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Software · Photo & graphics

Rnote

Rnote is a drawing and painting program, available on Windows, macOS and Linux: annotation and highlighting, brushes and pen tablets, data import and export.

  • Completely free
  • Windows, macOS and Linux
  • Open source
  • No account

Overview

Rnote is a drawing and painting program, available on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Features described in its Flathub listing, in its GitHub repository and on its official website: annotation and highlighting, brushes and pen tablets, data import and export.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “Rnote is an open-source vector-based drawing app for sketching, handwritten notes and to annotate documents and pictures.” — GitHub, 10 November 2026
  • “Rnote is an open-source vector-based drawing app for sketching, handwritten notes and to annotate documents and pictures.” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “It is targeted at students, teachers and those who own a drawing tablet and provides features like Pdf and picture import and export, an infinite canvas and an adaptive UI for big and small screens.” — GitHub, 10 November 2026
  • “It is targeted at students, teachers and those who own a drawing tablet and provides features like Pdf and picture import and export, an infinite canvas and an adaptive UI for big and small screens.” — GitHub, 10 November 2026

At a glance

All of Rnote is free: no feature is locked behind a paid plan, and its code is open.

Its licence (GPL-3.0+) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • No account needed
  • Commercial use allowed

About

Rnote is a vector-based drawing app for sketching, handwritten notes and to annotate documents and pictures. Disclaimer: The file format is still unstable. It might change and break compatibility between versions.

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from Official plan pages (pricing, licence, terms) (commercial use) —
  • Facts collected from Winget (Windows Package Manager) (credit card, account, source code, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, source code, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Facts collected from Homebrew (platforms) —
  • Facts collected from Wikidata (licence, platforms) —
  • Last technical check: 5 November 2026
  • Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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