“How do I add measures in Notion iOS?” I get asked this question a lot. I understand why. Even though it’s very intuitive like most workflows in Notion, it’s a function that might seem hidden. Here are two solutions.

I apologize that the screen shots are from an iPhone. My workhorse iPad Pro gave up the ghost yesterday. I ordered a new one, which I’m excited about, but I was hoping I could hold off until the 5th generation A14 version comes out in 2021. Oh well. Regardless, the experiance showed me how reliant I am on my iPad Pro and that the iPad Pro is truly a laptop replacement, at least for my workflow.

Quick and easy method:

1. Place the green playback cursor into the measure you’d like to insert a bar line after. 

2. Press the Bar Lines and Repeats menu in the palette, (the one that has a bar line and repeat icon). 

3. Tap the type of bar line you want to enter. In other words, a single bar, double bar or final bar line. 

4. You can add one bar line, hence a measure, or quickly press the bar line icon in rapid succession and adding measures each time you press the icon. This method is good for quickly entering 1-8 measures. 

Advanced method:

1. Press and hold in a measure where you’d like to insert or edit measures. 

2. You’ll get the appropriately named “Press and hold menu.” This menu allows you to Paste, Paste special, (for voice swapping or layer swapping), Make Pickup Measures, Make Partial Measures, Make Regular Barlines, or Insert Barlines (measures).

3. If you tap Insert Barlines you’ll get a dialog box that asks you how many measures you want to add. I typed “8”.

Pickup measures

In the next few images I added a pickup measure to a 4/4 bar.

1. If you want a quarter note pickup, make sure that the pickup measure is empty before you select Pickup Bar. If there is a single quarter note in the measure before you select Pickup Bar, it will become a measure of two quarter notes, etc.

Hope that helps! I might make a video about this topic once my new iPad Pro is delivered.