Add notes to any page on your PC or tablet with this Sticky Notes app. Sticky Notes is the quick and easy way to leave yourself reminders about things you need to do, passwords you want to remember, or just jot down some thoughts you don’t want to forget.
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ClickUp
Optimally organizing all your tasks is no easy job. It can get tedious and more often than not, you might feel that the tools you’re using are not meeting all of your needs. Digitally managing your work can easily get out of hand when there are way too many notes or way too many apps involved. That’s where our first pick comes into play.
ClickUp is an emerging all-in-one productivity app with tons of useful features and over a thousand integrations. It aims to provide a very comprehensive service so that its users won’t feel the need to rely on secondary apps for some of their tasks.
There are several ways to take notes in this app. It has its own note-taking features, plus it integrates apps like Notepad and Evernote, so you can pick your favorite tool, and also mix and match, depending on the type of your assignments.
Other key features of the app include:
- highly customizable
- modern & accesible UI
- nested subtasks & checklists
- automation of routine tasks
- time-saving pre-made templates
- chat & comments for teamwork
- multiple progress-tracking tools
ClickUp is suitable both for teams and individual work. It has a free version that offers an impressive set of features for individual users. It also comes with a Premium plan which may be a better choice for teams. The paid plan has a free 30-day trial.
Windows 10 Sticky Notes
Cost: Free
Platform: Windows
Windows 10 users don’t have to download Sticky Notes because it is available as a default app. If you don’t find it, then install the free app from the Microsoft Store.
Just like Google Keep, it looks spartan but it gives you a few features to play around with.
Key features:
- Change the color of a sticky note.
- Write or draw on the notes with touch compatible devices.
- Format your notes with keyboard shortcuts and the formatting toolbar.
- Enable Cortana Insights to automatically set reminders, call phone numbers, send email messages, go to a web address, check stock prices, and more.
- Use the Microsoft account to sync all notes to other devices via OneNote.
Cons:
- Does not work independently on other devices without OneNote.
Notion
Taking notes has always been a task that was done with a pen and a small notebook, and that’s exactly the principle that our second pick follows.
Notion is a collaborative tool that acts, among other things, as a note-taking tool as well. Other than that, it has all the features a well-organized team may ever need, including:
- A system that helps you keep your notes organized where you can add any type of content.
- Kanban boards, tables, lists, and other tools that help you customize any workflow.
- Tools that let you turn your knowledge into easy-to-find answers.
The tool is available on all major platforms, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, or as a web clipper, in addition to allowing easy sync between the platforms, so you can have Notion wherever you go.
Apple Notes
Cost: Free with 5GB of storage on iCloud
Platforms: macOS, iOS
Apple Notes was a vanilla note-taking app earlier. Now, there are features like collaboration and rich content like photos, maps as well as folders to organize your notes. These have made it one of the best note taking apps for iPads. You can use the Pencil for more natural note taking.
Key features:
- Notes are more visual with the Gallery view.
- Search your notes and also search images or text inside your scanned documents.
- Drag and drop photos, maps, and other files into your notes as attachments.
- Collaborate on notes or share folders with others.
- Secure notes with password lock or Touch ID.
- Notes can be synced across all Apple devices.
- Add notes with Siri.
Cons:
- Not portable as it is limited to the Apple ecosystem.
- There is no feature to clip from the web quickly, except copy and paste.
- Exporting a note is limited to PDF.
Quip
This app is available for free or for $10-30 (Team plan) per month and is ideal for use on Windows operating system, as well as on your other devices.
Quip is best used for combining notes with other documents, or with spreadsheets.
Unlike other note-taking apps, Quip takes the notes, then saves each of the documents or spreadsheets created therein to its own file.
It also has a search feature from which you can find documents and/or spreadsheets, and embed them into other documents within the app.
Its fast interface, and ability to format your notes using different formatting options, and you can also publish your notes to the web (great for bloggers), or even save them in different formats for sharing.
For teams, Quip lets you add any team member to a document, or to a note, then you can collaborate on the document or note while changes are reflected on the sidebar to your left, so you can easily see what each team member added.
You can also have a team chat while you’re at it.
Quip’s spreadsheets work like the usual MS-Excel program, allowing you to do calculations, which is a useful feature compared to other note-taking apps.
Simplenote
This note taking app was recently availed for Windows, and, as its name suggests, is for simple note-taking.
Unlike other note-taking apps, Simplenote doesn’t have any complications, meaning you can only take notes, but you don’t get to add media files, clip web pages, or email integration.
There are no formatting options for your text, so it’s just like using your notepad and pen.
Simplenote lets you fulfill the following tasks though:
- Tag notes
- Pin notes for easier access
- Publish your notes with their very own URLs
- A simple interface makes for faster searches
You can get Simplenote for free for use on your Windows device or computer.
WordPad
This note-taking app is everything you need to write your notes the same way you would on a Word document.
It comes with formatting options such as bold, italics, underline, paragraph formatting such as bulleting and indentation. You can also highlight, strikethrough, and add subscripts.
It is fast, simple, very basic, and also supports graphics from such programs as Paint.
WordPad can also save or open other formats such as Open Document and Office Open XML.
Google Keep
Cost: Free
Platforms: Web, Browser extensions, Android, iOS
Google Keep resembles Post-It notes and the utility is almost the same for your digital note-taking needs. It is barebones and cross-platform as it is a cloud app.
Its simplicity makes it the perfect choice for those who need a basic and quick tool to capture inspiration in an instant.
Google Keep is part of the Google ecosystem. It offers great features for the minimalist and it is free.
Key features:
- Use on all platforms via your Google account.
- Dictate notes and automatically transcribe them.
- Draw and sketch ideas on notes and share it with others.
- Keep on the web can transcribe text from inserted images.
- Color code notes to find them faster with a glance.
- Drag and drop notes from Keep to Google Docs.
- Use a single level of labels to organize notes.
- Collaborate and share notes with others.
- Set time and location reminders.
Cons:
- There is no complex organizational feature.
- There is no option to format the notes.
- It may not be the first choice if absolute privacy is a must.
OneNote
Cost: Free, Premium features with Microsoft 365 subscription
Platforms: Windows, macOS, Web
Microsoft OneNote is organized like a digital three-ring binder with notebook, sections, and pages. It is available for macOS, Android, iOS, and in the cloud. OneNote is available in two flavors and it is important to understand their differences.
OneNote 2016 is free and is available from the Microsoft Store and the Mac App Store. OneNote for Windows 10 is a universal app that comes with every Windows install.
A Microsoft 365 subscription opens up more advanced features like the Math Assistant. OneNote is one of the best note taking apps for students because of its focus on educational features.
Key features:
- OneNote supports freeform text — enter and position it anywhere.
- Collaborate and share your notes with a team or family members.
- Use optical character recognition to import images and make the text searchable.
- Automatically insert source links for anything copied and pasted from the web.
- Create richer notes by adding audio and video to your notes.
- Draw with a Surface pen, an Apple Pencil, or a mouse.
- Sync your notes to the cloud.
Cons:
- OneNote on the web and the macOS do not have all the features of the Windows version.
- The differences in features on OneNote 2016 and OneNote for Windows 10 confuse users.
Conclusion
How you take notes is a very personal thing. Do you carefully sub-head, section, and bullet, or quickly scrawl things down anywhere? Are you text-only, or do you use more of a scrapbook system? And how do you index and find old notes? Whatever your approach, there are some great digital note-taking apps out there that can accommodate all your quirks and note-related fancies.