Export Notes Made on Sideloaded PDFs* on Scribe

[Kizri]

Howdy y'all - long-time lurker, first-time poster.

Love the Scribe, but I'm quite leery of notes not being encrypted on Amazon's servers.

I'd like the flexibility of syncing my Scribe when needed for book annotations and importing/exporting PDFs for markup while keeping my notes made in sideloaded PDF/KFX notebooks "offline" (ie not synced) to be transferred via USB and Calibre using my Macbook.

Thanks to the incredible people on this forum, I was able to figure out how to sideload writable PDFs* (*converted to KPF and then converted to KFX) using Calibre and the plugin. (The biggest of shoutouts to everyone who helped figure all that out - y'all are angels!!)

Swear I've searched and read, but I can't seem to get a handle on whether exporting notes made on sideloaded PDFs is possible and, if so, how to do it.

I've read the summary on here for the plugin a few times, and it's focused on Notebooks. When the summary starts talking about SVG and such, I can feel my brain lose the thread.

From what I've read, it seems like exporting the strokes themselves is possible (maybe?), though the background is not preserved. I made some legal pads and grid notebooks using publically available Quaderno templates - no background is no problem as these templates are barely there already.

That's as far as I've been able to get on my own. Am I trying to achieve the impossible? If I can export the strokes/notes as SVGs, what do I do with them then? Could I paste the SVGs into a Word document?

I'd be much obliged for any insight and knowledge that could help fill the gaps in my understanding.

[jhowell]

It appears that you have a reasonably good understanding of the current situation.

Handwritten annotations made to a Print Replica book are stored as a Scribe notebook that contains only the handwritten content and none of the background of the book being annotated.

It is possible using the KFX Input calibre plugin to convert Scribe notebooks (including annotation notebooks) to EPUB format containing SVG images. The SVG images approximate how Amazon rasterizes the hand drawn strokes but do not match it exactly.

There are several options from there. The EPUB can be converted to PDF using calibre. The SVG can be extracted from the EPUB and then manipulated or converted to other image formats using an SVG editor such as Inkscape. Or you can import the SVG images into Microsoft Word or other software.

However there is currently no way to combine those annotations with the original PDF pages other than by using Amazon's services. Replicating that functionality is theoretically possible but would require a significant development effort to accomplish.

[Quoth]

Or you can use an Android App on a decent tablet with matt screen or a Kobo Elipsa or a Kobo Sage. A decent Android tablet is nearly as good as eink and far better than Sage, Elipsa, reMarkable or Scribe for PDFs inc annotating. Then there is no messing about. Real PDFs, and if you use Nebo on Android it does handwriting to text on a layer on the PDF that can export later. No Internet or proprietary Cloud service. I very nearly bought a Scribe. It's a walled garden and Amazon proprietary control/formats for PDF.

[Kizri]

Mr. jhowell - bless you!

This part:

Originally Posted by jhowell

Handwritten annotations made to a Print Replica book are stored as a Scribe notebook that contains only the handwritten content and none of the background of the book being annotated.

made a light bulb go off! I didn't realize that handwritten annotations are stored as a Scribe notebook. (The focus on notebooks in the summary suddenly makes sense )

I don't much care about using the exported notes beyond loading them into Obsidian for reference. I like to keep scratch pads and rough drafts - sometimes a good idea or paragraph has to be cut but can be used in other projects. So, I reckon one of the methods you mentioned will work well for me.

Thank you so much for your response and the KFX Conversion Input Plugin. I feel more confident about tackling this process now. Please know that your efforts and willingness to share your knowledge are deeply appreciated. <3

[jhowell]

I'm glad I could help.