Xournal++
Handwritten notes and PDF annotation with a stylus, including on top of lecture slides and scanned papers.
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3 more ways to get Xournal++
Package managers
- Chocolatey
choco install xournalpp - Flathub
flatpak install flathub com.github.xournalpp.xournalpp - Snap Store
snap install xournalpp
About Xournal++
Xournal++ is built for a pen. It handles pressure-sensitive styluses from Wacom, Huion and XP-Pen, has paper backgrounds for note-taking, and writes directly on top of a PDF, so lecture slides and printed papers can be annotated as if on paper.
The PDF underneath stays live: you can select its text, copy it, highlight or underline it, and follow its links. Shape tools, a set-square and compass, fill, rotation, grid snapping and input stabilisation cover the drawing side, and export goes to PDF, SVG and PNG from the interface or the command line.
Strengths
- Pressure-sensitive stylus support on Wacom, Huion and XP-Pen tablets
- Annotates on top of PDFs while keeping their text selectable
- Set-square and compass tools with grid snapping for precise work
- Exports to PDF, SVG and PNG from the interface or the command line
Limitations
- Not a PDF editor; it draws on top rather than changing the document
- Touch and palm rejection need configuration on some tablets
- The interface is plain GTK
- Large annotated documents can become sluggish
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source under the GPL 2.0.
- License
- GPL-2.0
- Developer
- Xournal++
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Taking handwritten notes on a tablet and marking up PDFs with a pen
- Categories
- PDF tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (Office); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 2 sources on file.
Xournal++ as an alternative
Listings that name Xournal++ as an alternative.
Evince
GNOME's lightweight document viewer for PDF, PostScript and other document formats on Linux.
Xournal++ focuses on stylus annotation and handwritten notes over PDFs rather than plain reading, and does not open PostScript files.
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