Isn’t it funny? GoodNotes has released an update similar to the one from Notability, a few days after Notability. Coincidence or competition? In GoodNotes 5.7, our developers have introduced Elements and we now have a new icon on the toolbar. How many more icons do you reckon can still fit on the toolbar?
What Are Elements?
We now have Sticky Notes, which we’ve wanted for a long time. They are very basic though, but we can:
- Rename the collection
- Delete sticky notes (if you don’t like them)
- Import new ones as photos from Files or Add Photos from the Photos Library. We can add multiple photos from Photos, but only one image at a time from Files.
GoodNotes has 5 default collections of Elements. They all have the options we just went through for sticky notes. These collections are:
- Sticky Notes
- Mind Map Shapes
- Back To School stickers
- Text Stamps
- Everyday Stickers
Now you can save stickers, in GoodNotes, and have them available across all your notebooks (no more copying and pasting them). You can share your collections, but at the moment, we don’t know what format they are or what apps can open them. Even GoodNotes is not recognising their format.
Custom Collections
You can create custom collections in GoodNotes and that is where all the fun begins. You can organise them into groups for different purposes, subjects or projects. When you create a collection, you can name it and start adding photos. The first image you add becomes the collection’s thumbnail.
When you create a sticker you want to use often, select it with the lasso tool and Add Element. You can then choose the collection you want to add your sticker to. Every new element you create in GoodNotes goes to the right collection. Your elements are always organised and they are more useful that way. You can create elements from:
- Handwritten notes/diagrams
- Images
- Text
- Any combination
You can access your most recently used elements on the toolbar without tapping the Elements icon and we love it! Deleting a collection is also very simple. This update was certainly worth waiting for.
But…
The notes (handwritten or text) you add to your sticky notes and mind map shapes do not stick. You can still separate them with your lasso tool. It’s great we can do that, but not so great. It would be better if our notes could stick to our sticky notes. That way, we won’t have to rely on the lasso tool to move everything our notes and the elements together. Overall, GoodNotes 5.7 is a fantastic update worth waiting for. Check out the Notability update for this same feature.
