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Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#71
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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#72

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 b…

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

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#73
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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#74
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...

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#75
post #6

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…

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…

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.

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#76
post #6

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…

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

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#77

> 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'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).

Re: Ask HN: How do you take notes other than using paper?

#80
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.

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