# Annotations Mark the score with Apple Pencil ink, music symbols, span marks, and text boxes, write fingerings the app engraves, and organise everything in layers. > Type: How-to · Status: Stable · Platforms: iPadOS 17+ · Last reviewed: 2026-07-18 ## Enter annotation mode 1. Open a score and select `Annotate` — the pencil button. A long-press on the score toggles the same mode. 2. Choose an input: `Draw with Apple Pencil` or `Draw with your finger`. Only one input mode is active at a time. 3. Mark the page with the tools below: ink, `Music symbols`, `Text box`, or `Fingerings`. 4. Select `Undo` to remove the most recent change. 5. Select `Close annotation` when finished. Ink and placed objects are saved for the current piece, version, and page. Switching to another version of the same piece shows that version's own annotations. With Apple Pencil input active, finger gestures keep navigating as usual. With finger drawing active, use two fingers to zoom or move the score, so a one-finger stroke is read as ink rather than navigation. > **Note** With `Draw with Apple Pencil anytime` on (`Settings` ▸ `General`, in the Accessibility section — on by default), touching the score with the Pencil draws immediately, without opening annotation mode, and your finger still turns pages. Open annotation mode later to erase or manage those strokes. ## Draw ink Both drawing modes use the system Pencil palette: pen, highlighter, and eraser with colour and stroke-width options. The colour you pick also tints the pencil button in the toolbar, so the active ink colour is visible before you touch the page. ## Place music symbols 1. Select `Music symbols`. 2. Tap a symbol in the palette, grouped as `Accidentals`, `Dynamics`, `Articulation`, `Pedal`, `Navigation`, and `Breath / bowing`. 3. Tap the score where the symbol should sit. The groups cover accidentals (♭ ♯ ♮, double flats and sharps), dynamics from `ppp` to `fff` plus `sfz` and `fp`, articulation and ornament marks, pedal down and release, navigation words (`Segno`, `Coda`, `D.S.`, `D.C.`, `Fine`), and breath and bowing marks. > **Limit** Some tiles show plain text — for example `Segno`, `D.S.`, `Ped.` — instead of an engraved music glyph, because iOS ships no font for those symbols. Every tile still places a legible mark. ### Draw span marks The palette's Marks section holds marks you draw from a start point to an end point across the music: `Crescendo`, `Decrescendo`, and `Phrase`. They render as real hairpins and slur arcs, and stay resizable by their endpoints. The `Replay` action in the same section does not draw a printed repeat mark — it hands the selected span to the replay setup instead. ## Add a text box 1. Select `Text box`, then tap the score. 2. Type the text. 3. Drag the round handle to move the box; drag the corner arrow handle to resize it. A box left empty is removed when you leave it, so a stray tap does not leave a blank frame on the page. ## Write fingerings with the Pencil Select `Fingerings` in the annotation toolbar to open the fingering strip. It offers three ways to enter digits: - Digit buttons `1`–`5`: tap a digit, then tap the note it belongs to. - `Detect`: recognises digits 1–5 live as you write them over a note with the Apple Pencil. - `Scan ink`: draw a box around fingering digits you already wrote by hand; the recognised digits are engraved in place. Use this to convert older handwritten fingerings without rewriting them. The strip also has a magnifier-loupe toggle for precise placement — turn it off to pinch-zoom freely while annotating — a size control, and an info button that explains the modes. Recognition follows fixed rules: - Only the digits 1 to 5 are recognised. - When recognition is not confident about a new digit, it places nothing rather than engraving the wrong finger. Write the digit again, larger and clearer. - Writing a digit over an existing fingering replaces it. If the new stroke cannot be read, the old fingering stays — a failed read never erases what was there. - Tap an existing fingering to choose 1–5 or delete it. The eraser, or striking a number out, also removes it. > **Note** Handwriting recognition is controlled by `Recognize handwritten fingerings` (`Settings` ▸ `General`, in the Accessibility section — on by default). Turned off, the Pencil only inks and the score never reacts to your strokes. Generated fingering suggestions, hand calibration, the `My Fingering` layer, and the `Revise` flow are covered in [Auto-fingering](/docs/practice/fingering). ## Separate marks with Layers Select `Layers` to open the layer list: - Tap a row to make that layer active — only the active layer receives new ink. Tap the active row again to rename it. - Tap the eye on a row to hide or show that layer. Hiding keeps its contents. - `New layer` adds a layer. Deleting a layer asks for confirmation first: all strokes in that layer are permanently removed. Generated layers — fingering or analysis on a Smart Score — appear in the same list with a `Generated` tag. Their visibility is independent from your handwritten ink, and hiding or deleting one never changes the base notation. ## Print and share annotated pages Annotations are stored on the device with the score. They are copied elsewhere only by a workflow you start: an export or print that includes them, described in [Edit and export](/docs/reader/edit-export), or `iCloud Backup & Sync` in the `Sync` tab of `Settings`, which copies your annotations to your own iCloud. What each workflow transfers is listed in [Data and audio](/docs/privacy/data-and-audio). For Pencil and keyboard accessibility settings, see [Apple Pencil and keyboard](/docs/accessibility/pencil-keyboard). > **Limit** On a Smart Score, ink drawn while the two-page landscape spread was displayed cannot be placed reliably on a single exported page. Print and export skip that ink and report which pages were affected; the marks stay visible in the reader.