Lasso
How to use the reMarkable move text lasso
The lasso is the reMarkable move text tool that does almost all the work. The icon (a dotted circle) lives in the right-side toolbar on every reMarkable device. To use it: tap the lasso icon, drag your pen in a closed loop around the content you want to move, lift the pen. The selection appears as a dashed outline and the action menu floats next to it: move, copy, paste, change colour, change size, delete.
To move the selected ink, drag from inside the dashed outline to the new position. The reMarkable repositions the entire group of strokes as a unit. The pen pressure data and the original strokes are preserved; you are not redrawing, you are translating. Lift the pen when the selection sits where you want it. The dashed outline persists for a few seconds in case you want to move again or change colour, then dismisses on its own.
Steps
The full reMarkable move text workflow, step by step
Open the lasso tool from the toolbar.
The toolbar icon is the dotted-circle shape, sixth from the top on the right side. On the rM2 and Paper Pro it is in the same position; the Paper Pro Move has a slightly compact toolbar but the icon is identical. Tap it; the cursor switches from pen to selection mode.
Draw a closed loop around the content.
Drag your pen around the handwriting or typed text you want to move. The loop does not have to be a clean circle; the device closes any open loop automatically. Include only the content you want; everything inside the loop becomes part of the selection.
Drag the selection or use the action menu.
Inside the dashed outline, drag with your pen to reposition. Or tap an icon in the floating action menu (move, copy, change size, change colour, delete). For cross-page moves, tap copy, navigate to the destination page, tap the lasso again, then paste from the action menu.
Tap outside the selection to commit.
The dashed outline persists for a few seconds in case you want to make another move. Tap anywhere outside the selection to commit and return to the regular pen tool. Undo (the back arrow at the top of the toolbar) reverses the move if needed.
The four-step pattern works for any selection: handwriting, typed text, mixed content, even small images you have pasted in. The reMarkable move text feature treats all of them as objects that can be repositioned without redrawing. The key insight is that you are translating existing strokes, not creating new ones.
Typed
Moving typed text specifically (the small variant)
Typed text on the reMarkable lives in text frames created by the Type tool. There are two ways to move a typed text block. The lasso approach above works the same as for handwriting: loop around it, drag. The faster approach is tapping the typed block once with your finger or pen, which surfaces the frame handles (small dots at the corners and edges); drag the frame border to reposition the entire block. The frame approach is more precise for small adjustments because you are dragging a known boundary, not freehand.
The frame approach also lets you resize the text block by dragging the corner handles, which the lasso does not. For changing typed text from one font size to another while keeping it in place, frame handles are the right path. For moving typed text across the page or between pages, lasso plus copy-paste is faster.
Gotchas
Common gotchas with reMarkable move text
Three issues account for most reMarkable move text questions in the community forum. First, lasso selections do not work across pages in a single action. To move content from page 3 to page 5, lasso, copy, navigate, paste. The reMarkable does not have a true cross-page drag. Second, lasso through a stroke that crosses a margin selects the whole stroke; you cannot select half a line of handwriting cleanly. Third, the lasso ignores anything not visible on screen at the moment of the loop, so zoom level matters. Zoom out to capture more content in one selection, zoom in for precision moves.
One firmware-specific gotcha: on rM firmware versions before 3.10, the lasso would occasionally drop selections if you lifted your pen too quickly. That bug was fixed in 3.10 and has not returned. If you are seeing it, the device is on old firmware; update through Settings, Software updates. For a wider walk-through of the device’s daily-use features, our how to use reMarkable 2 piece covers the broader workflow on the rM2, and how to use reMarkable Paper Pro covers the same ground on the larger device.
If you have a reMarkable move text workflow we did not cover (advanced lasso patterns, cross-document moves, OCR conversions), drop it in the comments. The community knows the device’s edges better than the official docs do.
FAQ
Common questions, answered briefly
How do you move text on a reMarkable 2?
Can you move typed text on a reMarkable Paper Pro?
Can you move text between pages on a reMarkable?
Why does the reMarkable move text lasso miss part of the selection?
Does the reMarkable move text feature work in PDF documents?
If yours isn’t above, drop the question in the comments and we’ll fold it in next refresh.
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