GoodNotes 5.9.8 for macOS

The lasso tool will change how you think about ink. After you scribble a note or sketch an idea, you can draw a circle around it and drag the whole thing somewhere else on the page. It feels like moving a sticky note, except you can also pinch to shrink your handwriting, twist it sideways, or recolor it to match a diagram. Every change you make on the Mac pops up on your iPad and iPhone through iCloud, so the notebook in your bag is always the same one on your desk.

Build your own table of contents

No more flipping through a hundred pages looking for that one meeting note. You mark any page as a favorite, and GoodNotes lets you string those pages into a custom outline that sits in the sidebar. Tap a chapter heading in your outline and the document jumps right there. It is a simple way to turn a messy digital notebook into something you can actually navigate.

Erase exactly what you mean to

The eraser has a few tricks worth knowing. You can set it to wipe away a whole stroke in one swipe, or switch to a precision mode that only removes the parts you touch. There is even a setting that targets just the highlighter ink, so your handwritten notes stay put while the yellow marker above them disappears. It keeps the cleanup quick without making you worry about messing up the stuff underneath.

First settings I change on a fresh install

Out of the box, the app does a lot, but a few quick tweaks make it feel more like yours. Head into the pen settings and turn off Auto-Advance if you tend to pause while writing—it stops the page from jumping ahead mid-thought. Next, bump up the palm rejection sensitivity one notch. On a Mac trackpad, this keeps stray touches from leaving dots all over your notes while you rest your hand.

The default paper template is fine, but switching to the dark yellow grid under Essentials cuts down on glare during long sessions. And if you work with imported PDFs often, enable Open Documents in New Window under the general preferences. It keeps your textbook open on one side of the screen while your notebook sits on the other, without constant tab shuffling.

Jagged ink at certain zoom levels

Some folks download a GoodNotes dmgg and find their handwritten notes look jagged on the Mac screen. That is usually the zoom level tricking your eyes—pinch out past 100 percent and the vectors sharpen right up. The ink is stored as smooth curves, not pixels, so it prints clean even if it looks a little rough at odd magnifications.

Another hiccup: syncing stalls and you are left with an old version of a notebook. Before anything drastic, open the document list, swipe down to force a refresh, and give iCloud a minute to catch up. If pages still will not load, check that both devices are signed into the same Apple ID and have enough free iCloud space. The sync engine needs breathing room.

Dragging a PDF into the app sometimes lands it in the wrong folder. Instead of dragging straight onto the library, open the target folder first, then drop the file into the empty area below the last notebook. It lands exactly where you want it, every time.

• macOS 10.15 or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel 64-bit