The 5 best online note-taking apps to take note

Posted by Rodney McPherson on December 10th, 2019

Do you want to keep track of all pieces of information to keep your life running smoothly?

Do you need a systematic way to handle data and maximize your efficiency in the workplace?

Do you need a smarter way to store notes and recall lectures and course content without being overwhelmed with all the information?

Whichever of the above describes your needs, a note-taking app can give you the much-needed repository of all the important information you need in life.

 

However, there are many note-taking app and website out there. Those come with many different features, from simple to complex. Some are just a simple sticky note with limited text format options; some are full features but complete and hardly to use. We are listed here the best 5 apps for your different need.

 

1.OneNote: Best option for those who usually taking note on a laptop.

OneNote is a Microsoft software with full features designed for the note-taking job. This is one of the best note taking software for desktop. You can store your note’s files on your local computer or store them in OneDrive, it has a synchronization between the Onedrive files and the computers. Onenote is totally free, it comes up with an online version and other versions comes up with Windows 10 or Office Suite.

       OneNote Pros:

           + Professional note taking software.

           + A build-in OCR features, you can search text in the images

           + Powerful search feature lets you quickly find information either on a particular page or across all notebooks.

      Onenote Cons:

          - Sometime we want to store a document file (pdf, docx, etc) or images and take note for the pdf file or images. Then Onenote is not the best option for that case (If we paste many PDF or Documents file to Onenote, the onenote file sizes will grow quickly!)

 

2. Evernote: Best for taking all kinds of notes

Evernote was an early leader in the digital note-taking space. In many ways, it shaped expectations about what a note-taking app should do and how it should look. It's one of the most capable services you'll find, supporting a wide variety of note types (text, images, audio memo, sketches, scanned documents, checklists, and clipped web pages). It has excellent tools for organizing and searching your notes as well. It has apps for all the major platforms, and with a Business account, you can even use Evernote for real-time chat and collaboration with colleagues.

       Evernote Pros:

            + Multiple file formats. If you’re on a paid plan, Evernote can hold anything your professor throws at you: PDF’s, PowerPoints, the 3 different sheets of requirements for one project.

            + Scanner for mobile. You can use Evernote as a scanner to take photos of pages of books that when you don’t want to pay for photocopying. It also has optical character recognition (OCR) so you can search text found in images.

            + Powerful Search Option: Evernote has a powerful search option. You can search for many notes and images also.

            + Cross-platform: Evernote support many platform (Desktop, MAC, Android, IOS,…): just download the app and you can take note on any device.

      EverNote Cons:

            - Pricey. If you use Evernote to scan documents and save research papers like I do, the 60 MB included in the free plan won’t cut it. And if you want to use it with more than 2 devices or use optical character recognition, you have to go Premium.

 

3. Google Keep: Best for simple and quick note taking. Not for a professional and comprehensive option looking.

If you’re on an Android phone, start with Google Keep—it's available on both Android and iOS, but it's tightly integrated with Android. It features just about the best mix of simplicity and functionality of any notes app. Easily tap open a new note, or use the voice-to-text feature of Google Assistant to transcribe your spoken words.

       Google Keep Pros:

            + Totally Free. YAY!

            + Allows for scanning documents and there’s even the ability to record memos for the app to automatically transcribe.

            + Google Keep is a pretty decent productivity app for teams, too. You can easily share notes and collaborate with others.

       Google Keep Cons:

            - Limited text format options: the text format in Google Keep is very bad because it’s too simple. Paste image and url is also bad designed in Keep. It’s only suitable for simple note.

 

4. Apple Notes:  For Apple users

Apple Notes offers solid organization and formatting features, though it lacks Markdown support and is (unsurprisingly) only for Apple devices.

      Apple Notes Pros:

           + Totally. Free. YAY!

           + Good-enough formatting tools. You get the usual bold, italics, and fonts.

           + Allows cross-platform editing via the browser. No need for Google Drive/Dropbox workarounds. Just log in to your iCloud account from a browser and you can pull up your notes on a PC.

           + Can create nested lists of hierarchical folders. This is surprising, given that some paid apps don’t have this feature. Well played, Apple.

     Apple Notes Cons:

          - No hybrid Markdown. You can’t have it all in a free tool, can you?

 

5. Notemee: Best for saving articles, research papers and webpage clippings

Notemee is a visual note-taking tool for text-image combinations and articles collecting purpose. Just copy an interesting text, article or clip a webpage you are reading and paste to Notemee then you will never forget an interesting article or an url that you have seen somewhere. Note everything or build your own hobby collections of interesting articles, lectures or notes for research and studying purposes.

        Notemee Pros:

           + Totally Free. YAY!

           + Visual note-taking: copy and paste fulltext with images and lot of text format options

           + Allow embedding document files (PDF, Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and read them directly inside the notes.

           + Easily find note again with “label”: Though they don’t support search for the content, but they have a powerful categorize tool named “Label”, Labels act as the “folder” or “directory” that lets you easily group your notes and find you saved notes again.

       Notemee Cons:

           - Only support search by note titles, cannot search for the note contents.

           - Not support mobile device. However you can still access via a browser like Chrome or Firefox.

 

The end ./.

Like it? Share it!


Rodney McPherson

About the Author

Rodney McPherson
Joined: December 10th, 2019
Articles Posted: 1