Maccast Members #205 - Notes for iOS

Maccast Patreon

• Talk about the new Patreon and what it means fro the future of Maccast Members
• If you have ever been a Maccast Member and you join the Pateron at ANY level (or if you stay here), you will get an exclusive "founders" version of the membership card and will also get the occasional "schwag" rewards.
• You are welcome to stay in this program or move to Pateron.

Introduction

• In iOS 11 Apple has significantly upped it's game in the Notes app, especially on the iPad Pro
• I thought this would be a good opportunity to deep dave a bit into the Notes app and all it's features, new and old.

The Basics

• Open the Notes app and tap the share with a pencil on it to create a new note.
  • Simply tap in the main area and start typing to create your note.

Toolbar

• Just above the QuickType keyboard you should see some tools
  • If not tap the "+" icon on the right-side to bring up the tool bar.
  • Tap the 'Aa' icon to get to some basic styles
    • Presets for things like Title, Heading, body, you can scroll through
    • Basic formatting like bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough
    • List styles, dashed, numbered, and bulleted
      • Can start by typing -, number, or * respectively
    • Indent and outdent
  • Tap the "checkmark" to start a checklist
    • Can actually check these off in your note
  • Tap the "+" icon
    • Add Photo or video from Camera or Library
      • Tap image and hold. when jumps up let go and you'll get the contextual menu
        • Change to 'small images' and all images will be small in your note
      • Force press and slide up to Share, Copy, Delete
      • Press hold and drag for drag and drop.
      • Markup
        • Tap the image
        • Tap the Markup' (pencil icon). Don't see it tap 'More…' and make sure it's on.
        • Now you can use Markup tools to draw over the scan
          • Tap "+" to add text, signatures, magnifier, and shapes (including arrows).
        • Add a sketch.
          • Inserted into note
          • Can force press to add to or edit
          • Force press and slide up to share or delete a sketch
          • These are added more like attachments then inline like with "handwritten" notes
          • At to press the "+" inside square to add another sketch (can do multiples)
          • There are also rotate and "share" buttons
          • Tap Done to inset into note
        • Tap the 'pencil' icon to create a handwritten note
          • Your typed text and handwritten stuff will be mixed together.
          • Just tap once to go back to typing
          • You will see a line with a handle and you can grab that handle up and down to add more or less room for the handwritten content.
          • In Settings > Notes > Line & Gridlines you can select line and grid styles for handwritten notes.

Manager

• Tap the '< Notes' link to access all your notes
• Tap the '<' again to go to the 'Folders' view.
  • All iCloud, Local folders, and Recently Deleted
  • Tap edit, and then a folder name to rename it
  • Check a folder and tap delete to delete it
  • Tap 'New Folder' to create a new folder
• Recently deleted
  • These are kept for 30 days
  • Tap Edit, to select and move or delete a note
  • You can also tap "delete all" or "move all"
• Four squares icon at the bottom lets you view all attachments in this Notes folder.
  • Show the most recent attachments sorted in categories
    • Photos & Videos
    • Sketches
    • Scans
    • Websites
    • Documents
    • Can tap 'Show all' next to any category to see all attachments in all notes for that category
  • Tap on an attachment to get preview of it
  • Can tap 'Show in Note' to jump to it in the note
  • Can also force press and skip up.
• List view
  • Tap a folder to access it's notes
  • Can use the 'Edit' button to select, move, and delete notes
  • Can also swipe right to left across a new item and get the "move" and "delete" options
  • Swipe left to right to "Pin" a note.
    • Will always be at the top of the notes list for that folder.
  • Also gives you the "lock" option to set a password on the note.
    • Settings > Notes > Password
    • Can set a default password for all note

Search

• Pull down in the list view to access the search box
• Handwritten notes are searchable

Cool stuff

Change paper

• In a note tap the 'Share' button and then 'Grids & Lines'
• changes for handwritten parts.

Tables

• In your note tap the 'table' button (looks like a two column grid)
• Gives you a 2 x 2 table. Type and tap in the cells
• To add a row or column tap the "..." icon next to the town or above the column
  • You'll have the choices to add or delete.
• To rearrange just tap the row or column then drag by the "..." handles
• Convert text into a table by selecting the text and tapping the table button
  • Each line will become a row in the table
  • Unfortunately it doesn't parse CSV text into a table.
• Convert table to text by tapping on an item in the table then tapping the table icon
  • In the pop-up tap 'Convert table to text'
  • The pop-up will also let you copy, share, and delete the table.
• Table's do not support functions or calculations.

Document Scanner

• In a note, tap the "+" icon and then choose Scan Documents
• It will try to use "Auto" mode to detect pages and snap a picture
  • You'll see a yellow bounding box.
  • It will auto snap the image and then try to detect the next "page"
  • You can also tap the shutter button manually and tap 'Auto' to switch to manual mode
  • When press the shutter it will give you handles to adjust the scan area (crop)
  • tap the scan type (three overlapping circles) icon to choose Color, Grayscale, Black & White, or Photo
  • There is also a rotation tool.
• As near as I can tell scanned documents are NOT OCR'd for search.
• Markup
  • Tap the scanned document
  • Tap the 'Share' button and in the 'actions' screen scroll and choose 'Markup' (pencil icon). Don't see it tap 'More…' and make sure it's on.
  • Now you can use Markup tools to draw over the scan
    • Tap "+" to add text, signatures, magnifier, and shapes (including arrows).
  • Save to PDF
    • Tap the scanned document
    • Tap the 'Share' button and in actions scroll to choose 'Create PDF)
    • Tap 'Done' and then in the pop-up choose 'Save File To…'
    • That will bring up the Files picker and you can choose the save location

Notes from lock screen

• If you have an Apple Pencil and an iPad Pro
• Double tap the lock scree with the Apple Pencil to quickly start a new handwritten note.
• Apple Pencil is just cool with notes. Makes taking handwritten notes a lot easier.
• If you have an Apple pencil and just start writing in a note it will automatically switch into "handwriting" mode. No need to tap the icon.