Goodnotes offers a powerful note search feature that indexes and allows you to find various content of your notes. Here's a breakdown of what gets indexed and is therefore searchable:
- Handwriting
- Typed Text
- Text in PDF documents*
- Text in documents that you scanned using the Goodnotes Scan Documents feature
- Titles of documents and folders
- Document outlines
*Only PDFs that include an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) layer are searchable. Not all PDFs support that and Goodnotes does not perform OCR on imported PDFs subsequently. Usually, PDFs that are created digitally, for example in Word or PowerPoint, include an OCR layer. Some scanners also perform OCR on paper documents.
There are two ways how to search your notes.
1. Search from Search Tab across all notes
To search across all notes, open the Search tab in the library and type in keywords in the Search field. Tapping on a result will take you to the desired spot.
2. Search an opened document
You can search for keywords in a particular document. Open that document and tap on the magnifying glass icon in the upper left of the Nav Bar. Type in your keyword. Tapping on the result will take you to the desired spot.
Set the default language
Make sure to set the correct language for searching and converting your notes. This can be done in Goodnotes menu under Settings > Handwriting Recognition.
See also: