Noteshelf and Noteful

GoodNotes gets most of the attention, and Noteshelf 3 and Noteful are quietly good alternatives. Both keep a PDF’s hyperlinks working, which is the only thing a digital planner really demands of an app. Both are worth the switch for their own reasons — Noteshelf if you want a planner that turns like a book, Noteful if you want the lightest, cheapest way in.

They’re on one page because the answer to “can I use my planner in this?” is yes for both, and because the setup differs in a couple of small ways that are easy to miss and annoying to discover late.

Checked in Noteshelf 3 (7.8.3) and Noteful (1.4.42) on iPadOS 26, September 2026.

Noteshelf

Everything below is Noteshelf 3, the version on the App Store today.

Import the planner

From the shelf, use New → Import, then pick the planner PDF. It lands as a notebook of its own, ready to open.

Importing is what matters here. Tapping the file in Files opens a preview, and a preview shows every page while ignoring every link.

NoteshelfImport Digital PlannerShow 4 steps, 4 screenshots

  1. Launch Noteshelf, click on the “New” button.

    The Noteshelf All Notes screen with no notebooks on it, its sidebar down the left and the New button at the top right.

  2. With the “New” panel open, click the “Import” button.

    The New panel open, with Notebook, Import and Folder across the top and Photo, Camera, Scan Document and Audio Note listed beneath them.

  3. Navigate to where you’ve saved your planner files and select the version you want to use. Then click the “Open” button.

    The Files picker open on a folder of planner files, each row showing a page preview and reading “PDF document”. One row is selected and the Open button sits at the top right.

  4. Once imported, the planner will be available to open.

    The Noteshelf Unfiled shelf holding the imported planner as its one notebook thumbnail.

Change one setting before you start

Switching Scrolling to Horizontal is the Noteshelf tip worth the whole page. Noteshelf scrolls vertically by default, which is fine for notes and wrong for a planner — you end up sliding between pages instead of turning them.

Open your planner, tap the ⋯ menu, scroll to Settings, and set Scrolling to Horizontal. The planner immediately behaves like a book.

While you’re in there, switch on Read only Mode for navigating. Noteshelf assumes you want to write, so the first time you tap a month tab with a pen selected you’ll leave a small mark instead of jumping anywhere. Toggle editing back on when you actually want to write.

NoteshelfImportant First StepShow 3 steps, 4 screenshots

For a better user experience navigating your planner, we recommend navigating in “Read only Mode”. You can toggle off this mode when you want to make edits.

The Noteshelf toolbar open above a planner dashboard, with the Read only Mode button highlighted at the right-hand end of the row.

We also recommend that you make one key Settings change. Noteshelf will better present the digital planner when the Scrolling setting is set to “Horizontal”, instead of the default “Vertical”.

  1. With your planner open, click the triple dot icon found in the top right menu.

    The planner’s dashboard page open in Noteshelf, with the floating toolbar above it and the three-dot button at the top right of the screen.

  2. With the drop-down menu open, scroll to the bottom of it to see the “Settings” section.

    The three-dot menu scrolled to its foot, showing a Settings group in which Scrolling reads Vertical, above Stylus and More Settings.

  3. Click the “Scrolling” setting and change it to “Horizontal”.

    The Scrolling submenu, offering Horizontal and Vertical, with the tick now against Horizontal.

Two toggles, about fifteen seconds, and a noticeably better planner. Almost nobody mentions either one.

Add your cover

Covers usually ship as a separate file so you can pick one. In Noteshelf you import it and then move it, which is one step more than you’d expect.

Use + → Import File and choose your cover. Then open the page sidebar and drag the new page to the front. That’s it — the drag is the part people miss, because the cover arrives at the end rather than the beginning.

Stickers

Noteshelf keeps stickers in packs. Tap Stickers → Add → Add → Import from Files, select your sticker PNGs, give the pack a name, and import. The pack stays in the Stickers menu from then on, and stickers drag onto the page and resize like anything else.

NoteshelfUsing stickersShow 11 steps, 12 screenshots

  1. With your planner open to the page you’d like to add a sticker to, click the “Stickers” button.

    A blank planner page open in Noteshelf, with the floating toolbar above it and the month navigation bar beneath.

  2. In the resuling drop-down menu, click the “Add” button.

    The Stickers panel open with Recents, School and Stickies tabs across the top, reading “No recent stickers”.

  3. In the resulting “Add Sticker Pack” modal click the “Add” button.

    The “Add Sticker Pack” panel, with a large download arrow over the words “Import Custom Stickers”, a pack-name field beneath and a greyed-out Import Stickers button.

  4. Click “Import from Files” menu item.

    A small menu at the panel’s top right, listing Import from Files, Photo Library and Paste from Clipboard.

  5. Navigate to the location at which you’ve downloaded your planner stickers.

    The Files picker open on a folder of sticker files, each row showing an orange brush stroke and reading “PNG image”, with none selected yet.

  6. Click the sticker(s) to be added and click the “Open” button.

    The same list of sticker files with every row selected and highlighted, and the Open button at the top right.

  7. The opened stickers will now be loaded into the “Add Sticker Pack” modal. Give the sticker pack a name.

    The “Add Sticker Pack” panel filled with a grid of orange brush-stroke stickers, with a pack name typed into the field beneath them.

  8. Click the “Import Stickers” button.

    The same panel, with the Import Stickers button beneath the grid now solid rather than greyed out.

  9. A message will appear stating “Sticker Pack saved successfully”. Click the “OK” button.

    A dialog over the sticker grid reading “Sticker Pack saved successfully”, with an OK button.

  10. Your Sticker Pack will now be available in the “Stickers” drop-down menu.

    The Stickers panel with the new pack selected as a tab of its own, showing the orange brush strokes in a grid above an “Edit Sticker Pack” link.

  11. Click and drag a sticker to your page and position, resize or rotate it however you’d like.

    A sticker part-way out of the panel, held under the pointer as it is dragged onto the page. An orange brush-stroke sticker sitting on the page inside a selection box, with corner handles and small delete and rotate buttons beneath it.

Everything else

Pages duplicate, copy, rearrange, and delete from the page sidebar — select a page, tap the caret below it, pick what you want. Copying works as Copy then Paste Below, so paste while you’re on the page you want it to follow. Deleting lives in the ⋯ menu rather than the sidebar.

Noteful

Import the planner

Tap + → Import File and choose the planner PDF. Noteful opens it for you as soon as it’s in.

NotefulImport Digital PlannerShow 4 steps, 4 screenshots

  1. Launch Noteful and click the “+”/Add button.

    The Noteful Notebooks screen with nothing on it, reading “No notebooks”, and the blue round plus button at the bottom right.

  2. In the resulting context menu, click the “Import File” menu item.

    The add menu open at the bottom right, listing Notebook, Quick Create, Import File and Scan Documents.

  3. Navigate to where you’ve saved your planner files and select the version you want to use. Then click the “Open” button.

    The Files picker open on a folder of planner files, each row showing a page preview, its name and its size. One row is selected and the Open button sits at the top right.

  4. Once imported, Noteful will automatically open the planner.

    The imported planner open at its dashboard page in Noteful, with the app’s tool rail down the left edge and the month navigation bar across the top.

Noteful is the easy one here: no mode to switch. Press and hold a tab or a link, and the planner goes there, whatever tool you have selected. A quick tap with a pen still leaves a mark, so make the hold your habit.

If you’d rather tap, pick the Hand tool first. Hand for getting around, pen for writing, and the planner stops fighting you.

Add your cover

Open the page manager, select the first page, then + Insert → Import File and choose your cover. Noteful inserts before the selected page, so picking page one puts the cover exactly where it belongs — no dragging needed. Tap the new page’s magnifying glass to jump to it.

Stickers, and the odd first step

Noteful hides its sticker manager behind a step that makes no sense until someone tells you. Tap Stickers, and the first thing to do is Install Samples — sample stickers you don’t want, which is the only way the full sticker interface appears.

After that it’s straightforward. Tap + → New Collection, name it, then + → Import File, select your stickers, choose your new collection as the destination, and save. Tap a sticker to drop it on the page.

NotefulUsing stickersShow 13 steps, 13 screenshots

  1. With your planner open to the page you’d like to add a sticker to, click the “Stickers” button.

    A ruled two-column note page of the planner open in Noteful, with the pointer part-way down the tool rail at the left edge.

  2. In the resulting “Recent Stickers” context menu click the “Install Samples” button. _(This is an extraneous step that Noteful unfortunately requires you do prior to gaining access to the full Sticker management user interface)_

    The Recent Stickers panel open at the left, reading “No stickers”, with an Install Samples button beneath the explanation.

  3. Now that the sample Sticker collection has been installed, you can click the “+”/Add button. Click it.

    Noteful’s own sample stickers now in the panel — a cactus, a globe, a black cat and two light bulbs — with a plus button at the panel’s bottom right.

  4. Let’s start by creating a new Sticker collection for you to add stickers to. Click the “New Collection” menu item.

    A menu open beside the sticker panel, listing New Collection, Import File and More…

  5. In the “Input Collection Name” modal, enter a Collection name and click the “OK” button.

    The “Input Collection Name” dialog with a collection name typed into its field, above Cancel and OK buttons.

  6. Now that your new Collection has been added, click the “+” button again.

    The newly created collection open in the sticker panel and still empty, reading “No stickers”, with the plus button at its bottom right.

  7. Click “Import File”.

    The same New Collection, Import File and More… menu, reopened over the empty new collection.

  8. Navigate to the location at which you’ve downloaded your planner stickers.

    The Files picker open on a folder of sticker files, each row showing an orange brush stroke and reading “PNG image”. The first row is selected.

  9. Select all the sticker that you’d like to add to the Collection and click the “Open” button.

    The same list of sticker files with every row selected and highlighted, and the Open button at the top right.

  10. In the “Choose Location” modal, select your new Collection as the destination for your imported stickers.

    The “Choose Location” panel listing the two sticker collections — Noteful’s samples and the one just created — with the new one ticked.

  11. Click the “Save” button.

    The same “Choose Location” panel, with the Save button at its top right outlined.

  12. Your stickers have now been imported into your Collection.

    The collection now filled with orange brush-stroke stickers, laid out three to a row down the sticker panel.

  13. Click a sticker to add it to your page. Position, resize or rotate it however you’d like.

    An orange brush-stroke sticker sitting on the ruled page inside a dashed selection box, under a menu reading Cut, Copy, Duplicate, Delete, Style, Lock, Crop and Link.

If you got stuck at an empty sticker panel, that’s why. It’s a Noteful quirk, not your planner.

Everything else

Noteful folds duplicating and copying into one flow: page manager, select the page, Copy, then Paste, and the copy becomes the next page. Rearranging is select-and-drag, deleting is select and Delete.

So which one?

On an Android tablet, this one’s quick: Noteful is Apple-only, and Noteshelf 3 is on Google Play as well as the App Store.

If you already own either, use it — neither is holding you back.

Choosing fresh: both are free to download, so you can try either one this afternoon. Noteful is the lighter, cheaper one. Pro is a single $6.99 payment, and there’s no subscription at all. Noteshelf 3 sells Premium as a subscription or as a $14.99 lifetime unlock. Noteshelf’s horizontal scrolling also makes a planner feel closest to paper.

You don’t have to pay to plan in either one. The planner is a single notebook, and both free versions hold it. Pay when you want the extras: Noteful Pro adds sync between your iPad and iPhone, and Noteshelf 3 Premium adds unlimited notebooks, automatic backup, and full handwriting recognition, so you can search what you wrote. If you go Premium and plan to stay, take the lifetime one.

Prices from the US App Store, September 2026: Noteshelf 3, Noteful.

On an iPad, both do the job. This is a preference, not a compatibility question.

Where to go next