Anyone who has successfully made extensive handwritten notes on tab/ipad ?

Doing it this time on Samsung Notes.

Pros- 

1. "Find" feature enables me to search content even written in my own handwriting. The AI is super on this. 

2. Typing content on Evernote/OneNote had limitations. You could not draw flow charts, diagrams, put images from the internet to your notes with ease etc. Basically, making notes now on tablet is akin to physical note-making which involves me actively with the topic I'm taking notes of + the added features of digital notes (searchability to add content in relevant topics as and when issues appear)

3. Easy to revise- Revising with a pen and using the highlight feature gives the feel of 'pen-paper' format which is the still the best way to do things for better retention. Revision on Evernote/OneNote was a tough job because it involved passive reading of things on a screen!

4. Multi-window functionality: Makes it easy to switch between windows on the go. If I'm stuck, I can take pictures from YouTube videos, write on them, refer Wikipedia seamlessly. I used to do this with Evernote too but it it took a lot of time. The main reason why I chose to go for Tablet because I had exhausted all the features of Evernote and wanted to do more with my notes.

Cons- 

1. You totally give up pen and paper for good which is not a good thing as we need to be in writing practice for Mains.

No other cons.

Tablet note-taking is the next succession step in the digital evolution!

Me, who uses JK Easy paper n Cello Butterflow:

I have been usingGoodnotes on my11 inchiPad 8th Gen with Apple Pencil1st Generation(yeah the older one :p) with silicon grip, since 2 years now. Initially when I began my preparation, post joiningCGP Batch, I was very excited with the entire idea of Digital Notemaking. I made running notes of Economy (offline class), World History, Post India Independence (online recorded classes) entirely on Goodnotes. This was somehow my way of spicing up my otherwise monotonous preparation. 

Everything was favourable untilI was reminded in class by my then Faculty “how I wasn’t a special case and won’t be getting an iPad in Actual Mains to write my exams; Hence, I shouldn’t give up on the pen and paper mode of note taking.” It didn’t make sense to me instantly, but later FOMO creeped in and the speed issue actually hit me in my first CBT test. 

Later I gave up entirely and resorted to the same old scribbling method of notemaking to work on my “on paper writing skills”. Currently I use goodnotes for reading PDFs and some basic short notemaking. 

However, based on my experience of extensive digital notemaking,here are my two cents which might come handy while taking running notes on Goodnotes -

# Use silicon grip on Apple pencil to avoid pain.

# Select square boxed or ruled paper instead of Blank sheet (for better alignment) 

# Zoom in the portion where you wish to write and then write instead of directly writing on the given space (for better font size) 

# If possible don’t use Glass Template on iPad (it goes alltak- tak -tak -tak when you write, might annoy at times) 

# Select 3 different tip sizes for Headlines or Body and fix them once (So that you do not keep adjusting pencil grip) 

# Select 3 differently pen colours once (for the same reason mentioned above) 

#Use ruler whenever there is alignment issue. Put a straight line, write as per the need. Erase it later. 

#Use “Shape” icon for drawing various shapes 

I am attaching few excerpts from my “Good-notes”@Neyawn for reference-

PS : One night when I was writing something, my father while passing by my side noticed me and curiously asked-“Do you get assignments to submit in your coaching? Why are you making such Dhinchak Rangeen notes? Are you planning to sell it?”  It was then I realised I should probably stop romanticising the art of making notes and rather focus on just getting the job done to the earliest. After all it’d be just me reading my notes. 

PPS: At the end, it’s all about the internal enthusiasm and inherent interest which pushes one to make notes diligently, either on paper or digitally. 

2021 se Sir paper-pen ko iPad se substitute kar diya hai to a major extent. 

I use Goodnotes application.

Pros ki  baat karu toh kaafi saare hai, for example;

1. I can write and draw anything I want on pdfs with the help of stylus. (NCERTs pdf se padhne mei feel aa jaati hai, which I can’t describe aise xD)
2. I can add photos of my already prepared notes(register vaale) to my digital notes.
3. I can also click pictures or scan content from standard books and directly add to my digital notes.
4. I can scan my copy/register handwritten notes, scan them and create pdf and then turn them into digital notes. Pdf create kar ke highlighter sab se marking ho jaati bade araaam se.
5. Stationery ka paisa Bach raha in terms of registers, pen, highlighter pens etc etc.
6. The device itself is very handy to hold. I need not have any table chair to study, tablet hath mei rakh ke I can study anywhere I want to. 
7. I have done answer writing practice on the tablet itself rather than writing on physical answer booklet and then scanning it, creating pdf and sharing it to the evaluator. Goodnotes par answers likhe and then direct vahi se pdf bana ke share kar diya evaluator ko. This saves time.

Cons zyada  hai nahi but ek doe I would like to tell;

Firstly, the documents I have created are colourful because of different types of coloured pens and highlighters I have used. Agar inka printout Nikalna hoga toh agar B&W nikaaala toh it might kill the visual appeal. Coloured printout Nikalna can get costlier as koi functioning printer nahi hai mere paas at the moment.

Secondly, stationery  ka paisa toh Bach raha but stylus ka tip badi jaldii ghistaaa hai agar excessive use ho toh. And Apple Pencil ke tips bhi relatively mehengay aate (₹1900 ke 4 tips).

Thirdly, agar inbuilt storage kam ho device ka toh additional cloud storage Kareedna padd sakta hai to sync and back up your data. 

P.S. I would like to share apne polity PT365 ka pdf Jis ko dekh kar idea lag sakta about the pros I have tried to mention above. Iss shared pdf ke sath sath original pdf bhi dekhiyega to ascertain out the differences, tab better picture milegi.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-EtOGa_gAEQCMIfVnmcWSc85Numj-801/view?usp=sharing

I have been working on Obsidian for other purposes. I have started my UPSC prep with this app since 2023.

It has all the features required to make a comprehensive notes- 

for eg,

1. Division in folders, files.

2. Calender to map progress.

3. We can embed YouTube videos, which is my favourite feature. You can embed playlists!

4. Embed pdfs, mp4 files, images.

5. You can make tags to find content easily. Like I have created tags from Syllabus itself.

6. Templates.

7. Excalidraw extension for graphs.

8. You can spilt the screen for long files.

9. Has tabs like google.

10. Ofcourse, allows to add links, and you can even link internal files.

Attaching a screenshot

Completely agre with you Azad. Most people underestimate humanities. You may be reading the same text, but it means different things at different times.

NCERTs are written for school kids, but when you read them as a kid vs a graduate vs a seasoned aspirant, your perspective will change.

Also, no use of summarising Polity book. You may create some short notes for parts where you feel you have trouble remembering stuff. But end to end notes for the basic books -pointless!

I tried doing it on Ipad + Apple Pencil. I used apps like PDF Viewer, Good Notes, Pages etc. 

After suffering agony because of technical glitches, slow pace of writing, eyes dryness as ~ 9-10 hours screen time, I realised the beauty of Fresh White A4 Sheets coupled with TriMax. 

After shifting back to Pen-Paper Mode, I realised my presentation, speed, alignment improved which is sine qua non for Mains. 

@Neyawn 

This is how I have organised notes. I have integrated all the MGP questions + PYQs of the past 3 years topicwise. The next task is to further consolidate them in pointers. I keep on adding CA in respective topics daily. 

For Prelims, separate folders for main subjects to accumulate the 'wrongs' in the test series I'm attempting. The accumulated fodder and the topics related to them will be revised intensively.

I have been using both Goodnotes 5 and Notability for the last 2 years. 

PS - 1st pic is from Notability and the last 2 are from GoodNotes 

 😂😂🤝 

classmate registers and reynolds pen 

only hand written pen paper notes 

Aye Aye Captain.

Gotten started with Samsung Notes, with a smaller screen size albeit. 

I somehow find the Samsung Pencil way better than Apple Pencil ( I have the old Apple Pencil ) . 

Those are the sources you keep going back to again and again during preparation. And, every time you read them, you're likely to get some new insights on the subject. So, there's no point "condensing" them exhaustively!

That being said, I have made notes from them to connect some dots (eg: agreements leading to partition- Nehru report, Cripps mission, wavell plan etc), some data that I keep forgetting etc.

But, never with the objective of making the book redundant and solely relying on my own notes. 

I keep going back to the books with my notes alongside.

Same. Samsung notes. 

I can remove already known / redundant/ learnt facts and ideas thereby reducing the revision time considerably

Moreover pasting pyqs in books or writing easily on the margins, this helps in PYQs where space is limited on physical paper

The only downside is that paper has is its own charms. It's what all of us have used throughout our life to learn. I'm planning to take printouts of the revision PDFs a month before the exam. Which brings another downside- you can get lost in the endless PDFs and unconsolidated files. It's something that sucked out a lot of time when panic mode starts before the d day, in my last attempt

But I'm certainly in favour of a tablet and a stylus over physical books 

Ps. Hope the print out idea helps!

i am using onenote for windows

pros: 

1. interoperability in multiple os ( windows, android, ios, ipados etc)

2. presence of draw feature for annotation and markup also, flowcharts and mind maps.

3. has most of the relevant features of ms-word (tables, highlighting etc).

4. unlimited cloud storage and sync.

5. web clipper is at par with evernote

cons.

1. will need a pc for easy edits.

can anyone suggest good tablet in the range of 30000 ? ( purpose : note making) 

I switched to Tab because typed notes had some drawbacks-

1. Took a lot of time- Switching between tabs to get content. I used to write the content in my own words because copy-pasting from the source didn't work. Writing on tablet takes much less time and I can also curate my content- draw symbols, flow charts etc.

2. Revising was tough in Evernote because reading from the screen didn't involve me actively. I would take printout and read during the exam and scribble a few things over them. Transposing the same back to Evernote was difficult. So, those tid-bits of value addition remained on paper.

So, I thought handwritten notes on Tablet would make more sense for me. And, it did! I'm satisfied.

I used notability in my iPad 10.5, have tried OneNote et . But now settled with notability

Handy means small tab = not good for writing

Large Tab = good for writing  = not great for laying in bed and reading like a book, which you will need to do at times.