Any recommendations for FOSS alternatives to notability? (for intel mac)
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
18 replies
Xournal++
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?
I don't know, I use it on Linux and it works fine there. What exactly do you mean by "weird layout?"
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):
You can toggle the toolbars with F9. Alternatively, View->Show Toolbars
Thanks, that worked
Zotero.org has a pdf reader, but it's a reference manager to use in more academic world
This was gonna be my recommendation also.
I know Okular can do at least most of that. Don't think it's available for Mac OS X, though.
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
there are nightlies bins in their ftp - they are a bit hidden
Think it's possible if you can install via KDE/Macports
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.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PDF,_PS_and_DjVu#Graphical_PDF_editing
But which of these is available for Mac OS?
Doesn’t MacOS do this natively?
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.
Doesn’t it let you do that? Have you tried?
Works for me iirc, but haven’t gone crazy with it.