DON'S FREEWARE CORNER - NOV 2020
FEATURES I WOULD LIKE IN A NOTE-TAKING PROGRAM
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FEATURES I WOULD LIKE IN A NOTE-TAKING PROGRAM
©2020 Donald R. Snow - Last updated 2020-11-10.
NOTE-TAKING PROGRAMS
There are many note-taking programs, many free and others
commercial with free versions to help you decide.
Some are completely free, including Open Source
programs. For years I have been using the
program Evernote. I used the free version for a couple of years and the paid version for the past 8-10 years, since I wanted the additional features. But recently, Evernote has
been "updated" and now is so different that it's a problem and you
can't even see the entire title of your notes nor your notebooks. And it runs slower and hangs up often and they have
dropped local notebooks which we used to use for our
private data. There are additional problems that
I won't go into here. So now I need to decide
if I want to continue paying the high annual price or switch
programs. I've begun to compile a list of
other note programs and their websites and this Freeware Corner article is the result.
FEATURES I WOULD LIKE IN A NOTE PROGRAM
Here are some things I would like in a note-taking program.
1 - Free version that I can use as long as I want, before
I decide if I want to pay for the premium version
2 - Stand-alone app so it can be used on my Windows 10
computer and mobile devices without being connected
to the internet.
3 - Ability to update (synchronize is the jargon term)
so it will update the notes on each of my devices
when it detects an internet connection
4 - Ability to have local notes that don't go over the
internet, so I can keep my personal data without
worrying about losing it as it updates on my over
devices
5 - Ability to form notes by typing, drag-and-dropping
other files such as docs, pdfs, images, and audio
clips
6 - Ability to capture and store webpages; not necessarily
the entire website, but only pages I am interested in
7 - Good search routines so I can find things in my notes,
e.g. a way to search for an exact expression like
you can with Google by using quote marks; also a
way to do global replacement of an item in every
note
8 - Ability to include tags as keywords or else a place
for keywords to help in searching and bringing up
collections of notes
9 - Ability to export notes in several formats, e.g.
text files and html files, though html files could
be done in other ways by copying the text
10 - Ability to export pdfs and other files stored in a
note
11 - Ability to change fonts and sizes in the notes and
in the headings of the program
12 - Ability to include a table such as a spreadsheet,
but it doesn't have to include working like a
spreadsheet
Well, there's more, but that's quite a list.
Evernote used to do many, but not all, of these.
LIST OF PROGRAMS
To consider note-taking program I have been making a list
with links to their webpages and here it is.
Did you ever think there were so many note-taking
programs? This list is alpabetical and some
of these programs are old and may not work well.
I haven't investigated these all yet. I may
end up using more than one program; for example,
one to do text notes and another to do webpages, etc.
I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I
'll probably keep on using the crippled Evernote.
I'm not recommending any of these, since I don't know which are any good yet.
AllMyNotes -- https://allmynotes.vladonai.com/
Aml Pages Notes -- http://www.amlpages.com/about.shtml
AM-Notebook -- https://www.aignes.com/notebook.htm
Beyondpad -- https://www.beyondpad.com/
BoostNote -- https://boostnote.io/
CintaNotes -- http://cintanotes.com/
Dropbox Paper -- https://www.dropbox.com/paper
Evermpte -- https://evernote.com/
GloboNote -- https://globonote.info/download
Google Keep -- https://keep.google.com/u/0/
KeepNote -- http://keepnote.org/
KeyNote -- https://keynote.en.softonic.com/
NoteLedge -- https://www.kdanmobile.com/noteledge
NoteCase Pro -- https://www.notecasepro.com/
NoteTab Light -- https://www.notetab.com/notetab-light
Notion -- https://www.notion.so/
OneNote -- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app?ms.url=onenotecom&rtc=1
Org-Mode -- https://orgmode.org/
Penzu -- https://penzu.com/
Quip -- https://quip.com/blog/desktop
ResophNotes -- https://www.resoph.com/ResophNotes/Welcome.html
SilverNote -- http://silvernote.findmysoft.com/
SimpleNote -- https://simplenote.com/
Standard Notes -- https://standardnotes.org/
SynapBook -- https://synapbook.com/
Tiddlywiki -- https://tiddlywiki.com/
Tomboy -- https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy
TreePad Lite -- https://treepad.com/
Webasyst -- https://www.webasyst.com/store/app/stickies/
WikidPad -- http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/
Wiz Note -- https://www.wiz.cn/
Zim -- https://zim-wiki.org/
Zoho Notebook -- https://www.zoho.com/notebook/
CONCLUSIONS
As you can see there is a plethora of note-taking programs,
since that's such an important part of using a
computer. There are reviews of some of these
programs online and a next step will be to read
the reviews. Here is the link to a Wikipedia
article comparing some of these and listing some of
their features
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_note-taking_software .
There's a lot left to do to figure out what to do, but
I'll keep you posted. And, if you have recommendations
for me, please let me know.
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