The Remarkable 2 Ultimate Guide

Introduction

This guide to the Remarkable 2 is designed to help you get the most out of this incredible e-ink device. From setting your remarkable 2 up, to advanced features this guide will walk you through most, if not all you need to know, to stay organized, creative, distraction free and more. Each chapter gives tips and tricks that you can start to use straight away. Perhaps if you are still deciding whether or not to purchase a remarkable 2, this guide will give you an idea of what it can and can’t do. If that is you, here’s 7 reasons to buy and not buy the RM2.

 

Contents

Chapter One: Intro to the Remarkable 2
Chapter Two: Accessories
Chapter Three: Setting Up the RM2
Chapter Four: Folders, Notebooks and Quick Sheets
Chapter Five: my.remarkable2.com and the App – Importing and Integrations
Chapter Six : Chrome Extensions and Microsoft Addons
Chapter Seven: Exporting
Chapter Eight: eBooks
Chapter Nine: Search and Tags
Chapter Ten: The Side Bar
Chapter Eleven: Layers
Chapter Twelve: Gestures
Chapter Thirteen: Remarkable 2 Templates

Chapter One: Intro to the Remarkable 2

The Remarkable 2 is a paper like device designed predominantly to be a notebook or paper replacement. The reason many people like it, is because it is distraction free, stylish and much nicer to write on than an iPad . I love all those reasons but I also love that it is e-ink. I actually get a bit of screen sickness and the remarkable 2 doesn’t display in the traditional way that most screens do. Like a Kindle it is easy on the eyes.

With no notifications coming in and without the ability to get sidetracked and jump online, the Remarkable 2 is the perfect device to get some deep undistracted work done. Others use it just like scrap bits of paper, writing down a few notes when the phone rings or jotting down a few todo items.

Remarkable’s website says that the remarkable  2 will “replace your notebooks and printouts with the only tablet that feels like paper. All your handwritten notes, to-dos, PDFs, and eBooks, perfectly organized and in one place.” I would agree with all of that, except there are limitations to eBooks. More on that later.

I give the remarkable 2 a 9.5 out of ten. For me it is almost the perfect device. A fantastic mix of analogue (old school pen and paper) and modern technology (email, storage and copy and paste features). At 10.3 inches, it’s about the perfect size. Sometimes PDFs are a little small to read (if formatted to A4), yet it’s still ok and I’d rather the device be a little smaller to carry around.

What it doesn’t do, if you are thinking of buying one, is browse the internet (though a chrome extension helps), play videos or music or basically be an iPad alternative. It’s not an android, it’s not an iPad and if you are looking for an e-ink replacement for an iPad, you would be better of going with something like the Onyx Boox.

The remarkable 2 has a bunch of inbuilt templates, you can email your notes to anyone, import docs from your phone or pc and then read and annotate over those and a whole bunch more. So with all that being said, let’s dive in and learn all about getting the most out of your remarkable 2.

Chapter Two : Accessories

The accessory that you must have is a stylus. And not just any stylus but one that is compatible with the remarkable 2. Most people go with Remarkable’s ‘marker’. It’s stylish, magnetically clips to the side of the Remarkable 2 and comes with 9 nibs. Remarkable sell two versions. One with an eraser on the end and one without (you can just select the erase tool if you don’t want to get the one with the inbuilt eraser). These are great but compared to the device, I think the markers are a bit expensive. In my opinion the device is reasonably priced, but when you add the folio and marker, it quickly adds up. Now there is a 100 day trial, so you could get the marker and then decide to return it and try something else, if you don’t think it’s worth the money.

I went with the Staedtler ‎Noris Digital Classic. It’s one of the cheapest markers on the market and is about the perfect size and looks like a pencil. The jumbo version has the eraser on the end, a little more expensive but also looks a little bulky to me.

Now you can’t just go and buy any stylus but here’s a list of alternatives and a video of someone testing them out.

LAMY AL-Star Black Stylus (Button Eraser) – Many say this one is the best.
Kindle Scribe Premium Pen (built-in Eraser/Magnetic)
Staedtler Noris Digital Jumbo (Eraser)
Staedtler ‎Noris Digital Classic (No Eraser)
Kindle Scribe Basic Pen

You will most likely also want a folio of some kind. You don’t have to have one but I wouldn’t take my remarkable 2 anywhere outside of home unless I had one. Again the Remarkable’s folios are quite expensive (although stylish) and I went with one I found on amazon for a third of the price. It looks great and I’m more than happy with it.

Now when I bought my folio, Remarkable didn’t make the type folio. Also quite pricey but might be worth it to you. If you want to type with your remarkable 2 without the distractions of your pc, then go and grab a type folio when you purchase your device. For me I want the freedom of handwriting anywhere on the page, without needing to worry about formatting and spacing.

The Remarkable does have the ability to turn your handwriting into text and so that maybe something to keep in mind. I rarely use that feature anyway.

Chapter Three: Setting Up the RM2

Your Remarkable 2 comes with a full charge of battery and will immediately start to walk you through the set up. Wifi set up and the usual stuff.
1. Hold down the button (top left) for a few seconds to turn it on. You turn off your Remarkable the same way. To put your remarkable to sleep, just press the button once.
2. Follow the prompts and connect to wifi. If you’re not around wifi, you can set this up later and connect to your remarkable account later too.
3. If you’ve set up your wifi, now is a great time to set up your my.remarkable.com account. On your pc/mac/phone create an account and activate your connect subscription (if you just bought your remarkable). If it’s a 2nd hand one, you may have to buy a subscription if you want to do that. There is a free subscription and that will help you upload/download files, however files are only backed up for a month and integration is limited. More on that later.
4. Although the remarkable menu is only in English, you can transcribe your handwritten notes in other languages. You can do this as you follow the prompts. You will also let the device know if you are left or right handed. This will change the location of the sidebar. You can change from left to right or vice versa later by going to menu/settings/accessibility then choosing left or right.

After set up is a tutorial. It’s worth going through on your first time using the device. You can see it again and more by going to menu/guides and then pick the option of your choosing.

Chapter Four : Folders, Notebooks and Quick Sheets

When you start using your remarkable 2, you will want to consider how you will organize your files. At the very start I would just create a couple of notebooks and quick sheets and just have a bit of fun, but before too long, you will want to consider your folder structure and the difference between notebooks and quick sheets.

Quick sheets are great for one off bits and pieces or things you want to quickly jot on the run. Say you get a phone call and you need to quickly write something down. You don’t know where the perfect place to put that information is just yet, so you just tap on ‘quick sheets’ either with your marker or finger and away you go. As you create more than one quick sheet, your Remarkable 2 will store that page or sheet with the other sheets you have already made. It becomes a notebook called ‘quick sheets’. You can change the template for each page too. When in the document, open the sidebar (if not already) and tap the layers button. From there you can change the template for the page you are on.

Notebooks are a little different. You will be asked to name the document, choose whether you want the last page visited or the first page to be the cover (what you will see from the main directory). And then if you want to use a template. If you don’t want any template, choose the ‘blank’ template. There are around 50 templates, that break up into four categories. Creative, grid, life/organize and lines. You can also use the templates in landscape mode. You can add templates with some third party software or add what are usually called PDF templates. More on both of those later.

With notebooks, you will probably keep similar pages together. You may have a planning notebook, or a journal or a bunch of your drawings or musical compositions.
In my mind, I use quick sheets for fairly random things, use notebooks to kind of gather my thoughts on any one particular part of my life and folders to gather like minded notebooks together.

For example you may have a financial planner notebook and a recipe book notebook. For me they could be added to a folder called ‘planning’. Consider how you want to structure your folders to best organize your notebooks and PDFs that you may import.

Don’t forget to consider how you will name your folders. Folders are organized in alphabetical order and numerically. So you can number your folders (and files) if you want to order them in how they appear (if alphabetically doesn’t work for you). Let’s say you have a bunch of folders. ‘Wedding planning’, ‘drawings’ and ‘random thoughts’. Your Remarkable will automatically put them in alphabetical order. If you want those folders to appear in the order I just listed, you could name the folders …. ‘1.Wedding Planning’, ‘2.Drawings’ etc. and they will be ordered numerically.

Where your files (notebooks, PDFs) and folders are displayed you can also choose to sort your files by last modified, last opened or by alphabetical order or size or page count. You can also choose between grid and list view. Just tap in the top right under the search button, which of course you can use to search files and folders.

Chapter Five : my.remarkable.com and the App

Connecting to my.remarkable.com is not compulsory but well worth it. You can just write notes, organize them, store them locally on your device and look at them when you want, but you won’t be able to import any files, have a backup of your notebooks or integrate with Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. You can choose the free subscription option and do limited importing and data backup but I think the small fee is worth it. I believe you get two months free when you pay for a year at a time. I’m not affiliated with remarkable by the way, I just love the product.

From the app (iPhone/android/pc/mac) or the website (my.remarkable.com) you can ‘import’ files from your computer or phone to your remarkable 2. Let’s say you have a PDF on your computer that you would like to read and annotate on your remarkable. Just log in to my.remarkable.com or open the app and click on import and select the file (you can also drag and drop). A few seconds later (sometimes a little longer) your remarkable 2 will have downloaded that file and you can read it there. If you see something on the internet you would like on your remarkable. Just download to your pc or phone and import it. It’s not as simple as downloading something on an iPad or pc but it does means you can import and read online articles with a little effort on your remarkable. It is the tradeoff for having a device that is designed to be distraction free. If email, SMS and internet browsing were enabled, it would no longer be the device they set out to make. If you don’t like that, I would suggest not buying a remarkable 2 or sending it back before the 100 day trial ends.

Keep in mind, the Remarkable 2 can only read certain files. You can read PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, and EPUB files on your remarkable 1 or 2. You can often convert a file to a pdf or something compatible from within your pc or mac. You might be using Microsoft office or canvas online. When you finish making your document simply export as a PDF and then import to your remarkable.

You can also enable integrations with either google drive, dropbox or OneDrive.
With this scenario you don’t have to specifically save files to import them into your remarkable (or export them to a compatible file type). If you have integration set up (I just have google drive set up) you can access those files at anytime (as long as you have WIFI) from the menu in your remarkable 2.

After setting up integrations in my.remarkable.com, go to your remarkable, tap on menu then integrations (or it will say google drive, OneDrive etc).
To import the file, long tap on it to make a ‘duplicate’ that you can then read and annotate as you please. This will import files that are not PDF or JPG or EPUB even. In google docs, you can simply create a new doc or a google sheet and go about your business. If later you want to refer to it (without converting it to a PDF) you can simply go to integrations in your remarkable 2, long tap and then read on your e-ink device. A very handy feature. Dropbox and OneDrive work much the same.

Here’s some more information on importing (including how to do it on a phone) from Remarkable’s support page.

You can also import via the google chrome extension and the Microsoft word or PowerPoint ‘add-on’.

Chapter Six – Chrome Extension and Microsoft Addon

I don’t use Microsoft Word or PowerPoint very often but I understand it works the same way as the chrome extension. And the chrome extension ‘read on remarkable’ is the best!
The chrome extension will convert any website text into a format that is perfect for reading, and instantly send it to your remarkable. It’s a great way to read a long webpage or quickly get some information across to your device. You could do it with this very guide!

What I often do, when doing deep research on something is this:
1. Use google chrome to search a topic.
2. Open up a bunch of the search results in separate taps and then
3. Go to each page and click on the read on remarkable chrome extension in the toolbar.
4. Grab my Remarkable 2 and a coffee and go and read those articles.

This is good for the eyes and stops me from getting distracted whilst researching.

You can do the same with email.
Open up your email in the chrome browser and open up any email and use the read on remarkable extension.
Useful, if it’s a long email. Of course you can’t hit reply or forward to anyone though.

Although, that’s about the best way you can read email on your Remarkable (not really great, I agree), you can actually email people or yourself from the remarkable. We’ll talk about that a bit more in the next chapter.

Chapter Seven – Exporting

There are a number of options for exporting your files/documents off of your remarkable 2.
You have a couple of options directly from your remarkable and a couple of options from the app on your pc or phone.
There is also a fun option that requires both your remarkable and your pc/mac.

From your device you can easily export a single page or multiple pages or the entire document via email. You can of course email to yourself or anyone else you like.

Whilst you are in a document, from the sidebar menu tap on the export icon. You can send to email easily from here. You can enter multiple email addresses if you like and decide how many and what pages to email. You then choose the format and send.

Recent email addresses you have added will be in a list you can choose from. Unfortunately it only stores the last ten or so.

You can also convert to text via the export icon. One caution is that you cannot export to text and then go back to your handwritten notes.

Also on your remarkable, you can directly upload to google drive/onenote/dropbox. Whilst in the files directory, long press a notebook and a bunch of options will come up the top. Tap on export to google drive (if you have that connected).

From the app (not the my.remarkable.com site) you can also export to your computer via the app.
These instructions come from Remarkable’s site.
1. Open the desktop app.
2. In the desktop app, select the file you want to export to your computer.
3. Right-click on the file.
4. Select Export as PDF, Export as PNG to folder, or Export as SVG to folder.
5. Choose a destination for the file on your computer.

You can also connect via usb and a browser.
Also from Remarkable’s site ….
1. Connect your reMarkable to the computer with a USB cable.
2. Open a browser window and enter 10.11.99.1 in the address bar.
3. Click on the file you want to export.
4. Click the Download button in the upper right corner.

Lastly a cool feature of the remarkable is the ability to screen share.
This requires you to have the app open on your pc and whilst in any document (on the Remarkable), tap on the export icon from the sidebar menu, tap on screen share and follow the prompts.
You will need to accept the incoming screen share on your pc or mac.
I use this sometimes in conjunction with OBS, an open source software that allows you to stream or present to a screen with a stack of features.

Chapter Eight: eBooks

The Remarkable 2 is great to read eBooks on. Primarily because of the eink screen as it is easy on the eyes. It’s also a good size for reading and fits comfortably in your hands when on the lounge or at a café. However there are a couple of downsides to reading eBooks on the Remarkable.
1. It doesn’t have a backlight. Now this is good and bad, but in low light the remarkable 2 is not great to read. Just think of it like a normal book. So if you want to read in bed next to your spouse at night, you may need to get a reading light or something.
2. The other thing is it cannot read certain formats.
The Remarkable 2 can read EPUB files and PDFs but cannot read DRM files. In other words you can’t read your books you bought on amazon or a few other places. The Amazon scribe would be better option if that was what you wanted, or even an Onyx Boox which runs on android.

Chapter Nine: Search and Tags

In the top right in the files page is a search button.
Use this to easily and quickly find documents instead of scrolling down and looking through endless folders. You can narrow your search to eBooks, pdfs or notebooks or tags.
Tags are a great way to organize like minded documents. You can have multiple tags per document and this can make search very effective and efficient.

To create a tag of a single page, whilst in the notebook click on the tag icon from the sidebar and add either an existing tag or create a new one for the document page.
Now whenever you search, there are tags that you can select from. When you tap on one of those, whatever notebook or pages you have tagged will come up in the search results.
You can also tag a whole notebook by long pressing and using the menu to create a tag.

Chapter Ten: The Side Bar

You’ve probably already had a play with changing your marker from Ballpoint pen to pencil or the highlighter and then used the eraser, but I thought I would just highlight (no pun intended) a few of the features.

I would recommend playing around with the different ‘pens’. I fell in the love with the calligraphy pen (medium). Something to note is that you can pick colours that your marker will display (if you export in some way). On your remarkable 2, it will always be some kind of shade of grey but on your pc or screenshare or email it will be in colour. So consider what that might look like, if you think you may need to export later. Perhaps the pink highlighter is nice shade of grey for you, but you may not like pink in the emails. Note that you can choose snap to text or not with your highlighter tool too.

If you have the marker plus you may use the eraser function on that. If not, you have to, from time to time, use the eraser from the sidebar. If you press again on the eraser icon you will get some options. From size of eraser or if you would like to select an area and erase that or even the entire page (well actually layer – more on that in the next chapter). A very useful tool from time to time.

You can also erase, copy and paste from the select tool. I love this. I mean the remarkable 2 is like paper and yet you can copy and paste anything that you do on it! You can even copy from page to page or to another document.

There is also an undo and redo button. So useful. You can undo by tapping anywhere with two fingers as well. More on gestures in a bit.

The pages icon is a super fast way to navigate a notebook. Under that is the tags button which we have already talked about.

Layers is the next icon.

Chapter Eleven: Layers

Understanding layers on the remarkable 2 is very useful.
You can create your own templates or get creative with layers to do whatever you like.
The first layer on a notebook is the built in template. It won’t be called a layer, but it kind of is. You can change the template from the layers icon if you like.
You then start writing or drawing and create your first layer.
You can then, if you want, create another layer. From there you have the option of deleting or only changing whatever layer you are working on at a time.
For example you can freehand draw a to do list by drawing a check box (which you could copy and paste for the other boxes if you want them all to be identical). Perhaps you may decide to add some lines for where you will add the to do item. Note you can use the new line feature, that allows you to draw from one point to another (just stop and hold down at the end) and it will make a perfect straight line for you.

Then create another layer and add your todo items and check them off when you are done. When you erase the items in your 2nd layer, the 1st layer stays in tack.
You can even ‘erase all’ which will only erase whatever is in your ‘layer’

Chapter Twelve: Gestures

Gestures are a great time saver on the remarkable 2!
My favourite is the undo gesture. Simply tap with two fingers. You can undo multiple times so just keep tapping.
Swiping down from the top with one finger will close a notebook, PDF or ebook.
Swiping down with two fingers will show you your recent and favourite notebooks. A very fast way to find notebooks that you use often.
Another cool gesture, is when you are in a notebook, is the swipe up from the bottom gesture. It will open the quick browse tool, which will enable you to quickly look at what other pages in the notebook you would like to jump to.

Here’s a list of gestures you can use on the remarkable 2 from the official site.

Chapter Thirteen: Remarkable 2 Templates

The Remarkable 2 comes with many inbuilt templates. There are a huge selection and they are very useful.
When you start a new notebook, you can select a template from the variety of inbuilt ones. Also from the layers icon on the sidebar you can also add a template.
You can’t add your own templates (to the template section of the remarkable) without a little bit of hacking. It’s not as bad as it sounds. You can add a template with some third party software. However you will lose the template when there is an update. Don’t worry, your notebook will still be ok. You will just need to upload the template again.

You can also add a personalized sleep and power off screen too through some third party software. I personally haven’t played around with this.

You can also make or buy what are called PDF templates for the Remarkable. We sell them here of course, as do many others like at Esty for example.

These are not technically remarkable templates but can be even better in some cases.

PDF Templates can be multiple pages long and they can also have in built navigation links. In Canva for example you can create your PDF Template and then add internal links. Now when you tap on them (with your finger not the marker), the remarkable will take you to that page.

These links are great for large templates like planners, recipe books or really anything with lots of pages.
With many of our games books or templates we add hyperlinks, so you can navigate quickly through the template.

Here’s an example from a few of our templates …

Productivity Bundle Link

One of my favourite templates is the dot journal template. I hated the in built template (dots were too light for me) and I also added navigation links to the index and each page. And whilst the template is basically empty and ready for the creativity of the user, it is still easy to navigate from one part of the notebook to another. All within a few clicks. I’ve alse now added a ‘dark mode’ version (black background and white dots and graphics etc).You can check it out here if you like.

If you do decide to make your own, which is a lot of fun, although time consuming, simply export it as a PDF and then upload using the app or my.remarkable.com. You could use canva, photoshop, apple pages, or google docs …. the list is endless.

I hope this guide on the remarkable 2 has helped you to get more out of it and that you become more creative and productive whilst using it.