What is the Elements tool? 

If you find yourself taking repetitious steps just to reuse the same content across different notebooks, the Elements Tool will come in handy because it lets you save content and reuse content like stickers for decorating your notebooks or signatures/stamps for personalizing your PDF documents.

You can find the Elements Tool by choosing the star icon in the Handwriting Toolbar.

Create Elements from Goodnotes content

Anything created using Goodnotes tools can become an Element that you can save and reuse. This could be handwriting, highlighter strokes and drawings, shapes, images, text boxes, and any combination of those. All elements are organised into 'Collections', think of these like folders to organize and find your Elements quickly. 

Add an Image as an Element

1. If you do not already have an image on the page, select the Image Tool and add any image you like to your document. 

2. Tap on the image twice to bring up the options pop-up. Then choose Add Element.

3a. Tap an existing collection to add the element to.

OR

3b. Choose New Collection..., name it, and tap Create. You're recommended to use descriptive names for your Collections (e.g. signatures, stickers) so that you can easily find an element later.

Add other content as an Element

You can create an Element out of anything you have drawn, written or created on the page the following way: 

1. Select the Lasso Tool, circle the content, tap on the selection, and choose Add Element.
2. Choose an existing Collection, or create a new one as above.

Share a Collection

1. Tap the Elements Tool twice.
2. From the bottom scrollable list, tap the Collection, then tap its title at the top. Alternatively, long-press the collection and choose Edit.
   
3. Tap the ... icon near the top-right corner and choose Share.
4. Choose a location for your .collection file.
5. You can then send this to another Goodnotes user to use in their Notebooks!

Import external images into Elements 

If you plan on using a certain image regularly within your notes and don't want to keep scrolling back through your camera roll with the Image Tool, you can add images to your Collections and use them as Elements instead.

1. Tap the Elements tool twice.
2. From the bottom scrollable list, tap the Collection, then tap its title at the top.
3. Tap Add Photos to add one or more photos from Photos, or "Import from..." to add an external file from Files. Supported formats include .jpg and .png.

Import a .collection file

1. Tap the Elements tool twice.
2. From the bottom scrollable list, tap the "+" icon.
   
3. Tap "Import from..." and choose the .collection file.

Inserting Elements

Inserting Elements onto the page works similarly to adding images with the Image Tool. There are two ways of doing this:

• Select the Elements Tool, tap on any location on the page, tap a collection from the bottom scrollable list, and then tap on an Element to insert it at that location.
• Tap the Elements tool twice. Then tap on any element to insert it in the middle of the page. Alternatively, you can drag and drop an element to a location on the page.

Edit / Delete a Collection (including a built-in one)

1. Tap the Elements tool twice.
2. From the bottom scrollable list, tap the Collection, then tap its title at the top. Alternatively, long-press the Collection and choose Edit.
3. You can then:

• Rename the collection: Change the "title" field.
• Add more images: Tap Add Photos if they're in Photos, or "Import from..." if they're in Files.
• Delete an element: Tap the red X on it.
• Delete the entire collection: Tap the ... icon near the top-right corner and choose Delete Collection.

Tips & Tricks

• You can separate the Elements Tool in another window (Split View), making it easier to drag and drop Elements into your notes. To do that, tap the Elements Tool twice and tap the small split window icon:
  
  
  You can then float the Elements window by dragging the handle at the top of the window into the Goodnotes window.
  
  
• Once an Element is inserted into the page, it will stay selected as a whole until you tap outside the selection. Afterwards, the Element becomes a regular page object again, indistinguishable from other objects. For example, many built-in Elements are composed of both an image and typed text (e.g. the "Sign here" sticker), and after inserting such an element and unselecting it, you'll need to use the Text tool to edit the text and the Image tool to edit the image.

Want more Elements to jazz up your notes? Buy more digital stationery! The Elements you buy will be automatically imported to Goodnotes as a new collection.