Notebook 2.0: Clip the Web, Sketch Ideas, Lock Your Notes

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We noted your feedback after Notebook's release, and now we're back with Notebook 2.0. We sketched out a plan, locked-in, and have extended Notebook beyond mobile devices.

The Notebook 2.0 release includes a Chrome extension, Sketch Card, locking with passcodes and Touch ID, and more.

Notebook Web Clipper: Clip the web and takes notes from your browser

Be it a new recipe you want to try or the next place you want to visit, clip text, images, or links into a note card, and save to a specific notebook. Want to save an article for future reference? With Clean View, you can save the entire article as a note card, minus the ads. Need to quickly grab a screenshot of a web page? The 'Screenshot’ option quickly saves the screenshot as a Photo Card. With the Notebook Web Clipper, you can even create a note from scratch, including the option to drag images from your desktop into a note.

You can start using the Notebook Web Clipper now, by clicking here.

We'll continue to roll out extensions for other browsers. Next up is Safari.

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Sketch Card: Take handwritten notes, create simple sketches

Notebook's aren't just for text; they're for drawing too. That's why we're introducing Sketch Card, a dedicated note card for handwritten notes and visual ideas. Sketch Card comes with four tools, including a pencil, pen, marker, and eraser. 3D Touch (or double tap) any of the tools in your Sketch Card to adjust nib sizes or select custom colors. As you sketch, lines darken the harder you press. You can add sketches to Text Cards to organize your ideas. You can even make your sketches notebook covers. Notebook supports Apple Pencil and the Galaxy S Pen Stylus.

You can download Notebook from the App Store, or Google Play.

2 (1)Locking: Secure your notes, notebooks, and Notebook app with passcodes and Touch ID

Have personal or private information in your notes? In Notebook 2.0 you can lock notes and notebooks with simple passcodes or complex alpha-numeric passwords. In most note-taking apps locked notes look the same as other locked notes, making it hard to find what you're looking for. In Notebook locked notes retain their same visual structure and color, but the content is blurred, helping you identify notes without unlocking them. iOS users can unlock notes and notebooks with Touch ID. You can even lock the entire app; just enable it in Settings.1 (1)Last But Not Least

In addition to the major enhancements above, minor issues have also been addressed. We've also included some new, hand-drawn notebook covers. We'll be including more notebook covers in each major release.

We hope you enjoy the update. Feel free to give your feedback. If you enjoy Notebook, send a tweet out, which you can do from the app, even. Of course, you can aways leave a nice review in the App Store or Play Store as well.

Finally, we can't end this blog without mentioning what's on most of your minds: Notebook's forthcoming Mac and web apps. We're hard at work on these and are making lots of progress. We'll keep you posted.

Comments

35 Replies to Notebook 2.0: Clip the Web, Sketch Ideas, Lock Your Notes

  1. Hello! I've just found this app and I love it! I love how I can edit the notebook covers and colours. My organisation and notes have definitely improved. I use a mac, and I was a little disappointed to find out that I couldn't sketch in the app (web version is good, though! :) I'm a senior student and I often annotate my notes. It would be awesome if I could open a photo in the app and annotate it (drawing and highlighting etc.) Thanks! Awesome app, it's incredible that it's free. Very thankful :)

    1. As of now, you can view your Sketch cards in your PC that are synced from other devices but you can’t create one. Sketch card create support for Windows is done and it is in testing phase. It will be added soon in our future update.

      1. any news on this feature, just started using zoho one and my 'stylus device' is a wacom MSP so can't use the sketch cards yet (windows os) I would be happy to test ;)

        1. Hey Sander, We’re happy to let you know that, the Notebook app now supports Sketch drawings in Windows. You can use your stylus or track pad to draw. Now, this support is available in all the platforms including our web app.

      1. Hi Shahmalarani Chandran, Our Windows app now supports Sketch card drawing. Please update the app to the latest version from the store and try using it. Your feedback will help us to improve the performance further.

  2. I accidentally locked one of my notes. How do I remove the lock from it? I've figured out how to unlock it with my passcode, but I want to permanently remove the lock for this notebook.

    1. On the mobile app you can swipe to the left on the notebook, then tap the top "i" icon. Then there's the option to remove the lock from the notebook.

  3. Can you tell me how to use my Apple Pen on this app please, I have tried and can not locate how to access the use. I can use on other apps just not here.

    1. Hi Shari, The Apple Pencil should work within Notebook's Sketch Card, and also for navigating the app. I'm not sure what's going wrong here. Please write to us at support[at]zohonotebook.com and we can help you.

  4. Hi Taylor, I 'm glad that Zoho Notebook supports the Apple Pencil for handwriting and sketching. There's a lot of research pointing to this mode of writing and drawing as being more conducive to creativity and introspection, which makes it ideal for journaling, but also for planning when using a planning template system: http://www.planetgorik.com/10-notebooks-help-organise-life/ One digital note app which has got this spot on, is zoom-notes.com. I use it for planning my weeks and days, by pasting the image of a planning template (like the ones you see in the link above) as the bottom layer of my drawing canvas, and writing on top of it (making sure that bottom template layer is locked). What makes this really work though, is that in zoom-notes they don't limit your zoom levels - and this allows me to fit my writing into the template very easily. zoom-notes has many more great features, but unfortunately it's not very robust for typed notes, their desktop app is buggy, and their document sync is quirky. Still, it's excellent for handwriting and sketching, and their lockable layers is perfect for using a planning template. They have a Lite version that you can try out. They support the Apple Pencil quite well, amongst many other stylii. Needless to say, I would love to see Zoho Notebook's sketching capability support either: 1) A bottom (lockable) layer where you can put a template there (by simply pasting an image) or 2) The ability to lock a pasted image. Either method would allow us to write freely on top of the template image. Oh and don't forget to allow enough zooming so that we can handwrite normally, but still fit our writing into the template. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

    1. Hey Seb, thanks so much for your detailed feedback. I'll take a look at the apps you mentioned--I'm not familiar with them--and talk to the team. We have added the ability to draw on images, so maybe you could use that as a workaround for now: add an image of the template then draw on top of it. We'll look into zooming.

      1. Hey Taylor - Awesome, yes do try out zoom-notes especially if you have a stylus or Apple Pencil and iPad Pro model. Yes your suggestion should work as long as it's possible to "lock" the image in place as to not move it on the canvas by mistake. The other link are all examples of planning templates - you can just grab an image from one of them (for example this one: https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/005/350/811/89c1db75ff647825d73dc6f7799a76d0_original.png) and give it to your product team to test with. With the end of the year coming many people are more motivated to start using better life management processes in their life and this could be a nice opportunity for Zoho Notebook to make an appearance perhaps. Thanks for responding to my other posts (it would be nice to have some confirmation of replies being successfully submitted) as well. Cheers

        1. Hey Seb, I'll talk to one of our webmasters and see what we can do about a confirmation email for comments. Thanks again for your feedback. =]

  5. Love, love, love the notebook app... won't use anything else! Quick question/bit of feedback re stylus. I have an iPad Air 2, so the Apple pencil won't work for me. Is there one that would work for me? If not, are you planning on asking other stylus makers to create something for this app? Thanks... and keep up the good work :)

    1. Hey Steve, glad you're enjoying Notebook. Right now we're focusing on the Notebook web app. Any stylus that's compatible with your iPad should work. Generally speaking, we develop for devices with native features in mind. So if a stylus is compatible with your iPad it should work with our app.

  6. I LOVE YOUR APP! This is the best journaling app I have ever tried. Notebook covers and the simplicity of the UI. PLEASE let us INDENT our bulleted/numbered lists. This is a very simple function that should've been there before you decided to add extra/cool features. I'm willing to pay premium for this app. I don't know how it's free but thank you Zoho for this Notebook app. iPhone 7 iOS 10.3.2

    1. I'm glad you like it! I'll pass your feedback to the team. As for how we are able to offer an ad-free Notebook: Zoho has been offering free productivity apps for more than a decade. We do a bunch of products that people pay for, which make apps like Notebook possible.

    1. Hey Blaine, no, locking does not encrypt your notes. We're currenly looking into doing encryption across Zoho products.

  7. I am absolutely in love with the Notebook app, but not quite with the Chrome extension. I really would love it if I can take notes AND view notes on Chrome. Kinda frustrating when I need to look at my notes to fill in forms on my computer but my phone is out of reach. I understand that app development is a hassle and this is not necessary or possibly corresponding to your idea for the Chrome extension, but I would really love love love it if I can view my notes on the computer as well. Kudos to your amazing work and keep it up!

    1. Hey Fiona, thanks for your feedback. I know it's a pain that you don't have your notes on the web. But rest assured, we're nearly ready to release our web app. Hopefully that'll help you out.

  8. As someone who has a lot of issues with note-taking, organization, and a variety of other things: I've enjoyed OneNote but I have some issues with it. So far, Notebook seems to be AMAZING in not only making me feel visually pleased with my notebooks but also with its capabilities. Thanks for all of your time and effort. It really means a lot.

  9. Mac and Web versions...YEAH! Great to see the other steady improvements as well. Thanks for this attractive, functional and enjoyable program.

  10. Zoho Notebook is off to a terrific start! Kudos! I downloaded it to my N6 and intend to use it extensively going forward. Can't wait for you guys to unveil the Web app and (hopefully) a Firefox extension. Also, a couple of features: 1. Attachments support and 2. Indent content at least in lists. 3. Tables(?) (At least in the online version if its not possible or easy to implement in the apps.) I may be asking for too much but I am mighty impressed with Notebook and see it as a worthy replacement for EN (certainly better than ON). I won't mind if you decide to introduce a premium version. Also, do you guys have (or plan to post) a feature roadmap on the blog? Keep up the good work!

    1. Hi, We would like to let you know that: 1. We have just released Notebook web clipper and we are working on extension for Firefox. 2. File attachments to the note cad, indent content and supporting tables are already added in our feature list. We will keep you notified once the features are available. 3. Notebook Mac and web versions are almost ready and will be available soon. If you would like to sign up to our Notebook Mac- Beta version, please send us an email to hello@zohonotebook.com. Also we would like to let you know that, a page for Notebook app will be available soon where you can find out the details about our future updates.

      1. Hi Notebook team! Thank you for this beautiful and exciting app...it's exactly what I have been looking for. Is there any more information on when the new web app will be available? Thank you!

        1. Hey Jordan, We're so glad to hear you're enjoying Notebook. Unfortunately, we don't have a release date for the web app yet. A lot of people are asking for it and we're working as fast as we can.

    1. Hi, We are working on Web clipper for other applications and it will be available soon. We will get you notified once it is available. We would like to let you know that Notebook Mac- Beta version is almost ready and if you wish to sign up to our Notebook Mac- Beta version, please send us an email to hello@zohonotebook.com.

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