Good Linux note taking app with stylus support for hand writing?

DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online to Linux@lemmy.ml – 85 points –

Complete Linux noob so apologies if anything I say or ask about sounds dumb.

I want to start making the switch to Linux and I've got most things figured out I think. I plan on putting either Mint or Fedora on my old Surface Go gen 1 because it's not critical for my work and potentially losing some functionality there won't cause huge issues, but my main use of it right now is taking notes on Onenote that I can then view and edit from my other devices as well.

Looking into Onenote and alternatives on Linux, I keep running into comments about the lack of handwriting support or no straightforward answers about stylus support. Anything Lemmy recommends I try? Also, any advice on running Linux on the Surface Go in general is welcome. Found some resources already but doesn't seem like people do this often.

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https://flathub.org/en-GB/apps/com.github.flxzt.rnote

This could be something worth trying out. Do keep in mind that the dev admits that the save format is not yet really stable.

So far this one looks the most like what I'm familiar with, so probably will try it first! The save format not being stable might be a deal breaker for now though as like I said, I move between devices a lot.

My deleted message was me accidentally replying to the wrong post.

I have tried so many things and Rnote is the best of all of them. It is a well maintained project and the only one with an infinite canvas. It has a modern GTK4 UI but it may still be a bit rough around the edges especially the text input function.

This looks amazing for handwriting! I'll look into it more. From what I see so far though, I can't tell if this will sync notes between devices Replied to the wrong post... So far this one looks the most like what I'm familiar with, so probably will try it first! The save format not being stable might be a deal breaker for now though as like I said, I move between devices a lot.

That app evolved a lot since I looked at it the last time!

I use Xournal++, too. Note that the original Xournal is no longer maintained, but Xournal++ is.

It's supposed to be a clone of Windows Journal - the precursor to OneNote. It's very good at exporting to and annotating PDFs, and I use it for all my classwork. Windows Journal worked great for me back in the day, and Xournal++ continues to do so today.

All that said, I'm saving this post so I can try out some of the alternatives listed here in the future.

Obsidian with the Excalidraw plug-in is very good, as you can also integrate non-handwritten notes, convert handwriting to text etc. !

I believe Logseq also has this built-in via Tldraw integration and it's fully FOSS which I dig.

Holy shit how have I not heard of that plugin yet, that's awesome. Yet another point in Obsidian's favor, at least for me

I use rnote. It looks modern, is pretty configurable, has plenty of useful features and is under active development

Have you tried Xournal?

No, first time hearing about it. Every source I looked at talks about Zim or Joplin, but Xournal looks good! So far between this and Rnote I've got good contenders for my note-taking app.

I don't think Joplin does handwriting.

That's what I thought, but when I search for Onenote alternatives it's always at or near the top of every list.

Use Xournal++, not Xournal. Xournal is no longer developed, and Xournal++ has way more features.

Thanks to this discussion I just learned that my favorite note app - Trilium notes - supports this via a special note type "Canvas Note"

So now I'm adding it to your pile of suggestions, and also it's a fantastic and featureful notes app in general. Easy to set up server-side component if you are interested in that, but not required.

You will still discover new features years into using it. (as I just did)

https://github.com/zadam/trilium/#readme

https://github.com/zadam/trilium/wiki/Canvas-note

I have tried it all, every app out there for handwriting. Xournal sucks and I always come back to : Write

It performs better than rnote in my opinion. It also has infinite canvas.

Is it proprietary? I can't find any source code

Sadly, it is. It didn't get any updates for years at one point, too.

The handwriting here looks absolutely amazing! Just can't see if this is a cross device thing from the site, don't see a lot of documentation.

I hesitate to mention Saber only because it didn't quite fit my use case. But I like that it is cross platform and can sync with Nextcloud. Might be worth testing to see if it works for you.

https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.scrivanolabs.scrivano

https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.giacomogroppi.writernote-qt

https://flathub.org/apps/com.github.xournalpp.xournalpp