SeSco Engineering & Building Science is a Civil Engineering firm in Ontario, Canada specializing in investigating, testing, and repairing high rise building exterior wall systems. Company President John Scolieri explains how Mental Note has allowed them to efficiently go digital for on-site inspections and reports:

“…a good chunk of our time is spent literally in ‘the air’. Mental Note has allowed us to stop carrying a paper pad and pencils on our work sites and this is HUGE for us as we no longer have to worry about dropped pencils or gusts of wind tearing paper out of pads when we are on the side of a building and 20 stories in the sky!”

When John and his team need to document their findings they can quickly and accurately capture all the information they need for their investigation: photographs of the building exterior, sketched dimensions, typed repair notes. All the raw data and ideas get captured into a page in Mental Note, and can easily be sent back to the office as a PDF in an email, right from the job site.

Because John’s team is on the go at numerous sites, they have to stay in touch with their smart phones, and stay organized with their site reports. They’ve found Mental Note on iPhone to be the flexible solution for them. The flexibility that Mental Note allows – the combination of typed text with photos, sketches, and audio, if needed, really has replaced the need for a paper notepad:

“This app does everything I need for me to finally stop carrying a cumbersome notepad to my sites! No more having to worry about my pen running out either. Every option works fluently with great flow… my vote for best productivity app. I recommend this to friends and colleagues on a daily basis!”

When John was thinking about moving the company from iPhones to another smart phone vendor, he had to spend some serious time considering if the move was worth it – largely due to the fact that Mental Note is currently only available on iOS:

“Mental Note is hands down the most used app on my iPhone and the only reason why I have to stick to iPhones… Our smart phones are always in our pockets and luckily for us so is Mental Note so, once again, thank you for creating such a great app and especially for always promptly answering our questions and listening to our suggestions on how to improve it.”

Mental Note – the digital notepad – capturing ideas as they happen for John and the team at SeSco Engineering.

Mark Malagise of the indie rock band “THRIFT” uses Mental Note for iPad whenever he’s songwriting. Mark finds Mental Note so useful in his songwriting process that he uses it for every song he writes. Mark explains, “I use Mental Note as my primary songwriting application. Every song I write starts off as a Mental Note document/recording.”

He used Mental Note while composing the songs for his band’s new album, one of which is the band’s new single “Mockingbird”.

With songwriting you never know when you’ve got something. So you need to be able to capture free flowing ideas quickly. Mental Note has the ability to flexibly capture ideas as they happen, whether those ideas are sung, played, typed, photographed, or sketched. Being able to combine all of those mediums together on the same continuously scrolling page turns the amazing iPad device into a powerful creative tool.

Brainstorming for the creation of a song involves writing lyrics and recording audio clips – and not always in that order. As in any creative process, the ideas spill out, and you try to get everything down, but often it’s just not possible with traditional means. Mark’s use of Mental Note for brainstorming song ideas has produced single notes with well over 100 embedded audio files – and it’s not just audio on the note page. Each Mental Note digital page makes it possible to quickly record multiple audio clips, while typing lyrics around each recording, on a page that has the inspirational photographs you took from earlier in the day mixed with your hand-drawn sketches and annotations anywhere on the page, and it does all this in a very simple, easy to use interface.

Mark writes, “I love having the ability to write lyrics and then record the song idea right there onto the page. The simple interface is clutter free and allows me to concentrate on what is most important… writing the song.”

Mental Note – the digital notepad – capturing ideas as they happen for Mark and THRIFT.

Mental Note 3.2 offers the ability to send notes and backups to other apps installed on your device.

A new export destination has been added called “Other app”. For example, notes can be sent to other cloud storage solutions such as Google Drive, Box, or others. Send notes to apps that can accept the selected format, such as PDF to iBooks. This feature also enables sending a PDF to a compatible printer, or printer app.

This will allow you to send a note (in any of the currently supported formats) to almost any other app that is installed on the device. We don’t even know all the possibilities, but we’re hoping to hear about some interesting ones – send us an email or leave us a comment.

Ron Hanak runs Century Upholstery in La Mesa, California. They’ve been in business since 1936. A couple years ago they began using Mental Note and it now plays an integral role in the running of the business. Ron explains that Mental Note is used on a daily basis:

“I can’t stress to you enough how important this product has been in the success of our business. We now run the business more efficiently and more professionally with Mental Note.”

When Ron’s team visits a customer site to inspect furniture that needs to be reupholstered, they come equipped with an iPad and Mental Note. The job details are documented – photographs are taken, sketches of modifications are made, customer information and job details are captured – all into a single note on a single page in Mental Note. To give the page a professional touch, Ron uses the Custom Paper feature of Mental Note to add the company letterhead to every page. Right then and there a PDF invoice is generated and sent by email to the customer, and back to the Century Upholstery shop – where the notes are used to complete the order. Mental Note – the digital notepad – capturing ideas as they happen for Ron and the team at Century Upholstery.

Backup all notes (and tags) to a single file, then move the backup file off your device. Depending on the size of the backup file, you may be prompted to move the backup file off your device using either email, Dropbox, or by sending it to another compatible app that is installed on your device (e.g. Google Drive, Box, etc.).

IMPORTANT: You must move the backup file off the device to ensure the safety of the data. An automatic way to do this is to Use iCloud.

From the list of notes screen, tap the Settings toolbar button (gear icon). Then under Backup tap “Create”.

Moving the backup file off your device

If “Use iCloud” is turned on, the backup file will automatically be moved off your device, assuming you have enough space in your iCloud account. More information about using iCloud with Mental Note can be found here.

Email or sending the backup to a cloud storage solution (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, etc.) are both good alternative, manual ways to move the backup file off your device. If the backup file is small enough to be emailed, the Email option will be presented. If the backup file is small enough to be sent to Dropbox, the Dropbox option will be presented. Use the “Other app” option to send the backup file to another installed app, (this will first check if you have another compatible app installed on your device that can accept the backup file).

If the backup file is very large, manually move the backup file off your device by connecting your device to your computer and launching Finder (if using macOS 10.15 or higher), or launching iTunes (if using macOS 10.14 or lower).

If you are using macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or higher, open Finder, select your device (in the sidebar), and click “Files” in the top row. Select Mental Note. Drag any files to a folder on your computer to copy the files.

If you are using macOS 10.14 or lower, in iTunes, select your device (in the sidebar), then click “Apps” (in the top row), and scroll to the bottom. Select Mental Note. Under “Mental Note Documents” you will see any backup files you’ve created (.mno for iPhone & iPod touch, and .mna for iPad). The backup filename corresponds to the date and time the backup was performed. Copy a backup file to a safe place by selecting a backup file and clicking “Save to…”. (Note: you won’t see backup files in this window if they were created while you have the Use iCloud switch turned On.)

Creating a backup file creates a single “restore point” file – a snapshot of all notes (and tags) as of that date and time.

Backup files are initially named with the current date and time, but the names can be changed to indicate a special point in time, or to identify the contents of the backup file. For example, “FreshInstall_emptyNotes”, or “From-iPodTouch…”. To rename a backup file from within Mental Note, tap Restore (from the Backup settings options). A list of the backup files found on your device is presented. Tap Edit, then tap a backup file to rename it.

Backup files can be used to transfer the notes from one device to another device, e.g. iPhone to iPhone, iPod to iPhone, iPad to iPhone, iPhone to iPad, etc. Backup files can also be used to transfer notes from Mental Note Lite to Mental Note, (by default Mental Note Lite allows the creation of backup files only).

Restoring from a backup file means all notes are replaced with the contents of the backup file. Before this occurs, an optional backup of all current notes can (and usually should) be performed.

The Restore option is accessed from Mental Note settings, just beneath the Backup button. The Restore screen can be used to:

• restore a backup file (.mna / .mno, under the “Backups” section) which will replace all notes with the contents of the backup file: tap the backup file to restore
• restore a single note file (.mn1, under the “Notes” section) which will add the single note to your existing notes: tap the note file to restore
• view a summary of the contents and properties of a restorable file: tap the info button on the right edge of the restorable file
• view the location of the restorable file: a file folder icon indicates the file is stored locally on the device; a cloud icon indicates the file is stored in iCloud
• view the type of device that created the backup file: a file folder icon with a tablet image indicates the backup was created on a tablet device (e.g. iPad); a file folder icon with a smaller device image indicates the backup was created on a phone-like device (e.g. iPhone, iPod touch)
• rename restorable files: tap the Edit button, then tap the restorable file to rename
• delete restorable files: tap the Edit button, then the button to the left of the restorable file

In iTunes, the file folders that appear under Mental Note Documents are the result of using the “Export to file folder” option on individual notes. Large notes that can’t be exported using email can be transferred to your computer using “Export to file folder”, (in Mental Note, tap Note, then Export). The exported folder is named with the title of the exported note. Select a folder, then click “Save to…”. The folder will be transferred to the location you specify. Inside the folder you’ll find a PDF of the note as well as a png image of the note, and all of the note’s audio recordings.

To delete file folders or backup files from your device using macOS 10.14 or lower and iTunes, simply select the folder/file in the iTunes window above, and press the “delete” key on the keyboard. iTunes will prompt you to confirm the deletion. If you are using macOS 10.15 (Catalina), right-click the folder/file in the Finder window, and select to “Delete” it. Finder will prompt you to confirm the deletion.

With the release of Mental Note version 3.0, iCloud is now supported for complete backups as well as individual note transfers.

Complete Backups using iCloud

When you create a backup it is possible to automatically have it upload from your device to your iCloud account.

Setup: To use iCloud backup, ensure your device has been configured for iCloud in the Settings app. Then, from Mental Note settings, enable “Use iCloud” in the Backup section.

Backup: Open Mental Note settings (tap the gear icon), then tap “Create”. Once the backup is created, it will automatically be uploaded to your iCloud account.

Restore: Open Mental Note settings (tap the gear icon), then tap “Restore”. All of your available backups will be listed under the “Backups” section. Backups stored in iCloud will display a cloud logo.

Individual Note Transfer using iCloud

It is possible to transfer a note from one device to another. This version supports transfer from any iOS device to any other iOS device (e.g. from iPhone to iPad and vice versa).

Setup: To use iCloud note transfer, ensure all of your devices are setup with the same iCloud account. Also ensure all of your devices have “Use iCloud” turned on in Mental Note settings.

Export: Export in “Note” format to “iCloud”.

Import:Open Mental Note settings (tap the gear icon), then tap “Restore”. All of your available notes will be listed under the “Notes” section. Notes stored in iCloud will display a cloud logo.

Note: Your device must be running iOS 5 or higher in order to make use of iCloud.