Macbook Software for Students

Hey

Im at university and im going to be using my macbook in lectures and tutorials.

What is the best application for easily taking and organizing notes in lectures?

Do you prefer to take notes with pen & paper or use a laptop, what are the pro's n cons?

any other useful software you can recommend?

Taking notes on my MacBook distracts me too much. There are too many other fun things to do besides paying attention. I prefer the old paper and pencil myself...

Try Journler:

http://journler.com

I've installed it and very briefly played around a little and it looks like it might fit your use.

SOHO Notes.

I would recommend journler also...it is far more than just a note taking application though...I use it as a GTD application, as an idea collector, etc. It's just a super useful application and it is amazing that it isn't shareware.

definately worth a try

kuchiki

journler seems quite good i have been fiddling with it. the only thing with it is that its a bit over the top and complicated for what i want to do. also exporting the entry's to back them up dose not seem to work properly which is a reall bummer if i want to back things up.

tobywuk,
I think it depends on what kind of notes you normally take. Sometimes I have just used my word processor (e.g., Word or Pages) to take notes. I use a different file for each course, and each day of class insert my notes above my previous entries (so my most recent notes are page 1).
By the way, the above should not be taken as an endorsement of Word.

Maybe you aren't usually taking narrative notes. I found OmniOutliner.app (in your Applications folder) the other day and saw some potential in that, but haven't taken the time to play with it.

The problem with using the same file would be that after a few weeks of taking notes in the same file for a unit the document would get very big.

Having all your notes in one file means that if the file somehow gets misplaced/corrupted/otherwise made useless the entirety of your notes are gone. Maybe it would be a better idea to have a new file for each instance you have to take notes, with the file name being the date, time and subject of the notes? - This also makes for easier browsing at a later date.

As for pros and cons, can you type or write faster? Needless to say, accuracy is an important factor - notes you can't decipher after he class are useless.

It's easier to reorganize typed notes, but easier to hand draw diagrams. It's also easier to backup typed stuff.

I use my Macbook to type notes as my handwriting is atrocious, and I can type faster than write. I do however, keep a pen and paper handy in case I need to jot a diagram down quickly.

Should hopefully help. If you find a better method, let me know!

In the meantime, I'll try out this Journler in my lectures next week and see what it's like.

I'd be interested in this as well...

I haven't really bothered taking notes with my Macbook much yet, but I suck at taking tidy handwritten notes... let us know what you come up with!

Just be careful, I had a laptop in college, and I spent more time surfing the internet, and playing games than I did paying attention in class.

Just had a play with Journler!

I will definitely be using this.

Auto-dates upon creation of a new entry, then you can title and tag it when you are done, meaning easy finding later. Smart folders look good, too - Set one up for each subject you need and it collects all of the entries containing your criteria. For instance, I've got one to contain all of my entries that contain 'Digital' in the tags. Seems like an awfully good app to me.

OmniOutliner is also an excellent note-taking app. I have never used Journler so I can't compare the two, but OO has more than fulfilled my needs.

i have started using Journler and its very good for written notes. i just need a digital way to take down diagrams now so i dont have to use paper.

I'm using word b/c if I miss a day and need to get notes from someone, it doesn't matter if they have mac or pc, as long as they save it in the old 97 and earlier .doc format before sending it or saving it on my jumpdrive. I'm sure there arebetter programs out, but word seems to be the standard on my campus (probably becasue office only costs $30 or so).

when I finally got tired of waiting for leopard and got my macbook, I had to go back and resave everything on the PC into the older format.

attackeagle said:

I'm using word b/c if I miss a day and need to get notes from someone, it doesn't matter if they have mac or pc, as long as they save it in the old 97 and earlier .doc format before sending it or saving it on my jumpdrive.

Click to expand...

Journler saves (well exports) them as .txt files and anything can read that with out any special file format having to be saved.

yeah but i'm in journalism.... the formatting IS everything!

I go in the opposite direction and use a plain text editor like Text Edit because Word auto indents and lists too much. I have Noteshare on my computer since I got my MBP from my college but I opened it once just to check it out and that was it. I just make a neat folder flow like "/documents/history/week1/9-10-07.txt" for example and that works just fine for me.

About 90% of the time though I just use a notebook since walking around with over two grand in technology in my backpack is a liability! That's kind of why I wish my super old thinkpad w/ a 133mhz pentium had a decent battery in it since I would just use that for taking notes and laugh if it fell out of my backpack in the street and got ran over.

If you already have a nice Macbook that you use rely on for more than an electronic notebook (I use mine for audio production), I would recommend getting an inexpensive laptop for $150 or less (preferably with USB or some kind of internet access to transfer small files) and a new battery for it. Heck if you have something like that thinkpad I mentioned just load a small Linux distro on it and you have a zippy little note taker!