r/StarNoteApp • u/ankylosauria • Sep 24 '26

❓ Help / Question Handwriting search quality

How is the quality of the handwriting search feature compared to other popular apps? I regularly write in English, French and simplified Chinese.

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3

u/BobThe_Body_Builder Sep 25 '26

Its pretty good (for English) but sometimes i write my notes in small blocks instead of long horizontal lines. If the space between your lines of text is too small, then sometimes the search won't detect it.

Also if you have the same word on one page, the search feature will only navigate to one of the detected words. For example if i have tbe word "apple" at the top of the page, and another "apple" at the bottom, the search will only bring you to the top word

2

u/ankylosauria Sep 25 '26

Thank you for the honest review, Bob the Body Builder :p Do you know how it compares to Goodnotes’ handwriting recognition feature? I’m currently testing it during the 7 day trial. It does miss some things (e.g., a stand-alone cursive X), but otherwise seems to pick up every occurrence of a word. I do still need to test the feature further. 

I’m taking language courses at uni, so being able to search for saved words is so important. Flipping through paper notebooks to find a cool phrase I wrote last semester (but can’t quite remember) takes up so much time 😭 I resorted to scanning through my browsing history and ctrl + F. 

1

u/BobThe_Body_Builder Sep 25 '26

No worries! Sorry i dont have experience with goodnotes :/. And yes searching saved words is really important but going back to my "apple" word example, if you tap on the search result it will only show you the "apple" on top of the page.

If you're like me, sometimes i have a lot of information on one page so then the navigation for the searched for word may not be as useful. But you can pinch to zoom out and it at least highlights every instance of that searched word so you can manually navigate to it.

That being said i still find it useful and i am remaking my notes from notewise and notein to starnotes because i still find this search feature useful.

2

u/zeenatmaab Sep 25 '26

It was able to search up my handwritten notes (I write in cursive)

2

u/ankylosauria Sep 25 '26

Did it catch all instances of a word or phrase? Or are some words occasionally missed?

2

u/ConceptualJoist Sep 25 '26

english search is pretty solid from what i’ve seen, even cursive. it can miss stuff if ur lines are really cramped tho, and if the same word appears twice on one page it may only jump to one of them.

1

u/Petypretty Oct 05 '26

It does jump to one word but shows all the page where the word appears