Freenotes - Notes Taking & PDF

Freenotes Inc

About this app

Freenotes: The Ultimate Digital Note-Taking Solution for Study and Work
Freenotes lets you experience true paperless learning, combining the pleasure of realistic handwriting with features that boost your study and work efficiency. Whether you're a college student needing PDF annotation or a professional seeking a high-efficiency meeting note tool, Freenotes is the best GoodNotes alternative for a seamless, productive experience across all your devices.

AI Integration: Your Smart Study Assistant
A handwriting app with built-in AI to summarize long notes or check grammar/spelling in handwritten text？
Freenotes is equipped with a powerful AI Assistant designed to optimize your learning and reviewing process:
- Instant Summaries & Answers: Take a screenshot or upload a document (PDF or photo) to instantly get answers to questions and AI-generated summaries of content. Perfect for quickly understanding long documents or creating study outlines for exams.
- AI Study Companion: Use the assistant to clarify concepts, define terms, and check your handwritten notes for accuracy, turning passive review into active recall.

High-Efficiency Note-Taking & Organization
What's a high-quality app to handwrite meeting notes and convert them into searchable text?
We focus on helping you solve the pain point of messy, unsearchable notes:
- Organized and Neat: The folder feature allows you to categorize and organize your notes by projects, courses, or topics, automating the organization of your note library.
- Quick Search via OCR: No more wasting time searching! Our advanced handwriting OCR (Optical Character Recognition) means you can easily find the specific note or keyword you need, even if it was handwritten.

Academic Powerhouse: PDF Annotation & Learning Tools
Best Pad note-taking app for college students？ Recommend an aesthetic digital planner app for tablets that works with hyperlinked PDFs？
Freenotes offers features essential for college students and professionals working with documents:
- Interactive PDF Annotation: Annotate, mark up, and highlight large PDF files. Select text to translate and look up words directly for more convenient and engaging learning.
- Hyperlink Support: Create hyperlinked digital planners or study guides that jump to different pages within your notes or to external web pages for easy access to related information.

Multitasking & Focus: Master Video Learning
"Take notes while watching videos," "Split-screen for courses."
Maximize productivity by taking notes while consuming content:
- Seamless Video Learning: Use Picture-in-Picture (PiP) to take notes while watching online videos (YouTube, lecture recordings), and instantly capture relevant screenshots directly into your notes.
- Dedicated Course Learning View: Display your handwritten notes or mind maps alongside course content in a specialized split-screen setup for deeper understanding and quick review.

Review & Memorization for Active Recall
"Helps with active recall," "Exam preparation tool."
We provide specific tools proven to aid memory:
- Active Recall Tape Tool: Use the tape tool to mark key information for memorization and quickly test yourself by toggling visibility—a powerful technique for active recall and exam preparation.
- Exam Prep Center: Access built-in exam materials, timers, and use in-app layers and split-screen to practice and simulate exams without re-importing files.

A True Paper Feel: Natural & Customizable Writing
What app has the most natural and lowest-latency writing feel on a tablet?
- Realistic Pen Strokes: Experience lifelike, low-latency pen strokes on electronic devices by combining handwriting pens, providing the most natural feel for writing on digital platforms.
- Customization: Create and save custom brushes for quick access. Freenotes now supports the latest features of Pencil.

Ratings and reviews

I rarely leave reviews these days but this is a very awesome note app. Notion can be complicated, and Obsidian and Onenote seem scholastic so I've never stuck with them long term. This app feel like it was made for creative brains. Plus they give away a lot of options that would normally be behind a pay-wall in other apps while working half as well. I love the smooth writing with my stylus and my only small issue is I wish I could toggle erase with my stylus, instead of having to select erase.

Everything is fine, but there are some features that don’t exist. For example, I can’t move the pen panel. When I use my tablet in portrait mode, all the pens aren't visible and this becomes a problem.If I were able to change its position (bottom right or bottom left), it would be much more useful.

I have been using this app for about 3 months now and this is simply the best free app out there, this is even better than many paid applications. Just one more request to the developers that if they can add a floating note option then that can improve the efficiency by 100x. Still it is a 5 on 5 from my side.

What’s new

Feature Optimization
- Optimized the laser pointer functionality.
- Removed the limit on the number of items that can be added to the custom toolbar.

Thanks for using Freenotes!