Notewise

Notewise helps mobile users create handwritten notes, annotate documents, and organize study or work material in digital notebooks. Its flexible canvas supports ordinary writing as well as diagrams, sketches, arrows, and other freeform layouts, while tools for text, images, tables, audio, and shapes extend the types of content that can be kept together. Notes can also be searched, rearranged, shared, and exported for later review.

Freeform handwriting and drawing tools

The writing experience is designed for stylus and touchscreen input. Supported functions include low-latency input, palm rejection, pressure-sensitive pens, smooth highlighting, stroke stabilization, and shape assistance. These controls are useful when a note needs to combine regular handwriting with visual elements such as diagrams or marked-up explanations.

The writing toolbox includes pens with different colors and thicknesses, highlighters, an eraser, a lasso tool, tape, shape tools, text boxes, images, tables, a zoom box, a ruler, and a laser pointer. An audio recorder is also available among the note tools. Together, these options allow a page to contain handwritten passages, typed labels, drawn lines, inserted visuals, and other supporting material without requiring separate notes for each type of content.

Notewise does not limit a page to a single fixed writing format in the supplied feature description. A user can place text, sketches, and diagrams in different areas of the same note, making the canvas suitable for class notes, design sketches, and whiteboard-style work.

Writing on PDFs and importing material

PDF files can be opened for direct annotation. Users can write on a document, underline passages, circle sections, draw arrows, and add other marks while reviewing the original material. This makes the app suitable for working with study documents, worksheets, and other PDF-based references where handwritten comments need to remain alongside the source pages.

All users can import PDFs, images, Notewise files, and ZIP files containing supported PDFs, Notewise files, or folders. Notewise files use the .notewise format. For Notewise Cloud users, the documented import options also include word-processing files such as DOCX, DOC, ODT, RTF, TXT, MD, Pages, DOT, and DOTX; spreadsheets such as XLS, XLSX, CSV, Numbers, ODS, XLT, and XLTX; and presentations such as PPTX, PPT, ODP, Keynote, PPS, PPSX, POT, and POTX.

Recognizing and finding handwritten content

Notewise includes optical character recognition for handwriting, scans, and imported PDFs. The recognition tools can extract written content so that it can be searched instead of requiring manual transcription. The source also describes multilingual recognition, allowing searches across handwriting and documents written in different languages.

This search capability can be used to locate formulas, quotations, action items, or other words within handwritten pages and imported material. Scanning functions are described as recognizing written content and doodles, with the resulting scanned content remaining editable. Handwritten notes can also be converted into PDF files for review or sharing.

Folders, tags, and page management

The library provides folders and tags for arranging notebooks and notes. Items can be sorted, recent work can be pinned, and color coding can help distinguish different projects or subjects. These controls are intended for maintaining a growing collection rather than leaving every page in one undifferentiated stream.

Notewise also supports merging content, reordering pages, and bulk importing or exporting files. These functions are useful when material needs to be consolidated, placed in a different sequence, or moved into or out of the app in groups rather than one item at a time.

Synchronization and shared notebooks

Notes can sync with the cloud, and the app describes an offline-first approach in which editing remains responsive on the device. Real-time collaboration is available in shared notebooks, allowing multiple people to work on common material. Folders can be shared through links or QR codes, and shared content can support online editing by other participants.

For distribution outside the app, notes can be exported as PDF or image files. This provides separate ways to preserve a handwritten page, send an annotated document, or share visual note content with someone who does not need to edit the original notebook.

Split-screen viewing

On the home page, opening a note's title provides an “Open in split view” option when the device supports the feature. Devices older than Android 12L may require split-screen mode to be enabled from the recent-apps screen before using this option inside Notewise. Split-screen availability can depend on the device and manufacturer, so the button may not appear on every Android device.