An Apple Notes alternative for Mac, with charts, LaTeX and Word export

Yes, if your notes live on one Mac and you've outgrown plain notes: Koi has charts drawn from a table, LaTeX equations and Word export, which Apple Notes doesn't. No, if you need your notes on your iPhone or iPad, or want them free. Koi is Mac only, doesn't sync, and needs a paid plan.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Every fact about Apple Notes comes from Apple's own guides, or a dated report where we say so, checked October 16, 2026. We didn't run tests.

Apple Notes is free, built into every Mac, and syncs through iCloud, or keeps notes on the Mac only in its On My Mac account. In Apple's guides:

• Tables are plain grids, with no formulas, sorting or charts.
• Math Notes solves sums and variables you type, but doesn't draw LaTeX.
• Record Audio, from a note's attachment button, records with a live transcript on Macs with M1 or later, in about ten languages. Apple Intelligence can summarize it.
• Notes exports to PDF or Markdown files, and copies as Markdown. Word isn't on the list. It imports Markdown, text, RTF, HTML and Evernote files.

macOS 26 Tahoe saves recordings of calls from the Phone app into Notes, with their transcripts (Apple Newsroom). macOS 27 added drawing with the trackpad, Markdown copy and paste, dividers and links to sections, plus Write with Siri, in beta and in English first (MacRumors, September 17, 2026). Sources: tables, Math Notes, recording, export.

Type /table in a Koi document and you get a table like Notion's simple ones: add rows and columns from the bars beside it, drag them around, resize them, colour cells and paste a spreadsheet straight in. Type /chart and pick one of 11 kinds: bar, horizontal bar, stacked bar, line, area, pie, donut, scatter, bar and line, heatmap and radar.

Each chart is drawn from a small table of its own, called Data, under it. Change a number and the chart follows. Its numbers can be written on the chart itself, and its download pill saves it as a picture. Apple Notes has no charts. More on Koi's documents.

Type /equation, or type LaTeX between $$ and $$ as you write, and Koi draws the equation in the page. Click it to change it. Apple's Math Notes works the other way round: it solves what you type, which is handy for sums, but it doesn't typeset an equation for class notes or a paper. Comparing LaTeX apps? See our list of notes apps with LaTeX for Mac.

Any Koi document exports to Word or PDF, with tables as real tables and charts as drawn. Pick A4, US Letter, A5 or US Legal at the top of a page and it becomes a sheet of that paper, and Word, PDF and printing come out the same. Share… sends a PDF to Mail, Messages, AirDrop or Slack, and Copy as Markdown puts a page on the clipboard.

Apple Notes exports PDF and Markdown files, not Word. That's a real gap if a note has to go to someone as a .docx. It goes the other way for Markdown: Notes exports Markdown files, and Koi has no way to export all its documents as Markdown at once.

Apple's guide for Record Audio says how to record in a note, and says nothing about recording a Zoom, Meet or FaceTime call, so we won't guess what it hears.

Koi is made for calls. Tap Fn + ⌃ and pick Online call, and Koi listens to your microphone as You and what the Mac plays as Them, everyone else on the call. It writes both down on your Mac with Whisper, films the screen with both sides' sound, and keeps it all on your Mac. No bot joins. Pick In person for a meeting or a class in the room, and the page keeps the sound to play back.

When a recording ends, Koi asks whether to write its notes. With a yes, the transcript's words go to Koi's AI for a title, a short summary and your to-dos. Koi doesn't announce itself to the call, so ask people before you record. More on recording calls on your Mac.

Tap Fn + ⌥ in any app, Notes included, talk, and Koi types what you say where your cursor is. It runs on your Mac, works offline, and knows 57 languages. Notes' audio transcription covers about ten. macOS 27 also improved the Mac's own dictation, and our Apple Dictation alternatives page compares the two. More on Koi's dictation.

Write with Siri, in macOS 27, helps with your writing. Koi does that too: select text anywhere, tap Fn + ⌘ and say “make it shorter”. It also writes whole pages. Say “make me a page comparing these plans” and Koi writes it, tables and all. Ask “what did Sam say about pricing?” and it answers from your own pages and recorded calls. And Make study notes turns any page, or a PDF or slides you import, into a summary, flashcards and a quiz.

Koi's AI is online. Your documents, your dictation and your call transcripts stay on your Mac; what a question needs goes to Koi's AI with it, and is kept nowhere.

From each app's own site, checked October 16, 2026: Bear and Notion, with Apple's guides above.

Bear beats Koi on price and has an iPhone app, with LaTeX and Word export of its own. Koi's edge over Bear is charts drawn from a table rather than code, plus dictation, calls and an AI. More on Bear in our Bear alternatives page, and on Notion in our offline Notion alternative page.

1. In Notes, pick a note and choose File, then Export To, then Markdown.
2. In Koi, choose File, then Import…, or Import in the Documents panel, and pick the file.
3. Koi reads it on your Mac and makes a page of its words. Do the same for each note you want to bring over.

Koi also imports PDFs, Word files, PowerPoint slides and text files the same way.

Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once: $59 for the first 25 buyers, rising to $199, with a limited amount of Koi usage included. Documents, dictation and recorded calls are unlimited on every plan; only the AI is counted. See the plans.