Butterfly 2.6 brings OneNote & Xournal++ import, canvas rotation, and UX many improvements

The wait is finally over for Butterfly users. Linwood has officially released version 2.6, code-named “Dreamy Duskywing”, marking a major milestone for the open-source, cross-platform note-taking application. The stable release comes at a particularly celebratory moment, coinciding with the project's GitHub repository surpassing 2,000 stars, a testament to its growing community of contributors and users. After extensive development involving nightly testers, translators, bug reporters, and code contributors, the team describes this as a comprehensive update packed with substantial new features.

The update introduces several headline features aimed at improving both functionality and usability. New import support for Microsoft OneNote and Xournal++ files makes migration to Butterfly more accessible for existing users of those platforms, though developers caution that OneNote's complex format may occasionally produce imperfect conversions. Other notable additions include canvas rotation, persistent document states, paint and preset tools, WebDAV remote encryption and backups, tables, and smarter template file naming. The collaboration system received particular attention, with reliability improvements making session initiation less prone to connection failures, while embedded documents now support full-screen mode with fixed menu items and page-switching functionality.

Beyond feature additions, Butterfly 2.6 delivers significant UX refinements throughout the interface. Settings panels were rebuilt for consistency with additional descriptions and direct documentation links, while sidebar thumbnails help users quickly distinguish between different page types like mathematical notes and sketches. The areas' system was enhanced with color customization, bulk operations across multiple pages, and direct layer management that eliminates previous workarounds. With these improvements coupled with underlying performance gains, “Dreamy Duskywing” represents one of the most substantial updates in Butterfly's development history, positioning the application more competitively in the open-source productivity software landscape.