Microsoft's OneNote digital notebook lets you create, store, and share notes, drawings, and files across all your devices, from your Windows or MacOS desktop to an iOS and Android mobile device.
Pros
Collect your thoughts and other things: You can, of course, type your notes into OneNote, which can also keep links and file attachments. You can also insert images, build tables, and even create mathematical equations, with fractions, exponentials, and other math structures. And you can add Word and Excel files to a page and edit the documents from OneNote.
Import notes from Evernote: With Microsoft's Evernote importer tool, you can move everything from Evernote over to OneNote. While the two note-taking services share much in common, OneNote offers unlimited monthly uploads, unlike Evernote, which caps free uploads at 60MB a month.
Style your notes: Apply text styles to notes from the Styles gallery and change fonts. You can also highlight text.
Make drawings: OneNote comes with pen, marker, eraser, and highlighter tools, letting you create drawings in your notes. OneNote also comes with a Shapes gallery to add shapes to your notes.
Helpfully organized: OneNote arranges your ideas into notebooks. You can add pages to a notebook and create sections if you want to organize its contents. You can rearrange pages and sections, combine multiple sections into a section group, and create subpages with content indented.
- The Note-Taking Tool (TNTT) is a note-taking application tailored for use by students in academic environments. It makes use of the well accepted Cornell Note-Taking method. It makes use of the well accepted Cornell Note-Taking method.
- Microsoft has just made it easier for Mac owners to move all their saved items from Evernote to its rival note-taking app, OneNote. This isn’t the first time Microsoft has attempted to entice users.
To find something across your documents, a search field lets you look for specific words or phrases.
Learning Tools for OneNote is a free Add-in for OneNote that helps everyone improve reading and writing skills, including gifted learners, students with learning differences or a combination of any of a broad range of unique learning abilities.
It's free: Although OneNote is part of the Office suite, you don't need to buy Office to use it. In fact, you don't need to buy OneNote to use it, as Microsoft lets you download and use its note-taking app for free.
Or get it with Office 365: Microsoft OneNote fills the note-taking spot in the Microsoft Office suite. The $69.99-per-year Office 365 Personal edition includes the Excel spreadsheet; the Word text editor; the PowerPoint presentation app; the Outlook email app; the OneDrive cloud storage service; and the Skype voice- and video-calling app. Or get the Office 365 Home edition, which costs $99 a year and lets you share your subscription with four family members.
If you'd rather buy Office instead of subscribing, for $149.99, you can own the Office Home and Student 2016 for PC edition, which comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
See: For another free, handy note-taking app, consider Google Keep.
Collaborate: You can collaborate with others by sharing your notes. You can give collaborators the ability to edit your notebooks or just view. From OneNote you can also send a Notebook as a read-only PDF to anyone.
Available on iPhone, Android, and MacOS: Sure, the OneNote application is a great way to keep notes on Windows, and it was designed specifically for Microsoft's Surface and Surface Pro devices. But a note-taking app is most useful when you can access your files wherever you are, and the OneNote app tics that checkbox by being available on Mac, Android, and iOS devices as well as on the web, with all your notes synced across devices.
Cons
Can't do everything across platforms: While you can access all your OneNote files across the different versions of the note-taking service, some features are reserved for the Windows version. For example, you can embed Word and Excel files in notes and edit them in Windows, but on the Mac they are read-only.
Bottom Line
The Windows platform has a nice selection of note-keeping apps to choose from, including Evernote and Google Keep. But OneNote deserves to be on the list: It's free, it's versatile, and it's available almost anywhere you'd want to jot down an idea.
See also
Stay on task with the best to-do list apps (from Download)
10+ things you should know before buying Office 365 (from TechRepublic)
Microsoft to give Office 365, Office.com apps a makeover (from ZDNet)
What do you need to know about free software?
Note taking apps are more useful than you might think. Taking notes the traditional way with pen and paper works just fine for some, but if you have a smartphone or tablet, using an app specifically designed for note taking can truly change the way you get things done.
Whether your note taking style demands minimal design and slick gesture-based functions, or advanced organization and cataloging of various forms of media, chances are there's a notes app out there that's right for you.
Here are 10 of the absolute best you should consider trying out, whether you are using Windows PC, Android device, iOS, or another operating system.
Evernote: Organize All Your Notes Into Categorized Notebooks
What We Like
Available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices.
Use on the web; browser extensions available.
Excellent search function for notes.
What We Don't Like
Free basic plan is limited in features.
Monthly cost for premium plan is pricey.
Practically everyone who has ever looked into trying a note-taking app has almost certainly come across Evernote—the app that comes in right at the top of the note-taking world. This incredibly powerful tool is built for creating notes and organizing them into notebooks, which can be synced across as many as two devices. All free users also get 60 MB of space for uploading files to the cloud.
A few of the most unique features of Evernote include the ability to clip web pages and images, search for text inside images and use it as a collaborative tool to share and work on notes with other users. Plus or Premium subscriptions will get you more storage, the opportunity to use more than two devices and access to more advanced features.
- iOS
- Android
- Mac
- Windows
- Web
Simplenote: Note Taking for the Minimalist
What We Like
Design is minimalist and simple.
Syncs to all your devices.
Works with most popular platforms and devices.
What We Don't Like
May be too simple for some users.
Text notes only; no images or other media.
No text formatting.
Evernote is great for note takers who need all the extra storage and fancier features, but if you're looking for a stripped down notes app with a clean and minimal interface, Simplenote could be the app for you. Built for speed and efficiency, you can create as many notes as you like and keep them all organized with just the basic organizational features you really need–like tags and search.
Simplenote can be used to collaborate with others and all notes are automatically synced across your account whenever changes are made to them. There's also a nifty slider feature that allows you to go back in time to previous versions of your notes, which are always automatically saved before you make any changes to them.
- iOS
- Android
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Web
Google Keep: Use Cards to Make Note Taking Fun and Colorful
What We Like
Organize with customizable labels.
Set time and location-based reminders.
Free and well-integrated with the Google tech ecosystem.
What We Don't Like
No desktop app; notes are available on the web.
Maximum of 50 labels; no hierarchical label organization.
Web clipper only saves URLs.
No text formatting.
For a note-taking app that takes a more visual approach, Google Keep's card-based notes are perfect for people who want to see all their ideas, lists, images and audio clips in one place. You can color-code your notes or add other attributes to them so that they're easy to find and share your notes with others who need to access and edit them. Like Evernote and Simplenote, any changes made by you or other users you share your notes are automatically synced across all platforms.
To help you remember when you need to refer to your notes, you can set up time-based or location-based reminders so that you remember to do something at a specific place or at a specific time. And as an added bonus for when typing is too inconvenient, the app's voice memo feature lets you record yourself a message for a quick note in audio format.
Note App For Mac
- iOS
- Android
- Google Chrome Web Browser
- Web
OneNote: Combine the Power of Microsoft With Your Notes
What We Like
Compatible with Google Chrome, Apple Watch, and web browsers.
Syncs well across all your devices.
Lots of options for note formatting and design.
What We Don't Like
No quick customizable tagging for simple organization.
Notebook, section, and page structure is inefficient to navigate.
Search functionality isn't as slick as Evernote or Google Keep.
Owned by Microsoft, OneNote is a note-taking app you'll definitely want to consider diving into if you regularly use the suite of Microsoft Office apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint since the app is fully integrated with them. You can type, write, or draw using the free form of a pen and use powerful organization tools like pinning to easily find what you're looking for later.
Use OneNote to collaborate with others and access your most updated versions of your notes from any device. Perhaps two of its most unique features is the ability to capture an image of a whiteboard or slideshow presentation with automatic cropping and built-in audio recording so you don't have use an entirely different recording app.
- iOS
- Apple Watch
- Mac
- Android
- Windows Phone
- Windows
- Google Chrome Web Browser
- Web
Notebook: A Stunningly Visual Note Taking Experience
What We Like
Design is bright and appealing.
Text, checklist, photo, audio, sketch, and file cards.
Supports Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and web access.
Customize notebook covers, use your own images.
What We Don't Like
Needs more art for notebook covers.
Not geared toward collaborative note-taking.
If you like the idea of Google Keep's card-like interface, then maybe you'll like Zoho's Notebook app too. Create a checklist card for your grocery items, a card for a story you're working on with inline images included throughout the text, a sketch card for some doodling or even an audio card of your voice.
Featuring some of the smoothest and most intuitive gesture-based functions, you can organize your notes into notebooks, reorder them, copy them, group them together or flick through them to easily find what you're looking for. Notebook is totally free and syncs everything across your account automatically so you always have your notes no matter which device you're using.
- iOS
- Mac
- Android
- Windows
- Web
Dropbox Paper: A Collaborate Note Taking App for Your Whole Team
What We Like
Strong features for collaboration.
Clean and uncluttered look.
Add a variety of media; not just links.
What We Don't Like
More complex than a simple note-taking app.
Paper documents are separate from Dropbox folders.
Takes time to get used to.
If you already use Dropbox to store files in the cloud, you'll probably want to check out Dropbox Paper. It's a note-taking app that acts as a 'flexible workspace' built to prevent distraction while helping people work together. This app was built for collaboration, allowing users to chat with each other in real time while editing any document.
Don't be fooled by its minimal design–Dropbox Paper has lots of advanced features tucked away that are easy to access and intuitive to use once you're familiar with the app. Use it to create new documents, edit existing ones, see all your team activity in one organized list, post and reply to comments, prioritize documents and so much more.
- iOS
- Android
- Web
Squid: The Best App for Taking Digital Handwritten Notes
What We Like
Designed for handwritten notes; use your finger or a stylus.
PDF markup is easy.
What We Don't Like
Not available for Mac or iOS devices.
Not easy to sync with other devices.
Squid takes the old-fashioned pen and paper and modernizes it with digital features designed to enhance the note-taking experience. Just use your finger or stylus to handwrite notes just like you would on paper. Similar to Google Keep and Notebook, all your most recent notes will be displayed in a card-like interface for easy access.
Every note will have a toolbar at the top, which allows you to customize your ink, duplicate what you've written, resize it, erase mistakes, zoom in or out and so much more. The notes app also allows you to insert PDF files for markup so you can highlight text and insert new pages wherever you want.
- Android
- Chromebook
- Kindle Fire
- Windows
- Windows Phone
Bear: The Most Flexible Note Taking App
What We Like
Import notes from other apps.
Simple, easy-to-use design.
Export to a variety of formats, including PDF and JPEG.
Supports Markdown.
What We Don't Like
Only available for Mac and iOS devices.
Requires a paid plan to sync devices.
Bear is one of the most beautifully designed and flexible note taking apps currently available for Apple devices. Made for both quick notes and in-depth essays with advanced markup for options to insert images, links and more, you can enable the app's 'focus mode' to help you concentrate during longer periods of writing or note taking.
You can customize the theme and typography to fit your style, use a wide variety of editing tools to optimize your notes, quickly add to-dos to any individual note, tag any note with a specific hashtag and so much more. The core version of this notes app is free, but pro subscriptions are available if you'd like to take your writing or note taking to the next level with Bear.
- iOS
- Mac
Notability: Creative Note Taking for the Apple Fan
What We Like
Good text formatting options.
Text wrapping with images.
Works well with Apple Pencil.
What We Don't Like
Only for iOS devices.
No free version available.
Note Taking Software For Mac
Note Tool For Grow Topia
For the Apple fanboy or fangirl who loves to write by hand, draw, sketch or doodle, Notability is a must-have notes app for its incredible suite of advanced note taking tools. Combine your handwritten or drawn work with typed text, photos and videos and zoom in anywhere on your note when you need a closer look.
Notability also lets you do some pretty amazing things with PDF files, allowing you to add annotations on them anywhere, fill them out, sign them and send them off. Unlike many of the other apps in this list, Notability isn't free, but it's at least affordable.
- iOS
Notes: Basic, Minimal and Possibly All You Need As an Apple User
What We Like
Handwrite notes and sketch with Apple Pencil.
Organize notes with folders.
Pin notes to the top of the list.
Scan documents using device camera.
What We Don't Like
Only on iOS devices and Macs.
Basic note-taking features.
Only simple text formatting.
Apple's very own Notes app is uncomplicated and super intuitive to use, yet still just as powerful as you need it to be for all your note-taking needs. The app's features include just the minimum essentials and all the notes you create within the app are neatly organized in the left sidebar. Although you can't organize your notes with hashtags, notebooks or categories, you can easily search through them by using the handy search field at the top to help you quickly find whatever you need.
Create a checklist, insert photos, customize your text's formatting or even add another Notes user to share your list with so they can view and add information to it. Although it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that many other competing note-taking apps bring to the table, Notes is one of the few that really stands out for getting the job done in the simplest and quickest way possible.
Sticky Note App For Mac
- iOS
- Mac