USER GUIDE

INDEX
D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

W H AT I S D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G ?

HOW DO I UPLOAD THE PDF TO GOODNOTES?

UPLOAD FILES
FROM YOUR COMPUTER

F RO M YO U R I PA D

HOW TO ADD STICKERS TO GOODNOTES

OPTION ONE - CAMERA ROLL

OPTION TWO - ELEMENTS TOOL (RECOMMENDED)

HOW TO USE GOODNOTES

ADD STICKERS
THE MENUS

READ/WRITE MODE

ADD NEW PEN/HIGHLIGHTER COLOURS

ORGANISE YOUR FILES

SEARCH FUNCTION

CROP PHOTOS

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C O N TA C T D E TA I L S

THANK YOU!
Thank you for purchasing a GoodNotes PDF from Neat & Tidy Design

I hope you’ll find it useful and that it will help make your life a bit more
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organised.

Neat & Tidy

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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
W H AT I S D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G ?

A digital planner is like a regular paper planner in many ways, but it’s more flexible.
It’s a PDF file you upload to a note taking app on your iPad or tablet. You can then
use an Apple Pencil or a stylus to write, doodle and highlight all over the PDF.

Most planners also include hyperlinks (clickable tabs and links) that make it easy to

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navigate through large planners. You can also duplicate all the pages if you feel like
you need more of a certain page type. You will also be able to find other types of
digital files like notebooks, wellness trackers, journals etc.

S O M E O F T H E B E N E F I T S O F D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G :
• You can set up a new planner, or ten, in an instant
• It’s very flexible - you can move pages around, duplicate pages and delete them

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• It’s a chance to be creative by adding fun colours, fonts, and stickers to
decorate your planner pages
• You don’t need to carry around five different notebooks and two different
planners to keep your self organised - you can set it all up on your iPad
• It’s paperless so it saves the trees

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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
H OW D O I U P LOA D T H E P D F TO
GOODNOTES?

First, download the file you would like to import to either your computer or your
tablet. I’ll be showing you how to upload the file to GoodNotes as that’s my
favourite note taking app. The steps should be similar with other note taking apps,

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but if not please check the app instructions if it’s not.

F RO M YO U R I PA D
If you downloaded your planner PDF to your iPad you can find it in your Files app.
Open GoodNotes and tap + New and select Import. Navigate to the cloud service
you used in the previous step and locate your file. Tap the file to import it.

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Or you can look for the PDF in your Files app and open the PDF, then look for
the Share/Export button. In the menu, you’ll find an option that says Open in
GoodNotes. Tap that and select Import as New Document in the options box.

FROM YOUR PC/MAC

With your PDF downloaded to your computer you’ll want to use a cloud service
(Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud etc) and save your PDF to the one of your choosing. USE GOODNOTES

Open GoodNotes and tap + New and select Import. Navigate to the cloud service
you used in the previous step and locate your file. Tap the file to import it. Once it’s
imported it will open the file and you can start adding content to it.
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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
HOW TO ADD STICKERS TO
GOODNOTES

When you download digital stickers they usually come in a few different formats.
Single individual png/jpg files, sticker sheets with multiple stickers in one png file,
and sometimes also as a GoodNotes sticker book (.goodnotes).

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I personally prefer the pre-cropped stickers as I find them easier to use, and I don’t
have to use the lasso tool to cut out the stickers I want.

UPLOAD THE STICKERS TO GOODNOTES

You can download the stickers straight to your tablet or to your computer. If you’ve

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downloaded them to your iPad you’ll want to open the Files app and unzip the file.

If you’ve downloaded them to your computer you’ll want to unzip the files (if you
need some help unzipping files, check out my article on it here) and then upload
them to your cloud service of choice (Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud etc).

O P T I O N 1 - SAV E T H E S T I C K E R S TO YO U R C A M E R A USE GOODNOTES

ROLL

STEP ONE.

In the files app or one of the cloud services you can select the images you want to
use and save them to your camera roll.

STEP TWO.

Open up your planner in GoodNotes and click on the Photos icon to add an image
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from your camera roll to your planner. You can then resize and reposition it on the
page.

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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
O P T I O N 2 - U S E T H E E L E M E N T S TO O L ( M Y FAV O U R I T E )

The new Elements Tool makes it easy to save and reuse stickers (and text) across
all your documents. Much easier than using sticker books or adding each sticker
one-by-one from your photos app or cloud service. See GoodNotes introduction of
the new Elements feature here.

STEP ONE.

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Click the Elements icon in the top bar. Make sure you’re in Write mode
Click the plus sign to create a new Elements collection.

STEP TWO.

Give your new Collection a name in the Title field. Then click Add Photos in the
bottom left corner to add images from your camera roll.

STEP THREE.

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Select the stickers/images you want to add to your collection. Tap an image to
select it. Then click Add in the top right corner when you’re done. You can always
go back and add more stickers at a later date.

STEP FOUR.

Click Create in the top right corner to save your new collection.

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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
HOW TO USE GOODNOTES

THE MENU BARS

All the tools to help you make planning easy, fun and creative can be found in the
top menu bars.

PA G E T H U M B N A I LS BOOKMARK

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Opens an overview of Bookmark a page FILE TITLE A D D PA G E SETTINGS
all the pages, plus to easily find it in Click here to change the Add a new page to Various document
bookmarks Page Thumbnails file name your document settings

DASHBOARD EXPORT UNDO & REDO R E A D - O N LY

Go back to all Print or Share Click to undo or redo Disable or enable
your goodnotes pages your actions read-only mode
files SEARCH
Search for words
in the document

LASSO

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PEN TOOL HIGHLIGHTER Select items to move PHOTOS OPTIONS
Write with - you can Highlight text on them or to copy/ Add photos from Change the colour or size
also change the style the page paste them your camera roll (pen has the same tools too)

ERASER SHAPES ELEMENTS TYPE TOOL

Erase elements on Draw different Your sticker book Type text instead
the page shapes of handwriting

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READ/WRITE MODE
There are two different modes in GoodNotes. Read-only mode and Write mode. If
you want to use the tabs and links in your planner to navigate around you need to
make sure you’re in Read-only mode, otherwise the links won’t work.

To be able to write you have to disable Read-only mode and enter Write mode.
This is where you’ll be able to use your pen, highlighters and add stickers.
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WRITE MODE R E A D - O N LY M O D E
Use the pen to write, Use the hyperlinked tabs
highlight and add stickers to navigate the document

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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
HOW TO ADD NEW PEN/HIGHLIGHTER COLOUR
If you want your pen and highlighter colours to match the colours of your planner
you’ll need the hex code of the colour you want to add. Many planners will add the
hex colour codes either in an intro document or help file, or in the planner itself. If
you can’t find it, ask the seller and they’ll be able to provide them for you.

To add a new colour, click the Pen or Highlighter tool, then click on the colour
with a little down-arrow in it to open the colour picker. In the Presets tab, select

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Edit, then click the + button. From there you can add the hex code then tap Add to
Presets to save it.

ORGANISE YOUR FILES

GoodNotes allows you to create folders to help you keep your planners and other
documents organised. To add a new folder, tap the + New and select Folder and
give it a name. If you have both personal and business documents in GoodNotes it

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might be a good idea to create folders for each of those to keep things separate. I
also keep a separate folder for Workbooks and guides I use.

SEARCH YOUR NOTES

Goodnotes features a search function that allows you to search through your
handwritten notes. You can find the search icon in the top left. It’s actually quite
good at finding things even with messy handwriting. USE GOODNOTES

C U T PA RTS O U T O F A P H OTO
If you add a photo to your planner you might not want to keep the entire image, just
a part of it. With the Lasso tool selected, hold down on a photo and select Edit.
Then tap the image again and select Crop.
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In the crop tool, select Freehand and use your Apple Pencil to draw around what
you want to cut out. Click Done and you’ll have a custom-sized sticker to add to
your planner.

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D I G I TA L P L A N N I N G
D O YO U H AV E A N Y Q U ES T I O N S
OR NEED TO GET IN TOUCH?

Please don’t hesitate to message me on Etsy or send me an email if you have any
questions, problems with the files, comments or perhaps ideas for new products.

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I’m always interested to hear what my customers think and take any feedback into
consideration when creating new products or updating existing ones.

CONNECT WITH US

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