Time to ditch

the pen(cil) and paper?

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What do you do when you have an idea, or hear something that you want to remember? Do you look for a piece of paper and a pen and get scribbling, or have you embraced technology and instead opt for something a little more modern?

Writing on a bit of paper is fine, but let’s face it we are all capable of losing or mislaying it, plus it’s quite difficult to share it with someone else, or encourage feedback, or engagement. That’s why it’s good news that there's a dizzying array of tools and apps for creating, organising, saving and sharing notes, whether it’s at home, work or even on the go. Here are a few that you might have heard of: GoodNotes, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Zoho Notebook, Apple Notes, Google Workspace and Bear.

Writing on a bit of paper is fine, but we're all capable of losing it and it’s quite difficult to share it with someone else…

What makes a great note taking app?

What all of us are looking for is something dependable that makes the task of jotting down information amazingly simple and easy, wherever you are. In addition, we probably want it to be functional, efficient, secure, affordable, support several types of notes (text, images, audio files, scanned docs, web pages and check lists) and work across multiple devices.

Recently someone at one of our networking groups flagged up Notability. OK, so it’s only for those on an IOS platform, using their iPad, iPhone or Mac, but it tweaked our interest, so we decided to find out more. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of this app.

Advantages of Notability

Enables you to record audio and take notes together

Password protects your notes and shares links

Offers a choice of fonts, styles, sizes and colours

Helps you to add lists

Offers endless scrolling

Converts handwriting to text

Easily exports to PDF

Has seamless synching to iCloud, Google Drive and Dropbox

Disadvantages of Notability

There is a free version, but for more features you would need an annual subscription which is $14.99

Works best with an Apple Pen

Backing up files is unintuitive

Cannot import photo directly from devices, need to do it through a platform such as Google Docs first

Not great for drawing and creativity

Limited search facility

Whilst we have yet to use it, we know that it consistently tops the Apple App Store download list when it comes to note taking apps. If you have used it and would like to share any feedback, please just get in touch.

If you like these tools and apps we can send future ones straight to your inbox…

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