What GoodNotes Junk Journals Actually Are
A Junk Journal Goodnotes setup is a digital scrapbooking method where you build a notebook using scanned ephemera, hand-drawn elements, layered textures, and hyperlinked pages inside the GoodNotes app on iPad. It borrows from the physical junk journal tradition—torn paper edges, handwritten notes, ticket stubs, fabric scraps, vintage postcards—and translates it into an app-based system that uses bookmarks, links, and annotation tools to simulate a physical collage book. Most people trying this for the first time assume it is just a nice-looking PDF with pretty pictures. It is not. The real work happens in the architecture: page-to-page linking, layer stacking, navigation flow, and how much you are willing to organize versus embrace creative chaos. The difference between a decent Junk Journal Goodnotes layout and a good one usually comes down to whether you planned the navigation before you started pasting elements.
Setting Up the Notebook Structure
Create a new blank notebook at 350 DPI. Anything less and your scanned ephemera will look soft when zoomed in. The default paper size for most people is US Letter or A4. Pick whichever you have the most printable scans in. If you have none of either, start with 8.5 by 11 inches and adjust later. Before you paste a single element, create your page skeleton. I typically make 10 to 12 base pages first: a cover page, a table of contents page with links, 4 to 6 main content pages, and a couple of bonus or hidden pages. Each of these exists as a separate page in GoodNotes. You then use the bookmark tool to link them together. The main content pages get bookmarks named descriptively, not generically. "Kitchen Archive" works. "Page 3" does not. The table of contents page is where most people skip effort and pay for it later. Every main page should be reachable from that contents page with a clickable link. If you open the notebook from a different device or share it with someone, bookmarks are the only reliable navigation. Everything else is visual decoration.
Gathering and Processing Ephemera
You need source material. Real junk journals rely on physical artifacts. Digital ones need scans, photos, or downloaded public-domain paper kits. The three sources I use in practice are my own old paper clutter, scanned library pages, and free printable ephemera packs from sites like Pinterest and Etsy freebies. Anything you buy as a JPEG from a digital shop counts as the same thing. Scan at 300 DPI minimum. I prefer 350 because GoodNotes compresses images during import. Text legibility matters more than artistic mood. If you cannot read the journal entry on the back of a ticket stub at full zoom, the scan failed regardless of how good it looked in the preview. File naming is worth doing early. I name every scan something like journal_2024_jan_receipt.jpg or ephemera_vintage_map_02.png. The folder structure in Files does not carry into GoodNotes, but the filenames show up in search. When you have 200 scattered image files, search saves you.
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Building Pages with Layers
GoodNotes does not have layers in the Photoshop sense. You work with what you paste onto a page. Stacking order is controlled by paste sequence. Paste the background paper first, then the larger elements, then smaller details on top. Each item sits as its own touchable object. The trick most beginners miss is that GoodNotes treats photo elements differently from drawing elements. Photos imported as images stay fixed. Anything you draw with the Apple Pencil can be converted to text search, but only if you keep it on an unflattened annotation layer. Once you merge a layer or export it as part of an image, the handwriting becomes permanent pixels. You lose searchability. For a Junk Journal Goodnotes page, I typically use three types of elements: background papers, mid-layer ephemera, and top-layer annotations. Background papers are full-page images or PDFs. Mid-layer ephemera includes clipped tickets, fabric textures, handwritten notes, and decorative borders. Top-layer annotations are your handwriting, highlights, and sticky-note style comments. That last category is where the app actually feels useful. Writing directly over a scanned collage gives the page a lived-in quality that flat design tools cannot replicate.
I found this out the hard way when I spent three hours building a detailed archive page with handwritten journal entries layered over vintage paper textures. I then tried to duplicate that page for a second edition and realized none of the handwriting annotations copied over. Duplicated pages in GoodNotes only copy the image content, not the annotation data. I had to rebuild every handwritten note manually. My workaround is now to keep a master page with all the annotations untouched and only duplicate the background and ephemera layers separately, then reapply handwriting on each copy.
Hyperlink Navigation
Navigation is where GoodNotes gets interesting. You can link from any text box, shape, or bookmark to any other page. I use this for flap-style reveals. Create a small rectangle that looks like a folded tab, hyperlink it to a hidden page, and when someone taps it, they jump to a new spread that contains the deeper content. This mimics the physical act of opening a tucked-in envelope or lifting a flap in a real junk journal. The limitation is that hyperlinks only work within the same notebook. You cannot create cross-notebook links. If you want a Junk Journal Goodnotes system that spans multiple notebooks, you have to use bookmarks on a central index page and manually open each linked notebook from there. It adds a step and breaks the seamless feel.
Working with PDF Templates
Some people build their junk journals entirely inside PDF templates downloaded from creators. These are pre-made page layouts with placeholders for your photos and text. The advantage is speed. You do not design from scratch. The disadvantage is that you are confined to the template structure. GoodNotes lets you annotate on top of PDF pages, but you cannot easily rearrange or replace individual elements inside the PDF itself. My preference is hybrid. I download a few PDF template pages for structure, but I replace the background images with my own scanned textures and add my own ephemera on top. This gives me the layout efficiency of a template without the visual rigidity. The process takes about 15 to 20 minutes per page once you have your workflow down. Starting from blank each time takes closer to 45 minutes because you are building from scratch.
Export and Sharing Considerations
If you plan to share your Junk Journal Goodnotes notebook with others, you have two real options: share the .goodnotex file directly, or export as PDF. The .goodnotex file preserves all hyperlinks, bookmarks, and annotation layers. PDF export flattens everything. No more clickable flaps. No more searchable handwriting. The page looks identical but becomes a static image with some remaining text searchability if GoodNotes decided to convert your handwriting during export. File size is the other concern. A Junk Journal Goodnotes notebook with 30 pages, 200+ images, and multiple annotation layers can easily exceed 500 megabytes. Sharing that over AirDrop or email usually fails. Exporting to PDF compresses the images aggressively and often makes the text blurry. The practical workaround is to archive the .goodnotex file in iCloud Drive and share the link instead of the file itself. I also keep a reduced copy with lower-resolution images for quick sharing purposes.
Where This Approach Fails
Junk Journal Goodnotes is not a universal solution. It breaks down in three specific scenarios. First, if you need frequent collaborative editing, GoodNotes sharing is clunky. Multiple people can open the same notebook, but simultaneous edits cause version conflicts. Second, if your notebook exceeds roughly 100 densely annotated pages, the app becomes noticeably slow. Page transitions lag. Search gets slower. The experience degrades to a point where it is worse than just using a physical notebook. Third, if you rely heavily on cross-app workflows—like pulling images from other apps in real time—GoodNotes imports are manual and batch-based. You cannot drag and drop from Safari or Mail as easily as you might expect from a design tool. For those cases, I recommend alternatives depending on the goal. If the priority is collaborative archiving, Notion handles structured journal systems better with database filtering. If the priority is pure visual collage without navigation complexity, Procreate or Canva give you more design control. If the goal is simple page-by-page scanning and annotation, GoodNotes remains the strongest option simply because the app is built for exactly this kind of messy, nonlinear, handwritten organization.
Practical Tips I Use Regularly
Use the stamp tool sparingly. Stamps add visual clutter fast and they cannot be resized after placement without breaking the stamp properties. If you want a decorative corner, draw it instead. Drawing tools give you full transform control. Keep a dedicated page for your ephemera archive. This is a reference page that lists or shows thumbnails of everything you have collected. It saves you from searching through hundreds of individual images when you know you have a vintage stamp from somewhere but cannot remember which page it lives on. Color match your backgrounds before you paste anything. A scan of a white receipt on a dark brown paper background looks accidental and lazy. Adjust the tint and brightness of your ephemera scans inside GoodNotes to match the overall palette. The color adjustment tool is under the edit image menu. It is limited, but it is enough to make mismatched scans look intentional.
Test your hyperlinks before you consider the page finished. Tap every link once. If a bookmark is missing or pointing to the wrong page, you will not notice until someone else opens the notebook and tries to use it. I usually do a quick scan through all links as the last step before saving.
