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Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?
42 points by simon_acca on June 21, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 85 comments
Hi all,

going trough college, it struck me that notes are still mostly a pen and paper business. At least, that is my experience, as well as my colleague's, for anything that is not plain text.

I found that there is no app that allows me to quickly mix together text, math formulas, code, images, sketches, graphs, and other kinds of media (yes, yes, I hear you invoke the mighty LaTeX... but can you write correct LaTeX on-the-fly?).

I would like to tackle this problem by building a platform for storing and sharing your personal knowledge, and it would help greatly to hear other people's insights on this matter.

    So, what I am asking is: do you take complex notes with a computing device? 
    If yes: 
      how? what method, device, app?
      do you re-process your notes offline?
      would you like some functionality that you don't have in your system?
    If not:
      what is missing from current technology that would allow you to do so?
      would you want to upgrade from paper to a computer or tablet application that suits your needs?
Thank you!

p.s. In case you want updates on this, check back on http://taquino.it in a few months or send me an email (see HN profile)




I keep notes in text files in sublime. If I want to search, I just do a text search. I generally have many, many tabs (don't the old folks call them text buffers?) open, and when I go through a weekly cleanup of these I find that they fall into two categories:

Stuff that was just, say, a couple of lines of code or urls, short todo lists that have been todone, long lists of credentials, research.

I delete the stuff I don't think I'll need and store the rest in an encrypted store on my main machine.

To your question, these things are things I almost never want to share with folks, my sketches / doodles /etc are generally ephemeral on purpose, and my images are usually parts of projects or collections of similar media, not part of my "notes", and code, of course, is very good in plain text.

Keep in mind that there are reasons why people, myself included, still take notes on pen and paper. For me, it's a single function thing that keeps me focused on the people I am meeting with... I've never gotten a distracting email on my spiral full of graph paper.

So here's an issue you can solve: I totally don't think that there is an "upgrade" for pen and paper in the situations that I use it.


I sometimes have a yearning for a text program like emacs or sublime that can handle images, formulas or other graphical material as easily as paper or onenote. That way I could keep these things together. Not enough that I can't just dump that stuff into a folder, but enough that I find occasional friction.

And though I've never gotten a distracting email on paper, I find it quite easy to do distracting things like doodle, plan dinner, read previous notes, daydream, etc.

EDIT: As I'm brainstorming this, I can see linking to images on the filesystem using a markdown like syntax, then having those images appear when reviewing the notes. Perhaps quickly switching to a program for drawing or automatically syncing pictures of my paper notes or drawings to my PC so I can quickly link those files into the document I am working on.


Since you mentioned emacs, org-mode has the ability to attach files and show image files within the buffer, and it handles previewing latex formulas too.

The problem with these kind of system is that you always need the emacs open, because opening emacs and find the org file you want is too much a friction comparing to opening up a note book and start writing/doodling.


I take notes, then take pictures of the pages. I really have no need for notes to be converted to text or any special format as they are for review only.

That being said, an app where I can create a folder for, or tag the photos of my notes for the class or conference, put the pictures I took in that category to easily flip through them, and then be able to virtually highlight them, create bookmarks in them, or mark over them with a virtual sharpy would be awesome.


I'd love to find this. I have a case of notes from college that I'd like to reference again, if only for my own interest. I'm not sure it's worth the effort to go through and digitize 3 dozen notebooks, but there's information in there I'd like to have and I didn't really think much about long term recall when I was in college. I wish the capability of taking pictures and quickly digitizing them existed at the time I went to school.


If you're alright with destroying the notebooks, you could try removing the spines and running them through a tray-fed scanner. That would be much faster than taking individual pictures/scans of each page.


There is http://modnotebooks.com/ which goes kinda in the direction you want but also totally different.


I've been really, really into https://dynalist.io/ since discovering it last week. It's basically Workflowy plus LaTeX and Markdown (huge!) support, which solves 100% of the issues I have with Workflowy. There's also options to create folders and organize like that, and not just have one root tree from which you make sections. Highly recommended if you're like me and love just puking out notes all day on virtually everything in your life.


> I found that there is no app that allows me to quickly mix together text, math formulas, code, images, sketches, graphs, and other kinds of media (yes, yes, I hear you invoke the mighty LaTeX... but can you write correct LaTeX on-the-fly?).

This is where OneNote with a proper pen & digitizer screen really shines. It allows you to switch seamlessly between text and ink in your notes (it switches between text and ink mode automatically depending on the proximity of your pen tip), and attach any kind of multimedia you might need to your notes (including recordings that are time-synced with your note-taking, which I used often for lectures).

I bought a used HP TM2T with a Wacom pen & digitizer when I started college to use for note-taking and it was an amazing investment, allowing me to pretty much ditch pen and paper altogether when it comes to note-taking. And I was in an engineering program full of lectures involving long math equations and circuits diagrams that would have been impossible to draw in a timely manner without a pen.

Keeping all my notes in a proprietary format is still a scary prospect, but I haven't found any other note taking app that even approaches OneNote in terms of proper pen support and general usefulness.


I bought an older Android tablet (Galaxy Note) because I needed a light-weight device to take notes. It has an integrated pen for writing.

Also, there is MyScript Notes [0][1], which is an incredible app with text recognition, where you can add images and formulas and export your notes to PDF or LaTeX (even converting the formulas to LaTeX code). You can easily select and move, resize or copy/paste everything and it is quite fast on my tablet. You can also take pictures from the camera and paste them directly into the notebook, which is really neat.

I use it for everything I do, and thanks to text recognition, you can easily search all notebooks for specific keywords. There is a limited free version you can check out, paid is $2.

I am not affiliated with them, just enthusiastic about it.

[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscript-smart-note-handwrit...

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.myscript.s...


I like Notes in iOS/macOS. I really like having it on my phone and mac. I would like it if it was markdown or something to style them more, but the updates they released in the past year is an improvement.

Im glad you mentioned math formulas. One thing I can't do, that would be nice to do in Notes is someway to do math. I like to calculate what each contestant should bet for Final Jeopardy! and it's hard to do it in Notes.


I find writing aids my recall. I have experimented with a surface pro 3 and it is ok, if you need them digitized, but less convenient then paper. (sometimes I accidentally hit a button or exit my notetaking app, sometimes I find myself wanting to do special formatting and not knowing how to, etc.) Its recognition and comfort are fine, however.

Notes are for you to recall the material better. What helps you with that?


> there is no app that allows me to quickly mix together text, math formulas, code, images, sketches, graphs, and other kinds of media

This is why, try as I might, I just can't ditch Microsoft OneNote. groans from the audience I'm telling you the OneNote team has their shit together.

I take most of my notes on my iPhone 6+ in meetings, when I need the WPM boost I switch to my Mac. I'm going to get an iPad Pro soon so I can use the pencil to draw on my notes but for now I use the excellent whiteboard photo taking feature to snap pictures of paper notes and whiteboards. It does a great job of running filters over the photo so it looks like I drew right in the app.

I'm also working on a book in OneNote and while I wish it had more features like Scrivener I find that I'm getting by just fine.

I hope this helps.


> I'm telling you the OneNote team has their shit together.

Except when it comes down to printing your notes. At least on OneNote for Mac (2016), printing is handicapped as there seems to be no way to scale or resize 'pages', or insert page breaks (as in Excel).


I used to use OneNote a lot (partly because my high school used it a lot). It was alright, but the free version on the Windows Store is horrible and I don't have enough use for it to pay for the full version.

I've tried using the notes app on my iPhone but it's just not quick enough to write things down in - although that might be because I have a 5s with a smaller screen than newer phones. I've used it when I have been without a pen a couple of times, but other than that I have very little use for it.

I think I used Evernote once and it just seemed like an early-2000s version of one note.

Ideally what I want is MediaWiki in a .exe or .app. Most other wiki programs seem to be inferior to OneNote for me, but I'd love to have my own offline Wikipedia of my life and projects.


MediaWiki.{exe|app} exactly! That's what I'm trying to build, and this is the best description I've heard so far :)

Related question: would you prefer this to be local or on the cloud? I am oriented towards a cloud service because of cross-platform support and auto sync between devices, but open to suggestions.


Have you looked at TiddlyWiki? http://tiddlywiki.com/

It's a simple wiki-on-a-page, with collapsing and linking built in. You can also keep it completely off-line, or have it sync with your preferred solution (Dropbox in my case).


I absolutely must have control over my own notes. The primary reason I'm using org-mode + dropbox is that I can replace that system with some other file-sync on my own if dropbox goes away.


Well, it'd be nice (well, actually, quite necessary) for it to be available offline.


What platform are you on? I can think of several programs that fit at least some of this bill:

Emacs with Org Mode and deft

Zim

Circus Ponies notebook

Devon Think

Notational velocity with its wiki like linking

Tomboy notes

many more that I could list with time

Some of these will have various limitations such as not supporting images or not allowing easy drawings, etc, but many would come without the overhead of wiki markup.


I'm on Windows 10.

Images (as well as tables) are kinda a bit of a must for me. I don't find Wiki markup to have much overhead in practice.


Take a look at http://scribbleton.com/


Onenote (native) is free. I use it on windows 10. Are you sure you're downloading it from the right place? Try spoofing your windows version.


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rocketbook-wave-cloud-rea...

Rocket book is awesome. You can take pictures of your notes and email them into the app. When done you can microwave the notebook to wipe the data and start over. It's awesome. I used to use One Note, Evernote with a special notebook that did almost the same thing.


I like to draw stuff around my notes and add some visual clues that allow me to quickly find something and also help with memorisation.

Using just a keyboard is not enough for me. So to me, that's first a hardware problem, then a software problem.

I first tried using a wacom bamboo board with OneNote on a PC (in 2012). That was terrible. The process of settings things up was really cumbersome and navigating throught the note afterward was hyper painful. I also remeber being frustrated by not being able to properly print the whole thing.

I then tried a ipad mini with a set of stylus. Didn't like the feeling and also couldn't find any good software to manage my notes.

More rencently, my girlfriend got me a iSketchnote. It just doens't work. Maybe my unit was faulty, but review were bad so I didn't bother trying to send it back.

I'm considering the iPad pro, but I really hate my iPad mini and really think iOS for tablet is a really frustrating experience...

side note: I would have loved some OCR that generates proper latex... but as a student, I wouldn't have paid much for it. As a quant in a bank. I don't really need it anymore. And I can't really think of anyone who would.


I use OmniOutliner on Mac with a custom template to take notes at university. I have a two-column template that allows me to write questions/cues for notes which then go into Anki. I'd like to have a more flexible way to work with the content, such as being able to create Anki cards from content seamlessly, and yeah, inline LaTeX formatting and diagrams would be really nice.

Something programmable/hackable is what I'd be looking for; it'd also be neat if everything was all part of one knowledge graph like Workflowy.

More on the process: http://markbao.com/notes/college-strategies#note-taking

I've gotten nearly as fast as writing on paper for creating diagrams (in OmniGraffle) and LaTeX (with Mac app LaTeXiT), and being able to clearly read my notes without deciphering things outweighs the extra time spent typing.


Video recorded with my cell phone (ask if your professor is okay with it). Also took notes by hand, something about writing down helped with memory retention. Followed it up with manual conversion into flashcards in anki http://ankisrs.net/ .


I've used most of the tools mentioned here. Plain text or Google keep work fine for most of my notes. But I often need to sketch things and I have yet to find hardware/software that can beat pen+paper for responsiveness. If I want a digital copy I'll take a picture but tablets just can't keep up.


Pen and Paper works for me. If it aint broke, don't fix it.


I've tried a few different methods.

Two years ago, I switched to using Evernote and just recently back to pen and paper. The two big issues that I had with Evernote where:

(1) It didn't really support a nice view for code snippets & diagrams

(2) I don't really want to store my notes "forever"

To me, notes are ephemeral. I want to hold on to them only as long as I need them and then either toss them or copy them into a more formal document structure.

These days, I keep all my notes on a legal pad as just one running disorganize scroll. Once a week, I go through the pad, tear out all of the pages that I wrote on. Then I copy all of the notes that I still need on to a clean sheet of paper and toss the old ones. The copying process helps me to review the notes and internalize them.

If notes are really important enough that I need to keep them long-term. Then I type them up into a nice LaTeX document, convert it to a pdf and print it out. Then inevitably end up writing all over the print out.

I don't think an application could be made to make me switch. The mechanical process of hand writing helps with memory and couldn't be replicated with a computer environment. As for my document store. I prefer everything to be in plaintext on my system where I can automate a lot of my interaction with the documents. If anything, I would like an easier method for asset management -- I take pictures with my phone of my hand drawn diagrams to include as illustrations in my documents. The process of take a picture, get it on my linux box, clip the photo to the relevant section, put it in an asset directory, and link to it still has too many steps. But I'm hoping to automate that myself one of these days.

Just as an aside. It seems like a lot of note-taking applications keep focusing on team-note-taking. Which doesn't do anything for me. I take notes for myself. They are often rude, crude, and full of shorthand jibberish that I don't expect team mates to ever understand more or less look at.


A good, old-fashioned tablet PC: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X201_Tablet

All the advantages of handwriting, none of the problems of managing stacks of paper.


Bit late to this party, but I've been using WikidPad(http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/) for years. It's OneNote for geeks.

Less capable of rich multi-media than OneNote, altough it handles basics like images perfectly.

LaTeX plugin for math.

Python-based, and easily hackable or extendable with plugins. Oh, and, open source (https://github.com/WikidPad/WikidPad/).

File format is based on SQLite with plain text files, so perfectly compatible with version control, and you'll never lose access to your content.


Used to use Evernote, then Notes in macOS, but I'm still a pen and paper person as it allows me ultimate flexibility. I also record audio on my phone, write a time in my notes next to anything I need to review later. I just don't retain the information nearly as well if I type. Using a pen/pencil like tool on a screen wouldn't work for me as I use the texture of the pen and paper as a guide to look away while still scratching down notes. As weird as it is, the act of turning a page and marking the date in the corner places a marker in my mind for when I review; practically takes me back to the moment I was writing the notes.


> I hear you invoke the mighty LaTeX... but can you write correct LaTeX on-the-fly?

Actually, I used to do exactly this when I was studying physics. I'd use a pencil and paper to copy down figures, but copied down derivations and text notes in LaTeX. I slowly built a pile of macros for things I commonly did. I ended up being way faster with that than with just a pencil and paper, especially when we were working on derivations (copy & paste makes equation reuse super easy).

I'd pretty up the document after class and add in the figures. The process of doing that seemed to really solidify the stuff in my memory more than the actual transcription did.


do you take complex notes with a computingdevice? Yes

how? Using my favourite text editor (Geany), following my own standardized protocol [1]

do you re-process your notes offline? Yes. Perl script reads the txt files, writes as an Asciidoctor file with tags and cross references. Asciidoctor then writes that as a html file with three frames; i Index, linking to ... ii Short form html of all notes, each abbreviated to first 5 lines, with ... iii The full dataset pretty printed, with hyperlinks forwards and backwards between entries

would you like some functionality that you don't have in your system? Yes - I would like automatic addition of cross refs between enries, as function of contents of each entry.

what is missing from current technology ? I used to use CherryTree, and before that TiddlyWiki. I also tried MySimpleLogbook, and I dabbled with facetted classification. I found that hierarchical classification schemes dont suit my needs; for me a rich set of hyperlinks is much better. I also found it useful to be able to browse the whole dataset, each entry being reduced to just the top five lines, with "click here" to read the whole entry

And I found it useful to have a choice of four indexes - i chronological order, ii alph order of topic, iii alph order of tags, iv tagcloud, - each index entry giving hyperlink to the full text

[1] In the parent text file each entry looks like this

        ymdHMS
        Topic; subtopic
        
        Description as plain text. 
        Links are written as plain text. Links "html://foo.bar.html", "file://bar/foo.txt" are detected during processing and appear as <a href=...> in the final text.
        Placing illlustrations (pngs and jpgs) in the final output is currently done using Asciidoctor instructions. This is the only place I have to write A'doctor syntax.
        
        Cross ref: ymdHMS of related entry
Currently cross refs A→B have to be written by hand. Perl adds back refs B→A And if B→C, then Perl also adds C→A and A→C

RCH --


I have tried a number of methods and workflows. The one that works best for me is Sublime Text and markdown with Marked 2 (http://marked2app.com/) setup as a build system in ST for previewing the markdown and exporting/printing the markdown file in a number of formats, eg. PDF, HTML, DOCX. I use DropBox for note portability and then I use ByWord (https://bywordapp.com/) on my iOS devices for editing and previewing.


I use simplenote. It's plain text, syncs, is multi platform, and is free. https://simplenote.com/

I find that images, etc, clutter things, and that for me plain text works the best - my snippets are usually code - and it handles that well. I often use urls to link out.

In terms of remembering things - I find typing it out helps, but writing it with pen and paper helps more... and finally the most help is to review your notes. As long as you review soon after taking them, the format almost doesn't matter.


Many thanks for this! Exactly what I needed. I used a simple .txt file in Dropbox.


I use http://marxi.co, which is an excellent markdown to Evernote tool.

This has gotten me through many college courses. Working on my second MS right now.


I use Evernote for non coding notes and Quiver for coding related notes.


This past semester I used a Markdown editor and .md files for most textual notes. It's not difficult to format the text or insert media, plus you can very easily "back them up" using a Git repo or some other versioning system. For example I had a private Github repo for those notes and I could view them whenever I needed to pretty much.

I prefer to stick to handwriting when it comes to math classes purely for the flexibility of being able to sketch/scratch out stuff with relative ease.


For meetings I almost always use a pen and notepad - I'm often the only guy in the room without a laptop.

For project/task notes at my desk I write to a single markdown file in the following format:

    ### Task Name
     * Note about task
     * Another note about task
Every time I save the file, a shellscript makes a date-stamped copy. For searching I wrote a rather obnoxious tool based on lunr.js that indexes the entire history, allowing me to search tasks by content.


Very similar approach, I use emacs and org-mode though at my desk. Paper and pencil for active note-taking.


I use https://getpapier.com/ chrome plugin, its quite handy and its always on your sight.


I use the Atom editor and create markdown files (the markdown plugin is pre-installed). Shift-Ctrl-M to view markdown. I previously used OneNote (which I loved).

Atom search is good enough. The only thing missing is markdown print, but the view is beautiful.

I do wish there was a way to automatically upload my files to a cloud share (google drive, onedrive...). There seem to be ways to upload to github (including private gist's), but cloud drive would be better.


My ideal notes app would be a rich-text offline hierarchical organizer like CherryTree (http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree) with a mobile version and synchronization thru Dropbox or similar (like KeePass).

Cloud solutions are nice, and I've tried several, but it always feels more like a convenience for the provider rather than the consumer.


You can configure org-mode to be a two pane organizer. There is a mobile version in Orgzly or Mobile Org. I keep some of my org files in dropbox and edit them on the go with Orgzly. That said, orgzly doesn't support encryption, which is a bummer.

Neither of them are rich text, either, though you can use markdown.


A hierarchical structure is something I'm very keen on adding. Do you think a tree-like visualization (example: https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4339083 ) would be useful?


If this is what you need, a mindmapping program like Freemind (or commercial alternative) is worth looking into.

Not to hammer the org mode drum, but you can output org-mode to opml and into Freemind for visualization.


For a latex editor that lets you write correct latex insanely fast (through excellent latex autocompletion), have a look at inftyeditor [1].

Don't get fooled by the crappy website. It is a very handy and to-the-point piece of software.

I run it on Xubuntu via Wine.

[1] http://www.inftyproject.org/en/software.html#InftyEditor


I mainly use Emacs, which explains that my notes are all text. I do also have a paper notebook on my desk. If I'm on the phone, I tend to use paper so I don't have to keep switching mute on and off. I've been saying for years that I want to get a digitizer. Probably will arrive for me soon in the form of an iPad Pro. Any suggestions for apps? I don't want proprietary save formats.


I use a combination of methods. For notes that I want to keep and reference later I use Google Drive docs because it provides reasonably advanced formatting tools, ability to insert images, and has tools to export in multiple formats. For short or temporary notes and lists I tend to use Google Keep. I like these two tools because they are available on and sync with my phone.


I've also been working on a notes solution. I've found Evernote's pestering to be very annoying. Apple's notes are fine, but I'd like to use my own editor sometimes. Quip is more complex than what I'm looking for.

Turns out there are a lot of notes apps/systems, and I've been wondering if working on this is a good use of my time.


I use Notes (on Linux) and also helps that its cross platform and open source. At the moment it seems to be working only in plain text mode, but waiting for their future releases. http://www.get-notes.com/#!contribute/cve1


For simple, ephemeral notes, Papier offers note space in each new Chrome tab.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafpl...


I use Simplenote [1] via Notational Velocity [2] on my Mac, and the Simplenote iOS app otherwise.

[1] https://simplenote.com/ [2] http://notational.net/


I'm a huge fan of nvalt. I recently discovered Quiver for Mac and love it even more.


I used a script which organized latex/ screenshots of papers the first two years of my ph.d, which sounds sort if like what your talking about.. After that I switched to (premium) OneNote, mainly for the handwriting capability, which is nicer for quick math notes than latex Imo.


Just want to throw out that I've started using my Galaxy Note 5. This has been indispensable for me. I use it to take notes in meetings and such. The only thing that stinks about it is screen size. I am thinking about getting a Surface for the pen capabilities.


I have been using ZimWiki[0] for some time now. It has been really useful for me as it supports LaTeX. Dropbox can be used to synchronize it. [0]http://zim-wiki.org/


If I'm doodling designs our the like, or if I'm not at my computer (say, at a client's office), it has to be pen and paper. Any other time, it's emacs in org-mode, with source code blocks for code or output.


I use Evernote if that helps, it suits my purpose. Even though I do use some extra hotkeys for formating. The best use out of it for me is the search functionality.


Have you thought about a mindmapping program? A visual representation, with the ability to add files (images, etc) and reorganize easily to assist with studying.


"I found that there is no app that allows me to quickly mix together text, math formulas, images, sketches, graphs, and other kinds of media"

OneNote - with add-ins


I like OneNote, I really do.

But it is not always quick. If you're using a pen and/or the tablet version of outlook, there are some cumbersome menus to navigate. Still not quicker than paper.

EDIT: Though after a reread of the original post, it is faster than LaTex.


What add-ins if I may ask?


Inbox by Gmail offers "reminders" (aka. "to do" items), those are what I use.


Google Keep is good for the odd note, list, or whiteboard picture.

I'd like to have a CLI version.


Since you'll be in the command line and limited to text, why not just text files? deft for emacs is like Notational Velocity. If you store your notes in dropbox, you've got them in the cloud.

There's also org mode, vi, todo.txt, etc. etc. etc. etc....


Exactly, but it could be in Keep (the OP asked what I'd improve). I use a few of the approaches you've suggested as well, which is why I find myself wishing I could do some things from the command line, e.g.:

  keep notes.txt list.yml --remind 'tomorrow morning'
  keep graphviz.png -m 'links #ok'
  keep -n 20 -f > notifications.txt
and so on.


So what do you find to be the primary advantage of keep over those other options? I can see sharing (my wife and I share lists in keep), images (though that's workable in some solutions with filesystem linking and markdown) and reminders (the big gaping hole in org mode for me, I also do reminders in Keep).


The ones you list are the first that come to mind. I also use colors and labels in Keep.

How about a sharing a location based reminder to retrieve an unused network card from a server next time someone visits the datacenter?


nvALT synced with Simplenote (I use the Simplenote app on my phone). These are for the daily, random notes of life.

I use Workflowy for med school notes, which fit better into Workflowy's infinitely expandable/contractable tree nature.


I used wri.pe for a while, it's fast and easy to use. It also supports markdown


MS OneNote. It integrates well with Windows. Plus I can use it on mobile too.


+1 for google keep- simple one-line notes are organized easily, attached webpages are handy, and I can store images too- plus, it syncs to my pebble, so if I make a grocery list it's right there.


I use Zim and Google Keep


iPad pro + magic pencil.


Honest question, but do you like the iPad Pro? I've eyed it, but that's a lot of money to spend for the addition of a pen. I assume you do design or something else that makes that more worth it for you?


Is there going to be an iPad Air 3 at some point, or is the only 9,7" model the iPad Pro going forward, I wonder?


Going back to the question, what apps do you use and how do you like them?


I use the iPad Pro and the pen as well.

For taking handwritten notes, drawing, annotating slides, etc. I use Notability. I reviewed a few of these apps and liked it because it has a macOS version, offers the option to store all files on a local WebDAV (no cloud needed), differentiates between finger (movement) and pen (writing) and is reasonably simple, i.e. quick to use.

I also looked at Evernote and OneNote. Both are fine programs and I am ok with having most of my notes on their servers; just not all of them. OneNote lost a bit lately. It used to have local handwriting recognition. This is now in the cloud. Impractical and a privacy issue.

I also looked at the MS Surface 4 instead of the iPad but found that I rather have a oversized tablet then a laptop with a detachable keyboard. I enjoy a selection of excellent epub readers and touch enabled video players more than a RAW workflow (Darktable, etc.). These were the things I found being much better on the iPad or on the Surface. There are for sure more differences, depending on the user's needs.

On the iPad I also find PDF Expert for PDK journals and books and Hyphen or Marvin for epubs quite useful. Using Working Copy as a git client is nice for occasionally looking at code or keeping notes in ASCII text. Surprisingly typing on the large 12.9 inch screen works well for me. This was not the case with smaller screens.

The iPAD is the paperless office for me as well as a portable library. It could do much more I think. Working on it.

It is also a good player for Netflix, etc. :)


I bought a Surface Pro 3 to use OneNote, and I'm quite happy with it. I think the best part is that instead of having to carry both a laptop and notebooks or paper sheets for taking notes, now I just carry a light laptop. My back is much happier since I stopped carrying around hundreds of sheets (easily weighting more than a conventional laptop) in my backpack. It's not a cheap solution, though: I spent 700€ for the SP3, plus 120€ for the keyboard (not really necessary for taking notes), and this was for the lowest-end model at a time when the SP4 was already out. Think of all the paper you can buy with that...

I take my notes just like I did on paper, which means I hardly use the keyboard. So I just mix handwritten text and math and sketches like on paper. One major advantage, especially for people who, like me, aren't very good at drawing, is that you can delete each line as many times as you want until it comes right. All of a sudden, I can figure out what I've drawn :)

I zoom in for drawing details, and resize stuff when I need to make something bigger e.g. to make the details more visible. Once in a while I insert snippets from exercise sheets and the like so I can draw on them, or fill out tables, etc.

I can't imagine myself figuring out the LaTeX representation for formulas or whatever as I try to copy stuff from a whiteboard. And I'm not going to be solving exercises in LaTeX, either. For me, it was either this or paper; sometimes I need to use paper (for taking exams, if not for anything else) and I don't find it strange at all.

I have handwriting recognition disabled as it doesn't tend to play very well with math formulas and the like, which means I can't use search, but then again paper doesn't offer full-text search either. Having recognition disabled has the added bonus of improving battery life.

I tend to organize my notes as I write them. I rarely reorganize stuff later - it's been like this since I started taking notes on paper. It never takes too long to find what I'm looking for so I'm probably doing this right...

When I need to share stuff with other people I just export the pages from OneNote. But it's still hard to send handwritten stuff through e.g. Skype.

You see, I like this setup so much that I'm willing to put up with Windows even though I don't like it very much. I'm getting a degree in computer engineering and as I move on from math and physics courses I believe I'll stop needing to write so much math, to a point where plain-text files will suffice and I can go back to my beloved Linux shell. But then I can't mix sketches with text...

By the way, when I say OneNote I mean the full Office version, not the Windows Store "app" version, which is still crap. Both are free. However, I think the reason for the success of this method is not so much the software, but the digitizer pen...


My workflow is far from exemplary, and I've often thought about ways to improve it, so good luck with your project. There could be a market there.

I have basically three modes of note-taking: at the computer, in a meeting, and offline. I work remotely, so most of my meetings actually are "at the computer" and on the phone; "in a meeting" means in-person.

At the computer I use a text editor. I don't think it matters which one, as long as it's one you know well. I use TextMate mostly, or Vim as a fallback. When something comes up an actionable task I put it into my personal task tracker, currently Wunderlist but again, that could be anything.

So what happens when I need to draw or diagram something?

I describe, briefly, what I will need to illustrate. Then I go back and illustrate it later if I still think it's worth the trouble.

This works surprisingly well because I learned to touch-type quite young and don't have much of a gap between my mind and the keyboard.

I usually use Markdown (with a bunch of common extensions) so it's easy to include code snippets and simple lists.

In a meeting, where it would be rude to type that much, I keep a pad of paper and a pen, and just write stuff down, occasionally with a diagram. However, these days most drawing-type content from meetings will be photographed and mailed around anyway, so I don't try to copy stuff off of whiteboards. I keep the computer open usually in case something requires immediate action, and I usually type up some notes quickly after the meeting -- but as often as not, somebody else mails out proper minutes so I probably don't need to.

Offline, I'm very old-school: lots of paper, pens, pencils. (I studied art.) A lot of it is just writing on paper -- I think it's important to keep your physical writing skills sharp, because your brain works differently with a pen than at a keyboard.

Some things end up scanned back into the computer, but most of it doesn't. I usually find that if I've got good notes on paper, they'll mostly still be in my brain the next time I'm taking notes at the computer.

I've tried Evernote, OmniOutliner, OmniFocus (!), rich-text, DevonThink, and a few other things, and everything was worse for me than what I use now.

However, I would happily try something else, as long as it has no lock-in. For me, and probably for a lot of other not-so-young hackers, putting my notes into a system that will be hard to extract them from is a show-stopper.

Here's my wish-list, off the top of my head:

* Everything stored in plan-text (Markdown, whatever) except binary assets.

* Binary assets stored together with that.

* Great sync between devices, and everything very secure. (Maybe just use DropBox for that.)

* Really fast, great UX!

* Great search, tags, etc.

* Integrated TODO, calendar, etc.

I think the real opportunity is in providing a great user experience together with some impressive auto-organizing magic. The trick is to resist the temptation of lock-in. And the killer feature might be a smart way to deal with stuff that originates on paper.

Best of luck!


Instanote and OneNote. The latter when I'm in full on note taking mode and the former in meetings where I have to record the last one minute of the conversation.




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