Open Notebook

An open source, privacy-focused alternative to Google's Notebook LM!
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Setup · Usage · Transformations · Podcasts

Table of Contents

1. About The Project
   • Built With
2. Setting Up
   • Prerequisites
   • Installation
3. Usage
4. Features
5. Roadmap
6. Contributing
7. License
8. Contact
9. Acknowledgments

About The Project

An open source, privacy-focused alternative to Google's Notebook LM. Why give Google more of our data when we can take control of our own research workflows?

In a world dominated by Artificial Intelligence, having the ability to think 🧠 and acquire new knowledge 💡, is a skill that should not be a privilege for a few, nor restricted to a single provider.

Open Notebook empowers you to manage your research, generate AI-assisted notes, and interact with your content—on your terms.

Learn more about our project at https://www.open-notebook.ai

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Built With

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⚙️ Setting Up

Go to the Setup Guide to learn how to set up the tool in details.

To setup with Docker/Portainer:

version: '3'

services:
  surrealdb:
    image: surrealdb/surrealdb:v2
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    volumes:
      - surreal_data:/mydata
    command: start --log trace --user root --pass root rocksdb:/mydata/mydatabase.db
    pull_policy: always
    user: root

  open_notebook:
    image: lfnovo/open_notebook:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8502"
    env_file:
      - ./docker.env
    depends_on:
      - surrealdb
    pull_policy: always

volumes:
  surreal_data:

Take a look at the Open Notebook Boilerplate repo with a sample of how to set it up for maximum feature usability.

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Usage

Go to the Usage page to learn how to use all features.

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Features

• Multi-Notebook Support: Organize your research across multiple notebooks effortlessly.
• Multi-model support: Open AI, Anthropic, Gemini, Vertex AI, Open Router, Ollama.
• Podcast Generator: Automatically convert your notes into a podcast format.
• Broad Content Integration: Works with links, PDFs, EPUB, Office, TXT, Markdown files, YouTube videos, Audio files, Video files and pasted text.
• AI-Powered Notes: Write notes yourself or let the AI assist you in generating insights.
• Integrated Search Engines: Built-in full-text and vector search for faster information retrieval.
• Fine-Grained Context Management: Choose exactly what to share with the AI to maintain control.

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🚀 New Features

v0.0.10 - Gemini podcast model

• Added the Gemini model for generating much more fluid and engaging podcasts

v0.0.9 - Ask your Documents and Citations ❓

• Ask questions about your documents and get answers with citations

v0.0.7 - Model Management 🗂️

• Manage your AI models and providers in a single interface
• Define default models for several tasks such as chat, transformation, embedding, etc
• Enabled support for Embedding models from Gemini, Vertex and Ollama

v0.0.6 - ePub and Office files support 📄

You can now process ePub and Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), extracting text and insights from them. Perfect for books, reports, presentations, and more.

v0.0.5 - Audio and Video support 📽️

You can now process audio and video files, extracting transcripts and insights from them. Perfect for podcasts, interviews, lectures, and more.

v0.0.4 - Podcasts 🎙️

You can now build amazing custom podcasts based on your own data. Customize your speakers, episode structure, cadence, voices, etc.

Check out a sample using my own voice created on Eleven Labs and a interview format.

You can generate your podcast in dozens of languages.

Head to the Podcasts page for more info

v0.0.3 - Transformations ✨

We just release a much more powerful way to create more value from your sources. Transformations enable you do extract an unlimited amount of insights from your content. It's 100% customizable and you can extend it to your own needs, like Paper Analysis, Article Writing, etc.

Head to the Transformations page for more info

v0.0.2 - Several new providers are supported now:

• OpenAI
• Anthropic
• Open Router
• LiteLLM
• Vertex AI
• Ollama

📝 Notebook Page

Three intuitive columns to streamline your work:

1. Sources: Manage all research materials.
2. Notes: Create or AI-generate notes.
3. Chat: Chat with the AI, leveraging your content.

⚙️ Context Configuration

Take control of your data. Decide what gets sent to the AI with three context options:

• No context
• Summary only
• Full content

Plus, you can add your project description to help the AI provide more accurate and helpful responses.

🔍 Integrated Search for Your Items

Locate anything across your research with ease using full-text and vector-based search.

💬 Powerful open prompts

Jinja based prompts that are easy to customize to your own preferences.

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Roadmap

• Live Front-End Updates: Real-time UI updates for a smoother experience.
• Async Processing: Faster UI through asynchronous content processing.
• Cross-Notebook Sources and Notes: Reuse research notes across projects.
• Bookmark Integration: Integrate with your favorite bookmarking app.
• ✅ Multi-model support: Open AI, Anthropic, Vertex AI, Open Router, Ollama, etc.
• ✅ Insight Generation: New tools for creating insights - transformations
• ✅ Podcast Generator: Automatically convert your notes into a podcast format.
• ✅ Multiple Chat Sessions: Juggle different discussions within the same notebook.
• ✅ Enhanced Citations: Improved layout and finer control for citations.
• ✅ Better Embeddings & Summarization: Smarter ways to distill information.

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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Contributing

We would love your contributions! Specifically, we're looking for help with:

• Front-End Development: Improve the UI/UX by moving beyond Streamlit.
• Testing & Bug Fixes: Help make Open Notebook more robust.
• Feature Development: Let’s make the coolest note-taking tool together!

See more at CONTRIBUTING

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License

Open Notebook is MIT licensed. See the LICENSE file for details.

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Contact

Luis Novo - @lfnovo

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Acknowledgments

This project uses some amazing third-party libraries

• Podcastfy - Licensed under the Apache License 2.0

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