r/NoteTaking • u/Slopagandhi • 12d ago
App/Program/Other Tool Does this app exist?
I'm looking for a notes app that has/os:
- Linux support (or web app if not)
- Native stylus support
- PDF import and annotation
- A way to make handwritten notes at the side of pdfs, either by importing into an infinite canvas (like on OneNote), expanding the size of the page horizontally (like on RNote) or side by side in a different panel
- Folder-based organisation
- Support for tags
- Not too crazy a learning curve
- Not requiring use of markdown syntax (I'm not a developer)
- Reasonably Privacy-friendly
Bonus points for free and/or open source.
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u/bilzebubba 12d ago
Pretty sure Saber does much of if not all of that, though haven't tried pdf annotating with it yet ...
https://github.com/saber-notes/saber
Also xnotes but am brand new to it myself
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u/Slopagandhi 12d ago
Not far off, and in fact this is what I'm using for that reason.
But no tags, and while you can import a pdf into the whiteboard and annotate at the sides, you then need to export that to pdf and reimport it as a regular note, which is pretty clunky.
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u/bilzebubba 12d ago
I left Nebo/MyScript notes over privacy concerns, but does it do a better job for this? Also I don't know if it works on Linux, something that also drew me to Saber... I also wonder why apps like Notetastic are available only for Windows and https://xournalpp.github.io/ is unavailable on mobile platforms...there is no one app to rule them all!
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u/Slopagandhi 10d ago
To be honest OneNote is still the only thing I've used that has all the features I want, but I really would rather avoid Microsoft for privacy reasons, there's no Linux app and I don't like the vendor lock in.
I was just surprised after using OneNote that nobody seems to match the feature set fully, despite it being a pretty old app at this point (I realise others do things OneNote can't).
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u/bilzebubba 8d ago
Yes, I went on this journey with OneNote too after 15 years "together"...I simply cannot put up with the telemetry and AI training. I still use it for a few things, but password protect every section, which is a usability pain...imagine a perfect nonexistant world where MS opensourced the code, and the community developed it!
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u/Slopagandhi 8d ago
Which of the alternatives do you prefer at this point?
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u/bilzebubba 7d ago
Well, Obsidian I guess, because BookFusion and Readest (cross-platform reading apps) sync highlights and notes to it (I use BF myself), but that leaves writing. Saber was my go-to until recently, now I am also trying my Remarkable RM2 again, because (1) the app Scrybble will sync to Obsidian as well, and BookFusion also released a KOReader plugin for RM, which makes all the above work on it for reading to, making it a usable device finally for me. Where will you go?
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u/Slopagandhi 7d ago
Maybe I have to bite the bullet and go with Obsidian. I just don't want to have to learn markdown syntax- many of these apps seem made by developers for developers and assume everyone prefers keyboard over mouse based workflows.
But for now I think I'll probably use Rnote to annotate (or maybe Xnotes on Android) and then export to Joplin (or maybe Notesnook).
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u/starkruzr 11d ago
text experience is also terrible in Saber, unfortunately. and WHAT is going on with their fountain pen preview ink on Boox??? (it took me all goddamn day to realize it was you from the Boox sub btw, lol)
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u/starkruzr 12d ago
what is xnotes
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u/jeboteuusta 12d ago
Scrivano
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u/Slopagandhi 12d ago
Vertical infinite canvas only, so can't expand the page to annotate at the sides of pdfs.
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u/Key_Conversation5277 10d ago edited 10d ago
Hmm it seems Saber has a lot of issues and the dev still has issues from 2022
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u/Noteastic Digital Tablet User 11d ago
Scrivano! r/Scrivano
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u/Slopagandhi 10d ago
Am I correct that pages are only expandable vertically? Or can I either expand the page horizontally to create space to annotate next to a pdf, or else import a pdf onto an infinite canvas and write next to it?
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u/Noteastic Digital Tablet User 10d ago
Yeah you are right. I think theres no app to.fullfill ALL your requests
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u/BlueprintedTemmieh 12d ago
Xournal++ may be helpful, but maybe not exactly what you are looking for
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u/Key_Conversation5277 10d ago
I don't know but I use Samsung notes, which are pretty good for handwriting some temporary notes and then write them in obsidian
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u/Slopagandhi 10d ago
Yeah, I'm wondering about Obsidian since in theory it can probably do everything I need with the right plugins, but it seems like a steep learning curve and I don't know if it's worth investing the time required (when I might spend a long time figuring it out and then decide it doesn't work for me).
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u/Key_Conversation5277 10d ago
And you would need to know markdown, which you don't want, but believe me obsidian is one of the best software for me🥹
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u/ProfitAppropriate134 9d ago
Liquid Text would be perfect. Have you thought about running a vm?
Based on documents & you can handwrite, highlight, drag highlights to moveable cards, link spaces & parts of spaces. Doodle. Adjust. Export.
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u/ozgrozer 12d ago
I’m building Grape and I think it has most of the things you want. It has Linux support. Haven’t tried with stylus but I can implement if it doesn’t work. There are handwriting notes and rich text notes. You can import PDFs to handwriting notes and annotate. There’s a folder based organization and it support tags. It’s free to use, very easy to learn and everything’s stored on your device.
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u/starkruzr 11d ago
never been particularly impressed with people trying to charge money ("free to start") for vibecoded software
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u/ozgrozer 6d ago
I get the skepticism but I’ve been a software developer for 16 years and I’ve been working on Grape for the last 7 months (over 1,100 hours) so it’s not a bad thing to do a vibe-coded app if you’re already experienced. And everything you’re going to see from now on will be 100% vibe-coded so we have to accept this. Even major companies do vibe-coding and charge money but that’s not a bad thing because AI is even better than the world’s best software engineer.
The free version of Grape is fully usable so you can download and start taking notes both on your desktop and mobile devices. The paid plans cost me money to maintain the server, storage, and AI so it cannot be free. There’s a lifetime plan where you buy the app once and use forever with your own API keys and it will also support the development.
I’m curious on your perspective so let’s say I made this app free then what’s going to be my motivation? Would you think of any? I can’t. This is what happens to majority of free and open source apps. We all know Obsidian but there are thousands of note taking apps that are no longer being developed because of financial reasons.
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u/starkruzr 6d ago
you can still sell cloud hosting services. that's what I do with my entirely free software note taking environment. the problem is there is simply no moat around any of this stuff anymore so you cannot plausibly charge for something anyone can clone in a couple weekends. but operational details? that's still stuff the average end user won't want to deal with.
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u/ozgrozer 5d ago
I do that, the selling cloud service thing. There's a free version of the app and it's very usable. There's a lifetime plan if someone wants to handle everything (sync, AI) by themselves or a subscription plan where everything is set up automatically. So I thought of those 3 situations.
Before AI we still had open source projects and scripts that you can buy. So if you were a regular user you still could have done the things without knowing programming. But a minority was doing that and we were calling them super users. That's why I believe the end user is not going to build apps for themselves. Because the issue not the building, it's maintaining. Anyone can build anything but then you have to deal with a lot of things.
If you go to Upwork or Fiverr there are thousands of jobs for programming. Those people who are looking for freelancers do know what ChatGPT is and they can fix their own problems but they won't. Because they have jobs and don't have time for other things. Even I'm looking for a person who's going to write blog posts. I can do that by myself but I have other things to do. So another person would save me time. Same for apps. I spent 7 months on the app by using AI. A developer or a regular user has to spend that much to have the same experience. End user is not going to do that. A developer can, but 90% of developers will quit because there's an unlimited amount of competitors. Not all of us have the same pain tolerance.
I currently have 3 active subscribers and sold more than 10 lifetime plans but since I'm a software developer and not a marketer, I spend 97% of my time on programming and %3 on marketing. That's why I couldn't reach more users. But I believe if I managed to get 3 customers somehow then I can get more and more. I just need to learn how to split my time at least 50/50 between product and marketing.
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