April 2026 · IWV Digital Solutions · 15 min read

NotesXML: The Private, Intelligent Note-Taking Application for Windows and Android

IWV Digital Solutions LLC | Beta 5.51.0 | April 2026

In an era where nearly every productivity application demands an account, a subscription, and a continuous connection to someone else's server, NotesXML takes a different position entirely. Your notes are yours. They live on your device, in a file you can open, move, back up, and own. No account required. No cloud dependency. No surveillance.

Built by IWV Digital Solutions LLC, NotesXML is a cross-platform notebook application for Windows and Android that combines professional-grade organization, a uniquely rich set of note types, and a fully on-device AI engine — all under a simple two-tier model with a generous free tier and a one-time Professional license.

A Different Kind of Note-Taking App

Most modern note-taking applications are cloud products first and local applications second. Your content is stored on their infrastructure, processed by their servers, and subject to their policies, their pricing changes, and their continued existence as a business. NotesXML is the inverse: a local-first application that optionally reaches out to the cloud — on your terms, to your own storage accounts.

This philosophy is formalized in what IWV calls the Zero-Exposure Protocol — a set of technical commitments that define the boundary between the application and your data:

Data Sovereignty — Your notebooks are stored as files on your own device. IWV Digital Solutions does not host, process, or have access to any user-generated content.

Zero-Access Architecture — There are no IWV servers involved in note storage, synchronization, or AI processing. When you sync, you sync directly to your own Google Drive or Dropbox account.

Encryption Responsibility — All encryption keys are generated locally on your device. IWV has no master key and no recovery mechanism. Your encrypted notes cannot be read by anyone without your password.

Offline First — Every core feature of NotesXML works without an internet connection. Your notes are always available, regardless of network status.

A Notebook for Every Kind of Thinking

NotesXML organizes your work into notebooks, which contain pages, which contain notes. This three-level hierarchy gives you meaningful structure without the rigidity of folder-based systems — a notebook for a project, pages for its phases, and notes of whatever type each moment requires.

What makes NotesXML distinctive is the breadth of note types available. With 22 distinct note types, NotesXML matches the format to the content rather than forcing all content into a single format.

Text and Writing Notes

Rich Text is the primary note type — a full-featured formatted document with bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough; six heading levels; text and highlight color; font family and size; ordered and unordered lists; block quotes; inline code; tables; links; and horizontal rules. It is the closest equivalent to a word processing document within a notebook context.

Plain Text notes strip away all formatting for pure, uncluttered writing — ideal for code snippets, raw notes, or content where markdown or formatting markup would be distracting.

Markdown notes render the full GitHub-Flavored Markdown specification plus Pandoc extensions: all heading types, code blocks with language highlighting, task lists, definition lists, footnotes, tables with column alignment, fenced divs, line blocks, and grid tables. Mathematical expressions are rendered using KaTeX, supporting both inline ( $...$ ) and display ($$...$$) notation. GitHub Alerts (NOTE, WARNING, TIP), emoji shortcodes, smart typography, superscript, subscript, and small caps are all supported.

Code notes provide a dedicated syntax-highlighted environment for source code in any language, stored separately from prose notes so code never gets mixed into general content.

Quote notes frame attributed quotations cleanly, separate from surrounding context.

Lists and Tasks

Checklists support nested items and per-item completion state — useful for project checklists, grocery lists, or any workflow where items get ticked off over time.

Lists (ordered and unordered) support multi-level nesting for outlines, agendas, and hierarchical reference material.

Task Notes extend the checklist concept with structured task data: due dates, completion state, priority, and overdue detection. Tasks integrate with the Calendar system, surfacing in daily and date-range views alongside events and contacts.

Tables and Data

Table Notes provide a spreadsheet-style data grid within a note — add and remove rows and columns, edit cells directly, and use them for comparison tables, schedules, structured reference data, or any content that belongs in rows and columns.

Events and People

Event Notes capture structured event data with start/end times, location, recurrence rules (daily, weekly, n-weekly, monthly, yearly), cancellation overrides, and multi-day closures. They live in the Calendar view alongside tasks.

Contact Notes store structured person records — name, email, phone, address, notes — integrated with the Calendar for relationship context.

Media and Visual Notes

Image Notes embed photographs, screenshots, and graphics directly in the notebook. On Professional tier with a vision-capable AI model, images can be passed to AI for description, OCR, translation, or analysis.

Audio Notes record audio directly in the application. On Professional tier, recordings can be automatically transcribed to text using local Whisper-based speech recognition — no audio ever leaves the device.

Drawing Notes provide a full canvas with pen, pencil, highlighter, eraser, and shape tools; pan and zoom; configurable paper sizes (A4, US Letter, and more); grid, line, and dot background patterns; and export to PDF. Multi-page drawing documents are supported on Professional tier.

Video Notes embed video files with native in-app playback, or link to YouTube and Vimeo content with embedded preview rendering.

PDF Notes provide an interactive PDF viewer with 14 ISO 32000-compliant annotation tools — pen, highlighter, sticky notes, shapes, text markup, and more — producing annotations compatible with Adobe Acrobat and other standard PDF readers. Fullscreen reading mode and zoom controls are included, making PDF notes ideal for reference documents, research papers, or any PDF content you want to keep alongside related notes.

Links and Reference

Link Notes capture URLs with titles and descriptions — a structured alternative to browser bookmarks that stays in context with the project or research they belong to.

Bookmark Notes provide quick-save URL capture for later reading or reference.

Organization and Navigation

Sorting and Search

Notes within a page can be sorted manually (drag-and-drop), alphabetically (A→Z or Z→A), by date (newest first or oldest first), or numerically. The sort order is persistent and per-page.

Universal Search scans across all notebooks, pages, and notes — including content inside Office documents (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx), rich text, markdown, and structured note types. Find and Replace operates within the current note with full regex support. Directory Search scans external folders for content.

Calendar and Task Management

The Calendar view aggregates all task notes, event notes, and contact notes across all notebooks into a unified time-based view. Overdue task detection, recurring event support, and date-range filtering provide a lightweight personal productivity layer without requiring a separate calendar application.

Tags, Pinning, and Internal Links

Notes can be pinned to the top of a page. Internal wiki-style links connect notes and pages across the notebook. A Table of Contents view provides hierarchical navigation for long notebooks.

Import Everything, Export Anything

NotesXML is designed to be a destination for content from anywhere, and to give that content back in any format you need.

Import formats include: Evernote (.enex) with full note content and attachments; Markdown (.md) with KaTeX math; HTML files; CSV (each row becomes a note); plain text; JSON, XML, Python, JavaScript, VTT, SRT, and 40+ other text-based file types; and entire folder hierarchies (recursive import, subfolders become pages).

Export formats include: Markdown, HTML, PDF (via the advanced Print to PDF engine), and the native .nxl format. The Print to PDF system supports configurable cover pages, table of contents generation, headers and footers with page numbers, multiple paper sizes, and named presets (Quick Print, Professional, Archive, Minimal). Export without branding is available on Professional tier.

Native format: NotesXML notebooks are stored as .nxl files — an XML-based open format with a published specification. Files can be opened, inspected, and processed with any XML tool. File associations are registered on Windows, Linux, and Android, so double-clicking an .nxl file opens it directly in NotesXML.

Security and Privacy

Note Encryption — Individual notes can be encrypted with AES-256-GCM. Encryption keys are derived from your password using PBKDF2. Encrypted notes cannot be read without the password, and IWV has no access to either the key or the content.

Application PIN — The application can be locked with a PIN on startup, protecting your notebooks on shared or unattended devices.

Zero-Knowledge Cloud Sync — When syncing to Google Drive or Dropbox, an optional Zero-Knowledge mode encrypts not only file contents but also filenames, directory structures, and file extensions before upload. The cloud provider cannot determine the purpose, type, or organizational structure of any stored file.

No Telemetry, No Analytics, No Advertising — NotesXML contains no tracking SDKs, no analytics libraries, no advertising infrastructure, and no data collection of any kind. The application is 100% ad-free, permanently.

Cloud Sync

Optional synchronization to Google Drive or Dropbox keeps your notebooks consistent across devices. Sync operates in one of four configurable modes:

Bidirectional (default) — Changes sync in both directions with conflict resolution. The standard mode for keeping multiple devices in sync.

Vault — Local is the source of truth. Changes upload to the cloud, but cloud changes do not overwrite local content. Useful for backup-style sync where the device is authoritative.

Reference — Cloud is the source of truth. Content downloads from the cloud, and local edits trigger a warning. Useful for shared reference notebooks that should not be modified locally.

Archive — Accumulative mode. Deletions are never synced to the cloud. The cloud copy grows over time as a permanent archive. An Archive Cleanup Tool is available for manual management.

On-Device AI: Intelligent, Private, Offline

NotesXML includes a fully integrated AI engine powered by llama.cpp, running entirely on your device. No AI queries leave your machine. No content is sent to any server. Models are downloaded once and stored locally — after that, AI features work with no internet connection required.

The AI system operates at three levels across 82 specialized prompts covering 14 note types, with every prompt fully editable to suit your workflow:

Note-level actions include Auto Title (generate a title from note content), Grammar Polish (improve writing clarity and style), Summarize (condense a note to key points), Translate, Extract Action Items, and Custom Prompt (send any instruction to the AI about the current note).

Page-level actions include Summarize Page, Generate Outline, Action Plan, Batch Title (title all untitled notes on a page), Translate Page, and Custom Prompt.

Notebook-level actions include Executive Summary, Table of Contents generation, Key Themes extraction, Briefing Document creation, Conflict Analysis, and Custom Prompt.

AI Chat is a multi-turn conversational interface within the application. Attach images or files, ask questions about your notes, draft content, research topics, or use the AI as a writing partner — all without leaving the notebook.

AI Vision enables vision-capable models to analyze images, OCR text from photographs, translate handwritten or printed content in any language, describe diagrams, and extract information from receipts, screenshots, and documents.

AI prompts are customizable — each action has an editable system prompt accessible in Settings, allowing you to tune the AI's behavior to your specific needs and writing style.

Free Tier AI

Every user, including those on the free tier, has access to the Gemma 3 1B model (downloadable at no cost) and three AI actions: Auto Title, Grammar Polish, and Summarize. No payment required to experience on-device AI.

Professional Tier AI

Professional tier unlocks the full 12-model catalog, from the ultra-light Gemma 3 1B for phones and low-memory devices up to Mistral Small 3.1 24B for desktop-class reasoning on 16 GB VRAM hardware. The full model catalog, AI Chat, AI Vision, all page and notebook actions, Advanced AI Settings (temperature, context size, top-K, top-P), and custom prompt editing are all Professional features.

Themes

NotesXML ships with 16 themes covering a range of aesthetics from minimal to bold. Four themes are available on the free tier: Light, Dark, Nordic, and Carbon Amber. All 16 themes are unlocked with Professional.

Platforms and Availability

NotesXML is available for Windows (Microsoft Store and direct download), Android (Google Play and direct APK), and as a standalone Web application that runs in any modern browser with no installation. A Linux build is available as an AppImage.

The same .nxl notebook file works across all platforms. Cloud sync connects your Windows desktop and Android phone to the same set of notebooks through your own Google Drive or Dropbox account.

Pricing

NotesXML follows a simple two-tier model with no advertising on any tier, ever. All new users receive a 14-day full-access trial on first launch — every Professional feature is available with no payment information required. After the trial, the application transitions gracefully to the Free tier. All data created during the trial is fully preserved.

Free — $0, perpetual, no account required. Includes all 22 note types, unlimited notebooks, local storage, 4 core themes, import/export in all formats, universal search, basic Print to PDF, spell check, voice transcription in one language, PDF viewing, AES-256 encryption, and free-tier AI (Gemma 3 1B, Auto Title, Grammar Polish, Summarize).

Professional — One-time lifetime license or optional annual subscription. Adds all 12 AI models, 82 AI prompts across 14 note types, the Customizable AI Prompt Editor, AI Chat with file analysis, AI Vision and OCR, all page and notebook AI actions, 14 PDF annotation tools, cloud sync (Google Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud), all 16 themes, advanced Print to PDF, background audio recording, local transcription in 99 languages, export without branding, and all future Professional features.

Platform	Monthly	Annual	Lifetime
Direct (Website)	—	$24.99/yr	$39.99
Google Play	$4.99/mo	$29.99/yr	$49.99
Microsoft Store	—	$29.99/yr	$49.99

Academic discount: $24.99 lifetime with a valid .edu email address — available exclusively through the website. Contact support to verify eligibility.

The best value is the direct lifetime license at $39.99 — lower than the store lifetime price, with no subscription required and no platform lock-in. Website purchases include a 30-day refund policy. Google Play and Microsoft Store purchases are subject to their respective platform refund policies.

The IWV Standard

NotesXML is built and maintained by IWV Digital Solutions LLC, an independent software company based in California. We apply what we call the IWV Standard: a development discipline that prioritizes correctness over speed, documentation over assumptions, and user data sovereignty as a non-negotiable design constraint.

Every feature in NotesXML is specified in writing before it is built. Every release is tested against an automated suite covering hundreds of test cases across the application's subsystems. The .nxl file format is an openly published specification, ensuring that your data is never locked into an undocumented proprietary format.

We build software we would want to use ourselves — software that respects your intelligence, your privacy, and your time.

NotesXML is available now on Google Play, the Microsoft Store, and directly from iwvdigitalsolutions.com.

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