GoodNotes & Notability Split View on iPad: Full Guide

You can use GoodNotes and Notability side by side on iPad by activating Split View — and with a little setup, you can launch that exact combination from your Home Screen in one tap.

Both apps handle handwritten notes, but they have genuinely different strengths. GoodNotes excels at structured notebooks, custom templates, and annotating PDFs with a polished, document-like feel. Notability shines at audio-linked recording, quick free-form notes, and its continuous-scroll layout. Running them together isn't redundant — it's complementary.

Why use GoodNotes and Notability together?

Here are a few real situations where having both apps open at once makes practical sense:

• Migrating your notes library. If you're moving from one app to the other (or keeping both), Split View lets you open the same topic in each app simultaneously, copy handwriting or text between them, and compare formatting side by side without constantly switching apps.
• Lecture and meeting notes with audio. Keep Notability open on the right to record audio while you jot quick timestamped notes, and use GoodNotes on the left to maintain your structured, long-form notebook for the same subject. After the session, both sets of notes are already written — no duplication step needed.
• PDF annotation and reference. Open a PDF in GoodNotes for detailed markup and annotation, while keeping Notability open alongside it as a scratch pad for raw thoughts, questions, or things you want to follow up on. This keeps your clean annotated document separate from your messy working notes.

How to set it up with Splicon

If you haven't already, Download Splicon free from the App Store — it's the fastest way to turn any Split View pair into a dedicated Home Screen shortcut with a proper combined icon.

1. Open Splicon and search for GoodNotes, then Notability. Select them as your pair. You'll see a preview of both app icons arranged side by side.
2. Choose a split style — pick the ratio and visual style that suits you — then generate the icon and save it to your Photos library.
3. Open the Shortcuts app, create a new shortcut, and add an "Open App" action. Set it to open both apps in Split View. When prompted to choose an icon for the shortcut, select the Splicon image you just saved from Photos.
4. Add the shortcut to your Home Screen using the shortcut's settings menu. It will appear as a tappable icon showing both apps together.

From that point on, tapping that icon opens GoodNotes and Notability in Split View instantly — no dragging from the Dock, no hunting through recently used apps.

A few tips for working in this Split View

Once you have both apps open, drag text or images between them using iPad's standard drag-and-drop: press and hold an element in one app, start dragging, then navigate into the other app to drop it. It works surprisingly well for moving typed text between notes.

If you find yourself switching which app gets more screen space depending on the task, you can adjust the Split View divider mid-session by dragging the center handle left or right — no need to close and reopen anything.

For students and professionals who genuinely use both apps, the Split View shortcut created with Splicon removes the small but consistent friction of setting up multitasking every time you sit down to work. That friction adds up more than you'd expect.