How to Make a Digital Planner for GoodNotes (Hyperlinked, Sellable)

To make a digital planner, build every page as a slide in Keynote or PowerPoint, turn the tab shapes into links to other slides, export the file as a PDF that keeps those links, and test every tab inside Goodnotes on a tablet before you sell it. A digital planner is an ordinary PDF. The links are what make it a product, and the export is the step that can remove them without telling you.

Steps checked October 2026 against Apple's Keynote guide on links, linked objects, slide size and export; Microsoft's pages on slide hyperlinks, slide size, saving as PDF and accessible PDFs; Canva on hyperlinks; Goodnotes support on PDF hyperlinks, Read Only Mode and importing files; the Goodnotes creator page; Apple's design tips and iPad Pro tech specs. The company now writes its name Goodnotes; many buyers still search GoodNotes.

By the end you will have a hyperlinked PDF, a record of every tab you tested, and a clear view of where you can sell it. This page is the build. The decisions that come first, such as printable or digital, dated or undated and how many pages, are in how to make a planner to sell, and the wider process of validating and pricing any product is in our guide to creating a digital product.

What you need before you start

Keynote, PowerPoint or Canva: which tool keeps the links

Use the tool you already have, and learn its export behaviour before you build 68 pages in it. All three can link one page to another. They differ in what the PDF keeps.

The Mac row is the one that catches people. Microsoft's save-as-PDF page states that "PowerPoint for macOS doesn't preserve hyperlinks in PDFs" and suggests opening the file in PowerPoint for the web and downloading the PDF from there. Its accessibility page adds that the Mac app keeps hyperlinks on objects only when you select the online conversion option.

How to make a digital planner: the eight-step build

Step 1: set one landscape slide size

In Keynote, open the Document sidebar, select the pop-up menu under Slide Size, choose Custom Slide Size, enter the dimensions and select OK. In PowerPoint, go to Design, Slide Size, then Custom Slide Size on Windows or Page Setup on Mac, and type the width and height with a unit such as in or cm.

Goodnotes sets no page size for an imported PDF, so choose for the screen. Apple lists the 13-inch iPad Pro at 2752 by 2064 pixels, a 4:3 shape, and the 11-inch at 2420 by 1668, about 1.45 to 1. A page between 4:3 and 3:2 fills both without large empty bands. One warning for PowerPoint: its "Letter Paper" and "A4 Paper" presets are not those paper sizes. Microsoft lists them as 10 by 7.5 inches and 10.833 by 7.5 inches.

Expected result: one empty landscape slide at the size every page will use.

Step 2: create every destination page first

Add blank slides until the count matches your page map, in final order: cover, index, year, months, weeks, days, extras. A slide link points at a slide, so the target has to exist before you can choose it. Label each blank slide with its name so you can see what a link opened.

Expected result: the slide count equals the page-map count. Fix the order now. Reordering after linking is how tabs end up opening the wrong month.

Hyperlinked planner tutorial: linking the tabs

Steps 3 and 4: draw the tab bar, then link it

Draw one shape per tab: twelve months, the year overview and the index. In Keynote, Control-click a tab shape, choose Add Link, then Slide, enter the number of the slide it should open, and use Go to Slide to confirm the destination. In PowerPoint for Windows, select the shape, choose Insert, Link, Insert Link, select Place in This Document and pick the slide.

Link the shape, not the word on it, and make the shape big enough for a fingertip. Apple's design tips say touch controls should "measure at least 44 points x 44 points", roughly a third of an inch on a full-size iPad. A planner page is scaled to the screen, so the reliable check is on the device: if you miss a tab with a finger, it is too small.

Expected result: one finished page whose 14 tabs each open the right slide.

Step 5: duplicate the linked page

Finish one page of each type, with its tab bar linked, and duplicate it for the rest of that type. Then check the first few copies before you make fifty. If the copies did not keep their links, you want to learn that on page three.

Expected result: every page carries a working tab bar, and you linked it once per page type, not once per page.

Step 6: add the date-level links

Work one month at a time with the calendar beside you. On the monthly page, link each date to its daily page and each week row to its weekly page. On the weekly page, link each day heading to its daily page. On each daily page, add a link back to its week and its month. In an undated planner the date cells stay empty and only the tab bar and section links are needed.

Expected result: no page is a dead end. Apple gives the same advice for linked presentations: make sure each slide contains a link.

Step 7: click-test inside the tool

Keynote has a mode built for this. In the Document tab, set the presentation type to Links Only, which Apple describes as changing slides "only when the viewer clicks a link", then play the presentation and navigate by tabs alone. In PowerPoint, right-click a link in Normal view and choose Open Hyperlink.

Expected result: you can reach every page type from the index using links only. Fixing a link here takes seconds. After export it means a new file and a new test.

Step 8: export a PDF that keeps the links

• Keynote. File, Export To, PDF. Choose an image quality (higher quality means a larger file), leave presenter notes off, then Save and Export.
• PowerPoint for Windows. File, Export, Create PDF/XPS Document, Create PDF/XPS, with Optimize for set to Standard, then Publish.
• PowerPoint for Mac. File, Export, PDF, and select "Best for electronic distribution and accessibility (uses Microsoft online service)". Or save to OneDrive, open in PowerPoint for the web and use File, Export, Download as PDF.
• Canva. Share, Download, PDF, with Flatten PDF off.

Expected result: a PDF whose page count matches the page map and whose tabs respond in a desktop reader. Note the file size. Etsy accepts 20MB per file, and Goodnotes limits free accounts on Android, Windows and web to 5MB per import.

Digital planner tutorial for Goodnotes: import and link behaviour

Goodnotes supports exactly this kind of file. Its support page says hyperlinks in imported PDFs "can open another page in the document or an external website" and uses a digital planner as the example. It adds a condition: "The hyperlink must already exist in the imported PDF." That is why the export matters. To import, select New in the Documents tab, then Import, and choose the file.

Those two columns are your instructions page. A buyer on a Windows tablet who taps a tab and gets a pen stroke will assume the planner is broken unless you told them about Read Only Mode first.

The QA pass: every tab, tested on a tablet

Buyers judge a digital planner in the first minute, by tapping. One dead tab reads as a careless product, however good the layout is. Run the passes in order and log every failure with the page number, the tab and where it went.

Fix failures in the source file, never in the PDF, then export again and rerun passes 1 and 2 on the new file plus the pages that failed. A re-export is a new file, and the old test results do not transfer to it.

Claim only what you tested. Goodnotes documents its link behaviour. Notability's help center documents an outline panel for PDFs with a table of contents, and we found no page describing tap-through links, so put its name on the listing only after you have run the passes there yourself.

Make a Goodnotes planner to sell: Etsy, your own store and the Marketplace

You can sell the PDF anywhere that delivers a file. Goodnotes also runs its own Marketplace inside the app, which is a different arrangement: you apply, sign a commission contract and upload through its Creator Studio.

Treat the Marketplace as a later channel, not the launch plan. The application form was closed to new submissions when we checked, and the terms that matter most, the commission rate, are in a contract you only see after approval. Etsy, a storefront or your own site need no approval; where to sell digital products compares them.

For the licence wording, adapt our terms of use template for digital products, and run the price through the free Etsy profit margin calculator before you list. If you also want a paper version of the same layout, that is a separate file with different settings, covered in how to make printables to sell.

A planner that passes every tap is finished as a file, not as a business. Our Digital Products program covers the other half: validating the buyer with a pre-sell before you build, then pricing, the funnel and the launch.

Troubleshooting

• No links work anywhere. The export removed them. Check the tool table above, export again, and click a tab in a desktop reader before importing.
• Links work on desktop, not in Goodnotes. On Android, Windows or web, switch to Read Only Mode. On iPad, if a tap draws a stroke, do the same.
• One tab opens the wrong page. Slides were added or moved after linking. Recount against the page map and relink that tab on the template.
• A whole page type has dead tabs. That template was duplicated before it was linked. Link one, then replace the copies.
• The file will not import. A free Goodnotes account on Android, Windows or web refuses files over 5MB. Lower the image quality on export or remove images.

Making a digital planner: FAQ