Notes Writer Pro: Beyond PDFs

• Price: $9.99
• In-app purchases

Last verified 31 Jul 2026

4.6 3180 ratings · App Store

1. 5/5Best combo of PDF annotations and note taking

   I have been trying to find a notes App that worked better with PDF annotation (in addition to being good at note taking), but one HUGE drawback of other note taking Apps (i.e. Goodnotes, Flexcil, Nebo, Notability) is that every file has to be imported to be used, and therefore becomes a duplicate, non-sycronized file (not a big deal if you just use it for notes only). Well, NotesWriter fixes that! All files can be saved natively in the iPad Files folder and useable by any PDF program, not just Noteswriter. To me that makes NotesWriter a near-perfect combination of Goodnotes and PDF Viewer. Considering other PDF Apps charge a subscription, this feels like a steal. You even get a lasso/clipping tool, the ability to scan pages in, and a ton of page templates (all of which most free PDF Apps don’t have). PDF Expert and PDF viewer are the most similar, and have a bit smoother look, but this is slightly better than those if you want note taking abilities. Note to Developers: The layout/user interface could still be improved: if the toolbar was customizable (like PDF Expert), if the view layout was more full screen (neither Reader or Presentation mode are as good as PDF Viewer’s layout), and if the handwriting had a simple zoom feature and was recognizable (like Goodnotes). Great job!

   jaggner · 31 Jul 2026

2. 5/5What a team “NotesWriter Pro and its Developers “

   I’m so very impressed! I suffer from insomnia so at 5:00am Arizona time I downloaded the new update. I was actually excited because I see great things in the horizon from this team. Well, I was sorta hit in the gut when I fired up the application and it immediately shut down. I took action and sent a text to Zendesk, not because of my disappointment but because I could tell by their program description they were very excited also about the release. To my surprise dialogue started immediately ( don’t know where they’re located but maybe they’re early birds) I sent a description of the problem and photos. I sent them so much I thought they would block me, lol. Well this went on for most of the early morning and by now I figured they had to be on break, sleep or eating but was I surprise when I found the new update proudly sitting in the Apple Store this afternoon. NO! I don’t normally write reviews or anything else this long but they truly deserve all the credit I can bolster, I’m sticking with this team! Thank you so much for standing behind your words!

   Iskarat · 31 Jul 2026

3. 1/5Very Disappointed

   I have been a customer since you began with NotesWriter. Since then I have updated to every new version that has come out. When you started with NotesWriter it was without a doubt the best app of it’s type available. But now and for some time there have been problems with saving a file, with moving a file, and with even moving from one version of the notes apps to another. It has been frustrating to say the least how you started with the very best product available and each time you’ve added or upgraded, the app has suffered a degrading of abilities and become less reliable. I have put up with this and worked as hard as I can to overcome but it is past time for me to let you know that by continuing to make this more and more capable of different things in different abilities you have diminished the services of what you started with. In other words perhaps too much of a good thing reduces what you already had by cramming too much into it. I truly hope there is a way for you to return to the quality you had and the reliability you had with the first. I have faithfully paid you each time for the upgrade only to find that it was not an upgrade but a downgrade. I would be satisfied if I could just have the very first product that I bought which did everything that I, and I am sure most of your users were satisfied with, but you seem to have made that unavailable. What a shame. It was perfect for wordprocessing and writing sermons and manuscripts.

   Exousia1 · 31 Jul 2026

4. 5/5Fantastic app!!

   I have been taking a training course that references PDF documents with 300 to 400 pages each. While the instructor makes a presentation, I need to quickly highlight text and images on the corresponding (password protected) document, and annotate it with commentaries and diagrams. At times I need to take a picture of a complex diagram that the instructor draws on the board and insert it into the PDF. Notes Writer allows me to do all that, and presents me with a multitude of editing options that I use to adjust and revise my notes after class. I reported to the Studio 5 Team a couple of small usability issues and suggested some enhancements to the app. I was surprised by the immediate same-day courteous reply addressing my issues, but more so when two weeks later two of my suggested enhancements had been added! When I initially searched (about two months ago) the internet looking for best-in-class apps of this type, Notes Writer did not come up on any of the lists. I find this very strange because the competing apps that are listed appear to be inferior. Go figure...

   Placentero · 31 Jul 2026

5. 1/5Poor customer service

   I have the old Notes Writer on my old IPad Pro. I purchased a new IPad Pro and the old app transferred when I set it up, but then it wouldn’t open on my new Ipad. It shows it is there but just blips open and closed. So I was dumb enough to pay for the Notes Writer Pro thinking this would fix everything. I upgraded on my old Ipad to the pro from within the old Notes Writer thinking the files would just switch over. No such luck. I have written several times for help & after a week, they might get back to me and give me instructions that get me no where. I have begged for help and the things they tell me to do don’t go to the screens they say it does. I have even reloaded my new Ipad in hopes that would work but it doesn’t. I would really like to get my money back on the Notes Writer Pro since it is obviously useless to me and no one wants to help. If they would just call or give me a number to call so I could tell them what shows up on my screen where they are saying something else should be showing up so we can figure out the problem. I don’t recommend upgrading. I am going to have to go to a different program and just copy and paste all my documents since you can’t get help with this app. I have been using it for years and never had a problem before.

   Elizabethm870 · 31 Jul 2026

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