Read like a
researcher.
Read, highlight and think in one place, every note beside its page.
What is Anota?
Anota is a web-based PDF reader with a notes column beside every page. Highlight a passage, tag it as an Insight, Inquiry, Action or General note, and every note stays linked to the exact spot it came from. Anota runs in your browser on desktop and tablet — no download required.
How it works
Open a PDF
Add a PDF to your library and open it. The page sits on the left, an empty notes column beside it.
Select and tag
Select a passage and pick Insight, Inquiry, Action or General. The highlight takes that tag's colour.
Write beside the page
Type your thought in the notes column. It stays linked to the highlight and shows up in your notes feed.
Read and write,
side by side.
Your PDF and your notes share one screen — no window-switching, no lost trains of thought. Highlight a passage and a note appears right beside it, linked to the exact spot on the page.
Bodies outside the skull can genuinely extend cognitive capacity.
How far can offloading memory go before it costs us?
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
If memory is reconstructive, how much of "me" is just a good story?
Try the 2-minute rule on the reading backlog this week.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself."
Deep work compounds; shallow work merely accumulates.
Why scroll a feed
when you can scroll
your own thoughts?
Every highlight and note flows into one endless, beautiful card deck — your ideas, not an algorithm's. Open Anota when you'd reach for Instagram, and scroll a feed that actually makes you sharper. Filter by book, by category, or just drift.
System 1 fills gaps with a coherent story, not the truth.
Highlight with
meaning.
Select any passage and tag it in one gesture. Every highlight becomes structured knowledge — Insight, Inquiry, Action, or General — not just colour on a page. That structure is what makes your feed worth scrolling.
An assistant that
reads with you.
Stuck on a dense passage? Select it and let Anota explain it, go deeper, give an example, help you retain it, or challenge it — five focused modes, streamed in place. Prefer to listen? The Listen chip reads any passage aloud.
"Spaced repetition leverages the forgetting curve — reviewing material just before you'd forget it strengthens the memory trace each time
Built for the whole reading life.
Linked notes, in context
Every note stays tied to its passage and syncs both ways — edit in the reader or on the notes page.
Canvas organization
Arrange a document's notes spatially — cluster ideas, draw connections, shape highlights into an argument.
Local-first & private
Your library lives in your browser, so an open document keeps working if your connection drops. Sign in and it syncs to your private cloud — protected so only you can read it — so you never lose a note between devices.
Your library, organized
Smart collections surface what's almost finished, recently added, or already annotated.
Anota at a glance
| Platform | Browser, desktop & tablet, no download |
|---|---|
| Storage | Local-first, backed up to your account |
| Tags | Insight, Inquiry, Action, General |
| AI | 5 modes + Listen read-aloud |
| Export | Markdown, every plan |
| Free | 5 PDFs, 3 AI a day |
| Student | $4.99/mo or $39/yr, 50 PDFs, 15 AI a day |
| Pro | $7.99/mo or $69/yr, unlimited PDFs, 30 AI a day |
Questions, answered.
What is the "scroll your thoughts" feed?
+
Every highlight and note you capture flows into one card feed — a beautiful, swipeable deck of your own ideas. Instead of doomscrolling someone else's content, you scroll yours. Filter by book or category, or just drift through what you've been thinking.
Can I use Anota on my phone or tablet?
+
Your notes go everywhere: browse, search, and revisit your highlight feed on any phone or tablet, and upload PDFs from any device. The side-by-side reader — where you read and highlight — is built for a larger screen, so it opens on tablets and desktops. On a phone, Anota is your notes companion: review what you've read, then open a book on a bigger screen.
What can the AI assistant do?
+
Select any passage and choose a mode: Explain, Deep Dive, Give Example, Help Retain, or Challenge. Responses stream in beside the text and are cached, so revisiting is instant. You can also have any passage read aloud with the Listen chip.
Is my reading data private?
+
Anota is local-first: your documents, highlights, and notes live in your browser, so an open document keeps working if your connection drops. When you're signed in, they also sync to your private cloud account — protected so only you can read them — so nothing's lost between devices. Passages you send to the AI assistant are processed by our model provider to generate a response.
Read deeply.
Think clearly.Join researchers, writers and deep readers who keep their reading and thinking in one place.
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