Notability Tutorial and Paperless Class Notes on an iPad

In this video, I’m going to give you a quick tutorial on my favorite handwriting app — Notability — and show you how I take notes in class and from textbooks using the Notability app on the iPad.

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There are many people who open up their laptops during class and type out their notes. There are some nice things about this. You can store your notes with all of your other class documents and they are searchable. The problem for me is that I don’t retain information quite as well when I type it. The kinesthetic act of writing actually helps me to commit information to memory. Add to that the ability with handwritten notes to color code, pull in photos, draw sketches, and create relationships and it is hands down better for me than typewritten notes.

I’ve tried a bunch of different note apps. Notability continues to be my favorite for a couple of reasons. For one thing — it allows me to pull photos into my note and draw on top of them. For whatever reason, that is crucial to me. Here’s one way I might use this. I need to give my mom directions to my son’s tennis practice. I’ll screenshot the map and then mark it up to show home, the route, and some important landmarks that might help her. Sure, I could just do all of this on Google Maps and then make some text notes underneath, but this is much more intuitive for her. I also use this feature to take a picture of my son’s math homework and write on top of it when I am helping him with his Algebra. Plus, I can take pictures of PowerPoint slides during class and then draw on and engage with that material in real time.

The other thing that I like about Notability is that you have lots of options for backing up your notes and sharing with other devices. Some note taking apps are like a little lonely island, but Notability does a pretty good job allowing you to see your notes in other places than just your iPad. I have my notes backed up to Google Drive, where it saves them as PDFs and I have iCloud turned on so that I can see and manipulate those same notes on my phone with the Notability App for iPhone. For example, here is a note that I created on my iPad, and here it is — courtesy of iCloud — on my iPhone. There are also lots of ways to export notes, but I'll talk about that a little later on.

Okay — those are just some of the things that differentiate Notability from the other apps I’ve tried. But crucially, it also does the basics of note-taking and drawing really well. Let me show you.

* Organization - Notability has 2 levels of organization. It refers to them as dividers (that is the top level) and subjects (the second level). I have a bunch of dividers including one for Home, Grad School, Work, and Writing. Then under those dividers, you can add categories or subjects. I have really straightforward categories under Grad School -- one subject for each class. But under Home, I have subjects for Forms, Packing Lists, and a Random category. You can split this up however you need your notes organized. Notability has not yet adopted virtual organization or tagging — they are still operating with physical organization. Because I don’t keep a ton of notes in Notability, that is fine by me. Let’s start a note in one of my Grad School classes, so I can show you how I take Class notes.
* Title - Okay, go ahead and title this whatever you want. Notability date stamps each note, so you don’t have to include the date in the title unless you need that redundancy. Or you need the date in the title when you export the note later on.
* Sort - Notability gives you 3 different was to sort your notes: by name, by the date you created the note, and by the name that you last modified the note. I normally use last modified.
* Page - by default, I like the white paper with no lines. But when I’m taking classroom notes, I prefer writing on lined paper otherwise I tend to write on a slant. To change it, you tap on this wrench in the upper right hand corner and choose Paper. There are 4 different width choices for lined paper, several for graphing paper and a bunch of other colored paper options. You can see what the paper looks like with your note before even leaving this area. I usually use this lined option. . . .

[barbaralucke]

Best explanation for beginners I've watched on Notability yet! Thank you!

[emmgeevideo]

Really nice video. I’m looking for videos like this one to jump start my use of my new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. Thanks!

[walkwithme]

I wish I had been as organized as you, when I was in school! But I will try to apply this to my work life, and online courses I am currently taking ---great tutorial!

[peteryoung]

super vid. thx. new user but already loving this app. using it professionally at work, cutting out the usual paper notes.

[sofia]

Thank you! Could you please show how to export the file with audio? I'm new to Notability and can't get my exported pdf file to play the audio so others (without notability) can open and watch+listen. TIA!

[missy]

Nice review, I just recently purchased notability and really enjoying using it for my notes.

[helloansuman]

You cannot create 2 dividers/Subjects/notes with same name even they are present in separate subjects/dividers? Subject1-> Divider-1 and Subject-2 -> Divider-1

[TheProfe]

I've been thinking of getting Notability and your video gave me a great idea of what it's like. Gingerlabs should hire you! I'm curious to know, however, why you prefer GoodReader for long PDFs? I was attracted by the promise of having my hand-written notes and my annotated PDFs in a single app.

[barbarabickel]

Hi! Thanks for your video. I'm trying to decide between OneNote and Notability for grad school. I keep watching YouTube videos on both and yours is pretty good. But I do not understand how you "import" or whatever the right word is a pdf into Notability and then write notes on it. Can you explain please? Thank you! Barbara Bickel

[JayDavisPhotography]

I saw a young lady on my flight using this app and she was so passionate about the app. I've had a need for a long time to get organized and I hope that this app can help me. I am a complete newbie and would like to learn how to use the app to the best of my ability. Any tips on getting started would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your time and for making the video.

[kevincarroll]

Can you retrieve your notes from google drive at a later date if you want to add to them or review them?

[rwvidal]

Thanks for the review. Does anyone know how to rotate a page so that it is portrait vs landscape? I scanned into a PDF but somehow, the scanner scanned 2 our of 5 pages in landscape and the rest onto protrait.

[c-magik]

I've been using Notability for a few lectures and one of the things that really frustrates me is that when I try to convert my handwriting to text, it's a pain to keep tapping when I try to "select all". And then it converts my notes to a completely unpredictable font/color/size. I've set my default text fonts, but there doesn't seem to be a spot to select default handwriting fonts or handwriting to text fonts. Do you know if this is possible? Or do I have to just tediously go through this process of selecting all and changing the font/color/size for ever section of handwritten notes? (I also commit things to memory better by writing, which is why I don't simply type everything out. Some things I prefer as text after I write them and some I prefer as written). Thanks!

[JaAlex]

Can you have one set of notes where on one page you have a blank white background and on another you have a lined or graph paper background?

[janetmcduffey]

This is the best tutorial I’ve seen. Thank you!

[alexandriau]

Great video! I am about to purchase a new ipad 2018 & apple pencil. I was using inkredible on an android device because this was well before the ipads new updated capabilities & i loved it, but really miss the ipad. If I buy notability for the ipad will I have to pay for the app again on the iphone? thanks

[dogsandrabbits]

Awesome review; you're thorough enough that I've finally decided to go with this app. Thank you. :)

[thatnickguy]

6:04 - VOLUME WARNING if you're wearing headphones.

[ted]

Thank you ...great job on this video, precise and clear to understand

[dronemonkey]

Is it possible to do superscript on notability?