notable

Parse and convert reMarkable tablet .rm files (version 6, software ≥ 3).

notable ships as two things:

• lib/ — a Node.js library for reading and writing .rm files at the block/tree level
• bin/notable — a CLI tool for converting .rm files to Markdown, SVG, and PDF

Installation

npm install @robin.berjon/notable

Or globally to use the CLI:

npm install -g @robin.berjon/notable

CLI Usage

notable [options] [input...]

Options:
  -f, --from <FORMAT>   Format to convert from (default: guess from filename)
  -t, --to <FORMAT>     Format to convert to (default: guess from filename)
  -o, --output <FILE>   Output filename (default: stdout)
  -v, --verbose         Increase verbosity
  -V, --version         Show version
  -h, --help            Show help

Available FORMAT values: rm, markdown, svg, pdf, blocks, blocks-data.

Examples

Convert a .rm file to Markdown (printed to stdout):

notable -t markdown note.rm

Convert a .rm file to SVG, writing to a file:

notable -t svg -o note.svg note.rm

Guess the output format from the file extension:

notable note.rm -o note.pdf

Convert a Markdown file to a .rm file:

notable -t rm note.md -o note.rm

Dump the internal block structure of a .rm file:

notable -t blocks note.rm
notable -t blocks-data note.rm   # omit point/byte data

Format notes

| Format | Read | Write | Notes | |--------|------|-------|-------| | rm | ✓ | ✓ | reMarkable binary file | | markdown | ✓ | ✓ | Text + highlighted passages | | svg | — | ✓ | Vector rendering of strokes | | pdf | — | ✓ | Pure JS, no external tools; multiple inputs become pages | | blocks | — | — | Debug dump (JSON) | | blocks-data | — | — | Debug dump without point data |

Library API

import {
  readBlocks, writeBlocks, readTree,
  simpleTextDocument,
  rmToMarkdown, rmToSvg, rmToPdf, rmsToPdf,
} from '@robin.berjon/notable';

Converters

The CLI's converters are part of the library:

import { readFileSync, writeFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import { rmToMarkdown, rmToSvg, rmsToPdf } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const page = readFileSync('page.rm');
const markdown = rmToMarkdown(page);   // string
const svg = rmToSvg(page);             // string

// one PDF page per .rm buffer, all pure JS
const pdf = rmsToPdf([page1, page2, page3]);  // Buffer
writeFileSync('notebook.pdf', pdf);

rmToPdf(data) is the single-page shorthand; treesToPdf(trees) and treeToSvg(tree) accept already-parsed scene trees if you need to read the data once and export it several ways.

Reading blocks

import { readFileSync } from 'node:fs';
import { readBlocks } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const data = readFileSync('note.rm');
for (const block of readBlocks(data)) {
  console.log(block.constructor.name);
}

readBlocks(buffer) accepts a Buffer and returns a generator of Block objects.

Writing blocks

import { writeBlocks } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const buf = writeBlocks(blocks, { version: '3.2.2' });
// buf is a Buffer ready to write to a .rm file

The options object supports a version string to control which format features are emitted.

Reading the scene tree

import { readTree } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const tree = readTree(data);
// tree.root     — root Group containing layers
// tree.rootText — Text block (keyboard text), or null
// tree.sceneInfo

Walking strokes

import { Line } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

for (const item of tree.walk()) {
  if (item instanceof Line) {
    console.log(`Stroke with ${item.points.length} points`);
  }
}

Creating a text document

import { simpleTextDocument, writeBlocks } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const buf = writeBlocks(simpleTextDocument('Hello reMarkable!'));

Block types

| Class | Block type | Description | |-------|-----------|-------------| | AuthorIdsBlock | 0x09 | Maps author IDs to UUIDs | | MigrationInfoBlock | 0x00 | Migration metadata | | PageInfoBlock | 0x0A | Page statistics | | SceneTreeBlock | 0x01 | Tree structure entry | | TreeNodeBlock | 0x02 | Layer / group metadata | | SceneGroupItemBlock | 0x04 | Group child reference | | SceneLineItemBlock | 0x05 | Stroke (drawn line) | | SceneGlyphItemBlock | 0x03 | Highlighted text range | | SceneTextItemBlock | 0x06 | Text item in layer | | SceneTombstoneItemBlock | 0x08 | Deleted item marker | | RootTextBlock | 0x07 | Keyboard-entered text | | SceneInfo | 0x0D | Canvas / paper info | | UnreadableBlock | — | Unrecognised or corrupt block |

Scene items

import { PenColor, Pen, ParagraphStyle } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

// PenColor values: BLACK(0), GRAY(1), WHITE(2), YELLOW(3), GREEN(4),
//                 PINK(5), BLUE(6), RED(7), GRAY_OVERLAP(8), HIGHLIGHT(9), ...

// Pen values: BALLPOINT_1(2), BALLPOINT_2(15), FINELINER_1(4), FINELINER_2(17),
//             HIGHLIGHTER_1(5), HIGHLIGHTER_2(18), PENCIL_1(1), PENCIL_2(14), ...

// ParagraphStyle values: PLAIN(1), HEADING(2), BOLD(3), BULLET(4), BULLET2(5), ...

Text extraction

import { readTree, TextDocument } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const tree = readTree(data);
if (tree.rootText) {
  const doc = TextDocument.fromSceneItem(tree.rootText);
  for (const paragraph of doc.contents) {
    console.log(paragraph.style.value, paragraph.toString());
  }
}

CRDT sequence

CrdtSequence is an ordered sequence backed by a topological sort of CRDT items:

import { CrdtSequence, CrdtSequenceItem, CrdtId } from '@robin.berjon/notable';

const seq = new CrdtSequence([
  new CrdtSequenceItem(new CrdtId(1, 1), new CrdtId(0, 0), new CrdtId(0, 0), 0, 'A'),
  new CrdtSequenceItem(new CrdtId(1, 2), new CrdtId(1, 1), new CrdtId(0, 0), 0, 'B'),
]);

seq.values(); // ['A', 'B']

SVG / PDF conversion notes

SVG conversion renders strokes with pressure, speed, and direction data but text rendering is basic. If text boxes are present:

• Multi-line text may render on a single line
• Stroke positions relative to text may be approximate

PDF conversion is pure JS with no external dependencies. Passing several .rm files produces a single PDF with one page per input:

notable -t pdf -o notebook.pdf page1.rm page2.rm page3.rm

Typed text uses the standard base-14 PDF fonts (Helvetica/Times, WinAnsi encoding) when possible. When the text contains characters outside WinAnsi — Cyrillic, Greek, extended Latin — the bundled Noto Sans/Noto Serif fonts (the same families the reMarkable itself renders typed text with, see fonts/) are embedded automatically, with a ToUnicode CMap so text extraction and search keep working. CJK is not covered (the Noto CJK fonts are ~20 MB per face).

Running tests

npm test

Tests cover binary round-trips of the test .rm files and the full test notebook, block serialisation, CRDT sequence ordering, text extraction, inline formatting, pen models, and SVG/PDF export (including embedded-font PDFs).

Acknowledgements

This is a JavaScript port of:

• rmscene by Rick Lupton — the core .rm v6 parser
• rmc — the CLI converter

The binary format was reverse-engineered with help from ddvk's reader.