Keeping notes. WizNote - convenient note storage

Recently, one of the first truly successful startups, note-taking service Evernote, announced significant changes to its pricing plans. It is not within the scope of this article to analyze all the reasons for this event, Evernote has changed the terms of use of the service many times, but for the first time such changes affect the basic functionality. The key difference between the innovations is the limitation of the free account to two devices. In other words, if you use a smartphone and a laptop, then you don’t have to worry. But if a tablet is added to them, or another smartphone, or a home / work desktop, then you need to switch to a paid subscription, which also includes a lot, it is quite possible that unnecessary functions.

Fortunately, there are alternative services, which offer basically the same, with some variations, functionality for managing notes. About their features - the text below.

To begin with, consider the proposals from the three pillars of the modern industry: Apple, Google and Microsoft.

Apple Notes

Platforms: iOS, macOS, web
Limitations: iCloud storage

By and large, Notes has only one indisputable plus (which many regard as a minus) - they are initially available on almost any modern Apple device. Synchronization occurs through iCloud, Apple's cloud service, which is quite reliable today and is the basis of the company's ecosystem.

In future versions, the function of team work on notes will also be added, which will significantly increase the attractiveness of the application, especially for corporate users.

Unfortunately, despite the obvious appeal, the lack of client applications for competing platforms cannot make Apple's Notes a universal replacement for Evernote, nor can iMessage and FaceTime be able to replace Viber or WhatsApp in the mass consciousness.

Google Keep

Platforms: Android, Chrome, web, iOS
Price: free (system service)

Google Keep is familiar to all Android users. This is the same system service from Google as Notes from Apple, but with its own nuances. In terms of formatting notes, almost all standard options are available, such as lists, text styles, and voice input. Unfortunately, any graphic files added to a note are displayed exclusively in its title.

However, notes in Google Keep can be turned into reminders, while they are not transferred to some separate application, as is the case with Apple, but simply moved to the appropriate section within the service itself.

The interface of Google Keep, due to the fonts and colors used, gives a somewhat playful impression. As a result, excessive primitiveness in the design of notes and the lack of desktop clients for Google Keep may turn out to be quite sufficient for someone as a standalone product, but they cannot be considered as a replacement for Evernote.

Microsoft OneNote

Platforms: Windows, Windows Phone, macOS, iOS, Android, Amazon, Chrome, web
Price: free
Limit: Amount of available OneDrive space
Ability to import Evernote notes: yes (Windows only)

OneNote is a great choice for Windows users due to its tight integration with Microsoft services. But even if you are a user of some alternative platforms, OneNote can be a really good replacement. Note formatting tools are the richest, Microsoft has no restrictions on the number of notes per month, as is typical for Evernote. Images can be placed in any part of the text, which is a clear advantage over Google Keep.

Of the minuses, one can note some congestion of the interface and, at first glance, an overly structured system for sorting notes into sections and notebooks, but over time you can get used to this, and this does not affect other advantages of the service. Unfortunately, if you don't have Windows 7 or later at hand, you can only manually import notes from Evernote into OneNote.

Fortunately, the market for Evernote alternatives isn't limited to just the three big players. A lot of successful and not so successful solutions have long been trying to win a place in the sun, offering users their own vision of note services.

simple notes

Platforms: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Amazon, Linux, web
Price: free
Ability to import Evernote notes: no

The name of the service speaks for itself - these are the simplest notes. Well, that is, quite simple: there is no text formatting, no images, and other things inside the notes. Of the obvious advantages, one can single out joint work on notes and their storage on servers with versioning support, which allows you to roll back the contents of notes to previous states. In addition, Simplenote is distributed across an impressive range of platforms.

However, only the user who does not use media files in his notes at all, limiting himself exclusively to text, can replace Evernote with Simplenote. And then you have to do it manually. That is, Simplenote does not solve the problem posed in the article.

Quip

Platforms: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, web
Price: Free (for basic custom features)
Ability to import Evernote notes: yes

In terms of note-taking, Quip is a great solution. Everything that Evernote was famous for is fully present here: from support for graphic elements to a wide variety of text formatting tools. The interface of Quip is simple and pleasant, sorting notes on the principle of "desktop" is logical and visual.

Separately, it is worth noting the function of importing notes from Evernote, implemented even in Quip mobile clients. When the application is launched for the first time, the user sees an offer to import notes from other services and storages. It is enough to select Evernote from the list, enter the username and password from the service, and after a while the entire structure of your notes will be in Quip.

However, Quip is not only a note-taking and storage tool, but also a serious tool for teamwork. After paying for a team access subscription, Quip magically transforms from a note-taking service into a powerful mobile office with document and spreadsheet collaboration, corporate and individual chats, project management, and a lot of additional tools worthy of a separate article.

In general, the service makes a decent impression of a thoughtful and high-quality product that can be safely recommended as a replacement for Evernote.

WizNote

Platforms: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, web
Price: free
Limits: 500 MB/mo on a free account
Ability to import Evernote notes: yes (non-standard)

Some call the Chinese service WizNote a clone of Evernote, and this is partly true: the ideology of sorting and formatting notes for individual use is very similar for these two products. But in team work on notes, the Chinese are ahead of the rest: the service has 5 (five!) Levels of access to viewing and editing, from Viewer, Author and Editor to Super User and Administrator.

With formatting and graphics, everything is in order here, everything is functional as in Evernote. There are built-in reminders. It also supports the Markdown markup language - for many users this is an indisputable plus.

The process of importing notes from Evernote to WizNote is somewhat unusual: the import does not use the Evernote export file, but the local database of the computer with the .exb extension. For Windows, for example, the path to the database looks like this:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Evernote\EvernoteDatabases

One of the disadvantages of WizNote for some users may be the lack of any interface languages other than English and Chinese. There is an unofficial crack for some platforms, but for a note service, this is, frankly, overkill. However, aside from some of the rough edges of its Chinese origins, WizNote manages to replace Evernote with a bang and is very stable.

Nimbus note

Platforms: Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android, web
Price: Free (for basic features)
Limits: 100 MB/mo on a free account
Ability to import Evernote notes: yes (Windows)

Russian service, positioning itself as a substitute for Evernote. Notes are stored in folders with a multi-level structure, formatting tools are standard and repeat those in Evernote. Supports creating public links to folders or individual notes. In general, the service is not bad for those platforms for which the client part has already been written, but the limitations in free accounts are quite significant. On the other hand, the cost of a subscription to remove restrictions is quite affordable and is about $15 per year.

Of the obvious disadvantages, it should be noted that the tool for importing notes from Evernote is only for Windows. In addition, only a browser version is available to macOS users, there is no client program and it is not known if one will appear.

If we talk about the listed services, then in the case of Apple users, we can safely recommend a simple transition to Apple Notes- import from Evernote is a standard feature here, applications are present on all devices by default and are part of a stable and secure ecosystem.

Chinese stands somewhat apart WizNote. He could well become the leader in the list of Evernote replacements, if not for the strange approach to importing notes and the lack of localizations. However, if the features of OneNote or Quip seem redundant, and the rest is not intimidating, WizNote may be an acceptable option.

If multiplatform and functionality are important, then the undisputed leaders are Microsoft OneNote(with reservations) and Quip, and the latter looks more advantageous precisely due to a more thoughtful interface. In addition, on paid accounts, Quip significantly increases its capabilities compared to OneNote. The ease of importing Evernote notes also puts Quip at the top of the list when compared to Microsoft's product, and everyone else's as well.

In a word, in the presented list, Quip- the undisputed leader.

Hello habravians.

The other day I posted new version note-taking software OutWiker. Once upon a time more than a year ago, I already wrote about it on Habré, during this time the program has been updated many times, overgrown with new features, which makes no sense to compare latest version program with its (pose) last year's version.

OutWiker is a cross-platform (Windows, Linux) tree-based note-taking tool. Distributed by OutWiker open source. A feature of the program is that all records are not stored in one file, but the structure is formed from nested files and folders. In addition, the program supports several types of pages: simple text pages, pages that use HTML for formatting notes, and pages in the wikinotation format (reminiscent of pmWiki).

For example, the following screenshot shows the wikitext for the first picture of a post.

For a wikinotation, you can view its correspondence in HTML format. This feature can be used, for example, to design blog posts. Still, wikinotation is more concise than HTML, therefore, IMHO, it is more convenient to use it for writing large texts.

If you don't want to use wikinotation, you can write notes directly in HTML format. In both formats, the toolbar includes buttons for inserting the most commonly used tags (for HTML pages) and wiki commands (for wiki pages). There is another type of pages without design - ordinary text entries, but there is not much to say about them.

For each page, you can set labels (tags), which are grouped into a tag cloud on a separate panel. Clicking on a tag will open a list of notes tagged with that tag.

Recently, OutWiker has started supporting plugins, a list of which can be seen. At the time of writing these lines, the following plugins have been created: for code coloring on various languages, for exporting notes and tree branches to HTML format, for formatting links to LiveJournal users, as is customary in LiveJournal itself, and a few more plugins related to page design in wikinotation. For example, the following screenshot shows the work of the source coloring plugin.

In the near future there are ideas for some more useful plugins.

You can insert formulas in TeX format into wiki pages, insert attached pictures or their thumbnails (the plans include a plugin for creating a gallery of attached pictures).

In addition, the Ukrainian localization of OutWiker was sent relatively recently.

OutWiker 1.6 introduced the ability to set page styles. The screenshots below show the same page with different styles applied.

As I said, the program is cross-platform, Windows users can download the assembly for this OS, there is an archive with sources for Linux users, and a PPA has been prepared for Ubuntu users, links to all this are on

Last summer, Evernote raised its prices and limited the number of devices it syncs for free to two. Many users were dissatisfied and switched to other note storage services, which abound on the Internet. They are comfortable, beautiful, each has its own characteristics. The only con is that if your favorite service decides to raise prices like Evernote, cut functionality, or shut down altogether like Springpad, you'll have to spend a lot of time saving your data and exporting your notes.

Do I need to use third-party note-taking services? After all, there is another way. Organize your notes as plain text files with Markdown, arranged in folders in any cloud storage.

What is Markdown

Markdown has already been written about many times on Lifehacker. This is an extremely easy-to-learn text markup language that allows you to create formatted documents in plain text files. You can see its syntax, for example, here.

Advantages

Cross platform

Evernote is obviously not going to release an official client for Linux, nor is OneNote, and third-party clients are far from perfect. Notes in Markdown can be opened on any system and on any device - Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS.

Convenient synchronization

You can use any cloud storage you want. Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud - the choice is yours. As a result, the convenience of backup, since most cloud storages support the restoration of files from previous versions. If necessary, you can organize your own storage. Naturally, the selected cloud can be changed at any moment. It is enough to copy the folder with notes.

Ease of Migration

If you've tried migrating from Evernote to OneNote or WizNote, you may have noticed how sloppy the migration utilities are with your data, losing notes and messing with their formatting. By storing your notes in Markdown files organized into folders, you don't have to worry about export issues. You can quickly convert notes to any popular format using text formatting utilities such as Pandoc.

Extensive options for sorting notes

Evernote users are unhappy that notebooks do not support more than two levels of nesting. You can create tags in Simplenote, but you can't create folders. By saving your notes as text data, you can sort them however you like, depending on the tools of your operating system and file manager. If you wish, you can enhance the system by adding tags to your notes in the form of plain text indexed by search.

Large selection of tools

Notes in plain text files with Markdown markup are good because, when working with them, you can do without third-party tools at all. You will only need a file manager to sort them, and Notepad to open them. But using note-taking software can make editing Markdown files more comfortable.

What You Can Use Markdown For

Notes

This markup language is good for quickly writing short notes with minimal formatting or taking notes and taking notes. The created documents can then be easily converted to other formats (.docx, .odt, .pdf and others) while maintaining the formatting. With Markdown, you can write posts for your blog.

Articles from the Internet

Markdown is suitable not only for writing your own articles, but also for saving information from the Internet, for example, using the Fuckyeahmarkdown service. Saved articles, cleaned of extraneous information, can be read comfortably on a computer or tablet.

to-do lists

Markdown allows you to create visual lists, and with the help of applications like Simpletask or Cheddar, your todo.txt becomes a full-fledged task manager.

mail

With Markdown Here, you can quickly create emails with Markdown markup without the hassle of clicking formatting buttons in the web interface or email client.

Tools for working with Markdown notes

Windows

Of the many editors, MarkdownPad stands out - a simple and functional editor that lacks only a file panel, or ResophNotes. For writing text in abstract mode, Writemonkey is suitable.

Mac

macOS has a large number of notepads that work with Markdown. Write and iA Writer sync with Dropbox, iCloud and other cloud storages and have clients for iOS. Notational Velocity and nvALT are suitable for lovers of a minimalistic interface. The Ulysses app is a great tool for writers.

Linux

Linux users can try P.S.Notes, a simple, lightweight and fast note manager. Similar to nvALT, has file panel and distraction-free mode. For writing more notes, Ghostwriter is perfect, in which you can insert images and export the resulting result to various formats, Uberwriter or Typora.

Cross-platform solutions

Cross-platform text editors like Atom, Brackets or Sublime Text with a file panel and a few extensions turn into handy note managers. They support searching across documents and editing multiple notes at the same time with autocorrect and regular expressions.

iOS

You can choose any of these applications to edit your notes.

Price: 699 rubles

You can create a new note by clicking on the New Note option in the Edit menu, or by using a shortcut. The program supports a number of key combinations, which are indicated to the right of the corresponding parameters.

Unlike SilverNote, Cintanotes provides a separate header field where you can insert timestamps while editing. The context menu inside the note editor provides limited formatting options. There is no option to change text color or font in Cintanotes. You get basic functionality like italic, bold text, underline, highlight, strikethrough, single-space indent, bulleted lists, etc.

Although you cannot embed images in Cintanotes notes, you can still link files to note text, which can be opened by clicking on the corresponding hyperlinks.

Clipping notes is a useful feature that is widely used by Evernote and OneNote. Cintanotes also provides a text clipping feature. Select the desired text in any application and press CTRL+F12 while the Cintanotes service is running on your computer. After that, a new window will appear on the screen with the text inserted into the note.

Cintanotes also supports sectioning, tagging, and search options. Users can create notebooks for different purposes. The application also contains backup, export, and import features for notes so that users can move notes to local storage.

Cintanotes content can be synced online through the Simplenote service. The service does not have its own synchronization function. To use this feature, the service requires a pro license.

Evernote and Microsoft OneNote are fierce competitors. Both services have rich functionality and a growing user base. For more information, check out our service comparison.

OneNote service from Microsoft- Another great tool for recording your plans and ideas. The service is provided free of charge. All you need to use the service is a Microsoft account (eg Live, Outlook). OneNote apps are available on the website, (PC and mobile), Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android. If you have MS Office installed on your computer, then most likely OneNote is already included in this package. To download the app for your device, follow this link. If you already have experience using the Evernote service, you may find our comparison of services helpful.

OneNote offers many content formatting tools. In your note, you can customize the text font, size, color, and more. The service also has a rich drawing tool that helps you instantly express your ideas in the note editor.

OneNote uses tags in a unique way to help you organize your time. OneNote notebooks are also useful for this purpose.

OneNote users can insert images, sounds, and other files into their notes. Unlike Evernote, this service does not have monthly limits for sending data to the service. OneNote uses custom OneDrive storage under the same Microsoft account. When purchasing the Office 365 software suite, OneNote users get many more enterprise features.

The service's optical character recognition works quite well. With OCR, you can extract text from images and handwritten texts.

From the name of the service, it is clear that Simplenote is a note-taking service with a simple user interface and a convenient list of features. This free note-taking tool is offered by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and part of WordPress.org.

Users can use the web version of Simplenote. Visit http://simplenote.com and create an account to get started with the service. Dedicated Simplenote apps are available for iOS, Android, Mac, and Kindle devices from Amazon.

The service does not offer any text formatting tools. Users need to add the title and the text of the note in the same field. Linking via hyperlinks or inserting images/files is also not possible.

Simplenote notes can be organized/filtered using tags. The service offers data sharing features that allow other people to view and edit shared notes.

Simplenote also includes a version history, with which users can restore previous versions of their notes. Users also have the option to download all of their notes in text format in a zip archive to keep a local copy of them.

Need a small but practical note-taking tool? SilverNote can be your solution. This software contains many tools to help users easily create notes. The service is available in both paid and free versions. At the moment, the service only supports computers with operating system Windows.

You don't need to create an account to use SilverNote. So just download the app and start taking notes.

In the editor window you will find a range of formatting tools. You can draw with the built-in Pencil tool and fill separate sections different colors to better showcase your ideas. Creating a to-do list in SilverNote means creating bulleted list items. Checkboxes are not available here. To make your notes look more informative, you can insert images, screenshots, and other files into them. Exporting notes takes place in a few mouse clicks. Although, for this you will need to purchase a pro-version of the service.

SilverNote lacks its own sync feature. However, you can still sync your notes storage with Dropbox, Google Drive, and so on to access them from your computers.

If you compare SilverNote with other well-known note-taking applications such as Evernote or OneNote, the lack of a synchronization feature immediately catches your eye. If we talk about the process of creating notes and functions, then SilverNote is a fairly strong competitor in this regard.

Have you ever used Beyondpad.com? This service positions itself as a data-driven note-taking tool. At the moment, only the web version of the service is available. The service has add-ons for Chrome and Firefox browsers. The author of Beyondpad promises to make it available on the mobile platform in the near future. Until then, you can try the web version of this service.

The Notes interface in Beyondpad resembles that of Google Keep. It has a similar structure in the form of tiles. The text font color cannot be changed. But the background color of the note is customizable, just like in Google Keep.

The service also allows users to create a visual reminder using a stopwatch and a timer. Beyondpad has a sophisticated tagging system. Here you can insert a tag within another tag. Moreover, tags can be attached to notes to store information about a particular tag.

Boards and trackers are two of the most talked about features of the service. A whiteboard is like Pinterest for taking notes. Here you can post selected notes, which can adjust their tags accordingly.

Trackers are used to keep track of project items such as expenses, income, inventory, and so on. You can set timers and view the status of a tracked article within the Beyondpad service.

You cannot send images to the service. However, you can embed images in notes by providing links and the images will appear in the note content.

... This is how I currently have a collection of note-taking tools. I hope my article has helped you in choosing the right note taking tool. So which service did you like the most?

Task

Everything that we accumulate during our life can be called our own knowledge base. This is Wikipedia, which is compiled only by ourselves. We need a program or service on the Internet. Which one depends on the needs. I can't speak for everyone, here are mine:

Storing text with pictures sorted into folders.
Possibility of searching among records.
The base must be common for a computer, tablet, phone.
There should be access from anywhere where there is Internet (access through the site).

Nothing complicated, but really not much to choose from. Evernote has become a personal encyclopedia for many. Unfortunately, the features of the free account are limited, as I mentioned in the note. For example, in order for all your notes to be accessible, you need a working Internet. In principle, you can take notes in Microsoft Word documents, storing them in a folder, for example, but it is not so easy to get access from another computer - you need to enter a username, password, download a file, open ...

Possible problems

What can prevent you from accessing your own notes?

Lack of electricity. Since notes are kept electronically, the only way to read them without an outlet nearby is to print them out and carry them with you. I hope it never comes to this. Mobile phones without recharging they live longer, so you need the possibility of duplicating notes on it.
Lack of Internet. Without the Internet, notes can be read when the database is stored locally - on a computer or phone. Therefore, the program not only has to store everything on servers somewhere, but also on the user's computer.
Non-working program. Evernote for Android is a buggy thing. Without erasing the data, I did not want to run twice. What if the program cannot be reinstalled? Fortunately, the WizNote program, which I will discuss later, stores notes in the form of ordinary html files, packed into archives of the equally popular ZIP format. This will open everywhere. No third-party programs, even WizNote itself, are needed.

WizNote

An interesting program for taking notes. I've been using for a month now. I paid attention to WizNote at the beginning of 2015, but then there were too many problems. Returning six months later, I realized - here it is, Evernote's replacement!

What is her strength:

There are versions for Windows, Linux, Android, MacOS.
A simple web version is also available.
Notes are added very quickly thanks to the floating bar at the top of the screen (disabled at will).
There are add-ons to expand the possibilities.
You can create post templates if you enter a lot of the same type of information.
The Windows version has a lot of settings, you can remove unnecessary buttons.
A paid account is completely unnecessary for those who take notes for themselves.
The 500 MB limit plus the reward system (you can even earn a VIP account for a month) looks like a generosity attraction compared to Evernote.

Disadvantages (where without them?):

Russification is incomplete. 80 percent. The rest is in English. Well, at least there are no hieroglyphs (the developers are Chinese).
Problems with searching for notes with Russian text (it seems that it normally searches only for small letters).
Sometimes notes taken on one device do not immediately appear on others. Not critical, because in case of problems you just need to wait half an hour (problems with synchronization). Most likely this is due to the location of the servers in China - the Great Firewall of China interferes.

Where to download WizNote

Program free. Official site -tyk - in Chinese. Was once in English at wiznote.com, but it was closed.

Desktop versions:

Windows version - download.
Version for MacOS - download.
Linux version (Ubuntu/Debian, Red hat/CentOS/Fedora, sources available) - link.

Mobile versions:

For Android (phones, tablets) - a link to Google Play (ignore the Chinese text, the program is in English).
For iPhone - link.
For iPad, a separate tablet version is a link.

Clippers for browsers (to save the entire page as a note, very handy):

For Internet Explorer, it comes with the desktop version.
The rest - here.

Skins (appearance change)

At the time of writing, three are available at this link.

Plugins

WizNote supports plugins, there are some interesting ones. They can be found in the program menu - Tools - Plugin Manager.

Main chips

Organization of notes

If you look briefly at appearance, then you can understand - WizNote stores notes in the form of a document tree (like ordinary folders with files inside). But this is only at first glance.

When creating a note, you can enter tags. This means that, if desired, you can select entries from different folders, united by a common theme.

Quick Access Toolbar

To be honest, I immediately turned it off, because it interferes.

The panel can be positioned anywhere on the screen by dragging the left edge with the mouse. If you press it against the edge of the monitor, it will automatically hide. Hover your mouse - the panel will open. The content of the panel is editable.

Useful thing that I didn't need. To hide it, click on the triangle to the right of W - Floating Toolbar - Hide the toolbar. You can turn it back on through the main menu of the program - Tools - Floating panel.

Taking screenshots

Do you often need to “cut out” a piece of the screen, add arrows, inscriptions? WizNote can do it.

The only moment that is annoying is that the screenshot editing window does not appear immediately. You need to open the created note, right-click on the picture - Image - Edit image.

Create logs

For those who need to take daily notes, a separate type of entry is useful - a journal.

Stickers

Entries hanging on top of all windows in a small window. Someone will come in handy.

And other

I will not deprive you of the joy of a discoverer. WizNote for Windows has a slightly overloaded interface, you have to pay a little attention. It will pay off.

Web and mobile versions not an example is simpler, the functions are not so rich.

What do I use for

The program performs well in working conditions. What I do most often:

While surfing the Internet, I see an interesting phrase. I select the text and use the WizNote Web Clipper extension to save the note to the Notes folder. Sometimes I add tags. I'll sort later.
I came across an interesting article. I save using WizNote Web Clipper. You do not need to highlight the text - in 99% of cases the extension correctly determines where the article is located on the page and saves only it.
I work with the source code of the site. You need to save small pieces of code. I use WizNote stickers for this.
It is necessary to write down a brief thought, which in the future may develop into an article. I create a note in WizNote, the section is "My Notes".

The possibilities of WizNote are not limited to this. For example, you can create a calendar and add reminders to it. Make a shopping list and later on the tablet check off what you bought. From the exotic - you can create a questionnaire template (questionnaire) and maintain a database of surveys.

Outcome

WizNote is quite capable of replacing the popular Evernote. These are not direct competitors - WizNote is primarily focused on group work with notes. A free account does not allow you to fully appreciate this.

I am sure that the program has a bright future. Judging by the progress over the past six months, the developers are really working, adding new features. Only Chinese roots cause fear - it is not a fact that it will ever be one hundred percent Russified.

As for the rest: records are created, synchronized between all devices - perhaps this is enough for happiness?