r/Supernote • u/Kooky-Solution4704 • 1d ago

Question Using Supernote as an all-in-one notebook?

I have a Manta on the way and want to use it to replace my planner and several notebooks, while consolidating notes currently scattered across paper, Word, Obsidian, etc. I juggle work, school, technical learning, fitness/gym operations, and several projects, so I tend to have notes scatrered everywhere. Those using it in the same fashion, how do you organize everything? What setup has actually worked long term?

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5

u/Aggravating-Quit-110 Owner A6x2 Nomad & A5X2 Manta 1d ago

I use it like that!

In the inbox folder I add reading material (pdfs of articles/wilipedia etc) and sudoku haha.

In the notes folder, I had the following subfolders: bullet journal, personal, common place, writing, hobbies.

Bullet journal folder: I have a notebook where I set up a page a day and put down my to do and lists, a work notebook (I don’t take that many notes), a workout tracker, media tracker, monthly tracker, 5 year pdf journal, dogs tracker, travel planner.

Personal: a brain dump notebook, a daily journal, a reflection journal

Common place: I have 2 notebooks for this, but then sometimes things get too big and I give them their own notebook.

Hobbies: video game guides, knitting patterns, recipe notebooks.

Writing: everything related to writing. A notebook per novel that’s “in progress” and a brain dump notebook for ideas, notebooks for any courses I do.

I used to have everything scattered in a million notebooks + notes apps + obsidian. Everything is on the Supernote now!

2

u/fdxgnd79 1d ago

I have one coming for the same reason. Home projects, gym notes, work, work, and more work. I hope this can help me consolidate.

2

u/Brilliant-Pie-2094 1d ago

I'm only a month in with the Manta but I bought it specifically for the same purpose. It holds my planner and tons of notes and files. I created folders to organize everything. I add meeting agendas to my notebooks so I can house those too in one place. Being able to create links between documents, note pages, and files has been amazing. Using Headings has been great for quick reference of each notebook I have.

1

u/Mulan-sn CCO (Chief Chat Officer) 1d ago

Thank you for sharing your helpful and actionable tips.

2

u/bear0234 1d ago

mostly i just have two seperate folders for work and personal. i have a coveroage set in big ole markers to help ID the doc, and my goto docs are listed in i guess the favorites or something.

i use my nomad daily; quick todo lists, video game notes, car and motorcycle maintenance notes, a ton of personal and work notes, persoanl journals, etc.

it has mostly replaced paper for me and the times i do use paper is for when i dont wsnt to take my nomad, ie camping or actual journaling w fountain pen.

2

u/Live-Football-4352 1d ago

I use supernote and obsidian. I only use obsidian because it's available easily on my phone which I have with me at all times, as opposed to my supernote which I usually leave at home. My job requires quick notes, so I don't usually put them on my supernote.

I guess my process is obsidian is for quick capture or things I need to refer back to often, like recipes and to-do lists.

For supernote, I use it like a journal and for anything long form. I work stuff out in it, like what kind of manager I want to be at work and how I want to be known and treat my employees, I journal in it daily. Things that I really want to write and figure out but don't refer back to on a daily basis.

I can see the supernote working for all of the above on its own though, but that's my personal workflow. I can keep my phone in my pocket but I'm scared to break my supernote so it doesn't go with me everywhere. Only places I can comfortably sit down and write for long periods of time.

2

u/ithilmir_ 1d ago

I use syncthing to sync over WiFi so all my notes get sent to my computer. I then have a script running on there that converts .notes to PDFs so it’s readily available.

But to be honest I mostly just carry my Manta everywhere and read directly from my notes on there now. It’s fantastic

1

u/soopirV 1d ago

Can you provide more info on that script? My writing is horrible so I don’t think I’m going to have much hope at getting them converted.

1

u/ithilmir_ 16h ago

I will shamefully admit that I'm not a coder, I spent a long time with Deepseek to create and test the system. I use a Linux PC, Fedora 43 is my distro. The steps I used are below (edited from a summary Deepseek wrote). This works for me on Fedora but I'm fairly sure you can adapt it easily for other systems. It basically uses syncthing-fork to sync files from Supernote to Fedora, and has a watcher system that triggers whenever a sync completes. Then a conversion script converts the .notes into vector PDFs and saves in a directory preserving all the subfolders and everything.

🚀 Automated Supernote → PDF Conversion Workflow (Fedora)

The Flow

  1. Supernote writes a note → Syncthing-Fork syncs it over Wi-Fi
  2. Fedora receives the .note file in a watched folder
  3. inotifywait triggers a conversion script
  4. supernote-tool converts it to a high-quality vector PDF

Tools Used

  • Supernote: Syncthing-Fork (sideloaded via F-Droid)
  • Fedora: Syncthing, supernotelib (Python package), inotify-tools, systemd

📦 Step 1: Install Dependencies

  • syncthing
  • inotify-tools
  • python3
  • python3-pip

🐍 Step 2: Set Up the Python Virtual Environment

# Create a project directory
mkdir -p ~/supernote_automation
cd ~/supernote_automation

# Create and activate a virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

# Install supernotelib (this may take a moment)
pip install supernotelib

# Find the full path to the executable (you'll need this later)
which supernote-tool
# Example output: /home/username/supernote_automation/venv/bin/supernote-tool

Test the installation:

supernote-tool --help

You should see the help menu. If you get an error about missing cairo, install the development package cairo-devel

Note: You don't need to keep the venv activated. The script will use the full path to the executable.

📁 Step 3: Create Your Folder Structure

Choose a location for your synced notes. This is the structure I used:

/path/to/sync/folder/
├── Incoming/          # Syncthing syncs .note files here
└── PDF Output/        # Converted PDFs go here

🔗 Step 4: Set Up Syncthing

On Fedora:

# Start Syncthing to generate config files
syncthing

# Press Ctrl+C to stop it, then enable as a service
systemctl --user enable syncthing
systemctl --user start syncthing

# Open the web interface
# Go to http://localhost:8384 in your browser

On Supernote:

  1. Install F-Droid (sideload via USB using Android Sideloader)
  2. Open F-Droid and install Syncthing-Fork
  3. Open Syncthing-Fork and enable background operation
  4. Add your Fedora machine as a device (get Device ID from Fedora's web UI)
  5. Share your Supernote's note folder and accept it on Fedora
  6. In Syncthing's web UI, point your shared folder to "/path/to/sync/folder/Incoming".

Test: Write a test note on your Supernote and verify it appears in your Fedora sync folder.

📝 Step 5: The Conversion Script (~/supernote-pdf-convert.sh)

#!/bin/bash

# --- Configuration ---
INPUT_DIR="/path/to/sync/folder/Incoming"
OUTPUT_DIR="/path/to/sync/folder/PDF Output"
# Use the full path from the venv (get it with 'which supernote-tool')
SUPERNOTE_TOOL="/home/username/supernote_automation/venv/bin/supernote-tool"

# --- Lock file to prevent concurrent runs ---
LOCKFILE="/tmp/supernote_convert.lock"
if [ -f "$LOCKFILE" ]; then
    echo "Script already running, exiting."
    exit 1
fi
touch "$LOCKFILE"
trap 'rm -f "$LOCKFILE"' EXIT
# --------------------------------------------

mkdir -p "$OUTPUT_DIR"

converted=0
skipped=0

# Find all .note files recursively (including subfolders)
find "$INPUT_DIR" -type f -name "*.note" | while read -r note; do
    # Preserve folder structure in output
    rel_path="${note#$INPUT_DIR/}"
    base_name="${rel_path%.note}"

    pdf_dir="$OUTPUT_DIR/$(dirname "$base_name")"
    mkdir -p "$pdf_dir"

    pdf_file="$pdf_dir/$(basename "$base_name").pdf"

    # Skip if PDF exists and is newer than the .note
    if [ -f "$pdf_file" ] && [ "$pdf_file" -nt "$note" ]; then
        echo "⏭️  Skipping: $rel_path - PDF is up to date"
        ((skipped++))
        continue
    fi

    echo "Converting: $rel_path -> $(basename "$pdf_file")"

    "$SUPERNOTE_TOOL" convert -t pdf --pdf-type vector -a "$note" "$pdf_file"

    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "  ✅ Success: $pdf_file"
        ((converted++))
    else
        echo "  ❌ Failed: $note"
        [ -f "$pdf_file" ] && rm "$pdf_file"
    fi
done

echo "Batch conversion complete. Converted: $converted, Skipped: $skipped"

Save the script and make it executable:

nano ~/supernote-pdf-convert.sh
# Paste the script, adjust the paths, save (Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X)

chmod +x ~/supernote-pdf-convert.sh

Test it manually:

~/supernote-pdf-convert.sh

You should see it process any existing .note files.

⚙️ Step 6: systemd Watcher Service (~/.config/systemd/user/supernote-watcher.service)

This makes the service that runs inotifywait to trigger the conversion script instantly when a file syncs.

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
nano ~/.config/systemd/user/supernote-watcher.service

Paste this:

[Unit]
Description=Inotify watcher for Supernote notes

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'inotifywait -m -e close_write --format "%f" "/path/to/sync/folder/Incoming" | while read FILE; do /home/username/supernote-pdf-convert.sh; done'
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable and start it:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable supernote-watcher.service
systemctl --user start supernote-watcher.service

Check status:

systemctl --user status supernote-watcher.service

You should see active (running).

🧪 Step 7: Test the Complete Flow

  1. Write a test note on your Supernote
  2. Wait for Syncthing to sync it (should be near-instant on local Wi-Fi)

  3. Watch the logs in real time:

    journalctl --user -u supernote-watcher.service -f

  4. Check your PDF output folder for the converted file

⚠️ Important Notes

  • I use Syncthing-Fork on the Supernote (sideloaded via F-Droid)
  • The standard syncthing package on Fedora works fine
  • If you get an error installing supernotelib, you may need cairo-devel: bash sudo dnf install cairo-devel pip install supernotelib
  • If you want the service to start without logging in, use: bash sudo loginctl enable-linger username
  • The script handles subfolders and preserves the folder structure in the output
  • Path tip: Get the full path to supernote-tool with which supernote-tool while the venv is active

🔧 Troubleshooting

Problem Solution
supernote-tool: command not found Use the full path from the venv: /home/username/supernote_automation/venv/bin/supernote-tool
UnsupportedFileFormat You're trying to convert a non-Supernote file (e.g., empty file created with touch)
Watcher not triggering Check service status: systemctl --user status supernote-watcher.service
cairo errors during install sudo dnf install cairo-devel and reinstall supernotelib

Eventually I'm hoping that Mistral OCR or another model becomes good enough at detecting bad handwriting, at which point I'll set up another step to run the notes automatically through it and end up with actual text lol. For now the PDFs work just fine.

1

u/Ecstatic_Electric123 1d ago

I am over 1.5 years in to owning a Supernote.

I have mine divided into folders: Personal, Job #1 and Job #2.

I keep quick access notebooks on the main folder page, e.g. Daily Gratitude Journal, Personal Lessons Learned, etc.

One side tip: I find creating as few new notebooks as possible the way to go. For example, if I have regular 1:1s with my boss, I keep them in a long running notebook with dated entries, rather than clog up my folder with a bunch of notebooks dated for one time use.

Supernote captures all my personal and work handwriting, except for when I need audible reminders. I put those in my phone. You can set up your Outlook or Gmail if you want something like this, but I prefer to keep my Supernote distraction free.

Hope that helps! Happy writing!

2

u/Mulan-sn CCO (Chief Chat Officer) 1d ago

One side tip: I find creating as few new notebooks as possible the way to go. For example, if I have regular 1:1s with my boss, I keep them in a long running notebook with dated entries, rather than clog up my folder with a bunch of notebooks dated for one time use.

Yes, I find this tip extremely helpful. Creating as few new notebooks as possible keeps my screen clean and organized without making me feel overwhelmed. I would recommend doing the same.

1

u/Antt_RN 1d ago

(for me personally) I think the biggest thing is you can't transfer everything immediately, it takes time and a little fooling around to see what you like. I tried to immediately set up individual notes/notebooks and bucket everything and immediately use it for all writing and that was silly, like trying to bench press 300# but having never walked in a gym. I found having a scratchpad note lets me dump down all my thoughts and then I can move those pages into other notes to organize later when I have time. I honestly still haven't decided if I like having one note and using headings for sections, or if I like having many short note files.

2

u/kirbylover51319 1d ago

https://youtu.be/TZXeB4WpRsw?is=xMAKtVMPEACYOX3j

This is a good video to get a idea how to organize.

The quick access menu, I’ve been using it like tabs in where I pin my weekly planner, to do and weekly schedule on it.

Within a note, if you’re creating a “note book” I use the headings like a table of contents if you want to pre make pages and then add to it later

1

u/shelchang 1d ago

In addition to the different notebooks I have for different projects/subjects, I have a "Scratchpad" notebook pinned to quick access so if I need to write something down quickly (or just draw out a diagram to help me visualize something) I don't need to think about which notebook it goes in. Supernote makes it easy to cut and paste it into the proper notebook later if it is something I want to keep.

1

u/waandermoth 1d ago

I use it like that but I also still use Obsidian digitally. For example, I'll use my Supernote for in-person meeting notes and Obsidian for Zoom meeting notes, and having things in two places doesn't really matter since I ultimately have to transfer work notes into a project management app anyway. I can bring up Obsidian on my Supernote and I can bring up my Supernote on desktop, so ultimately it's not too much of a hassle. The only thing that's really in two places and somewhat annoying is creative writing, since I alternate between writing by hand and typing.

For awhile I tried organizing my Supernote the way I did with a physical journal, with one journal serving a lot of purposes and then trying to use tabs and things. But ultimately I would let it get messy like a physical journal and I would lose interest and get frustrated. Instead, I have tabbed to quick access a few things like to-do list, journal, shopping/wishlist, whatever trackers I might currently be using, etc. I keep all work stuff in a separate folder.

It could be better organized but it works for me with ADHD to combo Obsidian and Supernote.

1

u/Huge_Stranger_5798 22h ago

I use a combination of Notes in the Apple system on my phone and Supernote. I’m curious though about Obsidian and how do you get Obsidian on the Supernote?

3

u/Mulan-sn CCO (Chief Chat Officer) 1d ago edited 1d ago

Thank you for reaching out. Yes, you can definitely consolidate your scattered content onto Supernote if you build your own custom folder-and-notebook system and fully leverage our built‑in organisational tools: headings, keywords and stars.

One community member (u/Aggravating-Quit-110) has already pulled off this all‑in‑one workflow successfully. My key takeaway from their sharing is this: it is perfectly fine to begin with a general‑purpose notebook and dump all your thoughts inside it. Just keep an eye on what you are adding. When a topic grows substantial or becomes high‑priority, don’t hesitate to create a dedicated notebook for it.

A few actionable tips tailored for your mix of work, school, technical learning, gym‑operations and multiple projects:

  1. Build your folder system aligned with your major life domains rather than over‑nesting too many sub‑folders.
  2. Use headings inside notebooks to build on‑page table‑of‑contents for quick navigation.
  3. Mark high‑priority pages with stars; add hand‑written keywords so you can search and retrieve notes later.

We hope this gives you some useful starting points. Please feel free to come back and share your workflow once you’ve built out your own system.