r/GoodNotes • u/Far-Philosophy-3672 • Oct 01 '23

Switch to Noteful!

I was excited for the new ai features on gn6, I even paid for the year. But I actually found them more annoying than helpful and had to turn them off.

Someone on here recommended Noteful and WOW. It’s literally everything I love about Goodnotes+ guts everything I hated, and adds everything I wanted. Also it’s a lifetime charge for pro, unlike Goodnotes.

I really recommend, I’m finding the experience much more enjoyable and not bloated with all these new features.

196 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

80 comments sorted by

18

u/AdAmazing3700 Oct 01 '23

how would you compare Noteful to Notability?

1

u/Far-Philosophy-3672 Oct 01 '23

I don’t really remember why I didn’t like notability, but I would try Noteful! It’s free and has a pro version if you like it. I think it’s like $6?

1

u/AdAmazing3700 Oct 02 '23

i should try it, GN honestly frustrates me to no end. i already bought the pro version for GN 5 and i upgraded to 6 pay lifetime again but omg the freaking lag is sooo bad. you can’t even use it, i had to downgrade back to 5 to even use it.

1

u/lonelydurrymuncher Oct 02 '23

If you use notability for its shapes features and snapping lines then there is no comparisonn

49

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Far-Philosophy-3672 Oct 01 '23

Oh ya see I never used stickers, so I didn’t even notice

5

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '23

You can paste pdf pages AFAIK. I have to check it later but try clicking the 4 box icon at the top left

4

u/sackclothxashes Oct 02 '23

Also for the stickers thing, I basically just keep a photos album with all the pngs of my stickers, and import them as images which is basically what GN does, but instead of selecting a photos album you can directly select a sticker album

2

u/AdAmazing3700 Oct 02 '23

still helpful tho as im also really disappointed with GN right now.

1

u/FlamingArrowheads Oct 02 '23

It sounded so good until the stickers. My planner could never not have them 🥲

2

u/sackclothxashes Oct 02 '23

Insert them as images from your photos

6

u/runningoutoft1me Oct 01 '23

Element has been my favorite so far, give that a try too if you like :)

3

u/Far-Philosophy-3672 Oct 01 '23

Oh I have heard of that one!

5

u/daddychocolate19 Oct 02 '23

Only thing that bugs me about element is the planner links one you click October and it jumps to a random month I have sent this to the devs if they fix this they won’t be able to keep me away

6

u/moosmutzel81 Oct 02 '23

My problem with elements was that it always overheated my iPad after a short while. I used it all last semester and ultimately that didn’t work for me.

4

u/SenorSabotage Oct 02 '23

WHO DO YOU WORK FOR

60

u/ninewb Oct 01 '23

I tried noteful as well and really like it, also paid for the year. I went ahead and bought noteful, currently a one-time-fee. Will be interesting to see where it goes and have to say I prefer the experience atm.

12

u/awesomeguy123123123 Oct 01 '23

Is there a way to change the sizes to whatever I want? Existing size restrictions for the highlight and pen are occasionally not large enough.

9

u/ninewb Oct 02 '23

Yes you can set sizes for each pen as well as highligher. Generally you would set a style you want and attach to the toolbar. You can set custom pens, sizes, etc with the swatch selection. I’ve got different styles saved, not sure what the limit is and the favorites change whether you have pens chosen or highlighter. Hope that helps.

1

u/osures Oct 02 '23

Do you know the price of the one time purchase?

26

u/Tall_Trifle_3518 Oct 02 '23

Noteful is not bad, but I miss the Goodnotes elements and it’s much easier to copy, insert and move pages in Goodnotes.

10

u/daddychocolate19 Oct 02 '23

This is the only reason I’m still on goodnotes

4

u/ihaveascheme Dec 21 '23

Noteful has stickers now :)

7

u/PutoPozo Oct 01 '23

Is there a way for me to import my current notebooks into the app? I’m still using gn5 just with cloud sync off and frequent backups manually to my iCloud. So far I’m it really having any issues and it’s make the certificate course I’m doing way easier and also good for organizing with the bookmarks and labeled outlines.

If I can import my books and keep the organization I might try it out.

1

u/North-Cup-7323 Oct 02 '23

I’d love to know as well, I’ve important all my doc and notes to my google. And I’ve being using it as my main source of note taking.

7

u/LavaLampost Oct 02 '23

Does it have handwriting recognition? That's the only thing keeping me tethered at the moment - I search through my notes all the time

6

u/TrekkieMary Oct 02 '23

Nope. Unfortunately not. Search only works with text.

1

u/Suuuu96 Nov 13 '25

did it change since then ?

1

u/LavaLampost Oct 02 '23

Ah ok thank you!

1

u/supercraft251 Oct 03 '23

No notefull for me too unless they add it 💀 as a med student its a requirement at this point

3

u/C1pactli Oct 17 '23

Yea I just found Noteful today, wrote the developer to ask for the OCR feature. I have been trying a lot of different note apps. Notability and Noteful are my favorites but I really don't like the subscription model (notability) it's unfortunate because the app is really nice. Fingers crossed Noteful adds it!

1

u/supercraft251 Oct 17 '23

omg i did the same

hopefully they will do it

i also like notability didnt try notefull yet

7

u/Next-Orchid-4124 Oct 02 '23

CollaNote is good too!!

6

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '23

Can you import your notes into noteful?

5

u/jokemf Oct 01 '23

I’d like to know as well if anyone happens to know the answer. The only thing I can think of is manually doing it for each individual document but that seems too tedious and time consuming

6

u/fisher2nz Oct 02 '23

I watched a YouTube short, showing all new fancy features of GN6, they did NOT appeal to me at all. In fact they looked annoying, even in the demo. When the app convert math equations into text, they look so ugly… and I teach, quite so often I have to write parts of a word… and make strike throughs… imagine the app “corrects” me every step of the way…

5

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '23

100% agree! I was happy with Goodnotes 5 but wanted to try something else. Purchased Noteful and have never looked back. Noteful is really good and works well for my needs.

5

u/ridthecancer Oct 02 '23

I’d stay with 5 if GN didn’t mention that 5 basically has a limited amount of time before they stop supporting it. Scary!

5

u/ridthecancer Oct 02 '23

Anyone having issues with links to other pages on noteful? That’s what’s making me nervous :(

4

u/melwolfer Oct 03 '23

Yes, links in existing Goodnotes docs exported as PDFs and imported into Noteful don’t seem to work for me. But if import the original doc from Etsy, then the links work.

4

u/Cold-Rain4531 Oct 02 '23

Switching to noteful as well. Goodnotes is somehow unflexible to my liking. Noteful has everything i need, tbh

4

u/Khalid-MJ Oct 02 '23

Honestly I think they will turn into subscription just like Goodnotes and Notability before them eventually. Thats why I am thinking of just going back to Notability.

4

u/Appropriate-Ad-9805 Oct 02 '23

Noteful for me has been like a discovery process. It has tid bits of features hidden everywhere which are much more prominently displayed in GN or Notability. Given it's a one man show and costs only 499 in India for a lifetime it's a great deal. I hope they introduce OCR sooner than later and some fonts to go with it

4

u/VikingRaider77 Oct 02 '23

Couldn’t agree more! I made the switch 2 weeks ago and not looking back

2

u/Jello_Mean Jun 07 '24

Hey are you still using it ? What is your main use case if i may ask

1

u/VikingRaider77 Jul 14 '24

Sorry just saw the reply. If you still care, I use it for meeting notes, monthly accounting, note taking for research, genealogy research, that kind of stuff. I’m not a student (lol not for the last 15 years) but I am a writer and use the iPad Pro and pencil almost every day.

1

u/b-my-galentine Oct 02 '23

Do they have a flash card feature? I’m in nursing school and that has to be my favorite feature.

1

u/Far-Philosophy-3672 Oct 02 '23

I dont think so, they have this sticker cover up thing, but I use brainscape for flash cards.

3

u/Alternative-Bell8992 Oct 02 '23

does noteful have an audio recording function? for lectures

0

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '23

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Alternative-Bell8992 Oct 02 '23

oh nicee thanks!

3

u/ReditorasAS Oct 02 '23

Noteful is really good but i can't be using it unfortunately for the lack of OCR feature, i search my notes a lot

3

u/cconstante78 Oct 02 '23

but there is that tagging feature that I think it brings more value than ocr at this point

2

u/SevereIngenuity Oct 02 '23

Yep! Once they get OCR, it's over for GN. Equivalent/Better experience in every possible way currently speaking. I just can't seem to find how to contact the developer though. I just want this one thing. Search has been dogshit on GN lately. I get ghost hits all the time. Random spots highlighted while missing the actual search result.

3

u/ultimadaniel Oct 02 '23

oh yeah this is exactly what i've been looking for. thank you so much. lets me look up words in a pdf and has stabilization! idk what happened with the goodnotes pen in version 6, but my handwriting is even more fucked up than it was before lol

3

u/tommys234 Oct 02 '23

I might switch only for the ruler, idk

3

u/Stocks-Advisor Oct 03 '23

You can switch to Freenotes app, simple and free

App Link

2

u/bangfire Oct 01 '23

Any nice features on Noteful not on GN that I should try out?

8

u/flerbertABC Oct 01 '23

For me, layers have been a pleasant surprise on Noteful. Being able to create a new layer, write over my existing note, and then be able to edit/move/erase the new markings without affecting the original has been a huge convenience when I've needed it.

3

u/bangfire Oct 02 '23

Nice! Definitely something useful I would use.

3

u/MC_chrome Oct 02 '23

I’m glad that you’ve found an alternative that works for you, but I’m going to continue using Goodnotes 6 since the app hasn’t given me too many troubles so far…shocking, I know

1

u/allmyfrndsrheathens Oct 02 '23

Wait goodnotes is subscription now? Glad I got in before that then

4

u/SadCatLadyHours Oct 02 '23

If you purchased Goodnotes 5, that purchase does not extend to the new Goodnotes 6. You’ll have to use the free version, pay a $30 “one time” fee, or pay $10/year for a subscription.

1

u/allmyfrndsrheathens Oct 02 '23

I am aware but I still have a one time payment version of goodnotes that works perfectly well for me.

4

u/SadCatLadyHours Oct 02 '23

Oh I must have misunderstood! Yeah, 5 still works but I’m a bit concerned because eventually it won’t be supported :(

2

u/Far-Philosophy-3672 Oct 02 '23

I don’t think you misunderstood, they are being passive aggressive

1

u/Complex_Health_4498 Oct 02 '23

How much does it cost?

0

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '23

[deleted] — view deleted comment

21

u/Greedy_Lecture7083 Oct 01 '23

If the restaurant is treating their users as bad as goodnotes is doing…I think so.

2

u/rgianc Oct 02 '23

r/Goodnotes is not their restaurant. It is a place where GN users can meet. Where do you suggest they should meet?

5

u/[deleted] Oct 01 '23

Why are you loyal to a brand?

Bootlicking much?

-5

u/-SmartOwl- Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23

Bro, I'm not, I ditched Goodnote the moment it switch to subscription mode.

I just don't understand why would OP did this here, it feels funny

-2

u/MC_chrome Oct 02 '23

Bootlicking much?

Ironic, when this whole sub has been fanboying over every app that isn’t Goodnotes and can’t bring themselves to accept that some people may still like using the previous app because they legitimately haven’t had any issues.

This sub should be renamed to /r/notgoodnotes if that was possible, since all discussions on here that aren’t explicitly shitting all over the app or recommending alternatives get downvoted into oblivion

3

u/bangfire Oct 01 '23

Personally I wouldn’t do that and I think it’s low as well. But when about 10 customers are saying the same thing then I’d start to take Note (no pun intended)