These tiny Kindle Scribe tricks completely elevated my digital notebook

• Start using the fountain pen
• Use the highlighter

It’s a big moment for the Kindle Scribe lineup. Amazon is wrapping up 2025 with three new Scribes: the third-gen Kindle Scribe and the first ever Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, with a more affordable third-gen Scribe without a front light shipping in early 2026. It’s never been more exciting to tote around a digital notebook, and I’m prepared to walk into the New Year without any of my paper notebooks.

I’ve been a Scribe user for two months now, and I think I’ve cultivated quite the aesthetic note-taking method. Before using a Scribe, I used to rely on basic colored pens to make my notes look pretty. I didn’t have a quill and ink lying around just waiting to make my meeting notes a vibe, but the Kindle Scribe actually puts those kinds of tools in my hand.

While I now sport the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, the writing tips I’m about to share with you can be done on any of the three Kindle Scribe models. I’ll show you how I elevate my notebooks on any Kindle Scribe below.

Start using the fountain pen

Trust the process

Fountain pens are classic writing utensils that, in real life, deliver ink onto paper via an internal ink cartridge. Some people find them messy or hard to use because they require varying levels of pressure to control ink flow. I was given a fountain pen as a gift (what’s more appropriate for a writer), and while it sits pretty on my desk, it would be a nightmare for jotting meeting notes. I’d end up an inky mess — absent of the aesthetic I was chasing.

The Kindle Scribe’s fountain pen doesn’t have the same learning curve. The variation in thickness seems calibrated to the direction of your strokes, so the pen behaves exactly as a fountain pen should if you knew how to use one. It’s like driving an automatic version of a sports car — almost the exact same experience without needing to know how to drive stick.

The fountain pen makes your notes look completely elevated with zero extra effort. When a colleague asks me to share notes, I feel quite posh sending anything written with the tool. If your handwriting is half-decent with the regular pen, it will look even better with the fountain pen. If it teeters into illegible territory, you’ll want to try the next tip.

Summarize is another tool worth using

Sometimes speed is more important than aesthetics, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on either once everything is said and done — especially with a digital notebook like the Kindle Scribe. Amazon baked various AI features into its tablets, and I can use them even on the first-gen Scribe. There are two I want to hone in on: Summarize and Refine writing.

Summarize does exactly what it sounds like: it takes a single page or an entire notebook and uses AI to give you a quick summary of what you wrote. Refine writing, on the other hand, takes your handwritten notes and converts them into clean, typed text. You can customize the new font depending on your Kindle model, and it’s a lifesaver when your boss asks for scribbled notes you’d prefer not to be judged for.

Use the highlighter

Easiest way to make your notes distinct

While sometimes Amazon’s marketing portrays every Scribe user as a digital artist in their spare time, not all of us have the time (or skills) to make our notes look worthy of a Powerpoint presentation. I sure don’t, but I found the simplest way to elevate my notes from ‘wall of text’ to something nicer to look at: the highlighter.

The Scribe’s stylus has a programmable action button near the bottom of the grip, but it defaults to acting as a highlighter when held down.

As soon as I started using it to highlight titles, important bullet points, and even days of the week on my planner, my notebooks instantly looked more intentional and put-together. They also became more distinct in my workspace thanks to their little preview icons. I spent a lot less time opening my ‘random thoughts’ notebook when I was actually looking for the ‘profound thoughts’ one.