A text note normally runs the full width of the editor, one long page that grows as you write. Pages sets it out like a document instead, on sheets of A4 or Letter with the text broken between them. It works on desktop and mobile, on every plan.
The setting
Pages is in Settings under Notes, in the Page setup section between the notes settings and Handwriting. It has three choices:
- Off, where you start, with the editor exactly as it always was
- A4, 210 by 297 millimeters
- Letter, 8.5 by 11 inches
It applies to all your text notes rather than one, and it changes how a note is laid out on the screen, not the note itself.
On desktop
Pages is a dropdown on the Notes tab. Pick A4 or Letter and the editor turns into a light gray desk with white sheets on it. When the editor is wide enough, a sheet is shown at its real size, 794 by 1123 pixels for A4 and 816 by 1056 for Letter, with one inch margins. In a narrower editor, such as with the chat open beside it, the sheet shrinks and keeps its shape, and the text keeps its size and wraps to fit.
How pages break
On desktop the text is broken between the sheets the way a word processor breaks it:
- A line that does not fit at the bottom of a page starts the next one
- A paragraph is not left with a single line at the bottom or the top of a page, and a short paragraph that does not fit moves to the next page whole
- A heading stays on the page with the start of the text under it
- Cards, tables, pictures, checklist items and quotes move to the next page in one piece
The breaks keep up as you write: type near the bottom of a page and the lines move on to the next one as you go.
On mobile
Open Settings, then Notes: Page setup is between the notes settings and Handwriting. Tap Pages, then A4 or Letter.
On a phone, a sheet is fitted to the width of the screen, with a little of the screen showing at either side. On an iPad a sheet is shown at its real size when it fits. The text sits inside the sheet's margins, the sheets are separated by a small gap, and the text is broken between them.
On every device
The page size syncs, so you set it once for all your devices, and the chat can change it for you, like put my notes on A4 pages, see Change settings from the chat. Version history shows a note's earlier versions without pages.
To write with nothing but the page in front of you on desktop, use focus mode: the pages stay on their desk and the panels go. The note font sets the typeface the pages are written in, and the line height how far apart the lines are: the pages break where the new spacing puts them.
Handwriting notes
Handwriting notes keep a paper, page size and orientation of their own, set in the Handwriting section of the same tab and in each notebook's menu, so a text note on A4 pages and a grid paper notebook in Letter can live side by side. See Choose paper, page size and orientation.