Student Life

Mastering Notability: Tips and Tricks for Ultimate Note-Taking Success

Audrey Waters, Staff Reporter • January 19, 2024

Notability, an essential tool for La Salle students, has received several new updates this school year.

The app now has new features that may seem overwhelming and that many users may overlook. Some students may use Notability every day without ever knowing these helpful tricks. Notability has all the resources, but some tools need just a little bit of guidance to be used at their full effectiveness. Here are a few tips to obtain note-taking success as we get ready to start a new semester.

App Theme:

Many students take the time to customize their app into all sorts of different colors and themes to fit their desires. This new feature not only makes it aesthetically pleasing, but also allows students to feel like the app is truly theirs. This will allow for options ranging from dark mode, colors, and seasons.

App Theme

1. Open Settings

2. Scroll down to Themes

3. Scroll and select desired theme

Undo/Redo:

Mistakes will pop up no matter what type of format is used to take notes. Thankfully, Notability recognizes this and creates an easy shortcut. It allows users to not have to worry about making a mistake and being able to just move on. One can use two fingers to tap their screen and undo their work or use three fingers to tap and redo that work.

Undo/Redo

To enable this:

1. Go to Settings

2. Scroll to Gestures

3. Click 3 Finger Swipe

Subjects/Dividers:

A good way to stay organized is to create dividers and subjects, which will help users easily find old or current work. Users can also adjust colors and add divider drop-downs and colorful subjects. By having the subjects and dividers, users can organize their notes based on classes, topics, school years, and more.

Subjects/Dividers

To enable this:

1. Press the plus symbol to the right of Subjects.

2. Hit either Add Subject or Add Divider.
3. Hold down on the Dividers.

4. Add Subject.

At any time, users may hold down a Subject or Divider they’ve created and alter it by either pressing Rename, Edit (which changes the color), or even Delete.
To view the Subjects in full color:

1. Go to Settings

2. Scroll down to Themes

3. Turn on Colorful Subjects.

This feature makes the entire subject the color chosen and better showcases the bright colors Notability has to offer.

Gallery:

A very often overlooked or unknown feature is the Gallery, found under Notes on the top left-hand side of the home screen. The Gallery is full of all the resources users may need to be successful, including planners, academic templates, and more.

Gallery

To open a Template:

1. Open the desired template.

2. Press the icon with a square with an arrow breaking through it.
3. When a full-screen preview pops up, press Save and Use.

It will then automatically open a new note and be ready for use. Although, for this method, users are only able to use templates once.

Some Templates are even interactive. Many of the planners that include multiple months are interactive to make it easier to navigate through them. Some are even meant for the whole 2023-2024 school year containing over 600 pages. To navigate, users are able to press the month and it will automatically scroll to that page.

Inserts:

While templates can be extremely helpful, they can also be slightly restrictive. These insertable resources allow users to make any document have the organization of a template without the limits.

Inserts

To insert images:

1. Go to the Toolbox

2. Press the Image Icon. A drop down menu will appear with five icons.

3. Press the first Icon

4. Select the desired Image

The Icon to the bottom left of the pop up also directs users to document scan and the right icon to take a photo to insert.
The second Icon is for Stickers.

Stickers are a great way to insert small premade graphics or even create custom ones.
To create custom stickers:

1. Use any of the drawing tools and draw something

2. Take the Lasso to circle the creation

3. Click Save
This drawing can then be found in the Stickers section and can be inserted at any time to any document.
The third icon will be the GIF icon, allowing users to insert GIFs into their documents.

This adds a level of fun and an interactive element to user’s notes.
The fourth icon is Sticky Notes, allowing users to insert digital sticky notes into their documents.

This can be used for brainstorming, organization, or just to add a colorful element to users’ documents.

Shortcuts:

One way that Notability is now more tailored to the user is by having their most-used tools ready for them with a click of a button. Users can accomplish this by creating shortcuts to their favorite settings. Both of these tips will create shortcuts for those preferred settings. This slightly differs, yet also applies to the Highlighter, Lasso, and Eraser tools. All of these features may be entirely customized to one’s liking.

Shortcuts

To create a Pen shortcut:

1. Click on the Pen icon in the Toolbox.

2. In the dropdown menu, make the desired changes.

Select the circles with the black dots to the right to alter to the desired pen sizes of that shortcut.
Scroll all the way to the right and press the wave symbol to select the pen style of the shortcut.

Each of the (maximum eight) colored circles represents a pen shortcut.

To Delete, Press and Hold the shortcut.
This process can also be applied to the Eraser, Highlighter, Pencil, Tape, and Laser.

Toolbox:

A new feature specific to Version 14.3 is the upgraded Toolbox. The Toolbox is revamped to better showcase available tools.

Similar to the original, the Toolbox can be moved around the user’s screen. By holding down the Tool Box, they can place it on any of the four sides of the screen.

A huge feature (that sadly only applies to certain versions depending on the device) with the Toolbox is the ability to customize the order of tools or hide ones users don’t wish to use. The Toolbox is separated into two different sections, typically placing the most used tools in the first section. The order of tools is completely up to the user’s personal preference. Users may duplicate the tools or completely hide them.

Toolbox

To edit Toolbox:

1. Scroll on the Toolbox towards the left or press the arrow
2. Press the Settings icon
3. Use the pop up to alter the tools to the preferred order or duplicate a tool shortcut

4. After these alterations, press Done to finish the process.

Lasso:

The Lasso is an important tool in Notability, allowing users to manipulate drawings, words, and inserted items. But that’s not all it can do. There are two Lasso options: the Freeform and Box Lasso. These can be helpful in reducing the number of times one needs to write something down. It allows users to just make a copy of the desired section.

Freeform allows the users to freely draw in any sort of shape and/or selecting any section of a document.

While the Box is helpful when copying a section in a square space, both Lasso options allow users to select certain aspects of an image without including unnecessary parts.

Lasso- Selection

To make selection:

1. Select any section of a document
2. Press Paste Image
This also works for user drawn aspects.

There are five main ways to manipulate this item: Duplicate, Copy, Paste, Cut, or Delete.
Users may also change the Style in regards to stroke, size, color, and pen style.

However, the more unique features of this tool are under the Convert section.

Lasso- Convert

1. Press Convert on any drawn equations or words

This will then be converted into text or a math equation. Helping user’s thoughts seem more put together and minimize clutter.

Users can also use this feature to convert any selected area into Ink, giving it a hand drawn look, which is then able to be saved as a sticker for future use.

Navigation:

Navigating documents may be viewed by most users as not particularly special, but with the new update, everything users once knew has now become even easier.

Navigation

To switch efficiently through notes:

1. Open a new document.

2. Swipe towards the right, which will open a side menu with the most recent notes.

3. To open a different note, tap it or hold the desired document until a menu pops up.

4. Manipulate the document by either renaming, favoriting, duplicating, or sharing it.

To then split screen a document:

Press either Open on the Right or Open on the Bottom.
Users will now see the two documents side by side or stacked on top of one another.

The bar in the middle can be adjusted as far left or right as needed. At any time, they may also hold and drag any document and place it, having it automatically split screen.

Users can also select the same document and split screen it to have two copies of it, taking away the need to repeatedly scroll up and down.
On the main screen, users can change how they view their notes to simplify personal navigation. In the upper right-hand side, users can find three dots.

While clicking on that, they are able to switch the view between Grid and List, select Notes to manipulate certain ones, and sort By Modified Date, Name, or Created Date.

Bonus Features:

Bonus Features

Zoom (Only available on certain devices)

Zoom allows users to zoom in on their writing and automatically follows your words. This feature can be found in the Toolbox.

To activate: Press the magnifying glass icon.

Users can also create a shortcut to access this by going to Settings, scrolling to Gestures, turning on Tap, and holding Zoom Mode. With a tap and a hold while handwriting, users can now focus on writing, and it will take them where they need to.
Tape

Tape allows users to draw a layer of tape, covering pieces of information and tapping to uncover them.

This can be used primarily for studying, in a way similar to flashcards. Users can also change the sizing of the tape to be as big or as small as they need.
Disconnecting Apple Pencil

Disconnecting Your Apple Pencil: allows users to write like normal with their fingers should their apple pencil stop working or get lost.

At the top right of the screen, press the three dots, click Info, look for Apple Pencil, and press Disconnect. To reconnect it, just start writing again and it will automatically reconnect.
Record

Record allows users to record audio—a lecture, or a conversation, for example—and then play it back on the document.

To Record: Press the microphone icon.

To listen to the recording: Press the play icon.

To record another recording, press the microphone again.

While pressing the play icon, a drop-down menu will appear with the recording, and users can either scrub to the part they desire, or go to the three dots for more options.

In the three dots, there will be all of their recordings. Users can press Tuning to tune the pitch of the recordings, and playback speed to change the speed or adjust the Voice Boost, which adjusts the voices heard in the recording.

If users were writing notes on the document while recording, while playing back the recording, the items written will light up corresponding to when in the recording they wrote it down.

From organization to personalization, these features will hopefully add some additional functionality to users’ current note taking and also help to better organize users’ thoughts, along with their notes.