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How To Set The Default Notes App For Samsung Chromebook Plus & Pro

By 7 Comments

by Robby Payne
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GOOGLE HAS HEARD US!

Or not. I like to think they read my article back in late February where I dismantled the poor performance of Google’s own Keep app for note taking on the Samsung Chromebook Plus. Who knows? Maybe they did.

The last line in that article after all of my ranting about how bad Keep is on the Samsung was this:

But, additionally, we need the ability to set a new default app for the pen shortcut in the tray. That could be a really, really simple fix until Keep is really ready for prime time.

Unfortunately, Keep is still no better. Laggy and lacking real pressure sensitivity, Keep is a poor example of what the Pen on the Samsung Chromebook Plus and Pro is capable of.

In that article, I also highlighted my go-to app for this activity: Squid. My only issues with that app were the inability for the app to work in portrait and the lack of option to make this the default note app from the tray.

What A Difference A Few Months Makes

You see, when you remove the pen, a nice little pop-up menu appears and lets you start a new note. It sounds small, but the efficiency of that little shortcut is key in this device really feeling like note taking tool.

Up until recently, the ‘new note’ shortcut was reserved for Google Keep. Don’t get me wrong: I love Keep. I use it every day. But as a handwriting tool, it needs a lot of work.

Now, you can simply click the gear in the top of that small menu and you will see a special stylus menu. There’s not much there, but one option is, in my opinion, the biggest addition to the stylus setup on a Chromebook.

Default Note-taking App

Depending on what you have installed, this could be any app you choose that supports handwriting. For me, Squid is the best notes app available, so I’m overjoyed to be able to set this as my default New Note shortcut app.

I tried installing a few things like Evernote and Autodesk SketchBook, but I wasn’t presented with the option to select those apps as default. It is likely something on the app developer’s end to enable, but I’m not fully sure.

Either way, it is awesome to be able to enable something other than Keep for notes…at least until they get their act together.

  • Bill Wood

    I use LectureNotes. Very capable app with LOTS of settings.

    • Is LectureNotes allowed to be selected as a default for note taking as well?

      • Gabriel Brangers

        We will check and see.

  • I want to take notes and make drawings directly into Google Docs. Doesn’t that make sense? With squid is it easy to drop things into a Google Doc at least?

    • johnkendrick

      Just started using Squid after reading this post, and it works great with the s pen. Not laggy at all. You can export your note in .png or .jpg and save it to local storage, but Google docs is not on the sharing menu, so you would have to insert the image into the doc selecting it from local storage. You can also save as a pdf, but this makes more sense if your want to email to someone or send to Evernote, which is on the sharing menu. J

  • Why on Earth Samsung is not delivering S-Note for ChromeOS?

  • I like Inkredible. It’s from the makers of NotePlus on the iPad. I prefer it over Squid because, like many handwriting note apps on iPad, it has a zoom window where you can write really big and it will autosize it to fit on the lines of the paper you’re writing on. It also auto moves the zoom box to the right as you write and down a row when you get to an end of a line. I haven’t found any other Android app to be able to do this and it’s a feature I can’t live without. It’s one of the reasons I find handwriting note apps superior on iOS. I would LOVE to find a Good Notes or Noteshelf app on Android, but so far, Inkredible is the closest, but not perfect.