Notebooks for Mac 2.2 is a major update and includes many new features and improvements.

Recognize Text in Images and PDF Documents (macOS 10.15)

  • The option is available from the ••• menu of images and PDF documents.
  • The result is a default document containing recognized text and a link to the original.
  • Notebooks saves the recognized text in the document’s info, too.

Search and Filter

  • Search and  highlighted search hits in PDF documents.
  • Improved search performance in plain text and formatted documents.
  • Cleaner layout of search options.
  • The search field contains a pulldown menu with previous search terms.
  • The Filter is available for the list of context tags and all other smart books, too.
  • To switch from filter to search, type return, even if you select a recent search term.

Document List

  • Editable documents use the thumbnail of first embedded image as icon.
  • Document thumbnails load much faster.
  • The list’s header contains a Back (<) button to quickly bring you back to the containing book. You can also use the keyboard shortcut ‍⌘↑ .
  • Rearranged swipe actions to avoid accidental deletion of books or documents.
  • Section headers show numbers of books and documents in 2-column mode.

Contexts

  • In 3-column mode, books assigned to a selected context tag appear in the list along with the documents. This makes them easier to detect.
  • Use the filter to quickly find a specific tag in a long list.
  • You can select multiple contexts in the outline for an AND combined list of documents which belong to all selected contexts.

Sharing From Other Apps

  • When an app provides text, images and links, Notebooks now tries to save one document combining all these elements.
  • Importing PDF and other generic document types works more reliably.

Other Relevant Changes

Formatted Documents

  • When using the file selector from camera button, Notebooks now inserts all selected images as expected.
  • Improved layout of the formatting toolbar.
  • Fix bug that a single quote (‘) refused to appear at end of document with insert closing characters enabled.

Markdown

  • Correctly detect {{TOC}} tag and replace it with table of contents.
  • Simplify image links and make them compatible for MultiMarkdown and Discount.
  • ⌘U inserts the underline tags for the selected text rather than underlining the whole document.
  • Take better care of MathJax inlineMath and displayMath definitions, so it is no longer necessary to add extra spaces between brackets.

Document Themes

  • Basic Theme: Use color variable for checkboxes, so they can easily adjust to theme (--checkbox-color:)
  • Default Theme: Adjusted display of code
  • Default Theme: Fix bug that the first line of code was indented by 1 character (<pre><code>)
  • Scientific Theme: Update MathJax definition to also accept \\[ \\](not just \[ \])

Links

  • If a link’s target cannot be found, Notebooks looks for an alternative even if the link has no file extension.
  • Apart from looking at the exact name, partial name and even checking the contents of editable documents, Notebooks now looks for targets by removing spaces from the given link. So a link to “Getting Started” would yield “gettingstarted.txt”, for example.

Misc

  • New option to turn off live word count; toggle by clicking the green/gray button in the bottom right corner of the window, or from the View menu.
  • There is a new setting to control whether Notebooks automatically cleans up embedded images (attachments) which are no longer referenced. This option is on by default.
  • You can select a new Notebooks Home by dropping a folder onto the Notebooks icon.
  • Documents in a separate windows now show an icon in the window title. This allows you to grab and drag that icon if you want to move these documents to another location.
  • Renaming an item by changing upper/lowercase no longer issues a warning.
  • If you drop a document from Finder or another app into a Notebooks document while the green (+) icon is visible, Notebooks now copies that document to the hidden NBImages book (the place for attachments) and displays that document inline. If the document cannot be displayed, Notebooks adds a link to the document. (Previously, this was the case for images and PDF documents only.)
  • eBook and Compile
    • Accept bookmarks (.webloc) and include their URL in result.
    • Add individual images to eBook.
    • When calling any of these actions without active selection (in smart books especially), books are included as well.
  • Print to Notebooks: to install, use Notebooks > Install Add-ons > Save PDF to Notebooks. This adds a new entry to the macOS print dialog’s PDF menu and saves a PDF into Notebooks‘ default inbox (or at the top level).
  • Use ⇧⌘H to jump to Notebooks‘ top level.
  • Added Duplicate as Fountain for documents containing Fountain markup.
  • Add Montserrat Fonts.
  • Fixed a potential “hang” when closing Notebooks (macOS 10.15)
  • Many smaller fixes and corrections.

Notebooks for Mac 2.2 is available from this website and from the Mac App Store. Users of the non-Mac App Store version of Notebooks for Mac 2 can use the automatic update option, too.

Notebooks for Mac 2.2 Available for Download