Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

djmpower · Feb 13, 2003, 12:20 PM

For those of you that take class notes on your Powerbooks, which program do you use to take the notes?

I tried to use MS Word and did not like it very much. I then tried to use Text Edit, which I liked more. However, I would like to be able to draw the occasional sketch or diagram and some drawing tools would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone have any advice or experience as to what works best?

Thanks in advance,
DJ

hamiltondj · 02:43 PM

omnioutliner & Omnigraffle

Excellent programs that I have found make my notes much better

<edit>

Just to further my recommendation of omnioutliner. The current version allows you to have great outlines plus extensive notes for each bullet point. You can print it out, convert it to html, rtf, theres even a send to word apple script available. It uses the OS X built in spell checker.

Just an awsome program that gets frequent updates. They seem really responsive to customer requests too.

I've been using it in the following manner: using omnioutliner to take & edit notes, converting to html and using safari to read through and study. Then if I want to print or share with others, I use OS X built in save as PDF feature.

</edit>

ebisix · Feb 13, 2003, 12:26 PM

Nice post. I had the same question.

King Chung Huang · Feb 13, 2003, 01:38 PM

Another vote for OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle! They're great for notes and charts.

Commodus · Feb 13, 2003, 01:58 PM

I haven't ever had to draw a diagram, but I use AppleWorks myself. It was less expensive and Not Microsoft (tm).

mikeylebeau · Feb 13, 2003, 03:03 PM

Not to get off topic, but how do you actually find this useful? I'm not trying to be obnoxious but personally I tried that in like 8th grade and haven't tried it since (I'm a second-year undergrad now) because it's so much worse than pen and paper.. For me anyway.

-mikey

PBG4 User · Feb 13, 2003, 04:01 PM

I only use my PB to take notes in classes where I know I won't be doing any drawing or equations. I also have trouble when I have classes in rooms with those little AIO kindergarten desks. So basically I don't end up taking too many notes with it, even though that was a major reason I bought mine.

MarkLT1 · Feb 13, 2003, 04:03 PM

Originally posted by mikeylebeau:
Not to get off topic, but how do you actually find this useful? I'm not trying to be obnoxious but personally I tried that in like 8th grade and haven't tried it since (I'm a second-year undergrad now) because it's so much worse than pen and paper.. For me anyway.

-mikey

Personally, I have been doing notes on my computer in class since my freshman year (I am now a second year grad student). What I find useful, is that I now have searchable notes. The one drawback is equations and graphs. For equations, I write all my papers in LaTeX, so I use the TeX equation formats. For charts, I have a small wacom tablet, that I just sketch out a quick chart if need be. Long story short- I have all my notes from every class from the last 6 years on my portable machine. The notes are searchable, so I can look up a specific theorem with ease.

-Mark

mginsberg · Feb 13, 2003, 04:06 PM

I just found one named NoteTaker by AquaMinds, it looks pretty cool:

http://www.aquaminds.com

ASIMO · Feb 13, 2003, 04:10 PM

There's a app called NoteTaker: http://www.versiontracker.com/morein...d=17490&db=mac

hamiltondj · Feb 13, 2003, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by mikeylebeau:
Not to get off topic, but how do you actually find this useful? I'm not trying to be obnoxious but personally I tried that in like 8th grade and haven't tried it since (I'm a second-year undergrad now) because it's so much worse than pen and paper.. For me anyway.

-mikey

Well, if your a science/engineering/math type then it might not be useful.

But if your a liberal arts/social sciences/MBA/JD type the it is essential (as long as you can type reasonably well)

mikeylebeau · Feb 13, 2003, 05:16 PM

Originally posted by hamiltondj:
Well, if your a science/engineering/math type then it might not be useful.

But if your a liberal arts/social sciences/MBA/JD type the it is essential (as long as you can type reasonably well)

Also kind of difficult in linguistics.. Particularly when dealing with, shall we say, the more 'interesting' orthographies, or anything in phonetics/phonology.

-mikey

ngrundy · Feb 14, 2003, 12:14 AM

Originally posted by mikeylebeau:
Not to get off topic, but how do you actually find this useful? I'm not trying to be obnoxious but personally I tried that in like 8th grade and haven't tried it since (I'm a second-year undergrad now) because it's so much worse than pen and paper.. For me anyway.

An excellent question, my answer is this

I can type faster than I write by hand, and as an added bonus I can actualy read the notes I take on my laptop after the fact.

Also the ablity to have last year + this years worth of notes avalible all the time is realy handy at times.

To answer the threads question, I use powerpoint. Our lectures provide the slides they use prior to the lecture in a downloadable form, I download the slides the night before and add notes into the note field below a particular slide.

seanyepez · Feb 14, 2003, 12:27 AM

I don't claim to have the best solution for you, but I've been taking notes with SimpleText/TextEdit since 6th grade.

SOLIDAge · Feb 14, 2003, 01:22 AM

i just recently started taking notes on my PB this year. I simply use Appleworks, and if there is a graph or something i'll just draw it out w/ Appleworks as well.

is there an easy chart program ou tthere? i want to use Omnioutliner it looks cool...but i don't have time to play w/ it to see how it works before bringing it to the classroom

Superchicken · Feb 14, 2003, 08:51 PM

Omni Outliner sounds great.... I was kinda worried about appleworks not being included on my 12 inch pb... but from the sounds of it it should be fine. Thanks for posting... I've used omni web a bit... and It's a decent browser... I hope omni outliner is as good

torifile · Feb 15, 2003, 02:42 AM

Get to know omnioutliner and omnigraffle and you'll wonder how you ever took notes without them. Seriously. THey are that good. I love 'em. They just make sense. The way all programs should....

vmarks · Feb 15, 2003, 10:51 AM

Charts:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...hartsmith.html

note taker, if you don't like omnioutliner (which I love, BTW):
http://www.aquaminds.com/index.jsp

Mesa for spreadsheet and graphs:
http://www.plsys.co.uk/products/mesa/index.html

Word Processors:

Mellel
www.redlers.com

Okito Composer, which is now gone, bought by Nisus. But I keep my copy anyway, I like it that much. I'm sure if you look around or ask, you'll find it. It's great!

LtKernelPanic · Feb 16, 2003, 03:45 AM

I used BBEdit most of the time. I used Word as well. As someone else mentioned I had profs who would post their PowerPoint slides ahead of time and I'd add notes to the notes fields. I did keep a notebook in my bag just incase there was something I couldn't do on my PB which did happen from time to time.

Leaf · Feb 16, 2003, 04:28 AM

Forgive me if this is a stupid question since I've never actually had much experience w/ the PowerBook's keyboard (mine arrives this coming week!). Anyway, my question is how loud are the keys when you type? If it's anything like my home PC's keyboard then I just can't imagine typing out something really fast and not having it get really annoying to the students around me.

Also, how many other people in your classes use portables? I've only maybe once seen someone use it to take notes. Maybe it's just the school's I've been to. *shrug*

ngrundy · Feb 16, 2003, 09:24 AM

Originally posted by Leaf:
Forgive me if this is a stupid question since I've never actually had much experience w/ the PowerBook's keyboard (mine arrives this coming week!). Anyway, my question is how loud are the keys when you type? If it's anything like my home PC's keyboard then I just can't imagine typing out something really fast and not having it get really annoying to the students around me.

Also, how many other people in your classes use portables? I've only maybe once seen someone use it to take notes. Maybe it's just the school's I've been to. *shrug*

the keyboards are much quieter than your average desktop keyboard, I was sitting next to someone who was using a ibook and i personaly thought that their keyboard was louder than mine, but that may just be due to the age of the iBook (it was a 600mhz icebook)

my computing lectures usualy see about half a dozen people taking notes on laptops or some other form of digital device

vmarks · Feb 16, 2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by mikeylebeau:
Also kind of difficult in linguistics.. Particularly when dealing with, shall we say, the more 'interesting' orthographies, or anything in phonetics/phonology.

-mikey

There is an application for taking notes in International Phonetic Alphabet, if you need to record phonetics.

Mithras · Feb 19, 2003, 07:29 PM

Has anyone tried using a Walcom Graphire tablet to add sketches to class notes?

I'm also looking for the ideal note-taking solution. A, gulp, MS Tablet PC seems neat, but I want to emphasize the keyboard, using a pen just for drawings or complicated equations.

Another idea is a Powerbook + Walcom, but I've never tried it. Does anyone have any experience with this?

PS, I tried out OmniOutliner and NoteTaker. I prefer OmniOutliner's clean interface, but it can't insert images, which would be vital to add difficult-to-type drawings or equations.

Person Man · Feb 20, 2003, 01:20 AM

Originally posted by djmpower:
For those of you that take class notes on your Powerbooks, which program do you use to take the notes?

I never used a laptop to take notes (I always preferred regular pen-and-paper, though one guy in my class in medical school used his all the time).

My brother used a combination of AppleWorks and Word 2001, on his old PowerBook 1400, but now that he bought my old Lombard (because I just got me a new GHz TiBook

) he uses AppleWorks and Word X with some OmniGraffle thrown in. I don't believe he has discovered OmniOutliner yet, but then, he never liked outlining very much