By 
After years of frustration with ZoomNotes’ user interface, we’ve finally come to terms with it. ZoomNotes is a note-taking app available on iPadOS and macOS, priced at $7.99 for each platform. This one-time purchase has included all updates so far. While the app offers some of the most advanced features we’ve seen, its user interface is undeniably the worst among functional note-taking apps. ZoomNotes developers, please consider improving the icons—it’s long overdue.
Creating notes in ZoomNotes is a lot of fun because the app offers capabilities that most others can only dream of. To create a new document, tap the Plus icon on the top left corner of the homepage. You can:
– **Create a new document**
– **Import a document**
– **Duplicate an existing document**
When you choose to create a new document, you can select from a few page templates or customize your own by tapping the Custom icon to:
– **Set page size**
– **Choose background color**
– **Add a grid or lines**
You can also enable Infinite Whiteboard mode, which provides an endless canvas to write on. The option to show vertical markers adds two lines to mark the page width in the middle of the infinite canvas, though horizontal markers would be more useful for exporting notes.
ZoomNotes allows you to create exactly the notebook you want, with everything customizable. The pages are superimposed on a canvas, allowing you to rotate and move them around as if you were handling paper on a desk. This setup makes it easy to zoom in and out, but it also means you can’t swipe to navigate through pages—instead, you use the next and previous page icons.
The app’s user interface is also highly customizable. You can change:
– **Toolbar positions**
– **Icon layouts**
– **Theme colors**
ZoomNotes is complex, but you can simplify it to your liking. The dynamic interface caters to both minimalists and those who prefer a more feature-rich environment. Unlike other apps like GoodNotes and Notability, you can move toolbar icons around, although there’s no reset button, which would be helpful for tutorials and reviews.
ZoomNotes offers five pen tools: Draft, Felt Tip, Italic, Gel, and Nib, along with a pencil, highlighter, and watercolor in the same toolset. Each tool can be styled, customized, and saved as a favorite.
Under the Style section, you can quickly adjust pen thickness by swiping along the pen stroke and choosing a color. For more detailed customization, go to the Customize menu, where you can set calibrated pen thickness, adjust opacity, and tweak unique settings for each pen. For example, the Draft pen looks like a ballpoint, while the Felt Tip resembles a faded ballpoint. The Italic pen is more of a calligraphy pen, and the Gel pen has a fountain feel. The Nib pen even offers a fountain pen option.
Finding the right pen tool in ZoomNotes was challenging for years, but constant updates have improved the inking engine, making the experience much better. The Draft pen now feels like a familiar ballpoint, and the Gel pen mimics a brush pen, which I particularly enjoy.
The pencil tool is another highlight, allowing adjustments in thickness and opacity, and you can make the pencil lead harder or softer depending on your preference. ZoomNotes is also the first note-taking app we’ve seen that offers watercolors. While the watercolor tool glitches slightly with each lift of the Apple Pencil, it behaves as you’d expect from watercolors.
After customizing your pen tool, you can save it to your favorites, which can be grouped for different purposes. You can dock a group to the toolbar for easy access, allowing quick adjustments to opacity, thickness, and color.
The handwriting experience in ZoomNotes is excellent, with no lag and perfect palm rejection. The highlighter tool is also versatile, letting you choose whether it goes behind or in front of your ink. You can adjust its thickness, opacity, and even make the ends squared, and it never dims the ink in your notes, even at maximum opacity.
While ZoomNotes doesn’t support multiple instances, its multitasking capabilities more than make up for it. The app supports multiple tabs, and the cool part is that it remembers the tool you’re using in each tab. You can be using a highlighter in one tab, a pencil in another, and a pen in a third, with the app seamlessly switching between tools as you switch tabs.
ZoomNotes also offers split-view within the app, both vertically and horizontally. You can adjust the split ratio and even open the same document twice. However, split-viewing removes your tabs, limiting you to two documents at a time. But when you exit split-view, your multiple tabs are still there, making it easy to switch back and forth.
Customizing the user interface will be continued in the next update…
