Making notes is a great way to organize your schedule, remember essential points, create a workflow, and track progress. Humankind saw a massive upgrade in taking notes after the paper was discovered in China and spread to different parts of the world. It is safe to say that humankind is witnessing another massive upgrade over pen-paper notes with digital writing apps. You no longer need to carry a notebook or make your office desk messy using sticky notes. Many writing apps work on smartphones, making them highly portable and easy to use. Moreover, cross-platform integrations, real-time cloud sync, and integration of multimedia files in your notes take your note-taking experience to a higher notch altogether. Let’s now look at some of the best writing apps to digitalize your notes:
Notion
Notion offers a highly structured note-taking and web-clipping experience, among many other things coupled into a single package. You can create rapid and highly flexible content that you can later restructure, change, share, and duplicate using Notion. The web-clipping experience on this application is leagues ahead of other similar applications. You can pick an entire webpage and drag it to your workspace. Later, you can customize the webpage by adding notes, moving it around your workstations, copy parts, and do almost everything with the piece. The web-clipping feature uses Firefox or Chrome extensions to pick webpages from the browser. Notion is built around Blocks that are similar to tags in a webpage. There are more than 50 tags on the multipurpose application that are tailor-made to suit different use cases. The block feature lets you create new functionality within the application. These functionalities can let you use blocks as checkboxes or integrate Kanban with the calendar on a single page. The Sky is the limit with blocks, so let your creativity go wild and create new functionalities. Nested Toggle lists is another unique feature you only find on Notion. It lets you arrange your notes in a nested list which you can later edit, rearrange, or alter according to your needs. Moreover, you can move around paragraphs, images, and anything else on a page using the click-and-drop feature on this application.
xTiles
xTiles is a tool to organize your ideas & projects visually. It has the full functionality of a note-taking application and the visual space of a whiteboard but with a limited canvas. So it’s the perfect combination of a flexible canvas and a structured note-taking app. This tool is based on documents that can be divided into tabs. Information is stored in tiles, and the creator determines their size and place on the canvas. Tiles serve as a container for various content: links, videos that can be watched directly in the service, files, pictures, and much more. You can visualize any idea because of the variety of content on the page and the big-picture concept that is always in front of the eyes. xTiles has mobile apps for Android and iOS, allowing you to work offline and quickly capture your ideas. For researching or collecting content online, a web clipper helps you instantly save and add data to your document while surfing the web. As a result, you have an application for collecting information, organizing it in one place, and the ability to share it or work collaboratively in an xTiles document. This is especially useful for students or small teams who organize their activities. By the way, xTiles is free for students and non-profit organizations.
Evernote
Evernote makes sure that you efficiently capture your ideas, projects, memories, and your workflow. The note-taking application lets you customize your notes according to your needs while giving you the flexibility to attach documents, videos, images, or audio clips onto them. Evernote is especially helpful in organizing everything from big projects to personal routines through a single multipurpose application. Cross-platform compatibility allows you to continue your notes or view them from your phone, computer, or tablet. The sync feature creates a real-time backup for your notes on Evernote’s cloud server, ensuring you never lose your notes during a calamity. It sometimes becomes hard to note all the information in the fast-paced digital world, but the audio notes feature on Evernote is perfect for such instances. Moreover, you can click pictures if you find a written note and add your remarks to it. The Evernote browser extension brings in the webpage capture and a lot more features with it. You can also save the web pages you surf on the browser as notes using Evernote. Moreover, you can share your notes, projects, and memories using the share feature on the Evernote application.
Simple Note
Simple Note targets the audience that needs a hassle-free note-taking experience. It is one of the most straightforward note-taking applications on the Internet. Rest assured, Simple Note doesn’t compromise on its feature while making the user interface simpler. Unlike other applications, you don’t need to turn on the Sync option from the Settings menu. The Sync option is turned on from the very moment you start this application. The automated real-time sync is another effective way of making the application hassle-free. Simple Note offers a plethora of multimedia insertions in your notes. You can also add tags and use them to search sections of your notes quickly. The tag feature is similar to acts similar to the speed dial feature on your phone and makes sure you never waste time searching for the desired notes. You get the Markdown support on Simple Note, which lets you write, preview, and publish your notes in the Markdown format. Also, you can see the changes you made to the notes and review every last edit. Real-time sharing on Simple Note is an efficient method of working on group projects. Members can collaborate and edit their notes after you share the notes using the real-time share option. Moreover, the application is entirely free, and the excellent feature set makes it a highly viable option.
Todoist
Todoist is a great productivity booster application as it packs tons of excellent time-saving features. The feature set on this application is unique and perfect for all businesses and individual users. Todoist packs in the Quick Add feature, which lets you add a summary of a task you want to complete in the near future. You can use the quick add feature for small tasks like “Make sure to water the Plants.” Moreover, you get the recurring due dates features which remind you of the same task periodically at the same time. You can also add sections and subtasks to the notes in the Quick Add section for better clarity. Often, we get overwhelmed with numerous tasks simultaneously and get confused about where to start from. A significant amount of time gets wasted while figuring out the priority of your tasks, but what if you could assign it to your tasks while creating them. You can certainly do this on Todoist and even mark tasks you enjoy the most as Favourites. The platform can delegate tasks using the real-time sharing features and share your workload among different team members. It also sends notifications when a document gets shared with you or when a team member makes an edit. Todoist lets you personalize your task view using the Boards feature and choose the information you want to associate with your notes. The application also offers Labels, Filters, and Themes options for better customization of the startup board.
Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft OneNote is yet another tremendous note-taking application that lets you organize your ideas and projects. The latest version of OneNote automatically syncs your notes and makes them available across all the devices signed up with the same account. The note-taking application offers plenty of handy templates for every use case. Some of these templates are:
E-Book: The E-Book template helps you store all your contacts in one place, making sure you carry your digital posse wherever you go. University: The University templates are a set of handy templates that let college students organize their load and manage their semesters.
You also get tight integration with Microsoft’s Outlook, which lets you create notes or tasks right from your emails. Moreover, you can use most of the content you see on your browser as notes on the application. The draw feature on OneNote is another excellent feature for turning your digital notes into a piece of art.
Bear
Bear merges the idea of word processing and note-taking and creates a combo that you cannot resist. The simplified Bear UI makes sure you write down every inspiration, idea, and memory when they strike. The application is currently available on the Apple ecosystem; iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Your notes get automatically synced across all your devices using the real-time sync on Bear. The sync feature is an absolute lifesaver when you want to work on the go using a secondary device. You also get great organizational features that let you build a body of work by linking your notes. Moreover, you can add hashtags to internally link notes and create a project. Bear is excellent at using the privacy-centric hardware available on Apple devices; Touch ID and Face ID. You can use the Touch or the Face ID to protect important notes and make sure only you have access to them. The Advanced Markup Editor in Bear is especially helpful in highlighting codes from more than 150 programming languages. The in-line support in Bear lets you add images and photos to your notes. Moreover, the focus mode hides notes and other options when it matters. To meet your versatile demands, you can export your notes and documents in formats like HTML, PDF, DOCX, MD, JPG, and more.
Roam Research
Roam Research brings the modern forms of note-taking to your nearest devices. It is not a conventional note-taking application; instead, it aims to take notes for networked thought. It helps you to connect to your thoughts and group them in unison. The application follows a bi-directional approach, meaning that you can move back and forth with your ideas in a fluid manner. Creating a fresh note is pretty straightforward using the Note feature on the application. You can access the Note feature using the left sidebar or the + symbol beside the All Page button. After entering the notes editor, you can access all the elements you can use using the / command. Often, you need the inspiration to help you curate your notes, but it gets tedious to refer to the inspiration frequently. You can hook the inspirational information on the sidebar and split your writing area for maximum efficiency. Daily Notes is another excellent feature in Roam Research using which you can manage your random notes and plans for the day. You can also view the entire log by clicking on the Daily Notes option. Other than this, the Graph Overview option lets you have a bird’ eye view of your pages and their internal linking. You can further zoom in and monitor the links closely.
Notability
Notability is a mobile-based note-taking application that offers great functionality in a compact package. You can collaborate with other team members and manage projects using sketching and PDF annotation tools on Notability. The application lets you explore your creativity and gives plenty of customization options like adding GIFs, web pages, images, and more to your notes. You can edit or color your notes and organize them to meet your requirements. Moreover, you can also share your notes, ideas, or memories using a third-party application like Dropbox, Google, Drive, AirDrop, and more. Notability gives you the feature to create custom content, receive written or verbal comments from colleagues, and use audio in your notes by tapping on the desired file. You can organize your notes using customizable filters and secure them using hardware-based authentication like Face ID or Touch ID. Users can export their files using the PDF export multi-page using the built-in scanner. You also get an eraser feature that lets you eliminate unwanted elements from your PDFs.
Google Keep
Google Keep is a web-based note-taking application that aims to assist individuals and professionals in capturing their ideas in any form they want. You can use audio, images, videos, and more to capture ideas and check to-do tasks. Keep comes with numerous handy features like notes management, reminders, task tagging, collaboration tools, and more. Handwriting recognition is another excellent tool that Keep offers. This tool uses Google’s OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to deduce meaning from handwritten notes. Further, you can convert your handwritten notes into digital formats and add annotations to customize them. The tool lets users highlight and categorize their notes with colors and add a maximum of 50 labels for better organization. You also get a search box with Keep to search the entire notes collection and showpieces that match a query. Keep lets you create and set reminders tasks that are time-bound and ensure you never miss out on anything meaningful in life. You can also collaborate with other members on your notes and work together on a project.
Standard Notes
Many writing apps give privacy-centric features like Touch ID and Face ID integrations, but Standard Notes takes it to a whole new level by encrypting your notes. The encryption is end-to-end, making sure only you have access to your notes; even Standard Notes cannot access your files. The writing app comes with a simple yet informative UI which makes it less clumsy. The sheer number of features on their free version outnumbers the premium versions of many note-taking applications. You get excellent features like end-to-end encryption and access on unlimited devices with the free version. The application syncs all your notes automatically to their servers with no upper storage limit. You can opt for the paid version if you want encrypted attachments for your notes in Google Drive or Dropbox. The paid version also packs two-factor authentication, unlimited access to powerful extensions, editors, and themes, and many more. Moreover, you get a whopping 100 years of note version history and automated backups on different cloud storage services.
Typora
Typora brings a seamless reading and writing experience to your nearest device. Every distracting element like sidebar, popup, preview windows, syntax symbols, and more give you a calm writing environment. You still get the preview windows functionality as Typora shows you a live preview of whatever you write. You can organize your files easily using the file tree panel and articles side panel. The Outline panel is another great feature that lets you overview the headings and subheadings in your documents. You can import your files in PDF format with bookmarks for better search optimization. Typora offers other formats like .docx, OpenOffice, LaTeX, MediaWiki, Epub, and more. Typora also lets you use third-party sync services like Dropbox or iCloud to organize your files. There are times when it gets hard to focus on your ideas but rest assured, Typora’s Focus Mode is at your rescue. The Focus Mode blurs everything on your screen except the line you are working on. You also get a Typewriter mode that puts the current line in the middle of the window for better efficiency.
Final Note ✍
Note-taking is the most effective way of organizing yourself as an individual or an entire enterprise. Writing apps are bringing in revolutionary changes to the conventional methods of storing ideas and memories. The above article shares the best note-taking applications that offer great functionality and make sure you never miss any task in your life. Applications like Notion, Evernote, Bear, and OneNote are great platforms with extraordinary functionality and easy-to-use UI. Other applications like Google Keep, Typora, and Simple Note are simple yet powerful applications. Make sure to check out these applications and let us know your experience. Now let’s have a look at the best applications for Team Collaboration. 12 Best Mobile Scanner Apps that use AI.
