Friday, 15 August 2008
Note taking software offers many advantages when compared to note taking on paper. Listed below are the main advantages of note taking software.
After you read the following advantages you really should check out FruitfulTime NoteKeeper - Take it for a spin with the FREE 30 day trial.
Why Note Taking Software is better than Paper?
1. Note taking software is easy to use, specialised software with which you can write down your notes and keep them organised together.
2. There is no need to plan your notes or structure your paper before you start writing your notes. With note taking software you can easily add notes in between previously written notes without cluttering your notes.
3. Typing notes is faster than writing them down.
4. Most note taking software offers a search feature. You can then easily search through all your notes. No more looking up in drawers and archived files!
5. Keeping notes organized in a note taking software is cost effective and more compact. Reams of paper notes take a lot of space.
6. You can secure your notes with a password and encryption. If you are writing research notes or sensitive work documents, or even your personal thoughts you do not want them lying around for others to read.
7. Live references to websites and files can be included in your notes. One click and you are viewing the related material.
8. Pictures and diagrams can be included from files or directly copied from a website to make your notes more complete. Unless you have the drawing skills of Leonardo Da Vinci you would find inserting diagrams or pictures in your paper notes a challenge.
9. Note taking software allows you to use multiple formatting styles, like fonts and colors, to make your notes more clear, vivid, and organized.
10. Copies of your notes can be sent to your colleagues or friends in an instant. Hard copies can be printed out as quickly. Compare that to paper notes.
These are some of the advantages of using note taking software instead of paper.
I know a lot of people love to jot down notes and thoughts on paper, for the feel it gives. Just like reading a real paper book instead of an e-book. But when it comes to managing a lot of work and research notes efficiently nothing compares to writing down and organizing your notes in proper note taking software.
As always your comments are important. So what is your take on note taking?
Check out FruitfulTime NoteKeeper - Take it for a spin with the FREE 30 day trial
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I know everyone keeps telling me to use a laptop to take notes in lectures, but I just can’t do it. There ARE a lot of disadvantages to paper notes, but for me it’s worth it because I learn from writing. And not just from putting thoughts into my own words, but from the actual physical act of writing. Besides, I can print out my lectures slides and take them to class with me, and then just fill in the spaces myself, so that makes things easier. I think it’s just a matter of personal preference, the same as which particular style of note-taking to use.
Yes your right. Certainly, note taking software has a lot of advantages over note taking on paper but it has disadvantages too…
Though you can attach pictures into it, it’s difficult to find the right one. Also it would be hard and time consuming to edit them to suit your needs. Freehand drawing is much better but its hard to draw with a computer. With a mouse, or touch pad, you would have a hell drawing. Free hand drawings are much better than ready made pictures. Freehand drawings are personalized and records your ideas more personally. You could make it less or more detailed as you like. With paper you could do it easily and more naturally with a pen or paper but not so with a computer. After all, if the figure is drawn on the board there is no easy way for the computer to copy it.
There is also the problem with being acquainted with the software. Even though you could do lot of fancy stuff like color fonts, boldface, italics, etc., this requires sufficient knowledge of these features. Many would not like to take the hassle of such things. Though this is not available on paper, there are other options like using highlighters, using pens of different colors, underlining, etc.. Unlike their software counterparts they are natural to use, or say, they don’t need training for any one to be able to use them easily.
Also, as you have said there is the feel of paper that is not just available to note taking softwares. The very great difference is in the way you would read each. With computers, in general, you would not be able to see a lot of what you had written and so has to do this unnatural scrolling. I find this annoying. It is also difficult to view several pages at a time. Not so with paper. You could lay several sheets side by side.
With these hassles alone, many people like me, would dislike using note taking softwares of any sorts.
to Rosver,
What you wrote is interesting. However, here’re my thoughts. On dificulty of drawing with a computer, it really depends on the program, some very very simple custom-made drawing tool using a mouse (never touchpad) would feel like drawing with a pen, simplicity has lots of merit. On time investment of getting to know a piece of note-taking software (general speaking), by design the software should be very very easy to use with all the freaky excessive features, and once a user is getting comfortable with it and naturally expand it… On the feel of paper and pen, it’s really HABIT, I’ve being using a note-taking tool I “cooked” myself for over a year now, so, now I no longer have that feel any more.
to the owner of the particular note-taking tool, good job on the rationale of why digital note-taking.