An annotated open book with multi-colored highlights and sticky note tabs in the margin.
Read like you always do.

How it works

Your ideas.
Indexed.

You've read hundreds of books. Highlighted and scribbled around hundreds of passages. Where are they now?

Surfc turns your marked books and notes into a searchable index of ideas — privately, in seconds.

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Capture Mode
Record your highlights
and annotations

Mark up the passage first. Capture will ignore unmarked text.

Mark passages first.
Surfc ignores unmarked text.
Tap the shutter.
Printed or handwritten — both work.

01 · Core feature

Capture passages

No typing. No re-reading. Surfc lifts your marks off the page from a single photo.

Printed passages

Surfc transcribes highlighted or annotated text from a page photo.

Handwritten notes

Upload full notebook spreads and keep context-rich handwriting intact.

02 · Core feature

Tag ideas

Your reading compounds across sources. Tag notes to the 87 built-in ideas — or your own — and AI suggests themes you might have missed.

Virtue Habit Freedom Truth Time Memory Beauty Justice Change Curiosity Daily Practice The Self

Amber chips are canonical. Green chips are your own.

03 · The payoff

Your Commonplace

The more you read, the more your Commonplace finds connections you didn't see. Surfc gets smarter the longer you use it.

An idea cloud from the Inner Life section — its Mind and Self branches — with ideas like Reasoning, Learning, Judgment, Creativity, Consciousness and Habit, each sized by how many notes are filed under it.
Fig. iInner Life
An idea cloud from the Thinking & Doing section — its Knowledge & Systems and Action & Work branches — with ideas like Systems, Explanation, Language, Causation, Strategy and Decision, sized by note count.
Fig. iiThinking & Doing
An idea cloud from the Living Together section — its Power & Society and Relationships & Ethics branches — with ideas like Institutions, Conflict, Morality, Trust, Markets and Freedom, sized by note count.
Fig. iiiLiving Together
An idea cloud from The World — its Time & Change and World & Meaning branches — with ideas like Change, Progress, History, Art, Life and the Sacred, sized by note count.
Fig. ivThe World
An idea cloud of your own custom ideas — Trust and Dogma.
Fig. vYour own ideas

04 · Plus

Built for how you actually read

Library & notes

Capture by photo or jot insights directly. Every note keeps its page and book attribution.

Sync across devices

Notes live locally first and sync when online.

Offline-first & private

Everything works without a connection. End-to-end encryption at rest with AES-256-GCM.

From the beta

Early readers

I thought I remembered what I read. Turns out I remembered the feeling. Surfc keeps the actual ideas.
Evelyn A. beta reader · 20 notes captured
The photo-to-text pipeline is the first one I've trusted with handwriting. It caught a marginal note I'd forgotten I wrote four years ago.
Alex O. beta reader · 11 notes captured

Common questions

FAQ

Who is Surfc for?
Surfc is for people who annotate books, build commonplace notebooks, or study recurring themes across disciplines.
How do I capture printed passages?
Use the camera inside Surfc to take a photo. The ingestion pipeline transcribes the marked text and preserves page context.
Can I capture handwritten notes?
Yes. Photograph handwritten pages; Surfc keeps the handwriting image and transcribes the text for search.
Will my notes sync across devices?
Notes live locally first and sync across your devices when online. Expect instant local saves and background conflict-aware sync.
Is my data private?
Yes. Notes are encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM and stay offline unless you choose to sync.

Take the next step

Build your Commonplace

So the next time you sit down to write, you're not starting from a blank page.

Surfc is free to use. Practitioner is for heavier readers when you're ready.

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