Alternatives to LiquidText
An active-reading app for annotating PDFs and pulling excerpts into a flexible workspace. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
LiquidText
An active-reading app for annotating PDFs and pulling excerpts into a flexible workspace.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as LiquidText.
MarginNote
A study app for Mac and iPad that links PDF highlights, mind maps and flashcards.
MarginNote links PDF highlights to mind maps and flashcards with spaced repetition, running on Mac and iPad but not Windows.
Highlights
A PDF reader for Mac, iPad and iPhone that turns annotations into exportable notes.
Highlights exports PDF annotations to Markdown and notes apps with DOI lookup for papers, but runs only on Apple platforms and needs a subscription for advanced features.
Flexcil
A study app that combines PDF reading, annotation and handwritten notes on tablets and the web.
Flexcil puts PDF reading and handwritten notes side by side on Android, iOS tablets and web, without a Windows desktop app.
Noteshelf
A handwriting notebook app for iPad, iPhone and Mac with PDF annotation and audio recording.
Noteshelf is a handwriting notebook for Apple devices with PDF highlights, sticky notes and audio recording, rather than an excerpt workspace.
Xournal++
Handwritten notes and PDF annotation with a stylus, including on top of lecture slides and scanned papers.
Xournal++ is free GPL-2.0 software for pen annotation of PDFs on Windows, macOS and Linux, drawing on top of pages without an excerpt workspace.
Sioyek
A PDF reader built for textbooks and research papers, with keyboard control and quick jumps to figures and references.
Sioyek is a free, open-source reader for papers with overlays for figures and references, but has weaker annotation and no excerpt workspace.
Skim
macOS PDF reader and annotator built for reading papers.
Skim is a free, open-source macOS reader with annotation and snapshot tools for academic papers, lacking a flexible excerpt workspace.
ReadCube Papers
A reference manager and PDF reader for organizing, annotating and citing research papers.
ReadCube Papers combines PDF annotation with reference management and AI answers linked to sources, as a paid web service.
Also worth comparing
These listings name LiquidText as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Drawboard PDF
A pen-friendly PDF markup app with live-synced annotations across desktop, mobile and web.
LiquidText on Windows, macOS and iOS arranges excerpts and notes from PDFs on a linked workspace, suited to long document review rather than drawings.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Mendeley
A reference manager from Elsevier for collecting, annotating and citing research papers.
ChatPDF
An AI tool that summarizes PDFs and answers questions about them, with citations to the source.
Humata
An AI tool for asking questions about your documents, with cited answers and summaries.
Explainpaper
A web tool that explains highlighted passages of uploaded research papers in plain language.
