Digital Stickers Basics
What are digital stickers? They’re transparent-background .png files that are used to decorate digital planners. I have some for sale in my shop (here & on Etsy), and there are millions of them for sale & for free all over.
I’m not saying they’re addicting, but I’m not not saying that, either… 😉
STEP 1: PUT THE STICKERS IN A HANDY SPOT & MAKE THEM EASY TO ACCESS
(Wanna use Goodnotes Collections? Look down to the next section.)
Decide where you’ll keep all your digital stickers for easy access: the two easy ones to use are either a Dropbox account or your iCloud account. Go ahead & put your digital stickers in there so they’re ready to use (you’ll see why I recommend this in a moment).
On your iPad, go to the main screen, find your Files app, and tap and hold the Files app icon and drag it down to your iPad’s bottom launcher bar.
STEP 2: OPEN GOODNOTES AND Your Planner
Navigate to the page you want to add stickers onto.
STEP 3: ADD STICKERS (4 methods)
ADD STICKERS METHOD 1: Click the image icon at the top of the screen, and when the add image window opens, navigate to where you have your stickers waiting (either in your Dropbox account or your iCloud folder). Click a sticker to use, and GoodNotes will import it into the notebook.
ADD STICKERS METHOD 2: With your notebook open, take your finger and slightly drag up from the bottom of the screen to display the launcher bar…tap and hold the Files app icon, and drag it up and to the right (or left) of the screen to create the split-screen effect (I then resize that 2nd screen to be narrower). Navigate in the Files app to where you have your stickers…now all you need to do is tap, hold, and drag each sticker onto your notebook! 🙂 This is my preferred method for bringing in many stickers at once…it’s just faster and easier than importing them one at a time via the button.
ADD STICKERS METHOD 3: Sticker books: If you purchase digital stickers that come with a Goodnotes sticker book, you can import that file into Goodnotes…and you have a new notebook with *all* the stickers already placed on the pages! Then all you have to do is use the lasso tool to select a sticker, copy it, then go back to your planner and paste it in. Sticker books are great because they let you see all the stickers you have in that set, and it’s easy to copy & paste them wherever you want them.
ADD STICKERS METHOD 4: Goodnotes Collections! See next section. 🙂
STEP 4: MOVE & RESIZE & PLAY!
Once you’ve got stickers on a page…they’re probably not the correct size. Tap each one one at a time to select it, then look for the little round icon in the bottom right of the sticker…use that to resize it and rotate it. You can then tap and hold the middle of the sticker to move it around the page. (Note: This is where using an Apple pencil really comes in handy!)
Goodnotes collections
Your stickers come with a “Goodnotes Collection file” – a super easy way to access all stickers in the set, quickly! No more needing to pull them in one by one (or deal with sticker books).
1
First, download the Goodnotes Collection file (will end with “.collection”) and put it where you can easily access it (usually, in your Files app).
2
Go into Goodnotes, and open a notebook/planner/journal. Be sure you are in editing mode.
3
Look at the editing icons and tap the oblong circle with star in it (Collections icon).
4
Your “Recents” stickers will show (if any); look for the row of small icons along the bottom of that popup window. Swipe left all the way to the end of the row and look for the icon with the plus sign in it. Tap that.
5
To add your new Collection, look in the lower right corner of the window for “Import from…” and then navigate to where you put the .collection file. Tap it to import the collection.
And you are now good to go!
A few extra notes About Collections
Feel free to reach out with any other questions you have, too!