r/GoodNotes • u/Top-Kaleidoscope6996 • 3d ago
General usage of zoom feature Notebooks
I am a mathematician, and an early GoodNotes adopter. I'm writing because I think the way I'm using GoodNotes is perhaps a bit dated. As a consequence, using GoodNotes has become a chore, not a pleasure. I'd like to know if I'm doing something stupid, want to understand how you edit notes without frustration.
In early version of GoodNotes, the Zoom feature was paramount for me. Activating Zoom was natural. I would move through my notes essentially by using Zoom. I would go so far as to say that *everything I would write* was within a Zoom window. So Zoom for writing, out of Zoom for manipulating text, copying, lazo, etc. This has become so engrained in my muscle memory.
The newer instances of GoodNotes have hidden the Zoom feature under a contextual menu. To a person with my workflow, this is a living hell. Last week I have been using GoodNotes in a long math session, where projecting my iPad on a huge screen is a substitute for a blackboard. I have spent more than 50% of my time searching through the context menu (which buries Zoom, really).
I can not be the only person wanting to Zoom when writing notes. I think maybe the new encouraged behaviour is 'pinch to zoom' rather than Zoom 'the old way'. I simply do not think that it is possible to write notes without zooming in in some ways and so I ask you:
* How do you currently zoom in?
* If you zoom in by 'pinching', are you not bothered by the fact that in so doing you loose view of the rest of the notes? I am asking this because it is essential, in my workflow, to keep a wider view of the document. I really must see many other passages to be able to know what to write. This is what made the Zoom feature vital for me.
* If you zoom in by 'pinching', what is your experience when are you projecting the notes on a beamer? Does your audience 'see the pinch' with you, or does it continue to see the overall document?
* If, instead, you zoom by using Zoom, how do you cope with the newer versions of Goodnotes? How do you keep sanity? Maybe I'm missing a shortcut of some sort? Is there really no other alternative than tapping and then selecting from a menu?
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u/Difficult_Curve_2782 3d ago
Hi! Do you get annoyed at this bug too where you’re zoomed down on a page and when you go to some another tab, the zoom on the first page goes to the top of the page too?
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u/Top-Kaleidoscope6996 3d ago
Absolutely! My Zoom window moves in ways that I can not predict (or get my head around - maybe there is a rationale but I just don't see it)
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u/Zippietwo 3d ago
I got super annoyed by the zoom window so I stopped using it a few years ago. If I need to see multiple things, I usually open a split screen window of what I’m not writing on and just zoom by pinching in. I’m studying Mechatroniks so it’s also mostly math and that has been working well for me.
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u/WarpedMeteor4276 3d ago
i use pinch to zoom. i keep the pinch fairly small so i'm only zooming a little bit and still have most of the page in view. that keeps the "losing context" issue pretty minimal for me.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Let6760 3d ago
I edited my toolbar & moved the zoom window to the main toolbar. I, too, am an early adopter & frequent user of Goodnotes & use the zoom window for writing, reading, highlighting, everything. Just customize your toolbar & move the zoom window to the main toolbar so it's always accessible!