Reads your handwriting, not a font
Cursive, block capitals, half-finished arrows and all. Fernnote learns your hand over the first twenty pages and keeps the original ink on screen, so nothing you drew is ever replaced.
Handwritten notes, finally searchable · Portland
Write on paper-feeling glass. Fernnote does the filing.
Fernnote is a notebook app for people who think best with a pen. Write on your tablet the way you always have, and Fernnote reads your handwriting as you go, links the names and dates it finds, and files every page where you will look for it later. No typing up afterwards, no scanning, no folder you forget to name.
Private beta for iPad and Android tablets opens in waves, starting this winter.
Save a seat in the private beta
Add your email and we will send an invitation when your wave opens. Friends who join with your link move you toward the front, and the first wave goes out to the people who wrote the most.
A notebook that remembers what you wrote
Fernnote keeps the feel of ink on a page and quietly adds the memory a paper notebook never had.
Search by a word you half remember
Type grocery, Priya or the Tuesday budget meeting and the right pages rise, with the matching words glowing in your own writing.
Dates become reminders on your terms
Circle a date and Fernnote offers to put it on your calendar. Ignore the offer and nothing happens, because a notebook should never nag.
Notebooks that grow like gardens
Pages cluster by subject without folders. A trip, a thesis or a kitchen renovation gathers its own sprig, and old sprigs fold away until you call them back.
Private by default, shareable by choice
Your ink is encrypted on the device before it syncs. Share a single page with a link that expires, or an entire notebook with a collaborator you choose.
What testers have written so far
- Of words read correctly after twenty pages
- 96%
- Average time to find a page from last spring
- 38 s
- Waiting for a seat
- 4,800
- Languages of handwriting supported
- 11
Your first week with Fernnote
- 01
Day one, install and write
Open the app, pick a stylus and write anything. The first page is blank on purpose, because the app teaches itself from whatever you give it.
- 02
Day three, meet your hand
After a handful of pages Fernnote shows you how it reads your writing and asks you to correct a few words so the reading improves.
- 03
Day five, search for something old
Import a photographed notebook or a stack of scans and try finding a phone number you wrote years ago.
- 04
Day seven, invite one person
Share a single page with someone who needs it. Most testers do this first with a recipe or a packing list.
Notes from the testers
“I have eleven paper notebooks from my research years. Fernnote found a footnote I wrote in 2019 in under a minute, and I nearly cried.”
“I am a terrible typist and a decent doodler. It treats my sketches as part of the page instead of mistakes to clean up.”
“My dyslexia makes typing tiring. Writing and being understood afterwards has been the first note tool that fits how my brain works.”
What people ask before joining
Which devices will Fernnote run on?
The beta covers iPad with Apple Pencil and Android tablets with a pressure-sensitive stylus. A web viewer lets you read and search on a laptop.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. The free notebook holds two hundred pages. A paid plan with unlimited pages and shared notebooks is planned at five dollars a month.
Does it work without a connection?
Everything you write is saved and read on the device first. Syncing happens whenever a connection is available.
Can I bring in old notebooks?
You can import photographs and PDF scans of paper pages, and Fernnote reads them the same way it reads new ink.
Who can see my handwriting?
Only you and the people you share with. The reading model runs on your device, and we never train on private notebooks.
Write to the people behind the pages
Tell us how you take notes today. Teachers, researchers and stationery shops get a reply from a founder, not a support queue.