In Operation
The main view of the application is the drawing area. It’s an infinite canvas.
It’s definitely recommended to use a stylus or touch input. There’s pressure-sensitive stylus input with different and configurable stroke styles.
The software has various drawing tools which means the software is still perfectly functional without a stylus or touch input. The shape tools offers many different shapes.
Content can be moved, rotated, resized and modified with the selection tool. The brush styles are useful; choose from marked, solid, and textured.
Rnote is very customizable. We can change background colours, patterns, sizes, page format and much more.
What else does the software offer?
- Adaptive user interface focused on stylus input.
- An integrated workspace browser for quick access to related media files.
- Drag & drop support including the ability to drop text on the canvas.
- Clipboard support.
- PDF, bitmap and SVG image import.
- Save and load the documents in the native .rnote file format.
- Document and selection export to SVG, PDF, and Xopp (Xournal) formats.
- Keyboard shortcuts.
- Autosave with definable interval (defaults to 120 seconds).
- Good adherence to the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines.
- Zoom support.
- Printing support.
Summary
Rnote is a beautifully designed GTK4 note-taking software with smoothly animated transitions. It’s different to the majority of note taking software.
The software is designed for students and teachers who have a drawing tablet, but the program is still useful if you have a touch device.
Rnote is a welcome addition to our Excellent Utilities series. It’s in active development with new features being added regularly, but don’t expect it yet to be the most stable program in the universe.
Website: rnote.flxzt.net
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Felix Zwettler
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Rnote is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation / Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Excellent Utilities | |
|---|---|
| AES Crypt | Encrypt files using the Advanced Encryption Standard |
| Ananicy | Shell daemon created to manage processes’ IO and CPU priorities |
| broot | Next gen tree explorer and customizable launcher |
| Cerebro | Fast application launcher |
| cheat.sh | Community driven unified cheat sheet |
| CopyQ | Advanced clipboard manager |
| croc | Securely transfer files and folders from the command-line |
| Deskreen | Live streaming your desktop to a web browser |
| duf | Disk usage utility with more polished presentation than the classic df |
| eza | A turbo-charged alternative to the venerable ls command |
| Extension Manager | Browse, install and manage GNOME Shell Extensions |
| fd | Wonderful alternative to the venerable find |
| fkill | Kill processes quick and easy |
| fontpreview | Quickly search and preview fonts |
| horcrux | File splitter with encryption and redundancy |
| Kooha | Simple screen recorder |
| KOReader | Document viewer for a wide variety of file formats |
| Imagine | A simple yet effective image optimization tool |
| LanguageTool | Style and grammar checker for 30+ languages |
| Liquid Prompt | Adaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh |
| lnav | Advanced log file viewer for the small-scale; great for troubleshooting |
| lsd | Like exa, lsd is a turbo-charged alternative to ls |
| Mark Text | Simple and elegant Markdown editor |
| McFly | Navigate through your bash shell history |
| mdless | Formatted and highlighted view of Markdown files |
| navi | Interactive cheatsheet tool |
| noti | Monitors a command or process and triggers a notification |
| Nushell | Flexible cross-platform shell with a modern feel |
| nvitop | GPU process management for NVIDIA graphics cards |
| OCRmyPDF | Add OCR text layer to scanned PDFs |
| Oh My Zsh | Framework to manage your Zsh configuration |
| Paperwork | Designed to simplify the management of your paperwork |
| pastel | Generate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors |
| PDF Mix Tool | Perform common editing operations on PDF files |
| peco | Simple interactive filtering tool that's remarkably useful |
| ripgrep | Recursively search directories for a regex pattern |
| Rnote | Sketch and take handwritten notes |
| scrcpy | Display and control Android devices |
| Sticky | Simulates the traditional “sticky note” style stationery on your desktop |
| tldr | Simplified and community-driven man pages |
| tmux | A terminal multiplexer that offers a massive boost to your workflow |
| Tusk | An unofficial Evernote client with bags of potential |
| Ulauncher | Sublime application launcher |
| Watson | Track the time spent on projects |
| Whoogle Search | Self-hosted and privacy-focused metasearch engine |
| Zellij | Terminal workspace with batteries included |