Noteshelf: Sketches and Handwritten Notes on the iPad

Noteshelf by Ramki is an excellent, full-featured iPad app for digital note-taking and simple sketching. Noteshelf has the ability to create and organize customized notebooks, copy and rearrange pages, and share pages by e-mail as image or PDF files. Typed text is searchable, but handwriting is not. Pages may be tagged with key words to further aid in findability. The app comes with numerous common paper backgrounds and many pen, pencil, and highlighter tools. It integrates well with the iPad’s Photo Album and camera in image mode, but does not support audio or video recording. Third generation iPad users can employ Apple’s Siri personal assistant voice recognition to dictate searchable typed text. Noteshelf supports VGA output, which can be useful in a classroom or meeting room. Custom page templates and The “Sweep” feature provide the option to use Noteshelf as a digital whiteboard that can be displayed in HD.

Noteshelf can also be seen as a very capable and easy to use iOS productivity app for handwriting and organizing notes, brainstorming, and digital design and mock-up processes. It can be useful for teaching classes or instruction sessions and collaborating with students or with other library and information professionals during planning and administrative sessions. Documents can be shared by e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter, or saved to the cloud by export to Dropbox or Evernote. Noteshelf provides pressure sensitive stylus settings for Adonit JOT Touch, POGO Connect, and Hex3 Jaja styli. The Moshi iVisor iPad screen protector is recommended when using the Adonit JOT Touch stylus.