is one of the main reasons notability is the best college app, and the file organization is great. Good notes has one feature I love. Once you select the defect shape feature it is east to quickly highlight and get very straight lines. That feature makes pre-lecture reading a faster process. I like many features of many apps, but none of them are prefect. One feature no app has, but I would like to see is the ability to add several pictures at the same time from photos to a document. Each of these photos would be their own page. This would be of great use for many university students.

7 years ago, Addy111dffffffff

Great app for handwriting but has hiccups

I use this app daily both at work and school. It is the perfect companion for the Ipad with Apple Pencil. It has many pro’s to the handwriting experience and have preferred this app to many others (goodnotes, metamoji, Notes, ect.) Good job building the app. Nevertheless, I have to bring up the fact that lately the app is losing its credibility. I have had various features that have broken on me. When I got the app, getting files from dropbox was readily available. A while back, I could no longer reach dropbox through the app (had to find an alternative way to import files into the app). I cannot export recordings without having to disable icloud backup when transferring the files to my computer. Recently adding pages to a pdf, corrupts the files and all marks get shifted and messes the whole file. When renaming files, it gets messed up and shuts down. As you may expect, I’ve spent a bit of time having to find alternatives to these problems. I’ve sent request through their help service and have not gotten many responses to my requests. Hopefully this is not a negative trend team. The app is a great product, but I hope the team gets on the ball with all of these required bug fixes.

6 years ago, The_Best_Review!

Summary: Which app will be the future of notetaking, Notes Plus or Notability?

Pluses: An intuitive tool that allows notes to be taken easily and fluently for both academic and work purposes. Very straightforward and easy to use. The number of tools or well-designed and allows for a smooth note writing experience. Major Minus: Notability has caught up with Notes Plus, copying many of its features. A few years ago Notes Plus was clearly the better option, that is no longer the case. Notes Plus would clearly be the better application except that Notability now has an incredibly advanced search function, not only can handwritten notes be searched but now PDFs can be searched. Meaning that PDFs can be uploaded, a general search can be completed and it will show which PDFs contain the word, then where in each PDF the word is, this is done by highlighting it. This is a huge advantage because PDFs can simply be uploaded and dropped into this app, terms can then be searched and notes apply to them when need be. In notes plus, PDFs are not searchable and written text is not highlighted when it is searched. Question: Will Notes Plus be adding more advanced search functions in the near future?

5 years ago, Simeon A

The best just keeps getting better.

When I purchased my first generation iPad Notes Plus was one of the first Apps I installed. The possibility of using a device to create a handwritten digital notebook was fascinating. Not only was the initial concept very exciting but as each update and new version was released I discovered something more, the heart within the app. The developer Viet Tran and his team constantly amaze me at their responsiveness to user feedback and implementing new ideas that make continue to move Notes Plus into the realm of excellence. Every time I open the app I feel a deep sense of connection to not only the notes and journaling I create but feel the team and community of users as well. The 6.1 update is possibly the most anticipated yet as Notes Plus moves into a new unified notebook format. This will allow for more growth and efficiency going into the future. Notes Plus continues to be the best iPad note taking application available and I look forward with much enthusiasm continuing to use it in all aspects whether the mundane all the way capturing life experiences and as a repository for my future hopes and dreams. All the best to Viet and the team!

7 years ago, CarterMDiv

Best App for Writing, Bad for File Sizes

First and foremost, this is by far the best app for writing. I prefer pen and paper over typing, and I use a Lamy Safari fountain pen. This app is the closest to my penmanship on pen and paper, and so I love this app for that reason. I also like the functionality of working on PDFs from within the app and marking them up. The zoom feature is fantastic and is another important reason one should use this app. However, my main issue is the file sizes when exporting. I had the same problem with an app on my old Samsung device when I wrote notes on top of a PDF. The file sizes when exporting to a PDF are tremendously large. If exporting three (3) hand-written pages, expect the file to be about 3MB. Compare this to a 6 page typed document that was converted to PDF and it is 56KB. Those three pages compose a 54x bigger file. This means that my notes from class, which can be over 50 pages (~1MB/page), would not even be able to be emailed as most emails only allow <25MB files. I know the reasons is because of the handwriting which seems to be vectors, but something needs to be done to make this more reasonable.

6 years ago, bmorris337

Not at all effective . . .

It’s really sad that this app isn’t currently operating at its true potential. Things will just frantically erase on another part of the page while I’m mid writing and then the complete opposite will happen. Something like a dot at the top of an “i” or a period even a small line will permanently stay there on the page and disappears when I click on the eraser, not allowing the mark to be erased. Both of these inconveniences are particularly rather annoying to say the least. I like how the pen on this app writes and that’s probably about it. I’d like to say that this app is just too complex for simplistic note taking, but that would give it undeserving praise. The amount of buttons needed to be pushed in order to produce just a straight line, a simple shape or anything else seemingly uncomplicated is made so bothersome!!! Consequently I could, without a doubt, never use this app during an actual lecture. I’d be too afraid that my important class notes would be erased or that I’d get too behind in note taking from trying to do something so simple as underline a word. THIS IS NOT THE APP TO BE USED IN CLASS!!! Some major changes need to be made before this app can even reach 3 stars let alone deserve a full 5. Once GoodNotes makes some minor changes there won’t be any use of other note taking apps, if Notes Plus could even be considered as a note taking app.

5 years ago, ericbfitness

Great notes tool.

I saw a colleague using his iPad and Apple Pencil a couple years ago at an event. When I lost a paper notebook recently, it was time to kit up and get an iPad, Apple Pencil and Notes Plus. I’m glad I did. This app has been great in keeping all of my notebooks in one easy-to-find location. And I’m loving how my writing is what I see in each of the notebooks. Some questions for the developer - 1. I am a lefty and I have my settings as such in the app for use with the Apple Pencil. I prefer to scroll with one finger on my right hand and it usually works, but I have noticed that sometimes my 1-finger scroll doesn’t work... It comes back after a while, but why is that happening? Am I missing a setting / toggle somewhere? 2. Sometimes, as I’m writing with the pencil, the notebook preview screen pops up on the left and I’m not sure what I’m doing / what gesture is triggering that preview. 3. Often times I’ll be writing with the pencil. I’ll lift it up from the screen and go to write more, but the pencil has switched to erase mode. I may be double tapping the Apple Pencil to toggle between the write and erase when I lift up from the screen, but I’m not sure that is the root cause. I’ve also made sure the tip of the Apple Pencil is secure too. Are there other gestures that could toggle that I’m missing? Thank you! It’s a great app and look forward to using it more!

7 years ago, Baileyontherockz

Not worth it for bad handwritters

I got this app purely because I wanted to convert my handwritten notes to text so that it’s easier to read because my handwriting is terrible. Well I read a review from an engineer who was raving about it, and engineers are also known for having bad handwriting. Well I’m a math and geophysics major and so handwritten notes are necessary because of all the symbols, but I would like to have legible notes. The handwriting to text conversion didn’t recognize ANY of my text. All of it was wrong. I regret buying this app. It’s a waste of money for me. It’s only useful because of that conversion, but if it doesn’t work for bad handwriting what’s even the point? It’s not as necessary to convert good handwriting to text as it is to convert bad handwriting to text. This in general was actually one of the biggest reason why I even wanted an iPad Pro, so my notes could be legible. There should at least be a free trial because I wouldn’t have bought it if I had known how bad the app was for what I needed it for. And the interfaces of free apps are a lot better than this one. I also hate that it erases things when I didn’t even scribble it out and then other times I scribble for like an entire minute and still doesn’t delete the thing. It’s so frustrating. Definitely not worth it.

5 years ago, wujsioyhnm

Used to be my favorite handwriting app but recent versions are disappointing

This app used to be my favorite handwriting app because of its smooth strokes and features that allow me to easily erase, select, and move written text. After the iOS13 update, however, the handwriting is no longer smooth and it sometimes fails to recognize strokes if I write faster (while in other handwriting apps my Apple Pencil still works perfectly). Another issue I’ve been having with this app is the lack of search-ability even though it claims to support conversion from handwriting to text. While the OCR button in the tool bar seems to recognize my handwriting without any issue, the intended pages never show up when I try to use the search bar in the top left corner to find specific words. Also I hope Notes Plus can keep the OCR texts when exporting to pdf so that the exported file is still searchable, which would be a huge plus. Although I loved Notes Plus in the past, these bugs have become more and more annoying for me. If they are not fixed in the near future I am considering the switch to other note taking apps entirely.

6 years ago, Iphonefish

Too glitchy for the price

I downloaded this app after playing with the developers free handwriting app. I was very impressed with the way the Apple Pencil interacts with the screen. It felt more like true writing to me. The OCR feature is also quite nice, and I found that it recognized my handwriting pretty well. However, in the course of trying to use the app for note taking in the real world situations. I found it more difficult than I expected. Sometimes random dots and lines appear on the page, and when I go to use the eraser tool to erase them they disappear as soon as I hit the tool. When I go back to the pen mode, the lines reappear. Very frustrating. Also, two full pages of notes disappeared from the notebook. I’m willing to admit that that could’ve been user error, but I have no idea how I would have made them disappear. Also, as mentioned in other reviews, the scribble to a race feature does not work very well. I also didn’t like that you have to go into a special edit mode to name each page. It took too many clicks to get there, and just felt cumbersome. Overall, I think the app could be really great, but I felt it was not a very good value for the price right now.

4 years ago, Bob(Swede)

Been using 4-5 years > Great for business

I normally do not write many reviews unless something is extraordinary.. either good or bad. In this case it is very good. I have been using Notes Plus for over 4 years. I have found it to extremely useful for my business work. Details - I can keep all of my notes from meetings with me at all times. I have been in meetings where I have had to recall information amount a supplier from e years before. I can search in Notes Plus, go to the meeting (where I have inserted a phot of the business cards of everyone present) review my notes and look at the photos of the products that I had taken that day and embedded into my notes. If I had kept an audio recording of the meeting that is available also. Issues- To date I have never had a loss of information (I do back it up to my PC) and am 95% satisfied. The only issues I have had is if I have added a lot of photos or other images into a document and not shut the app down for a long time, it will slow the writing speed. I shut it down and restart and the issue is generally resolved. Preferences I wish they had the option to copy pages in a workbook or even set up a full workbook in the app. I would like to make my own, personalized year long, dated planner and have it in the APP to help with my ability to organize things more efficiently. I am having to do that myself and it is very cumbersome. Great APP and I hope you continue to improve and support it!

5 years ago, Jada42

Fell short of expectations

I have never written a review but, with this app most likely being used for educational purposes, I felt the need give my input. I was very hopeful about this app when I first purchased it despite it being ranked lower than some of its competitors. I have been using it for about 3 months now hoping that some of the minor glitches would be corrected but, the amount of glitches and the frequency of them have increased since first downloading the app. I have now lost at LEAST 4 whole notebooks worth of graduate course notes both on the app as well as my iCloud Drive. I also unintentionally set a password to protect my notebooks/folders and 1) there is not an easily accessible way to reset your password, which is very frustrating and 2) when I contacted their support team, I received an initial email to help me solve the issue but when the steps they gave me did not work and I tried contacting them again, I got no response. I understand there probably isn’t a completely perfect app but I relied on this app heavily in order to be as successful in an already stressful graduate program, and the added stress of losing my notes is very frustrating!

6 years ago, KSC Jan

I really want to like this app!!! But I can’t even start using it:(

Update: This happened that time and since then, without seemingly changing anything, I have been able to use it. Now I just wish that it read Word Documents and make them editable in the same manner as PDFs. It is an excellent app, my daughter uses it for all her school work that requires note taking, or reviews. The developers are very responsive and go out of their way to make sure that the customers are happy with the product!! Old review: I purchased this app after extensively researching the top note taking apps available for the iPad Pro. I liked all the features offered by Notes Plus and decided to install it for my imminent need to review three pdf files from work. I cannot seem to be able to import the pdf files into Notes Plus, although I have watched multiple videos on how to do it from an email, from iBooks, from Files, etc. I do not use Dropbox nor Google Drive for my work documents so I don’t have those available. The files are on my iPad and/or iCloud. Notes Plus does not show up on the list of Open With apps. Even when I go to More, it does not show Notes Plus on the list to add it. I have deleted the app and reinstalled it, and nothing changes. This is extremely frustrating!! I sent an email to de developer and have not gotten an answer yet. My experience with this app has been very frustrating in these three days since I purchased it!:(

7 years ago, gdp4

By far the best!

I’ve had this app for years. My need is to be able to take handwritten notes and convert them to text. I’ve tried every app in the App Store. None ever worked well enough to meet my needs. I now own the new iPod Pro, and pencil. Paired with these, Notes Plus is amazing! At last I can take handwritten notes in real time, as if I was using a really good pen, and Notes Plus does a remarkable job of accurately turning them into text! I tried my other apps too, but they’re not even in the running. Kudos to the Notes Plus folks!!! There is one problem for me with the app. I have to convert, copy, and move my document one page at a time, which is slow and tedious. If I could convert a whole document to text at once (rather than page at a time), copy it all at once, and paste the entire document where I need it, I would be in heaven. I hope the app is upgraded so it can do that. Otherwise, I hesitate using it for documents more than two pages long.

3 years ago, Muskego Dave

Sorry, but I’m changing my rating

This used to be my favorite handwriting app. In fact, I still believe it has one of the best fountain pen algorithms available on any platform. But over time, it has become unusable. Many times when I am writing, the “ink” will simply stop following my Apple Pencil. At first, I thought it was my pencil’s fault. But my pencil works fine on other handwriting apps. Also, when scrolling with my finger down the page, it now leaves marks or smudges from time to time. Also, there are many times when I try to erase something, it won’t erase! I hit the undo button sever times and text BEFORE the text I want to delete disappears, but not the most recent text. But sometimes, I can then scroll the screen, and the text will then vanish, which tells me there is a screen buffering problem. My iPad hasn’t changed over the last three years. The only thing that has changed is the updates I have done to this app. I cannot even write simple notes without having to go back afterward and spend tons of time fixing all the problems caused by all of the bugs. I’m sorry and saddened to say that this app no longer works. 😢

5 years ago, 911only_rvwr

Chernobyl of apps

Obviously no discerning consumer is installing Notes Plus at this point but it is good that it remains in the App Store so people can benefit from the lessons learned. There is no point in rehashing the details of went wrong again here except to highlight that the product was a pretty broadly adopted darling of handwriting recognition fans. They were cleverly tweaking around the edges of the cutting edge of functionality when they rolled out a poorly tested revision and decimated years of user data and essentially self destructed. A timely reminder to be wary when you are integrating a product or function into your critical workflow when you’ve paid less than the price of your breakfast for it. It’s not the bells or whistles (or advertising & promotion) that get short changed at these companies — it’s the basic blocking and tackling ... the testing and risk management. Many probably felt they had a lot of backup ... were as safe as they could be. They couldn’t have imagined a company, so successful to date, would release a revision that would dig all the way back into the historical data, and the way it interacts with the app, and blow it all up. Boom. Chernobyl.

7 years ago, iWanit

Fast and beautiful

I use this app as my electronic Engineering Notebook. I especially like the natural appearance of the inking engine. The pens can be tailored to mimic my pen on paper appearance almost to a tee! The conversion of written notes to text to make searchable notebooks is particularly handy, specially when searching for old data. Notes Plus has relegated my other note apps to the archives. This app has won a coveted page 1 icon location! What also seems to set Notes Plus apart is the developers commitment to constantly improving the app. They gladly accept ideas and criticisms and will establish open dialog with their users to reach resolution. Sure Notes Plus is not perfect ( yet ) but it has become my go to notebook app. There are some things I wish it did better but those issues are mainly one of personal preference. I do wish that the search function highlighted the found words on the page - I am told this is coming! [Additional Comments] This app is stupendous on the new iPad 10.5! I was considering getting the Pencil but the Adonit Pixel works so well with this app, and the new glass feels so smooth, it actually improved my handwriting. I did cooberate the graphics placement issue, but this was addressed nearly immediately. I've worked with the team at Notes Plus and they are responsive and interested in me as a customer. I cannot recommend this app enough.

5 years ago, ZAD90

Great App, but Palm Rejection needs some work

Fanatic App! I have switched to using the iPad (specifically Note Plus) in all my client intakes and note taking ventures—trial lawyer here...take A LOT of handwritten notes. Couple of Points I would like to see improved on: (1) Easier exporting/naming—I save all my notes as PDF in client folders on my firm’s server. I have to remember to rename each PDF Note as the app carrys the naming of my previous note to my new notebook...creating a lot of confusion when trying to locate a note; (2) Palm Rejection needs some work, very frequently when I go to write in the notebook the app zooms the note to the point that I often have to pinch to resize to normal “fit” zoom; (3) Add “insert date” button, I date all of my handwritten notes so when I print them to the file they are put in the proper order...would be nice if there was a way to insert date by default. Otherwise app works great! But Please Please Please work on better Palm Rejection...very annoying to have to stop note taking to resize the note.

4 years ago, Caveecat

10 Years Strong

Ten years ago, I got my first iPad and struggled to find a good handwriting app for it until my friend bought me this one. Since then, I’ve gone to new jobs where I need to write more or less and my interest in this app has waxed and waned. Today when I finally got an Apple Pencil, however, I came back to this app, and it remains the best app out there to take handwritten notes, convert them into text, and email them to coworkers while still keeping my handwritten notes intact. I’ll admit I haven’t used this for anything professional in a few years, because I only had the Apple Pencil on a single Saturday so far and I left my project manager days behind me years ago, but I used it for a DnD session (while fiddling around with a couple of other note rating apps like OneNote and Notability) and this app remains perfect for how I take notes. Honestly, the feature to beat (outside the handwriting recognition— OneNote requires you to convert to text on a computer and doesn’t support that on a tablet) is the little window to write in. It makes it easy to see what I’m doing and it’s got a natural flow to it that works really well for me and always has. I was sold on this 10 years and three jobs ago, and I’m sold on this now. Thanks for keeping this app up to date and fantastic. So many apps over the years haven’t.

7 years ago, BCtripper

Just what I needed

This app is just what I've been looking for. I just got an iPad Pro as a gift along with the Apple Pencil. I remember the old Newton write recognition and was looking forward to doing similar on the iPad, as I take notes for research and other things. This app great, easy to use, and versatile. Update Since my last comment, NotesPlus has become an even greater part of my workflow. Using it for research notes, the ability to view, copy and paste directly from the internet while remaining in NotesPlus, export directly into Scrivener ( iOS version) projects, sketching with notes, all using my Apple Pencil. Like back in school, taking notes. It's surprising that Notes Plus hasn't been given the credit it deserves. It definitely stands up to its more popular competition. An extremely well thought out and well done application that has made my work easier.

7 years ago, Nyakimiv

Good but needs improvement

The app works very well, but I think a better palm rejection (much better) and I would really like to have ruler tool available like in apple notes. I'm an architect and often draw sketches right on the job sites, iPad if often just rested on my arm as I move through premises and take notes, draw sketches. I know there's an area that I can pull up for palm rejection but then it interferes with my sketches. Also some bugs need fixing, sometimes area where I write won't accept my Apple Pencil (not on the sides of the notes, but literally in the middle of the page), sometimes PDFs won't import into a folder that I have open but will save themselves after an import randomly in my files and sometimes when I use the magnified handwriting window it would write somewhere completely in a different area on the page. Also I would love to see a pencil tool added. Other then that it is awesome and when all works correctly it is super responsive and easy to use.

7 years ago, Pwr user

Lost Pages

I wish I would have read the bad reviews as I started using this app and it worked great right up to the point it lost all of my notes. Weeks of work completely down the drain. I was backing everything up via iCloud and all of that data was gone too. Also gone on other devices. Reset everything like it was the first day I download3d it. Extremely frustrating and now I have to figure out 2 weeks of work. As an update to this review, although I did lose my notes, I have developed a backup system in Dropbox to back up my backup. Certainly redundant but after losing weeks of work, I had to make sure I can recover if lost again. I have revised my original 1 star rating to a more deserving 4. That app itself is fantastic and if you use the Apple pen, it is a true replacement for handwritten notes. Just be sure you are backing up your work and know how to recover if it gets lost.

5 years ago, Hell.en

Little problems I had

I love this program, I use it every day for my school. Lately I had this issue where old written pages are showing completely blank which made me lose valuable notes I wrote not even 2 month ago. Another issue I faced was that randomly out of the blue scrolling up and down the pages, one page got deleted how I have no clue. I looked for it in the trash folder it wasn’t there looked every where I couldn’t find it. The law test issue I had was some how all of my benzene rings that are done by the shape function just disappeared again out of no where, and the pages are being cut making me scroll up and down for them to show up again. I just wanted to know if I’m the only one having those problems and if there is something I need to do cause I enjoy this app a lot.

5 years ago, bioeric

No longer the best

I am not sure what happened with this app and the company. This app used to be absolutely perfect for taking business notes and having the notes readily accessible. Whatever was changed by the developers recently has caused continuous crashing. I lost 3yrs worth of notes. My only saving grace is that I always back up my notes with another app just because of horrific incidents of losing notes like this app did to all my work. As for customer support, I am of the opinion that they are just overwhelmed with customer disappointment right now and therefore can not get to everyone in a timely manner. So customer support is pretty bad right now. To the NotesPlus team, guys you had a really great app here; one of the very best productivity apps in the App Store. Please clean up the problems, fix customer support, and restore the app and results to the status you once had. I am certain if you do this, you can bring your app ratings back up because the recent reviews are all complaining about the exact same thing that I am. All of us users cant be wrong guys.

4 years ago, shyanncyann

Kinda disappointed

I feel like this app is decent but I’ve noticed some issues, I use an Apple Pencil on other apps such as procreate I’m able to rest my hand and write/draw. It seems I can’t do that with this app, that’s huge problem with me because I have motor issues. Every time I rest my hand on the screen with this app I’ll write but as soon as I move my hand it erases. I don’t think it’s a problem with my tablet or Apple Pencil as I just purchased them and I use other apps that allow me to rest my hand. So I feel like if this was fixed the app would be a lot better. Kinda sad I paid $10 for it I can’t use it how I need to :/ Another just small thing I feel like there needs to be more cover options for the notebooks, and maybe more paper options. I think more customization settings would be great for the app. Other than those things it seems like a neat app. It’s good if you like typing that seems to work for me but I enjoy writing more.

5 years ago, Paper_Queen

Please roll back to v. 5.6

I adore this app, heart and soul, and rely on it *heavily* for research, on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the recent updates to v. 6.0 and 6.0.1 have been catastrophic. The following problems occur, regardless of whether I’m using 6.0 (iPad Pro 12” with background backup to Dropbox) or 6.0.1 (iPad Pro 10” with no sync running): • App opens to a file I haven’t used in quite some time—not the most recent. • Once a notebook has been opened, the app resizes it to 0.00” x 0.00” in size. Resetting the page or notebook size doesn’t hold—it returns to 0.00 x 0.00, causing broad white margins on the right side of the screen. • This is the scariest part: Even though I’ve been using it with sync turned off today, the app literally wiped out an hour’s worth of research notations written on one page. • When scrolling up/down through a PDF with notations, the PDF image sometimes disappears, leaving a white page with only notations. This has a tendency to stop one’s heart. • Exporting a document as WebArchive no longer functions (nothing exports). As said in the first line, I adore this app, and rely on it more than any other. Today, however, resulted in lots of lost research while on the road, hundreds of miles from home. Viet Tran, I do hope you’ll consider rolling it back (someone else suggested calling it 6.0.2, which I’d be happy with). We need the security of knowing our work is secure, rather than fearing its disappearance at any moment.

2 years ago, Jimbob1

Best hand writing app I have ever found!

I have used many different hand writing apps over the years with my iPads and I always come back to Notes Plus….. it does it all, and it does it well, ….. what else do we want? It has more features than I will ever use and of course they continually improve upon it year in and year out. All in all the best hand writing app I have ever found yet. I literally use it every day, all day, to keep notes on what I need to do and discussed w my clients. I am in a very detail oriented business and fine myself always going back to review notes of past conversations to ensure we are following thru on what my clients expect from us. I stopped looking at other apps a couple of years ago realizing it doesn’t get any better than Notes Plus. Thanks JG

5 years ago, Amadeus152

Crashes reliably

And that has become one of its best features! I’ve used Notes Plus for years. It has never lived up to its billing of converting handwriting to typed text, maybe 15% accurate at best. Nonetheless, I have hand-written thousands of pages in Notes Plus. Lately (latest release) it crashes sporadically, but every time I use it. Usually, several times in one writing session. The worst part? It deletes one or more recently-completed pages, without notice. Sometimes, the app just sits there for minutes, while I do something else... until I touch the screen with an Apple Pencil. Then the app crashes, right away, back to the home screen. This is getting PAINFUL to use. I no longer recommend this app. Find a better one for your needs. Also... it saves REALLY slowly, and apparently loses entire pages at the time. (As well as randomly) There was a bug when migrating... it would only migrate ALL pages in ALL notebooks. But not user’s choice of notebooks. And not all notebooks would migrate. The app would crash back to the home screen. So, I had to repeatedly try to migrate. So now, I have multiple versions of various notebooks, almost all of my notebooks... hundreds. Many with 10 or 12 versions. So now I have to go thru all of these on iCloud Drive and delete the identical versions that are only taking up (paid) space on iCloud Drive. And also check to see if any of these have lost some pages that are perhaps in another version of the same file... Painful.

2 years ago, Funinsaudi

New update is buggy

I used to use this app a lot but now I am almost afraid to. The last update has made it very unstable. I like the new feature that lets you erase by just scratching out but it has now made the traditional eraser often crash the app. What makes that worse is the the app will just switch to eraser mode by itself. Changing the pen color will often switch to eraser mode and sometimes the app just randomly does it. Then when you think you are about to write, you actually start erasing and the app suddenly crashed. Then you lose everything you have done since the app last saved the document when you closed it. It is very frustrating to use now. I am searching for a replacement app. Never mind. I have already found a replacement and have deleted this app. It wasn’t the most featured filled app but it met my needs until it started crashing.

7 years ago, Othello Jr.

The New Force In My Life

I used to think that Ghostwriter Notes was the best note taking app ever! However, the developer stopped updating the app; I kept using the app as a personal journal, writing in five languages. Recently, having to upgrade to iOS 11.2, I painfully discovered that I could no longer access GN, having lost 14 notebooks, losing hundreds of pages of thoughts, feelings, and creative ideas! Emotionally devastated, I felt betrayed until I found your app in the App Store. You have put my Humpty Dumpty heart back together again! Your team is the King and all the King’s Men (and Women!) whom everyone doubted, but I praise you for mending my ole H.D. If words were flowers of praise, you would deserve the most beautiful flowers ever! You and your team are the Titans and Titanesses of Technology (TOT). Thank you! Gracias! Obrigado! Merci! Grazie! Live long and prosper! Sincerely, A Loyal Customer!

2 years ago, co-conspirator

The best iOS app for hand-written notes

I am pretty sure I’ve tried every iOS app out there for my iPad Pro to see how it handles handwriting. The handwriting engine in this app is outstanding and I don’t understand why any other app can’t do with NotesPlus is doing with handwriting. It’s difficult to write cleanly on an iPad no matter who you are, but Notes Plus takes what you write and cleans it up ever so slightly so that what you see is an improvement over what you actually wrote on the screen. Thera few glitches here and there but as of the writing of this review the current version seems very stable. I am inclined to purchase the NotesPlus X just to support the developer, but it’s going to be hard to tear me away from this app because of how well it handles the handwriting.

5 years ago, NJ_John

The best Notes app out there

I have been using NotePlus for about two months now for both business and personal use and its a game changer for me. I now use it for almost everything. There are several forms and checklists that I use for work that I just import as a pdf and can now fill them out on my iPad using the pencil. It has made my job much easier and is allowing me to achieve my goal of going totally paperless. Combine that with the ability to store notes in individual folders allows me to organize all my notes very efficiently. The glitches I have run into have been very minor in nature and when I email the tech support group, they always respond quickly and usually with a work around and usually an indication that a fix is on its way. I’d give it 10 stars if I could.

5 years ago, artministry

Best handwriting app but serious problems

I’ve been a digital professional since 1985 and I still write my notes by hand — for concerting, journaling, planning, and of course also sketching. The act of writing slows down and clarifies my thinking. This app combines the best of both worlds. I practically never put it down. **I’m adding this addendum after experiencing serious problems with this app. It’s still the best writing app I’ve found; it’s versatility, pen/brush modes, and interface are great and there’s really nothing I’ve found that compares. That having been said, I’ve been experiencing a problem that I consider catastrophic, that is, data loss. Whole pages of text simply disappear from notebooks and there’s no way to retrieve them. This is a fatal error; the only workaround is to constantly export pdf to capture the notebook at its current stage. And check that the psd exported correctly also. I’m really hoping this can be straightened out. It’s a wonderful app but for this one fatal flaw.

7 years ago, Gr8npowerful

Was great but ... Is STILL Great!

I don’t know if it was removed or there is a bug but my app doesn’t allow stylus + finger mode anymore. App is nearly unusable now that my finger keeps writing instead of manipulating the page. **Update: The feature returned and then went away again. What am I doing wrong? **Update: So apparently the Apple Pencil still works as a stylus even with the Bluetooth off. And the stylus + finger feature only works when APencil is “connected”. I’m not going to say this is a bug. I’m guessing this feature is specifically for the featured styli. So that being said I restarred to 5 and would like to say this app is awesome. I have no other problems with it and for college purposes it’s perfect. Thanks to Notes Plus (and other apps and digital textbooks) my iPad is now the only thing I need for classes.

6 years ago, N.A.Y.

Great for journal-form notetaking

I’ve been looking for something exactly like this for a long time and am pretty happy with this app. Since I often write very long passages in my notes, having a fixed page size and line height (both adjustable, as well as the paper style) prevents my notes from becoming a complete mess. I also like how you can *optionally* name pages, which I use to distinguish sections of a notebook. The “ink engine” of this app is legitimately quite cool; it does a great job of making my sometimes-sloppy handwriting legible and also just looks cool (especially with the customizable pen styles). The only problem that I’ve had is that it’s occasionally glitchy (e.g., interpreting panning actions as writing actions), but to date that’s always been fixed by just restarting the app. I use the Apple Pencil.

7 years ago, NoteMeUp

Good Intention and concept but poor performance

I certainly agree with other reviewers, the app has good intention and purpose to transcribe handwriting into text, I, myself, solely purchased the app for this purpose as well just like the others but I must admit that the Application needs to be improved, It has POOR, REALLY POOR HANDWRITING RECOGNITION! no matter how much I tried to improve my writing for it to recognize and properly convert it to text, It just won’t do it! Pls. fix this issue or else purchasing the app for this purpose would be totally useless! I purchased the App to help me convert my handwriting to text even though I do not have that bad penmanship but for lecture taking and note taking where I need to be fast and cannot access my keyboard that’s why I need it! I want to give this app a chance and I hope the developer will improve the handwriting recognition so I won’t have to write and erase over and over again just for it to convert my writing to correct text!

5 years ago, BassaBoy

Thank you for Note Plus

I am proud to say that I am one of the first early adapters of this app. I originally bought Note Plus for the original iPad in November of 2010 for $4.99. The developer at the time was Nguyen. Now it is Viet Tran. The app still work flawlessly on my iPhone 8 Plus and iPad mini 2. My son who is now in high school used this app in elementary for writing, counting, math, and drawing. Now he still uses this app for school work. Sometimes you give an app 5 stars not only because it’s a great app but, because of the people behind the app. I don’t know these developers but, I genuinely feel that they are people of integrity, honesty, and have a lot of love and passion for what they do. I rate these developers 5 Stars because it just struck me that this app is a digital treasure. I love. Thanks you so much.

4 years ago, NIRVANA!!!!!

Not as easy as they would like you to believe

I have done one project somewhat successfully with this app, but for general note recording it is not working out for me. I am taking some online classes and taking notes while the videos are playing. Some of the points need to be illustrated with specific pictures of the actions to take in Excel and Photoshop Elements, but the pictures are proving very difficult to place, resize, and actually save to the notes. At first I thought it was just PNG pictures, but JPEGs are proving just as problematic. Another issue is the stylus. The only stylus they now recommend for Note Plus is the Apple Pencil. I have an iPad 7th generation, and the Apple Pencil does not work with that version of iPad. I bought a Bamboo Sketch stylus, which works with the my iPad but (according to Notes Plus) does not work well with their app. So I may as well not use this app at all. Very disappointing and a waste of time for me and money for me.

7 years ago, Tjaart@

Best note taking app, but can improve

One of the best note taking apps I have used. I use it with the Ipad Pro 2nd gen and apple pencil. I am a current University student and use this app on a daily basis, it being my primary means of taking notes. Not having to carry around numerous books, having everything in one place. I also like the various features accompanying this app. Like having multiple pen colors available as well as the highlight feature. However, sometimes text will disappear even though the “deletion gesture” feature is turned off and sometimes when using eraser not all the text will erase and remains on screen until scrolling the page at which time it disappears. Would like to have a “pencil” available for drawing when needed, like graphing. Still the best app for taking notes.

7 years ago, Goffstown Dave

Good App But With Unfixed Glitches

I use this app a lot and generally love the way it works. Handwriting is well done, and it has several nice features for selecting and editing my writing. I also use it for taking notes on pdf files. However one very annoying bug seems to be the Back (or Erase) button. After a few lines of writing, it seems to randomly activate, and what I just wrote immediately disappears. Sometimes hitting the Back button causes it to reappear! When taking notes in a meeting, this can be very frustrating. So I would say it is a really good app I want to keep, and I have used it for literally hundreds of pages and dozens of files. I have contacted tech support more than once, but no fix is in sight. If the trend continues I may have to look for another handwriting app, though I have mastered the learning curve and would rather give it five stars!

4 years ago, Shastafiona

The best note taking app

I love notes plus. i just realized that they did an upgrade on the one thing that’s missing which is the text recognition search. I used to not be able to search my text notes before but now, i noticed that i can. I am so happy! I use Notes plus everyday studying for two years now. I love using it because when I write on it, my handwriting looks better. They somehow correct it to make it look at least presentable. I tried so hard to use good notes, and notability. Both of which I bought but I never use it because my writing bothers me. It looks so ugly in both. This app is also pretty and I can easily create folders and subfolders. I like how well I can organize my school syllabus. I can also export and print. The only thing I am not sure of is if there’s a cloud feature where I can access it in my desktop. It would be nice but i dont need it yet at the moment. Also, I am not sure if I can view two different note books in two different layouts so I can reference different notes at the same time. Thank you for making this app. It has helped me tremendously. I’d like to be able to use it forever.

2 years ago, CalifOSO

I used INKcredible app for years

I used INKcredible app for years …. Best nite takin app I found. Then 8 needed to get better organized, also I realized it’s been helpful so the developer should be compensated for such a great app. Supporting ingenuous developers who solve life issues is how they can continue to do what they do. So I bought the paid version - to my surprise the paid version ended up again helpin me a ton. We’ll worth the upgrades for the one time up front fee. Auto save and sync to cloud, etc. Made everything so much easier, and I’m much more productive because all my notes are in one place and they can quickly be scanned to text or exported for my use or sharing. Great job team!

6 years ago, Joel D. Arnold

Best notes / writing /journaling app of them all

I’ve tried all kinds of notes and journaling apps. This is the one to get. Combined with the Apple Pencil, it’s just like writing on paper except better. Here are the features that make this uniquely awesome. 1. Great inks and pens. I love using the fountain pen and I find that my handwriting has significantly improved by using this app. 2. Very simple, unobtrusive interface. It just works. I don’t get distracted or fight with the software. It just works for me. Every time. 3. Handwriting recognition. This is the killer feature. Others will recognize and let you search your notes. But this is the only good app that lets you quickly and easily export the text you have written. Most of the time I’m happy to keep it as handwriting. But a reasonable amount of the time I later want to build on my notes in a traditional word processor. One click and it’s there. Excellent accuracy as well. 4. Fantastic support. I just had a small problem. I emailed the developer and had an answer within 8 hours that totally fixed my problem. Done. You just don’t get that with other apps. So buy this app. Simple. That’s it.

5 years ago, browntsunami

My goto digital note pad

I have tried many pretenders to digital note taking, this one is the real thing. Currently this app allows me to be the most productive over a wide range of tasks that I traditionally used a notebook for. There is a bit of a learning curve, but, there are a lot of help online and once I became comfortable with this app, I will not be returning to my small stockpile of note books. This is an app that lives up to what the developers say they intend it for. I am not expecting a full multi-media app, but, with the creativity of the developers who knows what the future will bring. Good job guys and looking forward to more improvements. Just don’t loose track of the basic function of this app in favor of more fringe features.

5 years ago, kaheun13

A little buggy

I am a pharmacy student and this app was really good in the beginning and I loved all of its features but over time it gets really buggy. I always update my apps so you would think the updates would fix the bugs but things keep happening. I download my lecture notes into notes plus and then write my notes in app but sometimes it completely wipes out my lectures, leaving behind blank pages with only my written notes left. It’s extremely annoying especially since my professors delete their lecture notes after the semester ends so I can’t even go back to download them again. Sometimes I would either be writing or typing and move the page slightly and lose everything that I wrote and typed so I had to start all over again. I mean I don’t understand why this keeps happening, if it’s only happening to me but I hope this gets heard and fixed.

7 years ago, Shanluvtech

Has a lot to praise!

I don’t usually take much time on writing reviews, but this one I just found very useful, and has a lot of potentials. You can tell the app maker must have worked really hard for this app! It has a lot of features for just a notetaking app! It’s great for people who are visual and like to write in notes. This is good for anyone who uses a lot of note taking, especially students or even drawing if you are good at it. I like to experience with different apps, and I’ve tried good notes, evernote, penultimate, and a lot of some other notes taking apps. This one stands out the best among all. It pretty much cover most of other note taking apps features: 4 ink styles, any colors(with color number), tons of fonts, clipboard, 4 ways of deleting, different hand guesters(including left handed), audio, photo, camera close-up writing, vector shape recognition, a lot of page and cover backgrounds, handwriting recognition(OCR) in so many languages and be able to be searched all over too! It just has a ton of features. Definitely recommend it! Way better than the ratings should be.

5 years ago, my_name_for_reviews

Was great, getting worse: lost potential

I just read several reviews within the last month and there are many long-time users who are experiencing the same thing I am: a massive decrease in app stability and functionality. I’ve used this app for years and it has features that I love. In the past six months it has become so buggy that I am going to have to switch apps. Here are the recent problems. I emphasize “recent” because there were versions in the past that worked fine. 1. It often fails to actually capture my writing 2. It often deletes the content: written, images, text boxes 3. It does not save settings: you change the size of an image and move to another page, it goes right back to original size (or deletes it entirely) I tried hard to work with Duy Nguyen and Viet Tran, who responded to my emails, but they’ve done absolutely nothing to help fix these problems. I sent screen recordings; they did nothing. I provided detailed documentation about the problems; they did nothing. Surprisingly, they asked me to leave a positive review on the App Store, but I cannot do that in good faith because the quality of this app has decreased dramatically. Back to the drawing board: need to find a better alternative, starting with Evernote.

5 years ago, abbyw3196

ROLL BACK THE UPDATE

Edit: Even with the most recent update, the app is now saving my writing when I close out. I rely on this for school and these glitches are unacceptable. This app used to be the best available. There are so many problems with response times and ease of use since the update that the company is aware of. when I raised these questions nearly two weeks ago I was assured that they would be resolved within a few days, and was specifically asked to give the app a 5 star rating to try to combat recent bad ratings. The developer should be putting far more effort into correcting these issues to actually help their clients who rely on this app for work and school rather than trying to manage their PR and numerical rating. Updates should not be released without proper testing, and this one needs to be removed so that users are able to function with the previous, not glitchy, version while V6 is repaired.

Description

- Support Apple Pencil and iPad Pro - Convert handwriting to text - Best handwriting experience Notes Plus is a powerful note-taking tool that has enabled many people to go completely paperless. Be one of them! Notes Plus stands apart from other apps in this crowded note-taking space because: - It was one of the few feature-rich iPad apps released right after the first iPad’s debut. - Since 2010, it has gone through 30 version upgrades and 3 complete overhauls, resulting in 8 million update downloads by almost one million users. Get Notes Plus to benefit from: • Outstanding handwriting experience with razor-sharp ink effects, palm rejection, and close-up writing mode for fine writing. Experience all this for yourself: get our other app for FREE at http://INKredibleApp.com. • Converting handwriting to text. 52 languages are supported. • Typed text. • Background audio recording. • Automatic shape detection. • Inserting images from Photos or directly from the camera. • Importing PDF and DOC files to annotate. • Exporting notes as PDF or images to Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, email, and other apps. • A built-in browser for quick reference. • Automatic backup to Dropbox. • Multi-level folder management. • Support for left-handed users. • Support for Wacom, Adonit, and Pencil styli. • Support for VGA-out presentation. And above all, you'll get personal replies from our responsive support team within 24 hours (usually within 4 hours). Please email us at [email protected] or visit our support site: http://notesplusapp.com.