The 6 Best Smart Notebooks for Digitizing Paper Notes
The 6 Best Smart Notebooks for Digitizing Paper Notes
You can go completely paperless with an iPad and an Apple Pencil, or a Samsung Galaxy Note, but for many there’s still no substitute for traditional pen and paper. Smart notebooks are one way to bridge that divide. They let you write on real paper with a real pen, and then transfer those notes to your smartphone or computer, although the way they accomplish that can vary depending on the type of smart notebook. In many cases, those notes can automatically be sent to specific apps like Evernote or Dropbox, and your handwriting can be automatically converted to editable, searchable text—saving you time you might otherwise use retyping those notes yourself.
1) Rocketbook Core
Rocketbook
amazon.com
Rocketbook’s smart notebooks are among the simplest and most straightforward to use, which also helps to make them some of the most affordable. The Core is the company’s most basic notebook, offering 32 ruled pages that can be erased by simply using a damp cloth—provided you write on them with a Pilot FriXion pen (one is included). You then take a picture of the page with your smartphone to scan it and send your notes directly to various apps, including Google Drive, Evernote, and Slack.
Like any good notebook, it’s also available in a range of different colors, and in your choice of executive or letter sizes.
2) Rocketbook Fusion
Rocketbook
amazon.com
The Fusion works the same way that the Rocketbook Core does, with pages that can be wiped clean, but it adds a few extra layers of productivity and organization to the mix. That comes in the form of a range of different pages throughout the notebook, including a task list, weekly planner, monthly calendar, and more.
Like the regular ruled pages, they can be wiped cleaned, and the notes you make on each can be sent to the appropriate apps. As SlashGear notes in its review, however, the glossy, erasable pages expectedly don’t have a completely natural paper feel, which may not be to everyone’s liking. SlashGear and TrustedReviews also wished the notebook’s plastic cover was of higher-quality, a criticism that also applies to the Rocketbook Core.
3) Moleskine Pen+ Ellipse Smart Writing Set
Moleskine
amazon.com
Moleskine is the first name many people turn to when shopping for a traditional notebook, so it’s no surprise that the company also offers a smart notebook.
Unlike Rocketbook, Moleskine puts most of the “smarts” in the pen portion of this writing set, which uses a camera built into the tip that’s able to record your pen strokes—it even has a microphone to record audio. You do also need to use it in conjunction with one of Moleskine’s paper tablet notebooks but, unlike a Rocketbook, they’re not erasable. That means you can keep your paper notes as well, but you will have to keep buying notebooks as they fill up.
4) Moleskine Dropbox Smart Notebook
MOLESKINE
walmart.com
Moleskine’s Pen+ Ellipse Smart Writing Set is a great option if you’re willing to pay a premium, but the company also offers some more modest smart notebooks that can also help boost your productivity.
The Moleskine Dropbox Smart Notebook is exactly what it sounds like: a smart notebook that can automatically send your notes and sketches straight to Dropbox. It does so in much the same way as Rocketbook’s notebooks, using a companion smartphone app and specially marked pages that make scanning a quick process. Better still, the notebook also comes with a free 3-month subscription to Dropbox Plus.
5) Wacom Bamboo Slate
Wacom
amazon.com
It has been around and remained unchanged for a few years now, but Wacom’s Bamboo Slate is still one of best smart notebooks of its type that’s available—particularly for those doing more illustration than note-taking. It’s essentially more of a smart clipboard than a smart notebook, letting you use any type of paper while the pen and tablet behind the paper work in conjunction to record whatever you’re writing or drawing. You can then send those notes to Wacom’s Inkspace companion app at the push of a button, and convert your handwritten notes to editable text.
6) Leuchtturm1917 Whitelines Link
LEUCHTTURM1917
amazon.com
Leuchtturm1917 may not be quite as well known as Moleskine, but many prefer their notebooks for the quality of their paper and better overall construction.
Much like Rocketbook, the Whitelines Link series of notebooks from Leuchtturm1917 rely on specially marked pages that can be scanned by taking a picture of them with your smartphone. The key advantage here is the quality of the paper, which is suitable for use even with fountain pens, although some may not like the light gray background with white lines (hence the name).
Prefer pen and paper to a smartphone or tablet? These smart notebooks will let you take notes the old-fashioned way and easily digitize them.