App Review: Take Notes with Notability

I know a corporate attorney who literally sits on a stack of boxes in his office.

His office is exploding with paper. Everything is constantly getting lost to desk drawers or stuffed into bookshelves.  Many attorneys know the problem. You write something down, then forget it two years later on the eve of trial.

The solution is Notability, an app for taking and saving electronic handwritten notes on the iPad.

Notability ($0.99) is a remarkable app. Of the many note-taking apps, including Penultimate and Note Taker HD, it’s the best by far. Says a technology writer for The New York Times:

Like a lot of people in the ’80s, I bought a microcassette recorder to capture great ideas the way Michael Keaton’s character did in “Night Shift.” My recorder quickly gathered dust because it was much easier to retrieve ideas and reminders from good old inedible paper.

So when I first saw apps like Evernote (free on Apple and Android), PhatPad($5 for iPad) and Notability ($1 for iPad) for note-taking and organizing, they struck me as software versions of those old recorders: places where ideas go to die. I was wrong.

These and other apps make it so easy to record, circulate and retrieve your most important thoughts that they’re worth far more than the few bucks you’ll spend on them.

Each note you take is saved as a .pdf file. You can add pictures and sync everything with Dropbox. Here’s an overview of the major features.

Writing Notes

First, you need a stylus. Do not use a regular pen or you’ll scratch the screen. You could use your finger to write notes, but consider how silly that would look in front of a client. I recommend a Targus Stylus, which is available at most stores.

To create a new note, open the app and select “Create a New Note”:

Select the pen icon in the menu bar, then click on the magnifying glass icon in the lower-right:

Start writing in the zoom box at the bottom of the screen:

The zoom box lets you write a page of notes without feeling that you are drawing with a large Crayon. To advance the row, click on the arrow icons, and to select a new row, click on the return-arrow icon.

You can also add pictures (lower-left icon), type notes (“t|” icon in the menu bar), erase what you have written (eraser icon in the menu bar), and change your pen type (tap the pen icon a second time in the menu bar):

Click the library button in the upper-right corner to return to your other notes.

Recording Audio

As you write, you can also record background audio. To start recording, open a new note and tap the microphone icon in the menu bar so that it turns red:

To stop recording, tap the microphone a second time. You can listen to the audio by tapping the play button.

Saving and Sending Files

At the main menu, send your notes by clicking on the box-and-arrow icon in the upper-right corner, selecting the note you want to send, then selecting “Export” to choose your destination (Email, Dropbox, or Print). You can also send notes from within the file by clicking the box-and-arrow icon in the upper-right corner:

To sync with Dropbox, click on the settings icon in the lower-right corner:

Amazingly, you can sync both an audio .mp3 file of your recording and a .pdf file of your notes. Notability is the perfect app for depositions, where it would be incredibly useful to take notes while recording audio for later review.