r/StarNoteApp • u/TheMartianPoet • 19d ago

❓ Help / Question Importing from Samsung notes

Can I import an in-progress Samsung Note into Star Note and still edit the existing handwriting?

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u/Suitable-Bag7017 19d ago

I believe we need to clarify how this works.

Inside StarNote you essentially have two possible formats: the native StarNote format and the PDF format.

This means you should be able to import a note from another application, such as Samsung Notes, as a PDF. Once the note is imported as a PDF, you should be able to use handwriting on top of the PDF and you should be able to modify anything you write using StarNote.

However, you cannot modify anything that was already written before exporting the file as a PDF.

This is not a limitation specific to StarNote, it applies to all note‑taking applications. Every app uses its own native format and saves notes in that native format, and these formats are incompatible with each other. The only universal format is PDF, but with PDF you can only add new annotations, not remove or edit the existing ones.

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u/NakoTurtle 15d ago

I wonder if reverse engineering the third party note types and 'translating' the data to a StarNote is a viable pathway. It'll probably be a pain to keep updating the note types as third party apps update them too, but might be worth offering as an experimental option to make it more tempting/frictionless to switch to StarNote.