We're happy to announce another Notebook update, our biggest and brainiest to date.
Notebook 4.0 marks the launch of Notebook for Web, which many of you have been wanting for some time. Then there's also the introduction of Smart Cards, which intelligently format content you add to Notebook across devices. And if those two things aren't enough, we've also added document scanning along with a redesigned Photo Card, lots of drag and drop to Notebook for iPad Pro, and several other cross-platform updates.
It's Here: Notebook for Web
As soon as we launched Notebook people immediately asked for a web app. We took our time with it for two reasons: 1) We wanted Notebook to have a world-class, mobile-first foundation; and 2) We wanted strong continuity across every device and platform.
Notebook for Web brings all your notes and notebooks online. You can create Text, Checklist, Photo, and File Cards. To add a custom Notebook cover, simply drag an image from your desktop and drop it on the cover you want to replace. You can create Photo and File Cards in Notebook by dragging and dropping from your desktop, as well. Notes can be grouped, moved, and copied to different notebooks. And both notebooks and notes can be locked with a passcode.
If you have a Notebook account, the web app is automatically available. To sign up for a Notebook account or learn more about the web app, please check out our website.
Smart Cards: Intelligent content formatting
Smart Cards intelligently format content you add to Notebook, turning random links and web clippings into unique, searchable, groupable note cards. Smart Cards are supported across platforms, including Android. This release features our first three Smart Cards: Recipe Card, Video Card, and Link Card.
Take the Recipe Card for example. When you find a recipe on a site we support and save it to Notebook, we'll automatically find the recipe photo and description, create a checklist for ingredients, and provide step-by-step cooking instructions. Best of all, everything will be neatly organized into a searchable, groupable Smart Card. Pretty sweet, huh?
For more on Smart Cards, check out this page.
Document Scanning: Scan documents into Notebook
Your phone has a camera and Notebook supports PDFs: document scanning was a no-brainer. To scan a document, simply choose to add a File, and select "Scan Document." Your device's camera will turn on, and Notebook, with the help of edge detection, will turn your physical document into a PDF. Notebook can even scan multi-page documents, creating a multi-page PDF. And of course all PDFs, regardless of page count, will be available a distinct, groupable note cards. If you're on iOS, you can also add documents with the "browse" option, which lets you pick and upload a document from the Files app to Notebook.
Redesigned Photo Card: Now better than ever
The Photo Card has been redesigned, making three things better. First, we've given you more screen space when snapping a photo. Second, you can toggle to the right to scan documents from the Photo Card. And third, you can now toggle to the left to bring up your photo gallery, making it easier than ever to select images and add them to Notebook.
iPad Pro: Drag & Drop on iOS 11
We've gone all in on iOS 11. Which means you Notebook for iPad Pro has learned tons of new tricks. I wrote about this in a previous blog post, so check that out or this webpage. If you prefer a TL;DR: On iPad Pro you can drag and drop items within Notebook and across apps and it's freaking awesome.
Web Clippers: Introducing Firefox extension and more
Notebook has made its notable Web Clipper available for Firefox. You can clip the web, drag and drop photos, save links, and read distraction-free with Clean View. All the notes you create will immediately show up in Notebook across devices. The Notebook Web Clipper is also available for Chrome, Safari.
In addition to adding a new Web Clipper, we've made some changes to our Chrome and Safari extensions that we think you'll love. We've swapped out the option save a page link with the ability to create Link Cards. Even better, depending on the site you're browsing, we'll give you the option to create other Smart Cards, like Recipe Cards or Video Cards. Another change: we've redesigned our Reader View. Now you can change the font, font size, and select which of your notebooks you want to save to. Also, when you go to a link of a PDF, you'll automatically be shown the option to Save to Notebook, which will create a File Card.
For the Mac: Add Smart Cards
Smart Cards aren't just for the mobile apps. Notebook for Mac also supports, them as well. All Smart Cards you create are beautifully rendered on Mac. And you can create Smart Cards by dragging and dropping links from your browser into Notebook, which will appear on your other devices. You can also right click URLs from any browser, or on content anywhere on Mac and an "Add to Notebook" option will appear.
What's Next?
We'll continue to release more Smart Cards. We didn't get into too much detail about them here, but lookout for a more detailed post about them soon.
Is this notebook app able to be shared by multiple users? I manage a company with guys "in the field" and am looking for something to share so we don't use up our text and have to call each other....
Hi, We don't have an option to share your Notebook but you can share your Note cards to others. To share your note, open it > click ‘Export’ > chose “Public shareable link”. Anyone who has the link can view your note. You can also set ‘Expiry date’ for the link or can delete the link whenever you want. Note: Only the admin can edit the note.
Please add the ability to add multiple "tags" to a Zoho Notebook Card for easy grouping & searching.
Thanks for the feedback Bill.
Can you add tag function to this wonderful product? I found this app is perfect for my writing needs except the missing of tag function.
Hey thanks for the feedback. We're working on making it easier to organize and find notes. We'll take your thoughts into consideration.
hi there, when i try and access notebook for web i come up with a blank page. why is that? please help. thank you
Hey Amanda, please talk to our support team-- support@zohonotebook.com
Just discovered Notebook. Great app! As a writer who often needs to jot down ideas, it would be great if you could allow notes to be combined or continued. Same for the web clipper. It would be super handy to clip several different bit of online content to a single card. Thanks for a great app.
Hey Christian, glad you like Notebook. I'll pass your feedback, including the idea for improving the web clipper, to the team.
I've just finished downloading the Zoho notebook app on my iphone but I've been circling your website for almost ten minutes and no matter what route I try, I can't seem to find how I'm supposed to access Zoho notebook for web (since I own a PC as opposed to a Mac and it's my understanding there isn't currently an app I could download). Could you please point me in the right direction? I feel like I'm having a carrot dangled in front of me that the notebook's been advertised thoroughly but I can't find the way to actually get to it...
Hi there, sorry for making this hard on you. You can access Notebook for Web from our website, zoho.com/notebook. There is an option to create an account or login at the top right. You can also go to notebook.zoho.com and that will take you directly to a login screen; you can also create an account from there.
Hey, the German version is not quite professional / correct yet. Will you give it an update? Or where can I download the english version?
Hey Chris, sorry to hear that about that. Can you send us an email at supportzohonotebook.com? We'll be happy to help you get the English version.
Will my notebooks and cards be available to view when I am offline (for example on a plane)
Hey DD, yes, your notes are available offline. You can edit them and they'll be synced when you get back online.
The search function works fine in my android app, but not when I use Notebook in the browser. I`, on my way to move over from OneNote, but I need to wait until I am sure that I can search in all my notebooks in the same way as I can do in OneNote today. Is this a "bug", or a known problem?
Hey Johnsen, I'll let the team know about search in the web app. I haven't heard anything about this but we'll look into it.
Taylor--any thoughts on perhaps including a hashtag-like feature? I have cards that can be put in multiple places, and am not wanting to have multiple copies in each place it could be. Thanks!
Hi Blake, At this point, we don't have plans to do a tagging feature. But thanks for your feedback. We'll continue to think about this. Right now we know people have been having some trouble finding notes. We actually just released the ability to sort notes in our latest version. We'll keep working on this. Keep giving you feedback. It really helps!
I was excited about the sort feature, but it should also affect notebooks. In other words, the notebooks should also be sorted accordingly. What makes the most sense to me is to sort by "Modified Date(Newest First)", so that I don't have to scroll all the time on mobile.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll let the team know.
Does commenting work? I'm not seeing my comments show up
Commenting totally works. I was just a bit behind on answering. Sorry!
Hi Taylor - So what's the effective difference between the web app version and the installable Mac app? Does the Mac app do more things than the web app for example? Would be nice to know :)
Answered this on the other blog, but will add it here too. Mac and web apps are pretty much the same. Big difference are the native gestures on the Mac that are not available on the web. You can also record audio on the Mac. I use both regularly and have no problems getting stuff done.
Hi. Is there a way to record audio on the web app from Chrome on Windows? I'm not seeing it.
Hey Jeff, no this is not possible. This is only possible from the mobile apps.
Did the update include the ability to share notebooks??? That is the one thing that really upsets me about this product. I made a great notebook of all the activities for a previous trip but was unable to share or get group comments from any other person on the trip.
Hi Michelle, Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately, we do not have a sharing option between Notebook accounts. You can only share through SMS, email, and Airdrop on iOS.
Will be developed a tagging system or similar function? Moreover, how do you save a link to a specific notebook via the web clipper?
Hey Pier, We're working on making it easier to organize and find your notes. To save a link to a specific notebook from a web clipper: one web clipper, click Clean View, then "Save to Notebook." You'll then have the option to choose which Notebook you want to add the link to.
Hi Taylor, I was about to ask for the same thing (tags). Glad you guys are working on this. I hope it's coming soon. Related to this, I'd love the ability to set a default note color at the notebook level. I'd like all notes in my "Health" notebook to have a light red color for example, and all notes in my "Leisure" notebook to have a light green color. This allows me to easily visually identify my notes when doing a search, or viewing the "All Notes" view. Currently, every time I create a new note, depending on which notebook I want to put it in, I have to manually set the right color every time, for every single note. Very cumbersome. So it would be great to be able to set the default color of all notes created in my "Leisure" notebook to light green, and so on for other notebooks, etc.. And also would want the capability to select multiple notes at the same time, and set the same color (or tags) to them in one shot. I hope this is already in your tagging plans :) Hope that makes sense, and keep up the good work!
Hey Seb, thanks again for the great feedback. We're working on ways to improve note organization within Notebook. I'll pass your comments to our team and we can see what we can do.
will notes work as a webtab in CRM?
I have not tested this myself, but yes, it should work with the same set of credentials. If you run into any problems, please contact support@zohonotebook.com.
Where is the windows desktop app? Not having completely killed my usage of notebook.
We're still working on a Windows app. We hope the web app can suffice for now.
We really need the Windows app so that we can replace the OneNote and Evernote completely :-)
Yeah, I agree. We do need the Windows app. We're working on it.
Awesome!