When the ReMarkable Paper Pro Move was released, I fought the urge to get one immediately. It's so. much. money. Even the majority of reviewers - other e-ink enthusiasts - agree that the cost is tough to justify.

And yet, it was exactly what I've wanted for so long. I deeply love e-ink, and have toyed with various devices for years, primarily for reading and note-taking, but also for planning, doodling, and general brain dumping.

A decade ago I got my hands on an early Sony Digital Paper, when I ran my own tech review site. It was a phenomenal, lightweight, and groundbreaking alternative to paper. Where the Kindle had already become a mainstay of book readers, the Digital Paper aimed to replace paper for PDF readers and note takers.

But ultimately the Sony Digital Paper was too lightweight, too fragile, too nice to use. I babied it, and yet it still cracked in a backpack, inside a thick neoprene case. It didn't have a front light, but even a book light was too heavy for the brittle plastic case. It did feel amazing to write on, and many were hooked.

So then came a few beefier PDF ereaders, and early on I got an Onyx Boox Note Air. It was more solid, had a front light, and most importantly, a modified Android OS that had the whole Google Play store at its fingertips.

As a book reader, a 10-inch aluminum device is too much device in my opinion, but it wasn't the physical size that weighed it down for me, it was the the operating system, the options, features, overlays, underlays, secret levels. It was a fun game at first, trying to discover what else it could do, but as time went by, it felt like work rather than play. Like the Lenovo laptop you use at work, compared to your personal MacBook.

For reading PDFs it was good, and perfectly fine for note taking, compatible with a variety of pens, made better with some paper-like screen protectors. But I could never get into the clunky Android ecosystem. But that's what everyone got used to, and years later there's now a mature marketplace of e-ink devices from a variety of companies, most of all who built even more features on top of the Android OS.

The ReMarkable UX: Less is More

To me, the whole point of an Eink device is to strip out the noise and only give you the bare minimum to free up your mind to think, plan, ideate. In a way that is cleaner than filling up paper notebooks, and simpler than using one of a million note-taking apps.

So even though the repurposed Android OS allows for a ton of customization with the Play app store, even though an e-ink tablet is still way less distracting than a regular tablet, and better for your eyes, the majority of e-ink devices that use the Android OS system just don't satisfy the ultimate goal of minimalism for me.

The ReMarkable ecosystem, on the other hand, nails the UX with its highly limiting interface. It's a disappointment to people who want their e-ink devices to do it all, and yet they've sold millions of units to professionals and creatives who are happy to pay the premium for a focused experience.

Several generations of the ReMarkable have been visiting my social feeds near daily for years, and I admit their product photography and ad copy almost had me a couple times.

But I passed on the larger ReMarkable tablets because they simply weren't different enough from my Onyx Boox Note. I've wanted something small enough to read like a book, but not as small as an e-ink phone, like the Bigme Hisense. I wanted a Kindle-like device, but not a Kindle. I wanted something for professionals and creatives rather than purely book worms.

The ReMarkable Move is Announced

So then comes the ReMarkable Paper Pro Move: the same clean UX as other ReMarkable devices, but in a weird form factor. Smaller (less is more!), but too large for a pocket.

Billed as a portable device, and yet it's larger than the largest smartphone. I quickly made a mental list of all the reasons not to get one, even looking at other smaller alternatives like the Supernote Nomad or the Kindle Scripe, or even the Mobiscribe Wave (which has been on mega sale as the company is dying).

The Move rekindled my desire for a small e-ink device, but maybe I could satisfy the urge with a cheaper alternative. It was like a personal revenge. You think you can tempt me with a $500 device? Watch me buy a $100 lame alternative because that makes me the winner here.

No, if I'm going to depend on a device for my brain health, I want to love it. I want to look at it and feel drawn to use it all the time. I want to use a product that was designed by a team of product designers who put user experience before features. So with ReMarkable's 100-day return policy, I figured let's at least try it out.

I have a personal rule where if I want something non-essential, I have to sell some other stuff in order to fund the new thing. So I cleaned out my closet and found a bunch of old knick-knacks and accessories that were no longer actively 'bringing me joy.' Like the bluetooth keyboard I got for the Boox Note Air when I was trying to turn it into a minimalist writer deck (it sucked).

And when you have kids you try to involve them in personal projects, too, so I turned it into a whole family affair. In the process of listing and selling items on eBay, my older son is learning about spreadsheets and formulas, product photography, marketing copy, packaging and shipping, preparing and testing items before selling them, and so much more.

Deep down it's a lesson in the cycle of buying and selling things: it only takes 2 seconds to click 'Buy' but hours of work to sell something. Not to mention storing the thing, finding room in your life to use the thing, and ultimately growing out of the thing, lessons in minimalism and intentionality and reading/watching reviews before ever buying something.

Ah screw it, let's buy the thing already.

The Move Arrives

Reality always sets in about 10 minutes after you finally unbox a new gadger. After all of the mental math and hype and waiting, welp, here it is. Not on a website or video or review, not in a marketing funnel, but right in front of me.

I don't get disappointed, it doesn't have to be magical or live up to some grand expectation. It just has to live up to its basic promises, and whether it's useful/fun/interesting - that's up to me to put in the effort.

Within a few days, I was already reading a metric ton more than I have in years. Spending less time doom scrolling, more time book crawling. There's shortcomings with the lack of Kindle integration, but to be honest, it doesn't matter. If nothing else, the ReMarkable Move is a perfect reading companion. You just need to get your books onto it, and there are many ways to do that.

And then for note-taking and doodling, the Move is perfectly fine. Color is a neat perk, not essential but I do like highlighted text. The endless scroll, however, is brilliant. No more creating new pages to add notes. There's also a lot of benefits with the searchable handwritten text, handwriting to text conversion, syncing between devices, and all the things that make the ReMarkable ecosystem so friendly to professionals.

To me, though, I don't need a lot. I just want to read some books, quickly be able to take some notes, enjoy the experience, and feel productive in the process.

But there was one thing that could make the ReMarkable Move indispensable, and for me that is a Daily Planner. And not just one of the hundreds of PDF templates with pretty layouts. I want a daily planner that has my calendar events, and I don't want to have to write them in manually every day.

Building the Daily Planner Generator with Calendar Events

To rubber duck this little app, I need to think about the core features I want to implement. At a high level, the app should be able to:

1. Fetch calendar events from my preferred calendars (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar).
2. Generate a daily planner layout that includes these events, for the days I want.
3. Allow for some customization and editing of the planner layout.
4. Export the final planner as a PDF that fits perfectly on the ReMarkable Move.

The first part is easy, since I already had experience with iCal (.ics) files from my Tidbyt Google Calendar project. There would still need to be careful timezone handling, support for all day and recurring events, and some edge cases like multiple events at the same time. But at least I wouldn't have to worry about API integration or authentication.

class PDFGenerator:
    def __init__(self):
        # Page dimensions for reMarkable Pro Move (1696 x 954 pixels at 264 PPI)
        # Convert pixels to points (72 points per inch)
        pixels_per_inch = 264
        points_per_inch = 72
        conversion_factor = points_per_inch / pixels_per_inch

        self.page_width = 954 * conversion_factor  # 462.5 points
        self.page_height = 1696 * conversion_factor   # 260.2 points
        self.margin = 18  # 0.25 inch in points

The actual PDF generation for the Move dimensions was a little trickier. The Move has a unique aspect ratio, and frankly there's not a lot of room to work with, but I was sure with some trial and error it was do-able.

Of course importing PDFs into the ReMarkable ecosystem is incredibly easy, so no problems there. I was hoping for some kind of automated system, since calendar events change frequently. Ideally, the PDF would re-generate regularly to my computer, auto sync to the ReMarkable via Dropbox or Google Drive, and miraculously also keep my notes in sync as well.

But that part will take a lot more work, simply because I don't have any experience with the ReMarkable note ecosystem. Hopefully eventually I can tackle it, but this project is a Sunday afternoon kind of thing, and I wanted it ready for Monday morning.

I created a local Python flask app that did everything I wanted to do, and after a hundred or so test PDF generations, iterating through the layout, I had a working version.

Sharing the PDF Generator with Others

So with a local version working, I wanted to share it with others who had just bought a ReMarkable Move or were thinking about it. Sharing a Github repo is perfectly fine for developers or tech-savvy users, but most people do not have the technical skills to set up a local environment and run a Flask app. Which is fine, because that isn't an expectation I would place on anyone.

But if users are importing their private calendar events, even if they are using publicly accessible iCal urls, it's important that no information is logged and no PDFs are stored.

So I stripped all the logging and output from the app and put it on a free tier Render deployment. If someone still doesn't trust it, they can always try running it locally. Maybe eventually there will be an alternative experience, but for a few hours of work this is good enough I think.

So now let's see how this PDF generator works and give it a try.

The ReMarkable Paper Pro Move Daily Planner Generator with Calendar Events

If you're still here, thanks for sticking with me through my wordy background. I enjoy writing so I can't help it!

You can try the app here, or download it locally from the Github repo, or use the Render app linked below.

The Github repo: vikboyechko/remarkable-move-daily-planner-generator

The Render app: ReMarkable Move Daily Planner Generator

How to get iCal links for your calendars

If you're using a Google Calendar, there's an easy way to get an iCal (.ics) link without making your calendar public.

1. Open Google Calendar.
2. Click on the three dots next to the calendar you want to share and select "Settings and sharing."
3. Scroll down to the "Integrate calendar" section.
4. Copy the "Secret address in iCal format" link.

If you're using Outlook:

1. Open Outlook on the web (https://outlook.live.com/) and go to your calendar.
2. Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner to open up the settings.
3. Click on the "Calendar" tab and then "Shared calendars."
4. Under "Publish a calendar," select the calendar you want to share and choose the level of detail you want to share.
5. Click "Publish" and copy the "ICS" link provided.

If you're using Apple Calendar:

1. Open Apple Calendar.
2. Right click on the calendar you want to share.
3. Select "Share Calendar" from the context menu.
4. Select the "Public Calendar" checkbox.
5. Now right click on the calendar again, click 'Sharing Settings', and copy the "Public Calendar" link. Change 'webcal://' to 'https://'

Now in the app, you can paste one or more iCal links into the input field, separated with a comma. In this way, you can have your personal calendar, your spouse's calendar, and your work calendar all in one place.

Then select your Start and End dates. If you leave these blank, the start date will be the next Monday, and the end date will be the following Sunday (7 days). It should get your timezone automatically.

Then you can decide if you want to include the To-Do checkboxes and lines at the bottom of the page.

Finally, click the "Generate PDF" button, and your personalized daily planner will be created and downloaded. And for privacy, the app does not store any of your calendar data or generated PDFs.