How to Use Digital Planners in GoodNotes (and Actually Build a Working

Digital planners are simple once you understand what they are: linked PDFs that live inside GoodNotes, which means you can navigate them, annotate them, duplicate pages, rearrange sections, add references, and gradually reshape them around the way you actually work. That last part matters, because the planner becomes more useful once you stop treating it like a fixed object and start using it like a modular workspace.

This brief guide walks through how to use digital planners in GoodNotes using the Saint Violet Novel Writing Workbook and Creative Planner as examples. The mechanics are simple; the usefulness comes from how you begin to shape them around your process.

If you want to see this process on screen, I made a full visual walkthrough on YouTube, too.

What We'll Cover

How to import and navigate a digital planner
How to move between read-only and edit mode
How to duplicate and extend worksheets
How to build additional pages when you run out of space
How to group, reorder, and export pages into working archives
How to use internal links to create your own structure
How the Creative Planner is meant to be used (and reused)

What a Digital Planner Actually Is (Inside GoodNotes)

Most digital planners are PDFs with internal links. In practice, that means they behave less like a normal document and more like a simple interface. Instead of scrolling through one long file, you jump between sections using tabs, linked text, or buttons built into the planner.

Inside GoodNotes, you are not editing the PDF itself. You are writing on top of it. The original page design and text stay intact, and your notes, handwriting, text boxes, highlights, and inserted images sit as annotations over the existing page.

Getting Started

Import your planner into GoodNotes

To bring your planner into GoodNotes:

Open GoodNotes.
Click New.
Choose Import.
Select the PDF file from your computer.

You can also drag and drop the PDF directly into GoodNotes, which is often the fastest option.

Once it imports, the planner opens as its own notebook.

Learn the difference between read-only and edit mode

GoodNotes runs on a simple toggle:

Read-Only Mode → navigation
Edit Mode → writing, editing, building

If links aren’t working, you’re in edit mode. If you can’t type, you’re in read-only.

Most people end up moving between the two constantly:

Click through your planner in read-only
Switch to edit when you land somewhere you want to work

Navigate using built-in internal links

Most Saint Violet digital planners and workbooks include built-in navigation links. In read-only mode, you can move through the planner using tabs, headers, or section markers depending on the product.

To use them:

Make sure you are in read-only mode.
Click the tab, heading, or linked area you want to use.
GoodNotes will jump you to the linked page.

This is how you move around the planner efficiently, especially once you have duplicated pages or built out multiple sections.

If nothing happens when you click, switch out of edit mode and try again.

Write directly on the page

Once you switch into edit mode, the planner becomes a working surface for annotation.

There are two primary ways to add written content:

Text tool → for typed notes
Pen tool → for handwriting or sketching

With the text tool, you can:

Click anywhere to create a text box
Type directly onto the page
Resize and reposition the text as needed
Adjust font, size, and alignment

With the pen tool, you can write more freely—useful for rough notes, diagrams, or anything that doesn’t fit neatly into typed structure.

Important: the original PDF text is not editable

This is one of the biggest points of confusion with digital planners.

You are not editing the original page text or layout. The workbook text, headers, prompts, and design elements are part of the PDF itself. What you add in GoodNotes sits on top of that page as annotation.

So if you are trying to click into the workbook prompt text and rewrite it directly, that will not work. You would add a text box over the page or annotate around it instead.

You can also turn text into navigation

GoodNotes allows you to add internal links, which means you can:

Link a word or phrase to another page
Create your own “tabs” or section markers
Build shortcuts between related parts of your planner

This becomes especially useful once your planner starts to expand. Instead of relying only on the built-in structure, you can create your own pathways—linking projects, jumping between sections, or grouping materials in a way that reflects how you’re actually working.

Add images, references, and visual material

You can also insert images directly into your planner, which makes it more useful as a creative workspace.

To add an image:

Choose the Image tool.
Select the image from your files or photo library.
Resize and reposition it as needed.

You can use this for:

visual references
moodboards
research material
screenshots
inspiration images
diagrams or charts
digital stickers

Duplicate worksheets

Most worksheet pages in the Novel Writing Workbook are meant to be used multiple times. You may need multiple supporting character worksheets, several planning pages for different plot lines, or repeated note pages for multiple scenes or story elements.

To duplicate a page in GoodNotes:

Open the thumbnail view or page sidebar so you can see all pages.
Click the arrow icon below the page you want to duplicate.
A menu will appear with a variety of options
Choose Duplicate.

GoodNotes will create a copy of that page directly next to the original.

From there, you can drag the duplicate wherever you want it to live.

Why this matters for the Novel Writing Workbook

Instead of forcing all your story material into a single worksheet, you can duplicate pages as many times as you need. That might look like:

one worksheet for each character
separate planning pages for act one, act two, and act three
multiple versions of a story problem you are trying to work out
repeated pages for themes, settings, timelines, relationship dynamics, or revision notes

You do not need to stay inside the original page count. The workbook is meant to expand with the project.

Add extra notes pages when you need more room

Sometimes a worksheet gives you the prompt or structure you need, but not enough writing space. That is where inserting extra pages helps.

This is useful when:

a prompt turns into several pages of notes
you want to keep brainstorming attached to the original worksheet
you need spillover room for research, scene ideas, backstory, or rough drafting

These added pages often become the most alive part of the notebook, because they hold the messier, more exploratory thinking that does not fit inside a neatly designed worksheet.

You can place them:

Directly after the relevant worksheet
At the end of a section
Anywhere that makes sense to you

Reorder pages to group things in a way that fits your process

The original order of the planner is a starting structure. It does not need to remain intact forever.

As your notebook grows, you can move pages around to group material in whatever way is most useful to you.

To reorder pages:

Open the thumbnail view.
Select the page thumbnail you want to move.
Drag it to a new location in the notebook.

This lets you group pages by:

character
plot line
act or phase
project
topic
revision stage
reference type

For example, if your story material is scattered across different parts of the notebook, you can pull all pages related to one character into a single block. Or you can group all your revision pages together after your drafting pages. Or you can build a planning section, a drafting section, and a revision section inside one notebook.

This is one of the most useful features in practice, because it lets the planner evolve alongside the work instead of trapping the work inside the planner’s original order.

Export pages into a separate workbook to keep projects organized

Once you have built out a set of related pages, you may want to split them off into a cleaner archive or a separate project notebook.

To export selected pages:

Open the thumbnail view.
Select the page or pages you want to export.
Use the Move To option.
Save those selected pages to an existing workbook or create a new one.

This is useful when you want to:

pull all character pages into one separate reference file
create a dedicated notebook for a single project
save a clean archive of finished planning material
separate early exploratory work from your current active notebook

In other words, you do not have to keep everything in one giant file forever. You can use one workbook as the place where things develop, then export finished sections into smaller, more organized workbooks as the project matures.

Use Case: The Creative Planner

The Creative Planner works a little differently from the Novel Writing Workbook.

The workbook has a broader built-in structure with different worksheet types. The Creative Planner is much shorter and more modular. It is made of a small set of template pages that you duplicate and reuse as needed.

That means the intended workflow is less about moving linearly through the notebook and more about building your own stack of repeated pages.

For example, you might:

duplicate one planning page for each active project
duplicate a weekly page several times for a month of work
create one section for ideation, one for active making, and one for loose notes
build separate clusters of pages for different phases of a project

Because it is only a few pages long to begin with, the Creative Planner is really designed to be copied outward. You take the base templates and multiply them into the system you need.

That makes it especially good for people whose process changes from project to project.

Create your own sections and navigation

Once you start duplicating pages, adding new notes pages, and reorganizing materials, you may want to build more explicit navigation for yourself.

That can mean:

creating a page that acts like an index
using linked text as a jump point to a project section
building separate areas for planning, drafting, revision, or research
grouping different creative projects inside one notebook and linking between them

This is optional, but it is one of the better ways to make a digital notebook feel genuinely personal rather than predesigned.

A Note on Use

The planner becomes more useful the further you move away from using it “correctly.”

Duplicate the worksheet. Add another page. Move things around. Pull sections out into their own files. Build separate clusters for separate projects. Let the notebook become more specific, more idiosyncratic, and more useful as the work takes shape.