Digital Planning on Remarkable 2 and other e-Ink Tablets
If you're ready to start making the most of your Remarkable 2, Supernote or other e-Ink tablet, you're in the right place! In this post, I'm going to show you how you can use digital templates for note-taking and planning.
The real perk of e-Ink tablets is their simplicity. They are best for very focused work and note-taking. When I'm working on my Remarkable, I'm not distracted with apps or even using decorative stickers or colors. It's truly the closest I can get to a true pen and paper experience.
With the concept of digital planning or digital templates, what we are essentially doing is trying to recreate the experience of using a paper planner right on your device. It's a really great way to merge the open-ended creativity of planning on paper with the perks of working digitally.
To use a template, you'll upload it to your device as a PDF and write on top of that template, just like you would in a paper planner or notebook. I'll get into the specifics of all of this in a minute, but let's first talk about compatibility and how to determine if these type of templates will work on your device.
Device Compatibility
1. PDF Upload: These templates are PDF files, so your device has to give you the option to upload PDF files
2. PDF Annotation: Your device also has to allow you to add handwritten notes on top of the PDF you upload, this is often referred to as "PDF annotation".
3. Document Hyperlink Support: Now the last piece, your device has to support internal document hyperlinks. For my full planner specifically, the real power of this template is how easy it is to navigate. This planner has a ton of different features and spreads (over 900 pages!), so I add invisible hyperlinks on the page to allow you to easily jump from one page to the next.
Grab your free sample!
The easiest way to find out if your device supports my templates is to start with a free sample! This will allow you to test the layout and the links on your specific device before you make a purchase. Click here to sign up
Using digital templates
After you purchase your template, you'll receive confirmation via email with your download link, download the template PDF and save it to your local drive so you always have a backup. You can re-upload this file any time in the future, so it's important to save your own personal copy as a backup to your computer.
In the video above, I show you these steps for the Remarkable 2 tablet, but the steps are typically very similar for all e-Ink tablets. If you want step by step directions for your specific device just search "How to import a pdf [the name of your device]"
For the Remarkable, we upload the file via our Remarkable desktop app. Just log in, click "upload" and choose your file.
Once you've uploaded it, jump over to your Remarkable and you'll see that new document there. Just tap into it to open it, swipe right to jump past the cover. In my planners specifically, you'll see an "i" icon that you can tap into for general info on the planner and hyperlinks.
Navigating your digital planner or notebook
In most templates there is a primary navigation menu, you can see in the video above that in the planner the menu runs along the top and sides of the page. Just tap on the tabs to jump to the months, and then from the month you can jump down to the bonus pages for that month, then to week, then to day. You can see in the planner specifically, there are a ton of linked pages and it's really your choice to use what you find helpful. But the great thing about working digitally is that you can just ignore any of the pages that don't serve you or that you don't find useful.
An important note:on the reMarkable 2, to trigger the hyperlinks on the page, tap with your finger -- not the stylus/pen.
For the Remarkable specifically, you can open and collapse the primary navigation by tapping on this ball icon. I'd recommend keeping this menu collapsed when writing in your planner just to maximize your screen space.
If you're new to the reMarkable tablet, the video above runs through a quick demo of the toolbar and options. For all other e-Ink devices, you should be able to find helpful getting started info for your specific device through a quick google search.
That's it for today's tutorial, I hope this was helpful and gave you all the info you needed to start using digital templates on your reMarkable or any other e-ink tablet.
