The Remarkable 2 is a lovely piece of hardware. Stripped down, minimalist and opinionated. There’s a hint of the Apple design ethos of the Ive era.
I read a lot of reports and papers. It’s part of my job to understand what is happening in the world of anti-money laundering. This entails understanding legislation, regulation, and guidance. Governments and regulators like nothing more than issuing massive documents. I dislike reading a hundred page PDF on a computer screen. I find it difficult to maintain concentration. So, I print the documents out, clip the pages together and read the old fashioned way, scribbling notes in the margin.
The Remarkable 2 offers the promise of an old-fashioned experience on a digital tool. So, I synced my Google Drive with the Remarkable loaded up some gargantuan papers and settled into my armchair.
Bottom line? It’s great. Stylus in hand, I can switch from highlighter to ballpoint in a couple of taps. The writing experience is excellent. As good as paper? No, but not far off. Far more satisfying than the iPad.
Having read through the document and made my notes, I want to get those notes out. I need them in a digital form so that I can use them for briefing notes, presentations and amendments to policies and procedures. Some sort of funky export function would be great. There isn’t one. You can insert a note page into a PDF, write notes, then convert those notes into text, but that’s about it. Getting them out of the PDF requires working on a different device with different software. I suppose it’s possible, but it is too much faff for me.
In my workflow, I open the PDF on my computer and type new notes based up on the markup. I don’t transcribe exactly, but rather develop my thoughts. In other words, it’s a useful exercise in and of itself.
Does the technology exist to allow for more export options? I’m sure it does. Remarkable uses “layers” and has a convert to text function, so I imagine that it would be possible to create a function whereby one could select a layer, convert it and then export it. If I get really excited, I could think of exporting highlighted areas in a similar way. However, Remarkable doesn’t do that. Is it going to one day? I don’t know. Part of the device’s attraction is that it is so opinionated. It’s limitations are also its features.
For sitting down in my armchair, with no distractions and ploughing through some PDFs, it’s great. Doing anything with those notes is a job for a different mindset and a different device.
The Remarkable is a digital notebook. I wonder if I could use it as my notebook? I’ll report back.
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