How to Upload 2 Pages Onto Lecturenotes App

Note-taking is a pretty personal thing. Some people are meticulous in their notebook organisation, with careful folders, subheads, and bullets. Others, myself amid them, take more of a scrawl-it-anywhere-y'all-tin approach. Still you similar to take notes—whether they're text-only or elaborate scrapbooks—there'due south a notes app out there that can handle all your weird quirks and notation-taking needs.

First, 1 big affair to mention. You tin write notes anywhere: on the dorsum of a napkin, envelope, of import bill, or even in a notebook. It's kind of similar with apps: you lot tin stick notes into pretty much any old app, even if it's not really designed for them. Instance: Google Docs isn't a great notes app, only I accept notes about this commodity you lot're reading now in the Google Doc I'k working from.

Plough ideas into action

So for this listing, we didn't expect at every app that could be used to have notes—we were simply interested in apps that were explicitly designed to be notes apps. We likewise merely really considered general-purpose note-taking apps. There are some corking super-niche notes apps designed for fiction writers or developers, but they aren't fit for about people, so weren't in consideration for a identify on this list.

Even with these criteria in place, we yet tested shut to 40 different note apps. Hither are the best note-taking apps we could find.

The best note-taking apps

• Microsoft OneNote for a gratis note-taking app

• Evernote for the ultimate digital notebook

• Apple Notes for Apple users

• Google Keep for Google power users

• Notion for collaboration

• Obsidian for power note-takers

What makes a great annotation-taking app?

How we evaluate and test apps

All of our all-time apps roundups are written past humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it confronting the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our manufactures from any app or for links to whatsoever site—nosotros value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to characteristic on the Zapier blog.

With so many apps to consider, nosotros had some pretty strict criteria for what made a great notes app.

• Starting time, the apps had to be practiced at what they claimed to practise. This sounds like an piece of cake bar to clear, but you'd exist surprised at how many apps fell short. Not every note-taking app needs to have features like epitome-to-text conversion or stylus support, simply if it boasted near them, they had to be well-executed and squeamish to use.

• Second, all the annotation-taking apps had to be quick and easy to utilise. The real competition hither wasn't other note-taking apps, just a pen and scrap of paper. If it wasn't almost as convenient to open up a notes app and create a quick annotation as it was to achieve across my desk for a Moleskine and a pen, it didn't make the cut. This rule too extended to other features: editing and sorting notes had to feel seamless and natural, rather than require a battle with a horrible user interface.

• Similarly, the biggest reason to have a notes app instead of a notebook is that you lot can access it from anywhere on whatever device at any time, whether you're at your desk at work, chilling on your couch at home, or flying declension-to-coast. At a minimum, we required apps to be available on one desktop and one mobile platform, and to take some kind of offline functionality. You can't be locked out of your notebook considering you don't take Wi-Fi.

• Finally, we had the value for money test. At Zapier, we love a practiced free app, merely with things every bit permanent as notes, that has to be balanced against the likelihood of the service surviving the next few years and being able to offer server-based features like syncing. Many of the best apps accuse a reasonable subscription price, and as long as it was warranted by the features offered, that was no barrier to inclusion.

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All-time gratis note-taking app

Microsoft OneNote (iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Web)

Microsoft OneNote is a free and full-featured note-taking app. It'south Microsoft's answer to Evernote (the next app on this list), though without the demand for a monthly subscription.

OneNote is incredibly freeform when it comes to taking notes. Each Notebook is modeled off a ringbinder, and then it's divided into sections with subsections chosen pages. And each folio is basically a canvass where you can add any kind of notation you lot similar, anywhere y'all want. This ways you can drag and driblet in an image, click anywhere to add some text notes beside it, and if your computer supports a stylus, scribble a mustache on everyone in the photo. (Otherwise you tin can draw 1 on with your trackpad, just it'll be less stylish.) Information technology feels like a solution purpose-built for students and anyone else who has to take long, discursive notes about something, rather than people looking for a digital notebook to collect short snippets and random ideas.

I'd struggle to telephone call any of Microsoft'due south apps intuitive, but OneNote is familiar. The ribbon at the top of the app has five tabs: Abode, which has all the basic formatting tools; Insert, which lets you adhere files, images, sound recordings, and everything else; Draw, which gives you lot all the gratuitous drawing and highlighting tools; View, which lets yous navigate the certificate and alter how things look; and, finally, Tell Me, which is the aid function. If you lot've used any version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in the last decade, you'll be right at abode.

In terms of pricing, although OneNote is gratuitous, it uses your OneDrive storage. You go 5GB included, which is more than enough for most people. Simply if you lot utilize OneDrive to shop your photos, or save a lot of image and audio notes, you might hit against that limit. If you do, yous can increment it to 100GB for $i.99/month.

With OneNote'south Zapier integration, you can automate OneNote to eliminate the hassle of moving information between apps. For instance, Zapier can automatically create new notes in OneNote whenever you accept a new job, note, or calendar event in another app.

OneNote Cost: Free for upward to 5GB of notes; $1.99/month for 100GB.

Evernote and OneNote are the frontrunners in the notation-taking category. Take a wait at how they stack up in our Evernote vs. OneNote showdown.

Best notation-taking app for the ultimate digital notebook

Evernote (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web)

It's impossible to talk well-nigh note-taking apps without mentioning Evernote, and so information technology should be no surprise to see it on this listing. It's 1 of the virtually powerful options around and can handle notes in almost whatever format you want. You tin add text notes, audio clips, images, PDF documents, scanned handwritten pages, Slack conversations, emails, websites, and anything else you can think of. If you're the kind of person who'due south as likely to scribble the outline to a best-seller on the back of a napkin as you are to save your shopping list every bit a vocalization memo, Evernote is great: it gives you ane condom place to throw everything.

But Evernote isn't just a dumping ground. It'due south designed so you can easily sort and organize your notes. Create a new note by clicking New > Note, blazon any you want or add whatever of the supported note types, then, at the bottom of the screen, yous can add tags. If you already have some tags ready, they'll be auto-suggested; otherwise, you can blazon any you want and hit Enter. In the sidebar, click Tags to see a searchable listing of every tag you've used. Information technology's a actually fast manner to sort notes as you create them, without having to worry near putting every note perfectly in its place.

Of class, subsequently, you can dive back in and arrange all your notes into meticulously sorted notebooks. In that case, click Notebooks in the sidebar so New Notebook. Give it a name and you'll be able to drag and drop notes from anywhere else in Evernote into it. Alternatively, you tin can right-click on a note, click Move, and then select your called notebook.

Evernote takes things a step further with its search functionality. If y'all upload an paradigm of a sheet of newspaper, a business card, a menu, a sign, or anything else with text, Evernote automatically processes the prototype to make it more readable—and so processes the text to brand it searchable. So, if you add a photo of your favorite pancake recipe, you'll exist able to search for it as if it'due south a text notation you typed yourself. Evernote fifty-fifty works with handwritten notes, though with the huge caveat that your writing must exist bully enough that a figurer tin read it. (Mine, sadly, is not.)

It's like with PDFs and other documents you upload—if yous have a Premium Evernote subscription, the text is searchable throughout the app.

Crucially, that $seven.99/month Premium Evernote subscription needs to be mentioned. Evernote's free plan doesn't make this list. It's limited to 2 devices, and y'all tin't save notes for offline access on mobile. Microsoft OneNote is a significantly ameliorate gratuitous selection, if you lot never intend to upgrade to a paid plan. All the same, if yous're looking for the ultimate everything notebook and don't mind the monthly fee, then Evernote is the app for y'all.

Evernote integrates with Zapier, letting you automate your note-taking. For instance, y'all tin can automatically create tasks from Evernote reminders, or create new notes for calendar events.

Evernote Price: Very limited free plan; $7.99/month for Evernote Premium with unlimited devices and offline mobile access.

Best note-taking app for Apple tree users

Apple Notes (iOS, macOS, Spider web)

If yous're firmly entrenched in Apple's ecosystem, you don't accept to await too far for a great, free note-taking app. Apple Notes (variously chosen Notes or iCloud Notes, depending on how you lot're accessing it) is built into macOS and iOS, and can likewise be used through your browser. Just head to icloud.com/notes, and you get an online version of the app with all your synced notes—even if yous're on a PC or Chromebook. It's a nice bonus that keeps your notes from beingness totally locked into your Apple devices, provided you have enough iCloud infinite to store everything.

Apple Notes is a little more than barebones than our previous two picks, but that's non actually a dealbreaker. Information technology'southward convenient, easy to employ, and even integrates with Siri. And it keeps getting improve. Apple recently added tags—type #whatever to add together one to any notation—and you lot can share notes with other Apple users, and now fifty-fifty @mention them. Search is besides pretty powerful. Y'all can wait for images, text you've written, a particular zipper, drawings, text scanned in a document, or something within the image you're trying to detect (for instance, "a bike").

Once you lot create a new note, yous can add text, attach images, scan documents, depict or handwrite, add checklists, format things into tables, and more than. You tin can add together multiple different things to a single note—only unlike with OneNote, they're compartmentalized. You can't, for example, use the pen tool to scratch out a text note.

Of course, as a first-party Apple tree app, Notes plays nice with the whole Apple tree ecosystem. One clever characteristic is that you tin can use your iPhone or iPad to add content directly to Notes on your Mac. Open a new notation, click the Adhere dropdown, and then choose from Take Photo, Browse Document, and Add Sketch. If you click Browse Document, for case, the camera will open on your iOS device and you'll be able to automatically browse, process, and add messages, recipes, banking concern statements, and any other documents every bit PDFs.

While non as basic as it once was, Apple Notes is all the same very functional and checks all our requirements for a great note-taking app. Power-user features tin be useful, but most users aren't power users—and Apple tree knows information technology.

Apple Notes Cost: Costless for 5GB of storage across all iCloud services; starts at $0.99/month for 50GB.

There's a very good for you notes app ecosystem for Apple devices; however, since they're all paid products and Apple Notes is then good, none of them made this list. For more options, check out our picks for the best Mac note-taking apps.

Best annotation-taking app for Google power users

Google Go on (Android, iOS, Web, Chrome)

Well-nigh people don't take notes just for the sake of it. Instead, they're done to serve a purpose: to remind you to email a friend, to help you outline your new volume, or one of a meg other things. Often, these other things require yous to use some other app or service. You can't send an e-mail from your notes app, and while you might be able to outline a book, it'southward probably not the all-time place to write information technology. This is what makes Google Proceed such a cracking selection for Google power users.

Google Keep is a niggling odd. As a notes app, it'southward fine. There are reasonable web, iOS, and Android versions, and a handy Chrome extension for saving quick notes and links. But it'due south how it integrates with Google's other services that makes it and then useful.

If you use Google Keep, when you open Gmail in your browser, at that place's a petty lightbulb icon in the right sidebar. Click it, and y'all take quick admission to all your Google Keep notes. You can see whatsoever notes related to the thing you're working on, your about recent notes, search for something from a while ago, or create a new one. Just here'due south the thing: that same sidebar is there in all of your Google Docs, in your Google Calendar, and even in your Google Drive. Virtually the just Google app information technology isn't in is YouTube.

And Keep integrates with the rest of Google in other ways. Click on a note and then Re-create to Google Docs to convert information technology into a new document (you can also elevate and drib a note from the sidebar if you lot take Google Docs open); ready a reminder past clicking the little bong icon, and the note appears in your Google Agenda; and if you create an audio note on your smartphone, Google automatically transcribes it.

Really, if you alive your work life in Google'south ecosystem, you should be using Keep—even if y'all also use another notation-taking solution for your personal life.

Google Keep Price: Gratis for 15GB of storage beyond all of Google apps; starts at $1.99/calendar month for 100GB.

Best note-taking app for collaboration

Notion (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Spider web)

Annotation-taking tin can be something you practise for yourself, or something you do with and for others. All the apps we've looked at and then far are generally for taking notes for yourself. Sure, you can share and collaborate on notes and even notebooks, but their main features lie elsewhere. With Notion, collaboration on all aspects is built in from the commencement.

Notion is the but app on this list that skirts the provision of information technology existence a note-taking app. It is, but considering of its collaborative features, it can be so much more. Information technology'southward basically three tools in one: a powerful notes app (which is why it'southward on this listing), a chore and project managing director, and a reference wiki. How you combine those three things is up to you.

Each new document or note is called a page, and everything in Notion is referred to as a block. Blocks include basic elements like text, checklists, and headings, besides equally media types like images, web bookmarks, video, audio, code snippets, and files. You can use as many blocks y'all want, in whatever combination, on every folio. They're super quick to insert: just type / and scroll through the listing. There are lots of templates built in too, so don't feel you have to customize absolutely everything when y'all're starting out. Just click on Templates in the sidebar and look through the options to find one yous like.

The sidebar is too how y'all browse all your pages. It's split into ii sections: Workspace, which is all the pages yous share with the residue of your team, and Individual, where yous can have your own notes. While collaboration is a large part of Notion, it's not forced on y'all. Everyone has their own section where they can piece of work on things—and so motility them out to the public areas for feedback and revision. Information technology's a great fashion for an entire team to work together without getting in each other's fashion.

One thing to annotation: Notion bills itself as an Evernote competitor for personal users. It can be—but information technology's too much for virtually people, and its offline functionality isn't the all-time. If you lot beloved the idea of Notion, go correct ahead and endeavor the gratis Personal Program, but to us, it's really all-time as a team notes app.

Notion integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to thousands of other apps to do things similar automatically generate Google Agenda events or save Slack letters to a tabular array in one of your notes.

Notion Cost: Free for personal users; complimentary trial for team users with a 1,000 block limit; from $x/month/user for teams with unlimited blocks.

Best notation-taking app for ability note-takers

Obsidian (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux)

Obsidian is one of a new category of note-taking apps that push the boundaries of what a notation-taking app can—and should—practise. Forth with Notion and Roam Research (which didn't brand this list because of its lack of offline back up), information technology strives to be an all-encompassing digital database for your life—and kind of pulls it off.

Obsidian has a much steeper learning curve than the other apps on this list, so only cheque information technology out if you're prepared to put in the work to get it prepare to your needs. At its core, it's only a notes app that uses text files formatted in Markdown, but things tin get more complicated quickly.

You can sort your notes into folders and subfolders using the sidebar, but more interestingly, you can link between them using internal hyperlinks. Typing [[ brings up a dialog box that lets you select any other note to link to. This means y'all can easily reference notes yous've previously created; for instance, you can create a listing of all the books you've read in the last twelvemonth and link to the notes where you review them.

On top of that, you can basically customize anything you want. You have total command over the interface and can have as many notes as yous want open up in the aforementioned window. There are even community plugins, which add features—like a kanban lath—that have it far beyond uncomplicated text files. My colleague Justin Pot told me, "Obsidian has literally inverse my life," and I don't recollect recommendations come much stronger than that.

Obsidian Price: Free for virtually features; optionally, from $25 for exclusive features. Premium add-ons offer services like Sync from $8/month.

This mail was originally published in October 2015 and previously had contributions from Emily Esposito and Jimmy Daly.

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Source: https://zapier.com/blog/best-note-taking-apps/

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