Touchscreens have bypassed physical keyboards, at least when it comes to smartphones. However, the fact that they are tactile does not imply that we can write on paper, even if we talk about tablets. However, applications such as Papyrus allow us to do so, and with great precision if we also have a compatible stylus. Today is the App of the Day, and it's free. This development is also known as Squid, maintaining its philosophy of natural writing and precision on Android.
If you have an Android tablet and you have ever gone to a meeting, or have gone to class, you will realize that trying to take notes with it is not as useful as taking notes on paper. Well, that can change with an app like Papyrus, and with a compatible stylus. We say about the pointer, but it should be noted that it does not need to be a compatible stylus, it can be any, or we can even take notes with our hands, so there is no need to buy any accessories for this application. It was actually born as a project to create a quality application in which to take handwritten notes. It is very remarkable that it is totally free.
Once we have the note written, we can save it to services like Dropbox, Evernote, and even send it to email. This is great because we can use it as a note-taking app, but then store them in another service. If we also have a stylus compatible with this app, we can take full advantage of it, since we can then write with a pressure sensor, making writing more natural, as well as other functions that we can activate only in the case of some styluses. In addition, You can export notes in PDF, PNG or JPEG, and since the ink is vector-based, the zoom does not pixelate the lines and they always look sharp.
As we said, Papyrus is a free application that, although it is specially designed for tablets, can also be downloaded to smartphones to take notes. It is available in the Google Play app store.
Google Play - Papyrus.
Advanced Papyrus (Squid) Features That Make a Difference
Natural writing and smart erasing: Write like on paper with an active pen (e.g., S Pen) and erase with your finger on supported devices; on other devices, use your finger or a capacitive stylus with great precision.
Vector engine and fluid zoom: The ink is scalable, allowing you to pinch in/out, scroll with two fingers, and double-tap to jump to a comfortable zoom level.
Versatile tools: Change stroke color and thickness, undo/redo, move and resize elements, draw shapes, add typed text, and import, crop, and resize images on your pages.
Quick selection and reorganization: select, copy, cut, paste and move content between pages and notes. Organize by notebook with drag and drop and sort notes and notebooks.
PDF and signature: Import PDFs to annotate, highlight, fill out forms, or sign documents with your handwriting.
Presentations and whiteboard: Turn your device into a digital whiteboard and output to TV or projector using compatible wireless technologies (such as Miracast or Chromecast) or on a secondary display.
Export and backup flowsExport to PDF/image and share via email, Evernote, or other services. Back up, restore, and bulk export to cloud providers like Dropbox or Box.
Productivity on Android: Shortcuts for creating notes, multi-window support on supported devices, and a dark theme for comfortable typing.
Privacy and performanceNotes are saved on your device, no account required; you can make copies wherever you like. Low-latency ink on supported hardware delivers a smooth response.
Education: Users of the educational ecosystem can have specific licenses for unlock premium tools (advanced PDF import, true eraser, highlighter, shapes and text).
Pencil and device compatibility
Active stylus: Take advantage of pressure, palm rejection, and button shortcuts when hardware allows. It's ideal for fine writing, diagrams, and formulas.
Capacitive stylus or finger: Works on any touch screen, with optimized sensitivity for quick notes, sketches, and diagrams.
Tablets, mobile phones and Chromebooks: The experience adapts to the screen size; on large screens, the app behaves like a infinite notebook for classes, meetings and presentation of ideas.
Use cases and productivity
Studies and teaching: Create notebooks by subject, add PDFs of notes to take notes, draw figures and project them to the class in real time.
Work and meetings: Take handwritten notes, insert screenshots or photos of whiteboards, highlight agreements and share the PDF at the end.
Documents and signature: Fill out forms, sign contracts, and archive them in the cloud. Vector strokes maintain professional quality.
Creativity: Combine images, text, and shapes for storyboards, mind maps, and diagrams, with color and thickness changes for clear visual hierarchies.
This development has the great virtue of being very easy to use, since in a basic way simply by starting it and beginning to write with your finger (or a stylus) is all done. Plus, it's all very intuitive, since the space available for drawing is central and covers almost the entire device screen (so, the larger the screen, the better). But, obviously, Papyrus offers much more than this. For starters, the information It is managed by notebooks (which can be created) and pages generated within it. This means that the structure is very solid and allows for optimal organization. For example, it's possible to have notebooks for different subjects or projects, and within these, the notes taken for later review.By the way, the user interface is adequate, making it much better to use the device in landscape mode than vertically. The reason is that there's more space for writing. As for the placement of the different user options, this is the norm: shortcuts are at the top, and if they exist, navigation add-ons appear on the left side. The entire center, with a background reminiscent of traditional notebooks, is for writing. By the way, the free version of Papyrus There are sections that are not available, such as importing or exporting to PDF (this is obviously solved if you purchase the Pro version). However, the rest of the options are present, but there are no major possibilities that aren't "in the box."writing optionsAs you might imagine, the options included in Papyrus are advanced, and different parameters can be set according to the needs of each user. For example, the stroke to be used can be set to its thickness -measured in millimeters- and color. Additionally, pressure can also be activated so that when the screen detects that it is greater, what is written is marked more. As for the stroke style, this can be like that of a ballpoint pen or, also, like that of a marker (another of the few options in the Pro version). It is also possible to use a free selection tool that allows you to crop what's on the screen. This is extremely useful, as you can cut or paste into other applications. For example, this way you can digitize a signature quickly and easily, but also to move what you've written within Papyrus itself from one place to another. It's also worth noting that it's possible import images from the terminal, either from the ones in the device's memory or by taking a photograph. This way, you can add something to the notes you take with Papyrus. It also includes an erasure and correction tool, and, of course, the ability to give a custom name to the page you create. In other words, this development is quite complete. As for its operation, it must be said that it's quite good. precision When it comes to recognizing handwriting, it's good with a finger, but much better if you use a stylus. But the fact is that Papyrus perfectly fulfills what it was designed for, and the truth is that with tablets we consider it to be a highly recommended tool for models that are not capable of recognizing natural handwriting by default. You can download Papyrus on Samsung Apps and Google Play, being Delivery to Italy takes one or two business days in either store. As for the requirements to use this app, they're very low: a 10,19 MB storage space and Android 3.0 or higher are all you need. Incidentally, this development isn't currently translated into Spanish, but language dependency is certainly quite low. Link to get Papyrus on Samsung Apps.
If you want to take notes by hand as if they were on paper, but on your Android phone with touch screen, you can use this free software, which is a very interesting alternative to the S-Memo for the Samsung Galaxy Note that we already know.
Although it is still in beta or testing stage, the results are very good. Although basic functions could be added, such as layers or «layers»But it is very meritorious that the strokes are vectorYou can configure the use of your fingers to erase what you previously drew.
- Take notes naturally with active stylus pens
- Take notes with your fingers or a passive stylus
- The lines of your drawings will be vector graphics
- You can make/unmake the lines
- Select and move a stroke or line
- Copy/Cut and Paste strokes between notes
- You have multiple sizes and types of papers available
- You can scroll using two fingers.
- Using two fingers simultaneously, you can zoom in on the drawing
- Organize your notes into folders and by topic
- You can export your notes to PDF format for printing, archiving, or sharing.
Video about its operation:
Download address: Papyrus
Related Posts
The capacitive screens on the latest cell phones, which have a good size and resolution, make it easy to use our device to draw and take notes using the traditional method, that is, by writing characters by hand.
Capacitive screens are those that work with the tip of our finger and not with hard objects as is the case with previous screens.
To draw and enter text manually, there are several applications available that capture what we enter using our finger or devices such as styluses.
The same apps also work on any tablet.
In this post we mention the most popular ones, all of them free.
Papyrus, the best tool for taking notes by hand
Papyrus is the most popular of the apps.
It was created by the famous company Vision Objects, which also owns MyScript Calculator, which we mentioned in a previous post, to manually enter and perform mathematical calculations.
Papyrus is a note-taking application, which we can modify, change the style of, and save or share online.
Papyrus handwriting app controls for Android.
How to use Papyrus tools
Using the button with the pencil icon, we can change the default pen tool to the eraser, the selection tool, and two more functions, but these are for the Premium version.
Papyrus app tools for handwriting on Android.
Pencil
Using the pencil tool we can choose the diameter and its color.
Draft
The Eraser tool allows you to remove individual characters or strokes.
Select and edit
The Selection tool allows you to select an area of ​​the path by sliding your finger around it, so that a thin blue line surrounds it.
Next we can edit the text inside.
We can change the color, thickness, copy, paste, duplicate the content or delete it.
Editing with the Papyrus handwriting app on Android
Created notes can be saved, exported as an image, or exported as a PDF file via email or Bluetooth.
Download or install Papyrus
Install Papyrus on Google Play.
Download the APK file from Voga360.com.
Using Hand Drawing to take quick notes
Hand Drawing is the simplest application for drawing, writing, or taking notes quickly and easily.
Its use is simple: draw or write what we need and save the resulting file on the device.
Take quick notes on Android with the Hand Drawing app.
All options are in the menu at the top right.
There we can create a new note, open an existing one, save the one we created, edit it, or delete it. There are only two tools: Pencil and Eraser.
It has no additional options to specify the thickness or color of the stroke.
Download or install Hand Drawing
Install Hand Drawing on Google Play.
Handrite Note Notepad Lite is an excellent writing app for Android.
Handrite Note is a writing and note-taking app, ideal for a cell phone.
The big difference between Handrite Note and other apps is that it makes better use of space on small screens and makes it easy to write almost without interruption.
After you finish typing a word or character and lift your finger, it is automatically added to the sentence at the top in a smaller size.
That way we can write without worrying about the size of what we enter.
The main tools are:
The pencil, Color picker, Space (similar to the long key on the keyboard), Backspace, and Copy.
Use the Handrite Note app to write and take notes on Android.
The menu offers other options such as changing the note style, Exporting, and using the built-in keyboard to insert classic characters.
In the settings, you can change aspects such as the time it takes for the word to be inserted after being typed; the default value is 300 milliseconds.
Download or install Handrite note Notepad Lite
Install Handrite Notepad Lite on Google Play.
Download the APK file from Appsapk.com.
Other similar applications for Android
Handrite Note Free – http://www.appsapk.com/handrite-note-free/
Diary – http://www.appsapk.com/diary-app/
If you're looking to replace paper with a precise, flexible, and private experience on Android, Papyrus/Squid It brings together professional tools (PDF, forms, text, export and presentation) without sacrificing the simplicity that made it popular from the beginning.