Best Note Taking Tool For Mac

Posted on  by 

  1. Best Note Taking App For Mac 2016
  2. Best Note Taking App For Mac Reddit
  3. Best Note Taking App For Mac 2018
  4. Best Note Taking App For Mac Medical School

The Best Way to Take Notes. By Elizabeth Harper on May 31, 2018. For Mac users, the 13-inch 3.02-pound MacBook Pro is the best mix of power and portability. The best note taking tool for me. The Note-Taking Tool (TNTT) is a note-taking application tailored for use by students in academic environments. It makes use of the well accepted Cornell Note-Taking method. It makes use of the well accepted Cornell Note-Taking method.

Evernote is the app that keeps your notes organized. Memos are synced so they’re accessible anywhere, and searchable so you always find what you need. There are so many note taking apps available on the internet. It’s unlikely that you can try them all. Here I’ve presented an overview of seven popular note taking apps. Cintanotes is a lightweight tool for taking and managing your notes. The app is only available for Windows PCs. Grab one of these modern note-taking apps, and you’ll be able to jot down a promising idea at the drop of a hat. For some people, there’s no replacement for pen and paper when it comes to taking notes.

Best Note Taking Application or Service? Desktop apps for Windows and Mac OS, mobile apps for iPhone and iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, and even WebOS mean that Evernote can help. Here are some of the best ways to use note taking software if you are a paper note taking aficionado. OneNote for Windows. OneNote is a great application for taking notes, storing files and links, pictures, graphs, or really anything if you use Windows or even iOS. The great part about OneNote is that you can organize it much like a notebook with different tabs and sections as well as click anywhere and instantly start typing.

After resisting the temptation for several months, I finally broke down this week and bought an Apple Pencil. I purchased the initial iPad Pro back in November when it first came out, but sold it and switched to the 9.7-inch model last week, and so far I’ve been very happy with that choice. Figuring that I’ll probably stick with this size iPad Pro for at least a year, I decided the Apple Pencil would be a worthwhile investment. And I was right.

I was skeptical of the Apple Pencil when it was first announced, as I assumed it would just be the same as the tacky styluses third-parties had been making for years, but after using it I’ve realized just how wrong I was. The thing that I noticed very early on in my time with the Apple Pencil though, was how crazy good the palm rejection is. Writing with an Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro is nearly as easy as writing on actual paper. As a student, this is a huge factor for me when it comes to note taking, so I decided to dive a little deeper into the apps on iOS that are made for taking notes and are optimized for iPad Pro. Here are some of the ones I would recommend…

GoodNotes 4

GoodNotes is an app that I wasn’t entirely familiar with until I purchased my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, but I’ve quickly realized that it’s one of, if not the most, complete note taking apps available in the App Store. You have the ability to create multiple notebooks – like one for each class or subject – and then create individual pages within each notebook with varying page styles. There’s also the ability to insert charts and images which definitely comes in handy.

GoodNotes also indexes your notes so you can quickly search them. I have pretty awful handwriting, but it was still able to correctly index my notes and allow me to search through them when I needed to. It also supports the Apple Pencil for pressure sensitive writing, something that really comes in handy while taking extensive amounts of notes at a time.

MacNote

To me, GoodNotes 4 felt most similar to traditional notebooks when it came to taking notes. It really felt like writing with pen and paper, just modernized with many new features. GoodNotes 4 is available for $7.99 on the App Store and is definitely worth it.

Notability

Notability and GoodNotes are very similar apps on the surface, and if anything, Notability feels slightly more polished and easier to use than GoodNotes. It offers many of the same features as other handwriting apps, including palm-rejection, pressure sensitivity detection, and the ability to insert images, charts, and even full webpages. That last feature is notable as it means you can import a webpage and highlight and mark it up as you go, something that’s important for working through research projects and the like.

One thing that’s unfortunately missing and that will ultimately force me to stick with GoodNotes, however, is the ability to search handwritten notes. While you can search PDF text, any notes you write by hand are not capable of being searched.

On the bright side though, Notability is currently 33 percent off on the App Store, making it just $3.99 as of this post.

Notes Plus

Notes Plus is another solid note taking app with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil optimizations. In addition to standard features like PDF and image support, folder management, and shape detection, Notes Plus includes a few standout features. For one, it supports a built-in browser for quickly and easily looking up facts and statistics. Additionally, it supports the ability to covert handwritten notes to text.

This means that any handwritten notes are also searchable and later annotatable, unlike with Notability. There’s also support for recording background audio. For instance, if you’re in a lecture, you can be recording that lecture directly into the app so you can later go back and listen to it to ensure you didn’t miss anything.

Notes Plus is currently 30 percent off in the App Store, making it $6.99 as of this past.

Noteshelf

In terms of pure writing experience, Noteshelf offers one of the smoothest experiences of any of these apps. The app supports the Apple Pencil and offers integration with Spotlight on iOS so you can quickly find different documents and notebooks. Unfortunately, there’s no way to search within handwritten notes like with Penultimate and GoodNotes.

One nice feature of Noteshelf, however, is that you can add a passcode to protect important and sensitive notes, much like what Apple added to its Notes app with iOS 9.3.

Noteshelf prides itself as the best note-taking app that offers the most beautiful handwriting effect – this is one of the key reasons why our users fall in love with Noteshelf. It perfectly mimics that intuitive ink-on-paper feeling so smoothly, it’s as if you’re using a real pen and paper.

Noteshelf is available for $7.99 on the App Store.

Best Note Taking App For Mac 2016

Evernote

Evernote isn’t the most feature-rich app when it comes to using the Apple Pencil for note taking, but if you already use Evernote across other devices, it’s nice to stay in the same ecosystem. The stylus can be used for essentially handwriting notes in the most basic format. Evernote is more reasonable to use if you’re typing notes and need to quickly sketch a chart or a diagram. For use cases like this, Evernote’s “Snap to Shape” feature is useful.

The biggest selling point of Evernote is its cross-platform availability, so if you’re often switching between devices and operating systems for taking notes, then Evernote might be your best bet. It’s available on the App Store for free with various premium upgrades.

Penultimate

Made by Evernote, Penultimate is the company’s more advanced take on a handwriting app. Penultimate features a distraction-free interface that makes it easy to quickly and easily take down notes without accidentally changing settings or navigating away from the writing interface. The app is optimized for iPad Pro, as well, which means that it supports pressure sensitivity, so you can push harder for thicker lettering and lighter for more faint writing.

Furthermore, and perhaps most notably, Penultimate analyzes your handwritten notes and allows you to search for handwritten text in the app. Penultimate is free with a host of in-app purchases to improve your experience.

Apple Notes

You can’t discuss note taking apps without mentioning Apple’s own Notes app that comes pre-installed on every iOS device. Prior to iOS 9, Apple’s Notes app was pretty lackluster in comparison to many note taking apps on iOS. With the new operating system, however, the app is gaining on third-party solutions. It still doesn’t support things like searching notes or even different page styles, but it’s improving.

There are however, new features such as additional font formatting options, support for inline checklists, and link thumbnail + textual previews.

Wrap-up

Ultimately the moral of the story here is that the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro have convinced me that the iPad is now a viable way to quickly take notes in a variety of settings. Whether it be in meetings or in class, the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro paired with any of these apps makes for a note taking experience equivalent to that of pen and paper.

Personally, after trying all of these apps, I think GoodNotes 4 is the most solid choice for iPad Pro note taking. Its amazing handwriting recognition and search feature really sets it apart from the competition. For someone with awful handwriting, I didn’t think a feature like that would ever work for me. But GoodNotes proved me wrong.

What do you use for taking notes with your iPhone/iPad? Let us know in the comments!


Click to view Despite the wealth of information a Google search box puts at our fingertips, good old-fashioned note-taking is still one of the best ways to build a personal knowledge database. The only sensible solution used to be pen and paper, but computers have introduced a handful of excellent alternatives for capturing notes in computer-friendly digital form. On Tuesday you shared your favorite note-taking tools, and today we're back with the five most popular answers. Keep reading for a look at the five best note-taking tools, then cast a ballot for the note-taking tool you prefer. Photo by Dvortygirl.

Best Note-Taking Tools?

UPDATE: Check out the five best note-taking tools for the results of this Hive Five. You've…

Read more Read

Advertisement

Evernote (Windows/Mac, Free)

Advertisement

Evernote is a free, cross-platform universal capture application. With support for text, images, audio, tagging, and syncing between its web interface and all of your desktop installations, Evernote offers seamless capturing of information no matter where you are. Images you add to Evernote are searchable by text, and Evernote even supports several mobile devices—including the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones. If you can't install Evernote on a computer, you can also use Evernote's web interface and clipping bookmarklet to pull anything into your notebook. Evernote is free to use, provides 40MB per month of upload space; for $5 per month or $45 per year, you get 500MB.

Pen(cil) and Paper

Advertisement

Best Note Taking App For Mac Reddit

Best Note Taking Tool For Mac


Despite a multitude of high-tech note-taking tools, the classic pen and paper still holds a special place in many a note-taker's heart. The low-tech gadgets readers prefer for pen-and-paper notes vary greatly. From classics like the Moleskine or simple notebook to the Hipster PDA or Post-It notes, the dead-tree route is still the place many prefer to take their notes. If paper is your preference, check out how to customize your notebook to take great notes.

Geek to Live: Take great notes

by Gina Trapani

Read more Read

Advertisement

Microsoft OneNote (Windows, Shareware)

Advertisement


Whether you're a fan of Microsoft products or not, Microsoft OneNote is a killer note-taking app that integrates with every corner of your Windows PC. In fact, some readers even admit to running Windows in virtual machines on their Macs solely for the note-taking goodies available in OneNote. OneNote 2007 syncs with the web and other computers, provides two-way sync with Windows Mobile phones, boasts quick searching of all your notes, and much more. Finally, if you miss putting pen to paper with digital note-taking apps, OneNote's marquee feature is support for handwriting recognition on tablet PCs (you can even search your handwriting without converting it to text). OneNote is shareware, costs $100. Photo by DannoHung.

Best Note Taking App For Mac 2018

Google Notebook (Web-based, Free)

Advertisement


Google Notebook is a web-based note-taking application that brings Google's familiar interface and excellent search capabilities to your notes. The application includes a rich-text editor, labeling (Google's version of tagging), and the recent integration with Google Bookmarks. The Google Notebook add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer makes adding notes and clips to Google Notebook a breeze. With the right setup, Google Notebook also makes for one helluva GTD application.

Google Notebook Integrates Google Bookmarks

Google Bookmarks is sporting a new look and feel, boasting a quicker interface and an…

Read more Read

Advertisement

Personal Wiki

Advertisement


Whether you've installed your personal MediaWiki (the software that runs Wikipedia) or you're getting things done with GTDTiddlyWiki on a thumb drive, wikis are excellent tools for note-taking. You can easily link pages together, collaborate with others, or just use it as a simple notebook you can access from anywhere. Since the primary point of entry for a wiki is your web browser, you can access your wiki from any computer with a browser—whether it's web-based or running locally.

Geek to Live: Set up your personal Wikipedia

by Gina Trapani

Read more Read

Advertisement


Now that you've seen the favorites, it's time to vote for the tool you like best.

Advertisement


Which Is the Best Note-Taking Tool?
( polls)


This week's honorable mentions go to DevonThink (Mac), OmniOutliner (Mac), and voice-to-text service Jott (web-based). Whether it made the list or not, let's hear more about your note-taking app of choice in the comments.

Best Note Taking App For Mac Medical School

Advertisement

Coments are closed