The Digital Planner Advantage: Colors, Creativity, and Hyperlinks Galore!
This guide will delve into the essential steps and considerations for how to make a digital planner for GoodNotes. Digital planners have revolutionized the way we organize our lives, offering a dynamic and customizable alternative to traditional paper planners.
The GoodNotes app, a popular note-taking app, is just one of the pdf annotation apps people can use to make their planning journey enjoyable in the digital format. This app allows you to unleash your creativity and create a digital planner that suits your unique needs and those of your customers.
The really magical thing about digital planners is you can do everything you do in a traditional paper planner and more. It doesn’t take much to turn a printable planner into a digital planner and it’s even easier to make that digital planner specifically for GoodNotes, but let’s cover some basics.
From preserving hyperlinks to choosing the optimal planner size, we will equip you with the knowledge to embark on your digital planning journey. Let’s dive in!
The Advantages of Digital Planners
Digital planners offer numerous advantages over their traditional paper planner counterparts. One standout feature is the ability to incorporate vivid colors, captivating graphics, and endless customization options.
There are many different types of planners and they can be used on many different devices like Apple devices and Android devices. It’s important to know that by creating a GoodNotes file out of your PDF you would be limiting the users for your planner to only those with an Apple device and the GoodNotes app.
Most importantly, digital planners empower users with hyperlinks, these clickable links enable seamless navigation between different sections and pages.
With GoodNotes, you can experience a new level of interactivity and efficiency in your planning process. Just like paper planners, digital planners can include daily pages, and to-do lists and they can even act as digital notebooks.
Exporting with Affinity Publisher: Unleash the Hyperlink Magic!
Affinity Publisher, a powerful design tool, ensures the preservation of hyperlinks when exporting your digital planner. As you may have guessed by some of the other posts around here, this is our favorite tool to create digital and printable planners.
The one hiccup I’ve heard people having is their links don’t save. But they are there! In Affinity Publisher you have to save the file as a digital pdf so that the links work when you export it.
To achieve this, consider exporting your planner as:
- PDF (digital – high quality)
- PDF (digital – small size).
Both options guarantee that your hyperlinks will remain fully functional within GoodNotes, providing a smooth and uninterrupted planning experience.
Exporting Adventures: Keynote, Canva, and Google Slides!
If you prefer using other tools like Keynote, Canva, or Google Slides, exporting your planner as a PDF is still feasible.
The Keynote app allows for exporting the PDF with embedded hyperlinks, you don’t have to do anything special other than export as a PDF.
Another free program that is popular is Canva, it automatically retains hyperlinks when exporting as a PDF, albeit with certain limitations on the number of links. There is a warning once you’ve reached the limit, but the limit is not in the documentation. This information is anecdotal, I have not reached the limit myself.
Similarly, Google Slides supports hyperlinks when exporting as a PDF, offering a viable alternative for creating your digital planner. But Google Slides is not a very user-friendly platform. We know it’s free to use, but it may make your digital planner creation process a little more challenging.
The good news is there are a variety of free and paid tools that will allow you to create different themes for your custom digital planner with your personal style.
The Perfect Size: GoodNotes Guides the Way!
Size matters when it comes to digital planners! It doesn’t matter if you are creating weekly pages, a daily layout, or a monthly calendar you need to have the right size page.
GoodNotes provides a valuable resource in their support documentation – an article dedicated to the page dimensions of their built-in GoodNote templates. Consulting this guide will assist you in determining the ideal planner size, ensuring a harmonious experience as you navigate through your digital planner.
If you want your planner to work on multiple-size devices and you want to convert it from digital back to a printable planner it’s best to stick with the US Letter size or 1/2 sheet size if you are using master pages and a two-page layout planner style. A great digital planner will work on multiple device sizes and the US letter is the best way to accomplish this.
This sizing gives you the most flexible design. If you want your planner to take up the entire iPad Pro page then consider using the ledger size page. Just a tip to really fill all that display space.
I even use my digital meal planner on the GoodNotes mobile app. This allows me to create my menus for the week, and use the grocery list right on the page.
GoodNotes Exclusive: Unlocking the Gateway to Planner Bliss or Is It?!?!
If you’re looking for an exclusive GoodNotes experience, there is an option to create a digital planner that can only be used on GoodNotes.
This involves importing your planner file into GoodNotes and performing a GoodNotes export, resulting in a file specifically tailored for the app.
The good thing about using this method is that it is easy to open the first time.
Users can double-click or tap on the file to automatically open it in GoodNotes, providing quick access across various devices.
However, it’s important to note that this approach restricts access to users without Apple devices and the GoodNotes platform for annotation of your digital planner creation.
The Limitations to Creating a Digital Planner for GoodNotes Exclusive User
While creating a GoodNotes-exclusive planner can be enticing, it’s crucial to consider the accessibility and compatibility of your digital planner.
Limiting your planner solely to GoodNotes restricts access for users with non-Apple devices, such as Android users. I will say for many GoodNotes is among the favorite note-taking apps. And it’s possible to provide your customers a variety of options, you could include the interactive PDF version as well as the GoodNotes version in the download providing just a touch of extra value on the new planner you have sitting in the wings of your mind. This is one way you could turn this limitation into a perk for your planner users.
Embracing compatibility across different platforms and devices allows a wider audience to benefit from your digital planner creation. It’s worth exploring other apps and platforms that support PDF annotation and offer cross-device compatibility. You could try providing the GoodNotes file, the Notability file, and the PDF to your users with an explainer sheet showing they are all the same file, but you want to make their life just a little easier.
Congratulations on embarking on the journey of creating a good digital planner for GoodNotes!
By preserving hyperlinks, choosing the right export options, and considering accessibility, you are well on your way to crafting a remarkable planner that seamlessly integrates into the GoodNotes ecosystem.
Remember to unleash your creativity, experiment with colors and graphics, and personalize your planner with a unique digital planner cover, stickers, and planner layouts to reflect your unique style with planners that will help solve a problem for your audience. With GoodNotes as the PDF Annotation tool of choice, the possibilities for creating a dynamic and efficient digital planner are endless.
Happy planner creation!
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