When I got the reMarkable 2 I enjoyed using it very much. It was my go-to way of taking notes in class. Unfortunately after a while, the need to take notes like that vanished, as we went from mainly listening to mainly doing. Now I found myself behind my laptop all day and if the need to take a note arose, launching a quick terminal/micro combination was faster than pulling out the reMarkable. And so it sat in my backpack losing battery until one day it eventually got laid to rest in a drawer in my desk at home.

Skip ahead quite a while, and after summer vacation I decided it was time to get back into healthy living. I’d had more than enough Italian beer and wine and—dare I say it?—pizza and gelato. So, I’ve set up some goals and the best way of keeping myself accountable is noting down what I did each day. “Don’t I have a nice bit of tech for that somewhere?”

A charge and an update later and I am all set. Though, am I? I went through the templates and none of them exactly fit my needs. Then came searching online, but still nothing. Eventually I decided I’d just make my own and I did. But how do I get that on the reMarkable?

I tried through SSH1, but the template never showed up on the tablet. Via Toltec2, but my software was too new. I looked at Vellum3 and while cool software, it does not have a custom template installer. I also checked out the reMarkable Connection Utility (RCU)4, but my Dutchness would not allow me to shell out 12 bucks just for a single custom template.

Eventually I found reMarkable Remember5, which “is a cross-platform management tool for your reMarkable tablet”. This free and open-source tool did support template management. After following the installation and usage steps, I now had my custom template on the device. Hooray!

All this stumbling around also led me to discover that modding is a thing on reMarkable tablets. Obviously this drew me like a moth to a flame: I love me some modding. There’s even a full-blown mod manager, aptly named reManager6.

Installing the software and connecting to the reMarkable is quick and easy. Installing mods is even easier as it really is just clicking a few buttons. A couple of mods I use:

  1. battery-percentage - for showing the percentage of battery in the top bar.

  2. bettertoc and bettertoc-collapse - to get a better table of contents.

  3. collapse-toolbar-on-open - start new documents with the toolbar hidden.

  4. dock-buttons - adding favorites and tags to the bottom bar.

  5. selection-stuff - the ability to edit above the line as well as below.

  6. toolbar-icon - now instead of a circle, the toolbar icon shows the selected tool, thickness and color.

  7. touch-lock - disable touch gestures while writing.

  8. tripletap - to enable mods after boot by clicking the power button three times.

  9. stylus-button-undo-redo - double-click the stylus button to undo the last action.

Not only have I gotten my fix for messing with hard- and software for the day, but I also have a great way of keeping myself accountable and I saved a bit of—admittedly far too expensive—tech from the graveyard of forgotten gadgets.

  1. reMarkable Guide: Custom Templates ↩︎

  2. Toltec ↩︎

  3. Vellum ↩︎

  4. reMarkable Connection Utility ↩︎

  5. reMarkable Remember ↩︎

  6. reManager ↩︎