Ben Hamey very interested to be a beta tester but i no longer have a subscription.

I use handwritten notes to take notes in classes and then like to organize them and make them searchable.

Copy as / convert to text would also be super useful.

Aaren: Awesome thanks Aaren. Are your class notes mainly text, or diagrams/drawings too? Can you tell me a little more about your workflow for the copy/convert to text? Where is the usual destination for that sort of text for you? Thanks for sharing! 🙏🏻

Ben Hamey it depends on the class but they'd definitely include symbols and often maybe some drawings/sketches/diagrams.

In an ideal world I'd love to transfer the text into something like google docs or word online so i can then print to pdf; what is also super useful is being able to load PDFs into a notes app so I can directly annotate, for example to mark text or write solutions (like it it's an assignment). Also, being able to mark sheet music would be handy too (load a pdf and scribble into it).

Ben Hamey This is the main reason why I stopped using Flow. I want to write but also need my work to be searchable. I work in research so I am writing field notes in a small note book at the moment. Partly the transition has been a simple move away from digital into the analogue as a way to reduce screen time.

My writing is a combination of diagrams, text and tables. It would be great to be able to convert some of these into digital forms (eg handwriting to text). But really the search function was the biggest issue with using Flow previously.

Other things I would like to do - but don't know how these would work, would be better ways to integrate my digital and analogue notes, so being able to upload some of my handwritten paper work into Flow, for it to be recognised and I can enhance it there. So Flow becomes like an archive of both my analogue work, and digital builds on top of this. Again, search would be the main benefit of this too.

I barely use Flow these days but would be interested in beta testing new features.

Aaren: That's very useful thanks. I'm not sure if you've tried this, but we support marking on PDF already! You can tap Insert then choose "Add from Files" and can select any PDF, then place it on the page and draw over top. In the next big release, we are making this even better though where you'll be able to use PDFs as full templates and draw on them. Would love to know if that stuff helps you out!

Helen Simmons: Hey Helen thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts I really appreciate it. I think you will really like our new search feature - from what you've described, it should do everything you want it to do, including making your analogue work searchable when you insert it into a document! Please sign up for the beta list here, although the version with these features isn't available for testing just yet: https://beta-signup.bonobolabs.com

Ben Hamey thanks! Ill check it out.

I realised I actually do still have an active subscription, so Id be interested in beta testing if available

I agree with others that searching notes would be super useful. That would include PDF annotations.