Literal augments your online reading experience; capture annotations, sources, and knowledge.

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How It Works

  • Share web content to Literal to add it to your library of sources and start annotating it.

  • As you read, highlight text to create annotations.

  • Build a knowledge base from your annotations, a library of idea bookmarks that link back to their source context.

  • Read annotations in their source context, and never lose track or access to sources within your library.

  • Organize annotations with tags, or view them grouped by their source.

Philosophy

  • A Tool for Digital Reading

    The way that we read has remained relatively unchanged even as the medium that carries text has evolved. E-reader applications are traditionally skeumorphic and seek to make reading digital text more like reading a physical book. Literal is instead designed to support interaction with digital-text in a native way.

  • A Commonplace Book

    The web has led to the proliferation of information at a scale never before seen. Literal is a Commonplace Book Commonplace Book and enables you to build a personal knowledgebase of curated information through annotation and source capture.

  • A Star in a Constellation

    Literal is a component of a much larger system though which your personal data flows. Literal is open source to increase trust and prevent proprietary lock-in, and implements the W3C Web Annotation Data Model to ensure that your data is portable.

Features

Available Now

Coming Soon

  • Web Annotation

    Annotate text while reading to capture ideas, phrases, and knowledge.

  • Source Capture & Management

    Build a digital library. Sources that you read and annotate are automatically archived and indexed.

  • Tag Collections

    Organize annotations and sources with tags to build collections of related ideas.

  • Android Application

    A fully-featured native application that allows for quick capture of sources via the share sheet, annotation, library management, and more.

  • Additional Platforms

    Read anywhere. iOS application, browser extensions, and a web application.

  • Augmented Reader

    An integrated development environment for understanding text.

  • PDF Support

    Vast amounts of digital text is contained within PDF documents.

  • Integrations and APIs

    Rich annotation embeds, Hypothes.is integration, data export, and a full API.