iPad Pro pencil

Another request for Pencil support. I’m currently using Notability. What Notability lacks for me are tools related to task management. While I can make checklists, I can only view and maintain those checklists within the original notes where I created them. I often generate tasks while I am taking handwritten notes during meetings, and it would be very useful to be able to view and manipulate those tasks (multiple view options, reminders, etc) using the more powerful tools within Agenda.
I don’t need the full sketching capabilities of Notability, but it would be nice to be able to intersperse typed and handwritten text and to be able to annotate both using hand-drawn symbols like arrows, etc. I would prefer that the handwritten stuff and the typed stuff scale together when zooming in and out.
Thanks!
-Pete

Here is a vote for handwriting recognition. N. I use Good notes and it checks off most of what I want, but zero task integration. I see you are headed that way and would love to have a way of recording meeting notes and taking action items with dates. These items need to be coupled with reminders, as I said in a different topic.

Here is another vote for Apple Pencil support. I need to be able to insert drawings into a note, as well as open a drawing embedded in a not and edit it. I would love to be able to highlight note text and annotate a notes as well, but I’ll settle for the ability to insert and edit drawings at this time.

I am ready to move off of Evernote and Agenda is one of my options. The other is Bear, which already has Apple Pencil support, but its very limited.

Another vote for supporting the Apple Pencil. Optimal would be some OCR magic to recognise handwriting (and by doing so render my terrible scribblig searchable). If you guys manage that, I could finally kick out some other apps such as GoodNotes which is just so so ugly and clumsy compared to Agenda.

And another request for Apple Pencil support.
Personally I don’t need anything fancy like OCR just the ability to free write notes that I can look back on at a later date. At the moment I use NoteShelf & Dynalist, but really want just one app for all my notes however they were taken. Thanks

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I’ll add a “me too!” I just downloaded Agenda for iPad. I’m loving the organization scheme, but I’m also hooked on hand writing notes in meeting - making and annotating sketches. Add annotating PDFs, and Agenda would replace multiple apps for me

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Darn. Big 3.0 iOS update but still no pencil support. I’d love an update on progress. I currently don’t use Agenda because of the lack of pencil support, but I will happily pay for the pro upgrade once it is implemented. Any word at all on a timeline, devs? Thanks!

We are currently adding the ability to insert images and attachments. Pencil won’t work without this.

Once we have that functionality, which is getting quite close now, it will be possible to add support for drawing diagrams or writing in images with Pencil in future.

If you want to use Pencil to enter text, ie writing and have that converted to typed text, I think there are keyboards in the app store for that.

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hello,there is an app called myscript nebo, it is build for Apple Pencil. And it can convert handwriting into text. I think maybe agenda can have the same feature. and I highly recommend you to try this app, maybe you can get some spirits from it.

We are very aware of Nebo, yes. In fact, AFAIK it is the only company that can do handwriting recognition. Even Apple don’t do it.

We are investigating options, but licensing the technology is very expensive, and it is not really an option to develop it ourselves (MyScript is hundreds of developers.)

I too use Nebo. It is great. Rather than have the Agenda team get distracted in trying duplicate IT within Agenda I suggest refining either Share or potentially Attachments to import the product from Nebo into a Note.

On this topic I found an app that I am sure will satisfy a lot of people.

It’s an app that adds a keyboard to iPad or iPhone.
That keyboard is actually an input area on which you can write and it recognises your words and types them immediately!

It’s called Diopen Script, it’s free and very efffcient.
I have tried several apps that do the same thing, but their handwriting recognition is far below par, but Diopen is really good.
The only quirks I have noticed are the following: numbers and punctuation are sometimes misinterpreted. Also the area is the size of the iphone width, and it doesn’t enlarge for an iPad, but it’s really more of a “nice if it were bigger” than an actual annoyance.

You can use it in several languages (so far I have used English and French and I am very satisfied).

For those who try it out, lemme know what you think.

Cheers

Hello There, I add my strongest support to daveb08 : it would be awesome ( and I think a pretty unique feature) if you supported Nebo export file ( they offers a word and an html export with works with images and diagrams … my only complain actually to this piece of (french) art is that no notes app on iOS seams to import riches notes from it.
It may be a great Christmas gift ( and i’ve been very kind)

Muuuurf ( sorry for my bad English )

Thanks for the feedback. Christmas is certainly too close to implement such a feature, but we will keep it in mind when investigating next steps such as pencil support. Thanks!

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Personally, the text recognition is not a priority. The ability to simply hand write would be incredible step in the right direction as far as Agenda becoming a solid iPad companion.

This is the app the does the best job of simulating a journal/notebook/planner, and support for the pencil would bring it terribly closer and eliminate many of my personal needs for other apps! Hope I’m not the only one!

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Yes, we would like to support drawing/writing with the pencil for sure. The conversion to text is very much up in the air, because Apple don’t support it, and it would require large license fees to do it.

If you would add the option to write with Apple Pencil, that would make all other note apps for me absolete!

It’s usefull at meetings to have the option to write/doodle/mindmap with my apple pencil and than add soms typed text to it. That combination would make Agenda Notes unique and totally great! :slight_smile:

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Thank you for your great work.

However, the ability to recognize handwriting would be a significant improvement. But I also understand that this is something which takes time to implement.
Maybe it is possible to start with some small features which increase the efficiency.
On the Mac, it is possible to use Keyboard-shortcuts which is a great way to speed up the handling.
On the iPad, there are no shortcuts which makes it sometimes a little bit tedious. Therefore, in my opinion, a first step could be to define some movements with the pencil instead of shortcuts.
For example, a circle creates a checkbox a number drawn with the apple pencil starts a numbered list, etc.

Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately, handwriting recognition is not only time consuming, but very difficult. Note that not even Apple support this.

There is a commercial offering, but it is quite expensive, so we have to think about whether we want to raise the price of the app just for that.

There are a few handwriting keyboards you can use already: Nebo and Marzec (I think).

In any case, some pencil support is certainly on the roadmap. We definitely want to be able to draw diagrams and add handwriting (without conversion to text).

Yes…yes…yes (from the scene in ‘When Harry met Sally’). Doodles and scribbles would be enough for 1st go around. Recognition could wait a few years. :wink: