There's an extremely proficient range of cross-platform notation-taking apps in the App Stores. All let you create a quick note on ane of your Apple devices, and view or edit it on another device via near-instant and automatic synchronization.

However, none would be as popular if Apple'due south ain Notes app – introduced three years ago in OS X Mountain King of beasts – wasn't so woefully rubbish.

The nifty news is that this situation is set to change in OS X El Capitan, due to launch on thirty September.

Notes within OS X El Capitan promises some cool new features that should make information technology a better competitor for the likes of Evernote

New features in Notes for El Capitan: text styles and tick boxes

None of the new features in Notes in El Cap are revolutionary merely they definitely bring Notes up to speed with the competition which includes the likes of Evernote along with the wealth of apps in the App Store that help you take notes, create lists, and more than.

Via a toolbar running forth the top of the program window yous can now easily add text styles, for example, such equally titles, headings and bulleted lists.

Similarly, you lot can at present add tickboxes via a toolbar push button (perhaps the days of the defended Reminders app are at present limited) while a new photos browser lets yous melody into your Photos library and/or iCloud photo library. Only select the items in your note and click on the Make a Checklist icon in the toolbar.

New features in Notes for El Capitan: Sharing URLs and Maps to Notes

Notes in El Cap is likewise integrated into the system-broad Share Sheet arrangement. You can send a URL to a note straight from Safari, for example, or a location from inside Maps. Should you click to practice so a window appears similar to that which appears when you mail service to Facebook via a Share Canvas, and the shared item subsequently appears as what in his WWDC speech Craig Federighi called a "cute graphical thumbnail".

The Share button in El Capitan includes Notes, so at present y'all can send items to the Notes app. Probably the quickest way to get anything from your Mac onto your iPhone.

Y'all can now ship things direct to the Notes app, via the system-wide Share Canvass organisation

New features in Notes for El Capitan: The Attachment Browser

The contents of notes can be viewed using the new Attachments Browser, which lists notes according to whether they contain a map zipper, or a link from Safari, an image, or a drawing (from an iOS device) and so on. Just click the icon at the left of the toolbar.

This attachment browser is another thing that makes Notes 4 more similar Evernote. This browser makes it easy to view any attachments you accept added to your notes, along with web links and map locations.

New features in Notes for El Capitan: Cartoon in Notes for El Capitan

Although drawing and annotating was demonstrated in the WWDC 2015 keynote, this feature is limited to iOS devices – and perhaps for the all-time because drawing via a mouse is clumsy. Notes on a Mac volition display drawings or annotations in notes created on your iPad or iPhone, but when it comes to creating new notes or editing existing ones, things are text-just.

New features in Notes for El Capitan: Syncing improvements

Amazingly, at least from a technical standpoint, Notes and several other iCloud apps sync with Apple's servers using the ages-old IMAP system. This was originally designed for email. Why Apple tree chose information technology for note syncing is a mystery. Withal, it perchance explains why syncing information between your Apple devices and Macs can sometimes be so unreliable and boring.

For reasons unknown Apple chose IMAP as a manner of syncing Notes but this will change in OS Ten El Capitan, which embraces iCloud all the way

Notes in El Capitan adopts the same iCloud model as other apps like TextEdit in that they use infinite within your iCloud storage, and sync using iCloud mechanisms. Syncing should therefore be significantly more reliable and also close to instant. You will nonetheless be able to connect via your IMAP email, but there will exist advanced features if you use iCloud.

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Editing and creating Notes in OS Ten

It might surprise yous but the Notes app pre El Capitan included some text formatting tools. Just look for options on the Format card within the app.

You can also tap Cmd+T to open up the floating fonts palette, for even more than choice, and tap Alt+Cmd+C (Pick+Cmd+C on some keyboards) to control the colour of the text.

To insert bulleted, dashed or numbered lists you tin also simply showtime typing an asterisk, hyphen or number and let Bone X'south automatic text formatting step-in. To end a list, and thereby turn off bulleting, dashes or numbering, just striking Enter on an empty line.

Styling text within the existing Notes app on iOS is possible simply it'southward a piddling clumsy and much of what you need isn't obvious

To create a Note with formatted text without messing around too much, a pro tip is to create it in another app similar Pages, and and then copy and paste information technology into the notation. This lets yous insert the likes of charts, shapes, and even tables (you lot may be thinking that y'all might besides use Pages then, but that assumes you have Pages on your Mac, iPad and iPhone, and will be able to do good from the syncing features).

Adding pictures to Notes in Os 10

Pictures can exist inserted into Notes by dragging them from a Finder window or the desktop. Unfortunately, you can't insert videos this way, or elevate photos from within the Photos app. Y'all can import directly from a camera though, by right-clicking on the torso of the note and selecting the Import Prototype pick from the menu that appears.

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