A blazing-fast, cross-platform note-taking app for stylus users

Built for students who need iPad-quality annotation on budget hardware

English • 中文

• 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

• 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

• 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.

• 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

• 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

PDF Annotation	Layer Panel	Page Thumbnails

Edgeless Canvas	Action Bar	Subtoolbar

Link Objects	Markdown Support	Android

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

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

Option 1: Google Play Store (coming soon), supports development
Option 2: Build from source - Free, see Android Build Guide

The Play Store version is a convenience fee. The source code is always free under GPL v3.

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.

# Add repository and install
wget -O- https://apt.speedynote.org/speedynote-release-key.gpg | \
  sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/speedynote.gpg

echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/speedynote.gpg] \
  https://apt.speedynote.org stable main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/speedynote.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt install speedynote

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

# Windows (MSYS2 clang64 shell)
./compile.ps1

# macOS
./compile-mac.sh

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

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

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

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

# 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/

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

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

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.

These options work with all commands:

#!/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

SpeedyNote supports multiple languages:

• English
• 简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
• Español (Spanish) (partial)
• Français (French) (partial)

Contributions for additional translations are welcome!

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to:

• Report bugs via GitHub Issues
• Suggest features
• Add translations
• Submit pull requests

SpeedyNote is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

• Free to use, modify, and distribute
• Source code always available
• Commercial use allowed (Play Store version)
• Derivative works must also be GPL v3

See LICENSE for details.

If SpeedyNote helps you, consider:

• Buy me a coffee
• Starring this repository
• Purchasing the Android version on Google Play
• Reporting bugs and suggesting improvements
• Contributing translations