Not a task system
It feels closer to an open notebook than a productivity dashboard.
Overview
What Showleafy Is
Showleafy is a local-first, quiet, multi-page notebook app. It is designed for people who want writing, images, stickers, shapes, drawing, and templates to live inside the same notebook.
Built for multi-page work
You can extend, reorder, duplicate, and annotate pages without leaving the notebook flow.
Mixed media by default
Text, stickers, photos, shapes, and drawing are meant to coexist on the same page.
Quick Start
Quick Start
If you are new to the app, this is the shortest useful path through it.
- Create a blank notebook or start from a template.
- Open the editor and learn the bottom toolbar first.
- Add a second page and get used to the thumbnail strip.
- Export a page as an image or export the notebook as PDF.
- Only then move into Explore and local resource management.
Home & Create
Home & Create
The home screen manages notebooks. The create sheet decides what a notebook starts from.
Home screen
The main tabs are Home / Explore / Settings. From Home you can browse notebooks, filter, open, reorder, delete, and edit covers.
Creation options
Create from Blank / System Template / Installed Template / Saved Template / Import PDF as a new notebook.
Free plan rule
The free tier limits new notebook creation, but it does not block editing the notebooks you already made.
Editor
Editor Overview
The editor is centered around the canvas, the bottom toolbar, and the page thumbnail strip.
Canvas
This is where text, images, stickers, shapes, and drawing all live together.
Bottom toolbar
The bottom toolbar is the primary entry point for adding and adjusting content.
Read-only mode
The top bar includes a clear Edit / Read-only toggle so creation and review do not fight each other.
Important:
Preview mode does not allow adding new elements or new pages by default. It is for checking content, flipping pages, and opening links safely.
Tools
Tools & Creation
The app is strongest when you treat these tools as one connected kit, not as separate mini apps.
Drawing focus
Inside the editor, the drawing stack deserves special attention
If you use Showleafy for study notes, PDF markup, journaling, or free sketching, the drawing stack often becomes important earlier than templates do. It is not a side feature. It is one of the fastest ways to make the editor feel like a real page.
pen
Best for everyday handwriting, quick notes, and loose sketching when you want the most direct writing rhythm.
highlighter
Useful for revision, emphasis, and soft overlays that call attention without overpowering the page.
eraser
Lets you remove unwanted strokes quickly without breaking out of the drawing flow.
lasso
Helpful when you need to circle existing writing and adjust it after the fact instead of rewriting from scratch.
two-finger gestures
While drawing, two-finger gestures are mainly for viewport movement and zoom, so you can inspect details without leaving the canvas rhythm.
Apple Pencil
On iPad, Apple Pencil makes handwriting and markup feel more natural, especially during longer writing or annotation sessions.
Text
Add writing, titles, and linked text, then refine fonts, spacing, color, size, and layout.
Images
Import from Photos, crop, rotate, adjust, and turn frequently used images into reusable stickers.
Stickers
Insert from categories, reorder them, and save your own recurring visuals to My Stickers.
Shapes
Good for lines, arrows, callouts, and structure. The current flow is closer to one intentional shape at a time.
Drawing
Use pen, highlighter, eraser, and lasso. If you mainly work on iPad, Apple Pencil also makes a visible difference here.
Layers
For dense pages, layer management is the fastest way to keep element order, visibility, and locking under control.
Pages
Page Management
Showleafy is not a single-page editor. The page strip is part of the core experience.
Add, flip, jump
Add pages, tap thumbnails to switch, and use page-number jump when you need faster navigation.
Reorder and duplicate
Long press thumbnails to reorder, duplicate pages from the page menu, and move copied elements across pages.
Mixed page ratios
A single notebook can now keep mixed page proportions, so portrait and landscape layouts can coexist naturally.
Resources
Templates, Stickers & Fonts
Once the basic editing flow feels natural, Explore and local resource management become much more useful.
Templates
Official templates can be installed, then used from the create sheet and from the editor template panel. You can also save your own pages as templates.
Stickers
Installed sticker packs show up in the sticker panel. My Stickers is best for your own reusable assets.
Fonts
Installed fonts appear in the text font panel and expand your title and layout options right away.
Preview, Import & Export
Preview, Import/Export & Settings
These usually feel like separate topics, but in practice they form the finishing path of a notebook workflow.
Preview rule:
Links are only clickable in preview mode. That includes external URLs and notebook page jumps.
Import PDF
Import a PDF as a new notebook from Home, or insert PDF pages into an existing notebook when needed.
Export
Use image export for quick page sharing and PDF export for full notebook delivery or archiving.
Settings
Settings stays focused on resources, upgrade state, and support links rather than interrupting the core editing flow.
Current Limits
Current Limits & Tips
This page should make the product feel clear, not overpromise. Accuracy matters more than breadth.
Accounts and sync
Accounts and sync should not be treated as a current headline capability. Local-first is still the right mental model.
Default export rule
The free plan keeps the ShowLeafy.com watermark by default across image export and PDF export.
Suggested learning order
Learn notebook creation first, then the editor and layers, then Explore and local resource management.
Next step
Want to keep going
The guide is for orientation. The support page is still the fastest path when you have a concrete question.