FOSS handwritten note taking apps and stylus reccomendations

thompson

bump
Does anyone have any FOSS handwritten notes app recommendations for the Pixel Tablet?

DrJack60

And another bump from a kindred spirit ;)

We REALLY need a good note app for this tablet!

stick4611

I just bought a pixel tablet for university note taking. Are there any news on this topic? If not foss.. which app are you using?

FfaM

Hello, maybe

stick4611 Hello, Xournall++ it's possible for Android, but I haven't tried it yet.

https://xournalpp.github.io/
https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp/discussions/5654#discussion-6595033

I will test it in the next one, two weeks. I will give you a feedback.

In Joplin, you can also use handwriting

https://joplinapp.org/

Not FOSS:

Maybe OneNote.

If you don't need handwritten notes, you have a wide choice.

thompson

stick4611
For the last two years i've been using Notability, although for the coming semester I'm going to switch to Goodnotes because of their handwritten and shuffleable flash cards. I will be missing out on the snap features for lines since I am using a custom pdf template. But I'll live.

I also was praying that Google would release a better pixel tablet but to no avail. The current pixel tablet is just too expensive to justify since I would only use it for note taking. (compared to my $250 iPad)

I may look into more FOSS apps but I doubt I'll be able to find one with all the functions of goodnotes.

MolRas66

stick4611 How are you finding it so far? I was about to buy one tomorrow but concerned about how well it's actually going to work. I get lots of PDF/docx files and need to be able to annotate them and draw diagrams during tutes etc.

brightjob4495

If you don't mind using proprietary software, I used to use Squid Notes when I had a Galaxy Note and the pen support was the best I had so far on an Android device. The app worked offline, and their terms of use and privacy policy were very reasonable.

stick4611

Xjournal++ would be great! I've tested squid and liked it but can't use the premium features as I don't have and want a google account linked to my devices.
For now I'm sticking with Saber, but it leaves much to desire..

In general it seems that apple hardware has much nicer writing apps.

OfflinePuffin

DrJack60 what do you mean by control where your files are being stored I thought you can set that in the settings or it will just create a Saber directory?

stick4611

If you are going full FOSS road you will have to live with limitations. Saber seems the way to go and it gets improved constantly. But in comparison to the paid apps it is not so good.
I will continue with this setup, but if I were to make the decision again I would probably opt for an iPad since it has the best note taking apps (tried it on a friend's device and was amazed). This depends a lot on your use case, since I solely use the tablet for note taking and nothing else.

MolRas66

stick4611 ahh okay. I'm not married to only foss apps but I am however uncomfortable with how much I've let my habits shift on my phone for convenience (the barriers and irritations have worn thin over many years). I'm going to try to keep my tablet as clean as possible... But my university is balls deep in Microsoft so I'll probably run a separate profile with Microsoft office software and play services etc. My main barrier is no access to paid apps. I'll use aurora etc to get the apks but I'm not willing to sign up for a google account and purchase things from them. I really wish there were options to pay app developers directly. On my laptop I mainly use zim wiki for my notes. I love it but there are no decent options to use it on android (conveniently other than opening individual text files in markor)

I'll give saber a try.