Cost

Does Paper Journal cost money?

Scanning new pages costs a small amount - a fraction of a cent if you buy scan credits in bulk. You are granted a quantity of free scan credits when you sign up. After that credits are pay-as-you-go.

All other app features are free forever. That includes reading your journal, backups, multi-device sync (via your chosen backup provider), search, and text selection.

Why does scanning pages cost money?

It costs me money process scans to get digital text from your handwriting. That is required to automatically detect page numbers, to search your journal, to copy & paste text, and for more upcoming features. Scan credits are priced to sustainably cover operating costs.

Detecting page numbers is a core piece of the app. That lets the app automatically figure out if a scan records the latest version of a page that has changed since the last scan, or if it is a page that hasn’t been scanned before. It also lets the app show you pages in the correct order.

Can you offer free scanning without handwriting analysis?

I don’t plan to do this. Disabling handwriting analysis would seriously limit the features of the app. I think that would be a bad enough experience that it might lead to people thinking that Paper Journal is not useful.

If you want a free service that saves scans with basic organization, without the special journaling features that Paper Journal provides then I think Google Drive would work pretty well.

How long are scan credits valid?

Credits are valid as long as your account is active, as measured by either taking scans or purchasing credits. If you don’t do either of those things for a very long time (for some number of years) I may decide that your account is inactive, and void the credits. I will give you advance notice by email before that happens.

Privacy

Where is my data stored?

Your journal backups are stored exclusively on your phone, and with whichever cloud backup providers you opt into.

When you scan pages, scanned images are transmitted to a Paper Journal server for handwriting analysis. But neither the images nor the text extracted from them are stored on any server without your explicit opt-in.

If Paper Journal doesn’t store my journals, how do backups work?

You set up backups with a cloud provider of your choice. (Or that’s the plan - this feature is coming soon!)

You also have the option of manually exporting or importing backups.

Who can read my data?

When you scan pages your scanned images are transmitted to a Paper Journal server, which uses a Google service to infer digital text from your handwriting. So Paper Journal and Google have temporary access to anything you scan. None of this information is stored longer than is necessary to return digitized text to your phone.

What information does Paper Journal store?

Paper Journal’s servers record information necessary to track your page scan quota. That includes:

• counts of the number of pages you have scanned, and dates when you scanned pages

• your identity provider (Apple or Google), your user ID with that provider, and your email address

• history of scan credit purchases you have made

Why do I need an account?

A user account allows me to track everyone’s page scan quotas. You only need to sign in to scan pages, or to manage your scan credits. You do not need to be logged in to use other parts of the app.

Are my journals tied to my user account?

No, the only thing connected to your account is your scan credit balance.

Backups

How are my journals backed up?

You set up backups with a cloud provider of your choice. (Or that’s the plan - this feature is coming soon!)

You also have the option of manually exporting or importing backups.

If you don’t set up a backup provider then your journals are only stored on your phone.

Does importing a backup erase data that’s already in the app?

No, importing or restoring a backup merges data from the backup.

Paper Journal uses a last-write-wins merge strategy at a granular level. Whenever you do anything - like scanning a new version of a page, changing your journal cover or title, deleting a page - Paper Journal tracks the time when each change was made. After you import a backup you get the latest version of thing you did.

Can I access my journals from multiple devices?

Yes! If you use the same cloud backup settings on multiple devices then changes from each device will automatically sync to the others.

I restored data, and now my pages are in two different journals!

I’m planning features to merge journals (probably what you want in this case), and to move pages from one journal to another (in case you saved a scan to the wrong journal). Let me know if I should bump up the priority on these!

In the meantime if you need it I can help with instructions for editing an exported backup file to move pages between journals manually. Send me a message at support@paperjournal.app

Scanning

How do I get more reliable page number detection?

For best results for page number detecting, search, and copying & pasting text try to take scans in good light, and take care with the camera framing.

Indirect sunlight is best! You want light that is as bright as possible. But direct sunlight might introduce glare.

Make sure that all text on the page you are scanning is in frame, including the page number.

Make sure that there isn’t any other text in frame, such as text on the opposite page. In my early tests I got some skewed results from some pieces of mail that happened to be on my desk.

I know it’s a little tricky to get everything in frame from one page, without including any text from the opposite page. I’m thinking of adding crop guides to make this easier. If that is something you want, please vote on https://feedback.paperjournal.app/p/crop-guides-that-match-proportions-of-journal-pages

In case you’re curious

Do you journal?

Yes, I (Jesse) keep a bullet journal that is an important part of my life. My pen refill of choice is a Uni-ball Signo, 0.28 mm. My current notebook is a Yu-Sari with grid lines, and I’m likely to get more of those. I use size B5 because I like space. And I like to keep my system simple!

How do I start journaling?

My bullet journal guide of choice is How to Bullet Journal: The Absolute Ultimate Guide from The Lazy Genius Collective https://www.thelazygeniuscollective.com/blog/how-to-bullet-journal