this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023

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Any recommendations for FOSS alternatives to notability? (for intel mac) (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The main features I want are:

Import PDFs and annotate them in the app’s native format (so that I’ll still be able to remove previous changes after I save and re-open it)
Quickly add text boxes anywhere on the PDF
Draw some basic shapes and lines with different colors (can either be notability-style “draw and hold to make shape” or just a classic “insert shapes” option from the toolbar)
Have a page thumbnail option and can search text in the PDF file and quickly go there

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Zotero.org has a pdf reader, but it's a reference manager to use in more academic world

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

This was gonna be my recommendation also.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Xournal++

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I tried this app before, but on Mac this app has a weird layout and I can’t even find the toolbar that is in the screenshot on the official site. How do I make the toolbar show?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't know, I use it on Linux and it works fine there. What exactly do you mean by "weird layout?"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I don’t have the tool selection menu on top of the document, instead there’s a menu called “tools” that I have to click in, and the tools are listed by names instead of icons which is confusing and hard to find.

Screenshot on my computer (after I clicked open the "tools" menu):

Screenshot on the official site (note that there's a tool selection menu on the top, inside the red rectangle, which is missing on my computer):

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You can toggle the toolbars with F9. Alternatively, View->Show Toolbars

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Thanks, that worked

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I know Okular can do at least most of that. Don't think it's available for Mac OS X, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not long ago, I installed Okular on Windows for a friend. I was surprised that the version available officially was pretty old.

It would be great if Mac and Windows could have access to flathub.org daydreaming

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

there are nightlies bins in their ftp - they are a bit hidden

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Think it's possible if you can install via KDE/Macports

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Honestly, building a Notion level FOSS alternative, probably in the lines of Obsidian as well, would be a fun project. Especially with the features you mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PDF,_PS_and_DjVu#Graphical_PDF_editing

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But which of these is available for Mac OS?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Doesn’t MacOS do this natively?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But MacOS's pdf editor saves the file as PDF, which means I can't change a text box or drawing I already did once I save the file and delete previous versions. And I'm planning to switch to linux in the future so I want something open source.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Doesn’t it let you do that? Have you tried?

Works for me iirc, but haven’t gone crazy with it.