How to import and use digital stickers with a digital planner

Digital planners offer so many possibilities and one of my favorites is to use digital stickers to decorate and personalise my diaries.

At first adding stickers may seem difficult, but once you understand the concept it is absolutely simple and fun. I would even say that it can be addictive for some, as it allows you to unleash your creativity.

The magic of digital stickers (as opposed to physical stickers) is that you can reuse them over and over! No need to be afraid to use your favourite sticker and then regret it. You can reuse your digital stickers every time you use a new digital planner or even on every page if you wish.

What are digital stickers?

First of all, if you are new to digital planning you may need to understand the concept. Like physical stickers for paper diaries, digital stickers are used to decorate and personalise diaries.

A digital sticker is simply a PNG image with a transparent background. When you import an image with a transparent background into your digital planner, you get the same effect as a traditional sticker on a paper agenda.

Importing individual PNG stickers

Before you start using digital stickers with your digital planner, you need to understand how to import them into the note taking application. Importing individual PNG files can be quite similar in the different applications, you can either drag and drop or copy and paste.

I’ll show you step by step with the GoodNotes application as this is the one I use on a daily basis. I will explain the 3 methods below, the 3rd one exclusive to the GoodNotes 5 application.

Drag and drop

The first method for importing individual digital or PNG stickers into GoodNotes 5 is “drag and drop”.

Important detail: this method is only available if you have installed IOS 11 on your iPad.

IMPORTING WITH THE “DRAG AND DROP” METHOD

• Open GoodNotes on the desired page.
• Open the “Files” application in “Slip View” with the GoodNotes application.
• Locate the folder that contains your PNG files.
• Long press the desired image and drag it to your GoodNotes page.
• Move or change the size of the image.
• Copy and paste

Alternatively, you can copy and paste individual PNG files from the source directly into your planner.

YOU CAN DO THIS BY USING THE “COPY AND PASTE” METHOD:

• Open the “Files” application on your iPad and locate your PNG files.
• Hold down the desired sticker and select the “copy” option.
• Then open GoodNotes and navigate to the page where you want to place your sticker.
• Press and hold anywhere on that page and select the “paste” option from the pop-up menu.
• Move or change the size of the image.

Good to know: With these methods, you import your stickers with the “Photos” tool located next to the “Elements” tool on the editing bar. However, I recommend using mainly the “Elements” function, the third method which I explain below.

If you have imported your stickers by the first two methods and then want to turn them into elements:

• Click on the “Photo” tool
• Select the picture
• Press a second time, a pop-up menu appears.
• Select “Add item”.
• A window with your collections appears. Choose an existing collection or create a new one.

TIP :
If you have made a drawing that you would like to have as your own sticker, use the same method above. First, circle your design with the lasso tool, press to see the context menu and select “add item”. Follow the steps and you will have created an item for easy use and access elsewhere in your notes.

The ‘Items’ feature on GoodNotes 5

GoodNotes has recently added a new feature to the main bar to help add digital stickers easily. This is the best way to do it, as you create your own library of organized and easily accessible images in your application.

Some stickers are already available with the application, so you can already get an idea of how digital stickers work. The great thing is that you can create your own collections. Creating sticker collections means you always have material to personalise and decorate your GoodNotes documents.

HOW TO CREATE DIGITAL STICKER COLLECTIONS :

• Double tap the “Items” star icon to open the collection box.
• Then select the plus (+) option, a button at the bottom right of the collection box.
• A “New Collection” window will appear.
• Give a title to the new collection you are creating.
• Add items (PNG images) from your photo albums or folders.
• To add images stored in your Photos application, tap the “Add from Photos” option.
• To add images stored in your folders, tap the “Import from…” option.
• Once you have finished, press the “Create” button on the top right.
• Your new collection will now be available in the “stickers” tab.

You can create as many collections as you like to organise all your digital stickers into various categories.

Creating different collections helps you stay organized and find your images easily without wasting time.

TIP:
Often you have many digital stickers to import. For example, when you buy the Everyday Stickers, this is a collection with over 50,000 images.

To be able to import several PNG images at the same time and save yourself time, there are two ways to do this:

Save the PNG images from your folders to your iPad photo app. This way, when you choose the “Add Photos” option you will be able to select multiple images together to compose your collection.

If you have an Apple computer, I highly recommend that you install the GoodNotes application. Once you have the application on your computer, you have access to all your synchronised diaries and notebooks.

The bonus is that it’s even faster to add your digital stickers. Just follow steps 1-4. Then, to add the images, you select them from the folder on your computer and drag them into the collection box you are creating.

EDIT AN EXISTING COLLECTION

To edit an existing collection, you need to open the collection and then click on the title of the collection and the ‘Edit Collection’ box appears. You can move images, add more images or delete them.

How to use digital stickers

Once you have created all your collections, you can use your digital stickers. You have many possibilities for digital stickers, from labels to thematic designs. The idea here is to add colour, information, labels for organisation, and more.

You can unleash your creativity. Adding digital stickers is as fun as it is productive. You can use notepad-style digital stickers to mark something important to remember on your calendar, just as you would on paper.

Resize, rotate and move digital stickers

Select the one you want to place in your diary from the collection, it will appear on the page.

With the selection you have the option to move it, rotate it or even resize it.

To move items, place your finger or stylus on the image and drag.

On the bottom right corner you have an icon with arrows. This indicates that if you press it and move the stylus (or finger) you will rotate or resize it.

• Rotate: make circular movements.
• Resize: move in a diagonal direction.

Once you have found the location, size and position, click elsewhere on the page to remove the selection.

IMPORTANT DETAIL:

If you have imported your images using the first two methods which link to the “Photo” function, you also have the option to crop the image. You will see arrows at the top and on the right side of the image. You can click once on the selection and in the context menu you will find the option “crop”. With this option you can transform the dimensions of the image. This is the function for customizing JPG images.

This function is less relevant when you have individual PNG files, as these are files with a transparent background. That said, these images are already ready to be embedded without the need to crop them. You can simply resize them with the small arrows on the bottom right corner.

PiiMedia Planner’s Everyday Stickers

Are you ready to use digital stickers? If you want to get started customizing your digital diaries and notebooks with digital stickers, we have a great option for you!

The Everyday Digital Stickers is a collection of over 50,000 PNG and SVG images to help you plan and organise your daily life, whether you use a digital planner or notebook.