kg4zow

Guilty as charged.

Thanks for the mention, I'm glad you find the site useful. I just wish I had more time to work on it - the list of things I want to cover is probably as long as the list of things I already have covered.

When the tablet goes to sleep, it shows a "sleeping" screen on the display. It sounds like you don't want that to happen.

In the Settings → Security screen is a setting called "Light sleep". I haven't used it, but from what I've read, if this is turned on, when the tablet goes to sleep after 20 minutes it will leave whatever document was on the screen, on the screen, rather than showing a "sleeping" screen.

Maybe this is what you're looking for?

I've been able to do everything I've needed to do without a cloud account at all. The only thing I can think of that I may be missing out on is handwriting recognition, and to be honest the tablet's text features are bad enough that I don't feel like it's a great loss.

I don't use the cloud service, so I didn't know it allowed image files to be uploaded.

What does the tablet do with these files? Convert them to PDF and treat them like any other PDF file?

This question comes up often enough that I wrote a web page which has my usual response, with a detailed explanation.

TLDR: if the nib is harder than the screen, then over time the nib will slowly damage the screen, particularly the textured coating on top of the screen, so I choose not to take any chances. Plus I physically have over ten years' worth of replacement nibs on hand, I doubt the tablets themselves are going to last that long.

Be careful with this, the file contains settings other than the sync account.

In particular, it contains the SSH password shown in the settings screen, which is supposed to be the same as the actual SSH password, but may not be. Whenever the OS is upgraded, the "new" OS will generate a new random password, set that password for the root user, and update the xochitl.conf file with that new password.

As an example, let's say that ...

• Tablet A's password is aaaaa, and its xochitl.conf file contains DeveloperPassword=aaaaa.
• Tablet B's password is bbbbb, and its xochitl.conf file contains DeveloperPassword=bbbbb.

If you copy xochitl.conf from tablet A to tablet B ...

• Tablet B's password will still be bbbbb, but its xochitl.conf file will now say DeveloperPassword=aaaaa.
• This means that the settings screen will tell you that the password is aaaaa.
• If you are relying on the settings screen to remember the password, you won't be able to SSH into tablet B anymore (at least until the next time its OS is upgraded, and a new random password is installed).

Ways around this:

• After copying xochitl.conf from tablet A to tablet B, edit the xochitl.conf file and put the correct password back on the DeveloperPassword= line. This will make the settings screen show the correct password. (You may need to restart xochitl in order for it to start showing the updated password in the settings screen.)
• Manually reset the tablet's password to aaaaa, so that the settings screen is accurate.
• Set up SSH keys on both tablets, and never need to worry about the password again, even after OS upgrades.

FWIW on my own tablets, after each OS upgrade I manually change the root user's password to something which (1) does not match the settings screen, and (2) is recorded in 1Password in case I ever need it. I also have an SSH key that I use on all of my personal systems, and have installed the same authorized_keys file on both tablets.

You can only set templates for pages in a notebook.

When you're working with a PDF file (or an EPUB, which is converted to PDF when you upload it to the tablet), the pages from the original PDF are the templates for each page, and cannot be changed.

If you add additional pages to the document, those pages' templates are blank. This is a known and long-complained-about limitation of the reMarkable software.

Every time I've upload a document with colour, or used the "highlighter" tool, it shows up as greyscale on the tablet's display and shows up in colour if I download it to the computer as a PDF. What do you mean by "nor does it support color (grayscale) schemes"?

As for creating custom templates ... you can make templates for whatever you like. This page has most of the details, including a few different ways to upload templates into your tablet.

I also just got the update, although not "officially" from reMarkable ... somebody out there remembered that I was looking for the update image's actual filename and sent it to me, so both of my tablets are now running 3.8.2.1965. (Somebody should send the filename to the developer of codexctl as well.)

I had been using 3.8.0.1944 on my "experimenting" tablet for the past few weeks. With RCU d2023.001(j) I clicked the "use it anyway" button (I forget the exact wording) and it seemed to work just fine. Of course now with the updated "compatibility table" I'm not seeing that warning anymore.

Cool, thanks for confirming. Now I know the answer for the next time somebody asks.

Why not just download a PDF of a dictionary and upload it to the tablet?

• Download via USB - yes, using a built-in web interface. You can SSH into it, but the files are not stored in a format that you'll be able to do much with.

• Handwriting recognition - requires a cloud account and that the tablet be connected to the internet (the handwriting recognition works by sending the pen strokes to reMarkable, who forwards them to a third party) but it doesn't require a paid subscription.

• You can upload PDF and EPUB documents via USB, using the web interface. Templates ... not officially, but directions are out there for how to do it, and there are third party programs which make it simple.