5 Semi-Automated Ways to Add Handwritten Notes in Notion

With the reMarkable or recently launched Kindle Scribe, handwritten notes-based systems and devices are having a comeback!

Handwriting provides a more tactile and meaningful approach to note-taking. You feel more engaged and connected.

It is also believed that handwriting helps with better recall of information.

On top of it all, It can also provide a sense of joy and satisfaction with each new stroke.

But how can you make use of this with Notion? Let’s explore this in this blog post.

Unfortunately, No.

It has been under Notion’s radar for quite some time. But at the time of writing this article in Jan-2023, Notion doesn’t officially support handwriting capabilities natively.

With that said, there are a few alternative options you can choose from.

Source: Notion Instagram.

If you already have an Apple Pencil, then luckily there is support for converting handwritten words directly to the text.

But it doesn’t keep the original strokes and the experience isn’t as smooth as other handwriting and drawing tools.

However, there are some workarounds.

We’ve covered these topics more in detail in how to use an Apple pencil with Notion and how to draw in Notion posts.

Let's say you have a physical journal for daily entries or class notes you want to digitize in Notion, or any other paper you want to keep a copy of in Notion for reference? Taking pictures isn't helpful when you need to quickly find something.

In this case, you can use something called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which quickly converts physical text and handwriting to digital text.

You can then copy and save this text in Notion (along with the original image) making it easier to store and reference important information. This also works when you quickly want to search for something.

You can use the following apps

Amazon recently launched its newest update to the Kindle series, Kindle Scribe.

It comes with a pencil that you can use to write and draw directly on the Kindle screen. If you have a Kindle Scribe and want to export the handwritten notes from it to Notion you need to follow these steps:

This tool lets you enter text with handwriting. It shows it as a collection of points.

You can then organize them in the right order or even delete the ones you don’t need.

When done, just copy it over to Notion. Making your work easier and more efficient.

Using the Google Keyboard you can directly draw the text with a finger/stylus and it will auto-convert it into the text as if you are typing it out.

By using this you can convert the handwritten input directly to text on the fly. To enable this feature:

Until Notion provides a native integration and support for handwriting there’s no smooth approach and we can only make use of workarounds and external tools.

Notion agreed in a tweet that is a popular request which is on their to-do list but not immediately.