Best Note Taker PDF Apps

223+ iOS apps curated and reviewed

4.5 avg rating
19 free apps
Updated May 2026

Out of 223+ note taker pdf apps on iOS, 19 are free and the rest sit in the paid tier. This page sorts them so you can compare both sides before you commit.

Compare top Note Taker PDF Apps (May 2026)

#AppPriceRatingAdsIn-App PurchasesUpdated
1Note Taker HDNote Taker HD$4.994.0★ (138)NoNoJul 2026
2Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDFGoodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDFFree4.7★ (436K)NoYesJul 2026
3Notability: Примечания, PDFNotability: Примечания, PDFFree4.8★ (451K)NoYesJul 2026
4自由笔记自由笔记Free4.7★ (55K)NoYesJul 2026
5TurboPDF - AI Note TakerTurboPDF - AI Note TakerFreeNoYesMay 2026
6Noteful: Notes & PDF MarkupNoteful: Notes & PDF MarkupFree4.8★ (23K)NoYesJul 2026
7Element NoteElement NoteFree4.6★ (2.5K)NoYesJul 2026
8Summary AI Note Taker: PDF AppSummary AI Note Taker: PDF AppFreeNoYesJun 2026

Top Picks for Note Taker PDF

Note Taker HD#1

Note Taker HD by Software Garden

Versatile writing & PDF markup
Editor's Choice
📊 Productivity
4.0😊(138 ratings)
$4.99
Note Taker HD screenshot 1
Note Taker HD screenshot 2
Note Taker HD screenshot 3
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Note Taker HD screenshot 5
Note Taker HD screenshot 6

This app allows for versatile handwritten note-taking and PDF annotation on iPad and iPhone. It offers features like zoomed ink, shapes, typed text, and image insertion, with flexible organization and sharing options.

What We Love

  • 🚀 Fantastic app, great for engineering and customer communication
  • 👍 Text and sketching on the same page
  • 👍 Typed notes are more legible than handwritten
  • 👍 Typed text remains as editable text objects

Room to Improve

  • 🐛 Crashes when exporting PDFs
  • 🐛 Crashes when adding photos
  • 🐛 Crashes and loses data
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF#2

Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF by Goodnotes Limited

一款支持手写笔记、白板、标注、思维导图等功能的高效笔记App
Strong Contender
📊 Productivity
4.7😊(436K ratings)
FreeIn-App Purchases
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF screenshot 1
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF screenshot 2
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF screenshot 3
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF screenshot 4
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF screenshot 5
Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF screenshot 6

Capture ideas, enhance productivity, and unlock insights with advanced AI features. This app offers tools for professionals, students, and creatives, including infinite whiteboards, AI-powered transcription and summarization, and customizable digital notebooks.

What We Love

  • 🚀 Excellent note-taking experience
  • 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface
  • 🚀 Smooth writing with Apple Pencil
  • 📁 Powerful organization with folders and notebooks

Room to Improve

  • 🐛 Glitches and crashes
  • 🔍 Syncing and iCloud issues
  • 🔍 Lack of flexibility with text input
Notability: Примечания, PDF#3

Notability: Примечания, PDF by Ginger Labs

Напишите и добавьте аннотации
Worth Considering
📊 Productivity
4.8😊(451K ratings)
FreeIn-App Purchases
Notability: Примечания, PDF screenshot 1
Notability: Примечания, PDF screenshot 2
Notability: Примечания, PDF screenshot 3
Notability: Примечания, PDF screenshot 4
Notability: Примечания, PDF screenshot 5

Capture, organize, and enhance your thoughts with a versatile digital notebook. Seamlessly blend handwriting, typing, and multimedia to annotate documents, record lectures, and generate summaries. Ideal for students and professionals seeking to boost productivity and learning.

What We Love

  • 🚀 Great app for note-taking
  • 👍 Smooth handwriting experience
  • 📝 Excellent organization and file management
  • 🎙️ Useful audio recording feature

Room to Improve

  • 🐛 Sync issues with iCloud
  • 🔍 Limited search and organization options
  • 🖍️ Frustrating highlighter behavior

More Note Taker PDF apps to explore

4
自由笔记
自由笔记
自由笔记
无限纸张自由写作,高亮编辑PDF,随手备忘记录灵感
Free

This AI-powered digital notepad transforms your device into an intelligent workspace. It offers handwriting recognition, PDF annotation, and AI assistance for summarizing documents, answering questions, and aiding in study. Organize notes, sketch ideas, and sync across devices for a seamless paperless experience.

AI Summaries and Chat with PDFsAI Homework and Study HelperHandwritten Note Organization
📊 Productivity
(55K)
free with in-app purchases
5
TurboPDF - AI Note Taker
TurboPDF - AI Note Taker
TurboPDF - AI Note Taker
Chat and Summarize your PDF
Free
📊 Productivity
(0)
6
Noteful: Notes & PDF Markup
Noteful: Notes & PDF Markup
Noteful: Notes & PDF Markup
Highlight. Write. Learn.
Free

This app revolutionizes paperless note-taking on iPad, allowing for handwritten notes, document annotation, and knowledge organization. It offers a fluid writing experience, PDF markup, powerful tagging, and audio recording synced with notes.

Handwritten notes with Apple PencilPDF and document annotationOrganize notes with tags
📊 Productivity
(23K)
freemium
7
Element Note
Element Note
Element Note
Handwriting Note & PDF Markup
Free

This app offers a distraction-free digital notebook experience with advanced handwriting, PDF annotation, and sketching capabilities. It features unique brushes, a powerful rendering engine, and smart organization tools. Sync your notes across devices and collaborate with others seamlessly.

Unique handwriting brushesSmooth drawing enginePDF annotation
📊 Productivity
(2.5K)
free with in-app purchases
8
Summary AI Note Taker: PDF App
Summary AI Note Taker: PDF App
Summary AI Note Taker: PDF App
AI Notebook & AI Meeting Notes
Free
📚 Education
(0)
9
QuickNotes X: Notes, AI & PDF
QuickNotes X: Notes, AI & PDF
QuickNotes X: Notes, AI & PDF
Note-Taking, Made Easy.
Free

This app offers a fluid and precise note-taking experience with a custom vector ink engine, voice recording synced to writing, and ML-powered shape recognition. Organize notes with notebooks and folders, protect them with passwords and biometrics, and sync seamlessly across devices via iCloud. Mark up PDFs and presentations, and customize your notes with various tools and templates.

Vector ink engine for fluid writingVoice recording synced to notesML-powered shape recognition
📊 Productivity
(3.7K)
free with in-app purchases
10
Summary: AI Note Taker -Notimo
Summary: AI Note Taker -Notimo
Summary: AI Note Taker -Notimo
Transcribe Audio to Text
Free

This app uses AI to transcribe audio and text, generating concise summaries and study tools like flashcards. It helps users capture, understand, and remember information from lectures, meetings, and other sources.

AI transcription of audio and textAutomatic content summarizationFlashcard and quiz generation
📊 Productivity
(7)
free with in-app purchases
11
PDF Note Pro - Note Taker
PDF Note Pro - Note Taker
PDF Note Pro - Note Taker
And M4A Audio Recorder
Free

This application allows users to take freehand notes directly on PDF documents and record audio simultaneously. Notes are saved in native PDF and M4A formats, syncing across devices via iCloud for seamless access on mobile, desktop, and web. It offers powerful annotation tools and is available for free on iOS.

Freehand PDF annotationM4A audio recordingiCloud syncing across devices
📚 Education
(1)
free
12
NotterAI - Smart AI Note Taker
NotterAI - Smart AI Note Taker
NotterAI - Smart AI Note Taker
Record, Transcribe & Summarize
Free

Capture and convert audio, video, PDFs, and web links into intelligent, searchable notes. This offline AI assistant offers custom templates for organized note-taking, summarizing meetings, lectures, and documents.

Real-time notes from audio, video, PDFs, web linksOffline recording and note-takingAutomatic speaker identification
📊 Productivity
(1)
free with in-app purchases
13
Notes Writer: PDF, Voice, AI
Notes Writer: PDF, Voice, AI
Notes Writer: PDF, Voice, AI
PDF Editor, Pens, Notepad, AI
Free

This app is a comprehensive note-taking and PDF editing solution for mobile devices. It allows users to write, format, and organize notes, annotate PDFs, fill forms, and scan documents. The app offers advanced editing tools, powerful search, and seamless sharing and export options.

Write and format notesAnnotate PDFs and fill formsOrganize with unlimited notebooks
📊 Productivity
(7.2K)
free with in-app purchases
14
Wellnote: AI Notes, PDF, Docs
Wellnote: AI Notes, PDF, Docs
Wellnote: AI Notes, PDF, Docs
PDF,Docs,Memo,Pencil,Planner
Free

Experience natural handwriting with a stylus for note-taking and document annotation. Organize your thoughts with categorization and search, and study more effectively using split-screen and custom templates. Import and mark up PDFs, Word, and PPT files for interactive learning.

Real handwriting experience with stylusCategorize and search notesImport and annotate PDFs, Word, PPT
📊 Productivity
(441)
free
15
Evernote: AI Notes & Notebook
Evernote: AI Notes & Notebook
Evernote: AI Notes & Notebook
Tasks, memo & lists organizer
Free

Capture ideas, organize notes, and manage tasks across all your devices. This app helps you tame distractions and accomplish more by bringing your to-dos, schedule, and important information together in one searchable place.

Capture ideas as searchable notesCreate to-do lists with remindersOrganize with notebooks and tags
📊 Productivity
(77K)
free with in-app purchases
16
Unstuck AI Note Taker
Unstuck AI Note Taker
Unstuck AI Note Taker
AI Notes, Flashcards, Quizzes
Free

This AI-powered assistant transcribes audio and video, creating organized notes, flashcards, and quizzes. It helps students and professionals focus on learning and meetings by automating note-taking and review.

AI-powered transcriptionAutomatic note summarizationFlashcard generation
📚 Education
(2.5K)
free with in-app purchases
17
AI Notebook: AI 노트 & 음성 변환
AI Notebook: AI 노트 & 음성 변환
AI Notebook: AI 노트 & 음성 변환
회의 기록, 강의 녹음, AI 자동 요약
Free

This app uses AI to transcribe meetings, summarize lectures and documents, and organize notes. It allows users to chat with their content, convert voice notes to text, and generate study materials. Seamlessly sync and export notes across devices for enhanced productivity.

AI meeting transcriptionLLM-powered summariesChat with content
📊 Productivity
(182)
free with in-app purchases
18
Scribe Meeting Summary Minutes
Scribe Meeting Summary Minutes
Scribe Meeting Summary Minutes
Quiz, Flashcards, Highlights
Free

This app uses AI to transcribe audio and video, generate meeting summaries, and organize notes. It supports various input formats and offers real-time transcription with speaker detection. Stay focused on conversations while the app handles note-taking and summarization.

AI-powered meeting summariesTranscribe audio, video, PDFs, and moreReal-time transcription with speaker detection
📊 Productivity
(4K)
freemium
19
Kilonotes-Notes & PDF reading
Kilonotes-Notes & PDF reading
Kilonotes-Notes & PDF reading
Note-Taking &Markup PDF
Free

This app offers a digital notebook experience for handwritten notes, PDF annotation, and study organization. It features freehand drawing, text extraction, AI assistance for learning, and customizable templates to enhance productivity and learning.

Handwritten note-takingPDF annotation and markupAI assistant for learning
📊 Productivity
(4.9K)
free with in-app purchases
20
HyNote: AI Note Taker, Summary
HyNote: AI Note Taker, Summary
HyNote: AI Note Taker, Summary
AI Notebook, AI Meeting Notes
Free

This app uses AI to record, summarize, and organize notes from various sources like audio, images, text, and videos. It allows you to chat with your content for quick answers and transform your productivity.

Multi-Type Inputs (audio, image, text, PDF, web)AI-Powered SummariesAdvanced Organization & Search
📊 Productivity
(6.9K)
free with in-app purchases

FAQ about Note Taker PDF

What are the best note taker pdf apps for iPhone?
Note Taker HD tops our note taker pdf apps ranking as of May 2026, with a 4.0-star average from 138 App Store ratings, and it's priced at $4.99.
Yes — 19 of the top note taker pdf apps we rank are free to download, including Goodnotes:AI 笔记、白板、PDF and Notability: Примечания, PDF.
Note Taker HD has no ads and has no in-app purchases, according to its App Store listing as of May 2026.
We track 223+ note taker pdf apps on the iOS App Store as of May 2026, ranked by rating, recency, and analysis of real user reviews.
Note Taker HD allows you to take handwritten notes and diagrams, annotate PDF files, and organize your documents. You can also insert photos, shapes, and typed text, with extensive options for customization and sharing.
The zoomed ink feature lets you zoom in on a page to write with more detail, as if using a very fine pen. This allows you to fit more text on a page and maintain clarity, with a zoomed-out overview visible simultaneously.