SpeedyNote

SpeedyNote

Why SpeedyNote?

Features

Performance First

• 360Hz stylus polling on low-end hardware (tested: Celeron N4000 @ 1.1GHz)
• Instant PDF loading - large documents open in seconds, not minutes
• Small memory footprint - native C++ with no Electron bloat
• ARM64 native builds - optimized for Snapdragon laptops and Rockchip Chromebooks

Professional Drawing Tools

• Pressure-sensitive inking with Pen, Marker, and Highlighter tools
• Vector-based strokes - always sharp at non-extreme zoom levels
• Multi-layer editing (SAI2-style) - add, delete, reorder, merge layers
• Stroke eraser with full undo/redo support
• Touch gestures - two-finger pan, pinch-to-zoom, palm rejection

Document Modes

• Paged Notebooks - traditional page-by-page notes (`.snb)
• Edgeless Canvas - infinite whiteboard with lazy-loading tiles (`.snb)
• PDF Backgrounds - annotate PDFs with clickable internal links
• Sharing - .snbx note bundles allows easy cross-platform note sharing.

Tablet-First UX

• Action bars - context-sensitive buttons appear when you need them
• Subtoolbars - quick access to tool settings without menu diving
• Page panel - thumbnail navigation with drag-to-reorder
• PDF outline - click TOC entries to jump to sections

Advanced Features

• Handwriting OCR - recognize handwritten notes on-device for text search and selection (macOS & Linux); supports Latin scripts, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
• Link objects - create clickable links to markdown notes, URLs, or positions
• Markdown notes - attach rich text notes to any page or position
• Multi-tab editing - work on multiple documents simultaneously

Screenshots

Getting Started

System Requirements

Hardware: Any x86_64 or ARM64 CPU. Tested on Intel Core i5 470UM (2010), Celeron N4000, Snapdragon 7c Gen 2, Rockchip RK3399, Apple M4

Installation

Windows / macOS / Linux

Download the latest release from GitHub Releases or the official website.

iPadOS

Option 1: Sileo (jailbroken iPads) - Add the SpeedyNote APT repository and install via Sileo
Option 2: TrollStore - Download the .ipa from GitHub Releases and install via TrollStore
Option 3: Build from source - See iPadOS Build Guide

iPadOS builds require a jailbroken device or TrollStore. App Store distribution is not available at this time.

Building From Source

Prerequisites

Quick Build

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/alpha-liu-01/SpeedyNote.git
cd SpeedyNote

# Windows clean build (packaging-ready)
./compile.ps1

# Windows incremental development build
./compile.ps1 -dirty

# macOS
./compile-mac.sh

# Linux
./compile.sh
# Or build packages: ./build-package.sh

Detailed Build Guides

• Windows Build Guide
• macOS Build Guide
• Android Build Guide
• iPadOS Build Guide

File Formats

Note: The legacy .spn format from v0.x is not supported.

Command Line Interface (Desktop)

SpeedyNote includes a powerful CLI for batch operations on Windows and Linux. Perfect for scripting, automation, and syncing notes between devices.

Quick Start

# Export all notebooks to PDF
speedynote export-pdf ~/Notes/ -o ~/PDFs/

# Backup notebooks to .snbx packages
speedynote export-snbx ~/Notes/ -o ~/Backup/

# Import .snbx packages
speedynote import ~/Downloads/*.snbx -d ~/Notes/

Commands

Export to PDF

speedynote export-pdf [OPTIONS] <input>... -o <output>

Examples:

# Single notebook to PDF
speedynote export-pdf ~/Notes/Lecture.snb -o ~/Desktop/lecture.pdf

# All notebooks at 300 DPI
speedynote export-pdf ~/Notes/ -o ~/PDFs/ --dpi 300

# Export only annotations (no background)
speedynote export-pdf ~/Notes/*.snb -o ~/PDFs/ --annotations-only

# Preview what would be exported
speedynote export-pdf ~/Notes/ -o ~/PDFs/ --dry-run

Export to SNBX

speedynote export-snbx [OPTIONS] <input>... -o <output>

Examples:

# Backup with embedded PDFs
speedynote export-snbx ~/Notes/ -o ~/Backup/

# Backup without PDFs (smaller)
speedynote export-snbx ~/Notes/ -o ~/Backup/ --no-pdf

# Single notebook
speedynote export-snbx ~/Notes/Project.snb -o ~/Desktop/project.snbx

Import SNBX Packages

speedynote import [OPTIONS] <input>... -d <dest>

Examples:

# Import packages
speedynote import ~/Downloads/*.snbx -d ~/Notes/

# Import and add to library (shows in launcher)
speedynote import ~/Downloads/*.snbx -d ~/Notes/ --add-to-library

# Import from a directory
speedynote import ~/Backup/ -d ~/Notes/ --recursive --add-to-library

Note: On Android, imported notebooks are automatically added to the library. On desktop, use --add-to-library to make them appear in the launcher timeline.

Common Options

These options work with all commands:

Exit Codes

Scripting Example

#!/bin/bash
# Sync notes from tablet to PC via SSH

TABLET="user@tablet:/storage/emulated/0/Notes"
LOCAL="$HOME/Notes"
BACKUP="$HOME/Backup"

# Pull new .snbx files from tablet
rsync -av "$TABLET/*.snbx" "$BACKUP/incoming/"

# Import to local library
speedynote import "$BACKUP/incoming/" -d "$LOCAL" --json | \
  jq '.status == "success"' && rm "$BACKUP/incoming/"*.snbx

# Export updated notes as PDF for reference
speedynote export-pdf "$LOCAL" -o "$HOME/PDFs/" --dpi 150

Supported Languages

SpeedyNote