Note Taking

Evernote is perhaps the most well-known digital notebook, and for good reason. It’s simple enough to capture quick notes on the go, and still powerful enough to organize your entire digital life.

Notes in Evernote are much like rich text documents. You can add text, images, audio, and files to notes, then organize them into notebooks. Everything is tied together with powerful search (which can even index handwritten notes and attached documents if you upgrade to Premium), so you can find any note no matter where you saved it.

If you prefer handwritten notes, Evernote makes one of the best document scanning apps as well: Scannable. You can scan your handwritten notes, receipts, important documents and more to Evernote just by taking a picture with your phone. Then, you can find any text in the documents, using Evernote's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to find text from Evernote search.

Google Keep might look like a basic sticky-note app, but don't be fooled by its minimalist skin. It's actually a full-featured notes app that's a great place to jot down ideas, create checklists, and much more.

The app is stripped down compared to Evernote and OneNote, but that might be just what you need to keep you efficient. You'll write new notes on digital sticky-notes, and then can preview them without having to open each note. If you want to take your notes further, there's a “Copy to Google Doc” feature, which turns any note into an editable Google Doc. And if you write down something you can't afford to forget, Google Keep's location reminders can refresh your memory when you're in a certain area.

Google Keep's most useful feature, though, is audio transcription. When you record your thoughts with Keep’s audio recorder in its mobile apps, Google transcribes the text and records the audio. You'll never need to transcribe a conversation again.

VideoNot.es is a tool that allows you to take synchronized notes while watching a video. It is a web-based tool that works well for multiple video sites, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Khan Academy, edX, Udacity, and Coursera. VideoNot.es is synchronized with Google Drive, which means all notes are automatically saved as Google Docs in your Drive. Since the notes are saved in Google Drive, users need a Google account to use VideoNot.es. Students can use this tool to record their thoughts and ideas about a particular video to share with their peers and teachers. Teacher can use VideoNot.es as an summative or formative assessment tool to review students thoughts about specific content.

True to its name, Simplenote offers a clutter-free space for typing notes. There are no frills here—just a blank canvas for plain-text notes about meetings, weekend plans, and more. You can't add images or attachments, but you can quickly write down text notes and search through your entire collection.

Accidentally delete something important? Simplenote's history will come in handy, as you can look back through every version of your notes and roll back changes. It also lets you share a note, so you can invite a friend or coworker to help collaborate on a project.

Simplenote isn’t a replacement for robust tools like Evernote, but it's a useful distraction-free writing space. As Matt Mullenweg—the founder of Automattic, which now owns Simplenote—told The Verge, “You don’t open a letter with a chainsaw.”

Part of the Zoho productivity family, Zoho Notebook is an aesthetic, feature-rich note-taking app. Notebook makes organizing your notes fun by throwing out menus in favor of—what else?—notebooks. Users can choose from one of Notebook's trendy designs, or customize with their own cover art.

Adding a note is simple. The menu bar gives you five unique "card" types, all with their own displays and options: Text note, voice recording, image, checklist, or handwritten note (mobile only). You can also include recordings, images, and checklists as part of a rich text note.

Notebook makes it easy to capture inspiration wherever and however it strikes. Notebook's mobile app has a native sketch feature that you can use to jot down diagrams or notes with your finger or a basic stylus. Record voice notes via the Apple Watch. Use Notebook's Web Clipper to capture and annotate web pages, screenshots, and more.