- Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Mac Os
- Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Mac Computer
- Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Macbook
- Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Macbook Pro
If you’re a student or are interested in a note taking app for any reason, I’m sure you’ve run into Evernote and Notability. Evernote for sure, since it’s the most obvious recommendation for all things ever. Notability on the other hand is known for getting specific things right. It’s only available on Apple devices as a paid app, and it stores notes in proprietary format like Evernote. Its big perk is that you can scribble things on the screen with a stylus or just your finger, while being able to record audio.
Whether your note-taking style demands minimal design and slick gesture-based functions, or advanced organization and cataloging of various media, chances are there's a notes app that's right for you. Here are 10 of the best to consider, whether you're using a Windows or Mac computer, an Android device, iOS, Chrome OS, or another operating system. Notability - how do I download the app on PC? If you want to download the software on your pc or mac, you could either first visit the Mac store or Windows AppStore and search for the app OR you can easily use any of the download links we provided above under the 'Download and Install' header section to download the application.
If you’re tossing and turning in your head, not sure which one to go with, hopefully you’ll have a clearer idea by the end of this page.
The Basic Differences
Cross platform availability: You’ll find Evernote apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and most importantly, the web. And Evernote does a commendable job at trying to keep the same functionality between the apps. Notability on the other hand is only available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
The money: Evernote is free to use. Notability’s iOS app costs $4.99 and the Mac app is $9.99. Though Evernote does have a premium plan for $4.99 a month that enables features like offline support, which is built into Notability’s app by default.
Notability Syncs Voice Recordings with Textual Notes
If you’re a student, you’re going to love Notability. When you create a new note, you get a big white area that you can draw, scribble or type on. You can also add images, PDFs and audio recordings, and you have the ability to highlight.
If you’re using an external or built-in keyboard to type, Notability will also map the typed words against the point in the recording. So you can quickly jump between lecture notes and start listening to the snippet you want. But this functionality only works when you’re using the keyboard. If you prefer to take notes by scribbling with a stylus, you’re out of luck.
Evernote Can Record Voice as Well
When you create a new note, you’ll see a Mic button. Pressing this will start the voice recording. Much like Notability, you’re free to type your notes while the audio is being recorded.
Note Taking in Notability vs Evernote
The biggest difference between the two is that Notability provides an integrated note taking experience. You have 4-5 different sources – audio, scribbled notes, drawings, typed text, imported images, and PDFs – and Notability binds them into one whole contextual bundle. If you do it right, all the things you need to revisit a lecture can live in one note.
Evernote, on the other hand, lacks all this contextual stuff. Yes you can have audio and text in one note but that’s it. If you need to annotate documents inside a note, they need to be in PDF format and you need to be a Premium member.
This is it. This is what it all comes down to. If you want the contextual, packaged note-taking experience, you’re gonna have to go with Notability, there’s no other way about it.
Where Evernote Wins
Notability is focused on creating this singular experience. Evernote is much more than that.
Some of the things Evernote can do: You can use it as a task management system, as storage for old documents, a life logger, or anything you want. And Evernote has features like the amazing operator based search to make finding things easy.![Laptop Laptop](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134261093/113478222.png)
If your note taking takes place beyond classrooms and meetings, Evernote might have a lot more to offer.
Notability is also limited to iOS and Mac. This leaves out Android and Windows users, which is a sizable population.
Evernote is also free to start. But if you’re a heavy user you’ll get past the free usage quickly and you’ll want to have your notes available offline. This is when you’ll have to pay $5 a month or $45 a year for Evernote Premium. Notability on the other hand will cost you $15 total on iOS and Mac. No upgrades or monthly pricing there. Notability uses iCloud to sync between devices while Evernote uses their own servers.
When it comes to exporting content, Evernote and Notability are both pretty tied down thanks to their proprietary formats. Notability can export the notes as PDF and audio separately. You can also export notes as a Notability file to share it with other Notability users.
Evernote’s sharing features are far better. Multiple users can collaborate on the same document. It’s not as good as Google Docs but it’s still something useful that Notability doesn’t have.
Evernote Also Has a Secret Scribbling Weapon
A couple of years back Evernote acquired Penultimate, another handwriting/note-taking app where you are free to draw or write on the iPad screen. Lately, the app has seen integration with the Evernote experience. Penultimate is a free app but you can unlock features by paying for Evernote Premium.
One cool feature is that Evernote scans all your handwritten notes and lets you search through them. And yes, Penultimate is just a handwriting/note taking app with tight Evernote integration. But for some, that might be all you need.
Conclusion
There’s so much Evernote can do, people have written books about it. So I can’t go into full detail here. But it’s safe to say Evernote will let you scan all your handwritten notes/PDFs/images and allow you to search through them easily.
Notability is a pretty targeted app. That’s not a bad thing. They are the best at what they do. But you should be aware of the limitations before you jump in.
Which One Did You Go With?
I tried Notability and I’ll keep trying it, but right now I’m an Evernote man myself. What about you? Which did you finally choose? And if you’re not sure, don’t feel bad, we’re all in the same boat. This comparison was only about two of the leading services, and there’s still a lot more out there.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#comparison #evernote
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Verizon turned down the exclusive rights to sell the first iPhone.
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- Notability and Apple Pencil: The Ultimate Journaling Toolset
I started journaling a few years ago as a mindfulness practice. My life usually goes at a fast pace from when I wake up in the morning to when I collapse into bed at the end of the day. After all, maintaining my relationship with my wife of eighteen years, tending to the needs of our three children, and performing my full time job as an Engineering Manager leaves very few spare moments in my day.
However, I found that taking time to pause and write in my journal helped me pay attention to the thoughts, memories, and observations that I was missing. Getting these things out of my head and into a journal freed up space in my mind and also provided a sense of calm.
I tried several methods and tools over the years ranging from day planners to notebooks, but I found the perfect solution for me in the Notability app on the iPad and the Apple Pencil. However, it was a journey to get there.
Previous Tools
Paper Journals
- Here are a few of my paper journals. I really loved the one on top.
My earliest journals were thin paper calendar organizers that I used in my years as an undergraduate electrical engineering student at The University of Texas at Austin. I used these calendars to organize my class schedule and also capture my thoughts about the people, places, and events in my life. I have to admit that it’s nice to revisit the things that seemed important to me during those years.
After I graduated and started my career, I started using to thicker paper notebooks that had dedicated pages for journaling. I have a stack of these notebooks in my office and up in the attic. While some of these journals contain work notes like minutes from meetings, I would often write down my thoughts about those years, too.
I loved the physicality of paper notebooks and writing in them with a pen. I’ve found that typing in a word processor didn’t have the psychological weight of writing. I have dozens of electronic journals in cloud storage, but they aren’t as meaningful to me as my stack of paper journals.
I went on to try several different types of paper based notebooks, and I eventually settled on my preferred configuration:
- Lay-flat wire binding that securely held the pages together
- Pre-populated calendar dates on pages so that I wouldn’t have to always write the date for my entries
- High grade (at least 120gsm) paper
- Grid lines to make it easier to draw things
- A place to store my pen
- An elastic closure that firmly kept the journal closed
- A bookmark
- A nice Pilot G2 ballpoint pen that didn’t bleed through the pages
- Despite not having a wire binding, this is what my favorite paper journal looks like open to a blank set of pages.
This planner and notebook (affiliate link) was the one the met most of these requirements, and I loved it!
However, the physicality of paper notebooks was also a weakness. I always feared losing my paper notebooks, and that would mean losing months if not years of irreplaceable thoughts. Also, I once lived in an apartment in Houston that was flooded during a hurricane. Not only did a I lose several photo albums, a number of my paper journals were ruined. I still have an innate fear of losing my paper journals due to another natural disaster.
Apps and Styli
As a technology enthusiast, I tried many software applications over the years to take the place of my paper journals. The major ones I tried were Evernote, Google Keep, and OneNote.
All of these applications provided some form of stylus support, and I tried them with a variety of styli, and they worked to some degree. Most of them had a “drawing” feature that provided a way to make handwritten notes. Many of them could convert my handwriting to text, search through my notes based on a text string, and provided a variety of colors for my journal entries. They all synced my information across multiple devices so I could access my journal on a tablet, laptop, or desktop.
However, none of these applications presented an enjoyable writing experience. There was a slight lag between when I moved the stylus and the writing appearing on the page. I liked a few things about all of the applications I tried, but none of them had a winning combination of features.
My Requirements
My experiences with physical and electronic ways to journal weren’t optimal, but they gave me a good idea of what I wanted:
- The writing experience had to be close to using a pen and paper.
- My journal entries should be backed up to the cloud in case of loss or theft.
- My entries should sync between devices to that I can get to the latest version of my journal entries.
- The application should be easy to use with an intuitive structure for organizing my entries.
- There should be some basic search function so that I can easily find old entries based on keywords
- The feature set should not be overwhelming and not have functionality that I didn’t need
Notability and the Apple Pencil
I eventually found the Notability app a few years ago after I installed and tried a bunch of note-taking apps on what was at the time a brand new iPad. I soon found it to be a simple but powerful solution to keeping an electronic journal.
I initially used Notability with the same simple styli I used with other apps. However, the release of the Apple Pencil (affiliate link) made Notability even more of a joy to use.
Benefits
Writing in the Notability app with an Apple Pencil was almost exactly like writing using a pen and paper. I could focus on writing instead of constantly trying to ignore the nagging feeling that what I was doing didn’t feel like writing.
Notability also has an “infinite scroll” approach to pages. That means that you keep writing and the page keeps scrolling as your write. Some note-taking apps force you to go to a new page when you reach the bottom of the current page. I found that to be very distracting since it took away from the writing experience.
You can also chose from a variety of cloud providers to automatically back up your entries in Notability. I use Google Drive, and I like knowing that if I ever lose my iPad, I can always get to my Journal entries in either PDF or Notability’s special format.
Notability is very simple to use, and the app creators have resisted the urge to throw every bell and whistle into the app. For example, there are a set number of colors to choose from instead of having a huge number of options to pick from a color wheel. Also, Notability selects and erases based on strokes instead of pixels. So, getting “close enough” works for when you need to manipulate something on the page.
My Approach to Journaling in Notability
You can find a lot of ways to journal online ranging from bullet journals to entries that are free form stream-of-consciousness. Some people journal to create a gratitude list, document affirmations, reflect on the past, plan for the future, etc. I don’t have a particular format or method for journaling. It’s more important for me to regularly journal as a personal practice than to constrain what I write.
- I use categories for each month.
I create a category in Notability for each month, and my journal entries are files in each category. As you can see in the image above, the number of entries in a month varies a lot, but I’m glad that I at least have one journal entry in each month since August 2019. While I don’t think I’ll ever write a journal entry every day of the month, I do try to write at least three a week.
- Here's a sample journal entry. It's a combination of a thought I wanted to record as well as a journal writing prompt.
Notability will automatically put a date and time stamp on my journals, but I’ve started putting the date at the beginning of the title for each entry so that it shows up in the filename of the backups stored in Google Drive. I didn’t like having to enter the date when I used paper journals, but this makes it easy to know exactly when I wrote each entry.
Using Journal Prompts
While I don’t stick to a prescribed method for my journal entries, I occasionally use a book called 365 Journal Writing Ideas (affiliate link) to find interesting prompts to respond to in my journal. I usually copy the prompt from an electronic version of the book into a text box and then hand write my response.
Here are some of my favorite prompts that I’ve answered over the past few months:
- What is some of the best advice you have ever received?
- I would like to improve my relationship with ( blank ) because…
- What would the name of your autobiography be and why?
- If you could relive one memory of your life over again, which would you choose and why?
- What is one of the best gifts you have ever received?
- When do you feel the most alive?
- What do people say you are good at?
- What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
- What do you appreciate about your life right now?
- Excluding people and pets what three things would you rescue from a fire?
- What skills do you want to learn and why?
- Tell me about a time when you took a big leap of faith or change of direction in your life.
- What are some of your favorite books and why?
Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Mac Os
These prompts are great for the days when it’s hard to think of something to write down. It’s been fun to look back on my responses to the prompts a few months ago, and I imagine that it will be very interesting to look back on them a few years from now.
Future Upgrades
I really like using Notability and the Apple Pencil to record my journal entries. It’s the combination I’ve spent years trying to find. However, I do have few ideas for how I want to upgrade my setup.
Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Mac Computer
12.9-inch iPad Pro (4th Generation)
My current iPad is roughly two model years old, and, like most iPads, it’s rock solid. For my needs, it still works as fast as the day I took it out of Apple’s artistic packaging. However, the 4th Generation 12.9 inch iPad Pro (affiliate link) has the new camera array, and, I’d love to have that upgrade. I don’t often take pictures with my iPad, but it’s nice to know I have a couple of solid cameras when the need arises.
Apple Pencil (Second Generation)
I’m currently using the first generation Apple Pencil, and I’d like to eventually upgrade to the Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) (affiliate link). It’s reportedly even more buttery smooth to write with, and it magnetically attaches to the iPad.
Apple Magic Keyboard
Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Macbook
I’ve also been keeping my eye on Apple’s Magic Keyboad (affiliate link). I think it’s way too expensive now, but I could see myself buying one when the price eventually goes down. It would be nice to have a keyboard, but I would primarily use it as a protective case and stand for the iPad.
Finding What Works for You
Is There An App Like Notability For Laptop Macbook Pro
I recommend Notability and the Apple Pencil for keeping an electronic journal, but the practice of journaling is the key. Whether you use some other set of electronic tools or just pen and a paper notepad, regularly writing out your thoughts is a great way to relax and get to know yourself.
Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links which will send a small commission to me if you use them to make purchases.