Finest Word-Taking App For School College students

I am considerably of a note-taking app junkie, and I’ve tried and examined all of them (for varsity, work, and life).

Generally I miss pupil life–lengthy hours of lectures, countless pages of studying, the occasional all-nighter fueled by caffeine and adrenaline… and naturally, tons of note-taking.

Fortunately, on this fashionable age, note-taking has gotten an entire lot simpler. Relating to capturing these essential bits of knowledge which may make or break your examination, having the suitable note-taking app may very well be the distinction between an “A” and a “did I even go to this class?” 

On this curated checklist of one of the best note-taking apps for college kids, we’re going to interrupt down the professionals and cons of some extra fashionable note-taking apps. That approach, you’ll be capable to discover one which matches your distinctive studying fashion.

Let’s dive in and take these elusive grades by storm!

Evernote is the self-proclaimed “greatest notetaking app”, and is definitely able to residing as much as its popularity. It is a note-taking app that I have been utilizing for years, each as a pupil and as an grownup.

With over a decade to enhance its person interface and optimize its expertise, Evernote has highly effective options that may enchantment to college students of any degree.

Value: $7.99 a month, or $69.99 a yr (premium private plan).

Professionals

Unparalleled group

Every pocket book you create can home any variety of notes inside it, additional in a position to be organized by way of tags and hyperlinks between notes. You possibly can even nest notes or notebooks inside each other, organizing associated materials into stacks for straightforward entry.

Hyperlinks, PDFs, photos, audio 

Evernote helps virtually any format–splendid for college kids that need to embrace a number of media and net hyperlinks of their notes. It may well even assist and create audio recordings, though solely to a reasonably small measurement (even with the Premium plan.)

Reminders and calendar syncing

Integration into your calendar and the power to create reminders make Evernote a fantastic organizational instrument normally. It may well additionally sync with Google Drive, Slack, Outlook, MS Groups, Zapier, and Gmail.

High quality of life options

Bored with filling up your cellphone’s picture album with photos and screenshots out of your textbooks? Evernote helps you to scan paperwork and add them straight into your notes, or take snippets from on-line articles with the Internet Clipper instrument for straightforward saving.

Cons

Premium subscription

Whereas Evernote is definitely a strong instrument, being locked behind a recurring subscription is a little bit of a turn-off. The free model provides a pleasant style of what Evernote has to supply, however since it is so restricted, you’ll have to purchase or bail finally.

Job-managing AND Notetaking

The overwhelming quantity of options Evernote has might be fairly complicated. Even for longtime customers, the ensuing clunky interface can generally be extra of a distraction when all you need to do is write.

One other highly effective instrument courtesy of the Microsoft Workplace Suite, OneNote is a sturdy note-taking choice. With a bunch of instruments accessible free of charge, OneNote is a superb Evernote various for budget-conscious college students.

This was truly the primary instrument I began with in school to take notes, earlier than switching to Evernote.

Value: Free with some characteristic limitations. Customers have the choice to pay for extra options, akin to native arduous drive storage, video and audio recording, and model historical past. Premium options may include a Microsoft 365 subscription, beginning at $70 a yr.

Professionals

Organized, clear interface

Though providing comparable ranges of depth and group as Evernote, we discovered the beautiful color-marked tabs and listings to be extra intuitive and easy, each on PC and cell gadgets.

Simple media integration

OneNote primarily depends on particular person “bins” for textual content and media. This makes it straightforward to resize, transfer, and even overlap photos, spreadsheets, and handwritten drawings with textual content notes.

Cloud sync throughout any system

Begin working from one system and decide up on one other by logging in to your Microsoft account. Because it’s accessible from an internet browser as nicely, all gadgets can use OneNote. 

OneDrive sharing

Collaborate simply with shared notebooks and areas.

Free

All you want is a Microsoft account.

Cons

Overwhelming

With so many choices, it may possibly take a while to study the nuances of OneNote. 

Slower syncing

Some customers report that OneDrive can have bother syncing between gadgets at occasions, mostly with the cell/pill and browser variations.

No sorting choices

Whereas there’s a search characteristic, the lack to type notes by final created or modified means you need to rely totally by yourself organizational prowess.

Notes began as a easy, sticky-note-style note-taking app on the iPhone and has since developed right into a crisp, cross-platform expertise. When you’re an iPhone or iPad person, you could not must look a lot additional than this.

Value: Free

Professionals

Simplicity

At its core, Apple Notes is streamlined and easy. The power to easily create new notes as wanted, after which set up them later, makes it nice for college kids that don’t need to be slowed down by all of the bells and whistles. 

Organized, and never overwhelming

The power to make folders and subfolders is a characteristic that, surprisingly, plenty of equally minimalist note-taking apps are lacking. Apple Notes’ tiered group system is straightforward to make use of and handle, whereas not being so overt as to interrupt your stream when creating new notes. 

Fast and straightforward syncing

Seize an concept in your cellphone, then log in to your laptop computer to flesh it out later. Having the ability to see your entire notes throughout a number of gadgets is sort of anticipated of most apps as of late, however Apple’s iCloud-based syncing is very easy. Home windows PCs can entry Notes as nicely by logging into an iCloud account on an internet browser.

Safe

Passwords or confidential notes you would possibly take are secured by Apple’s end-to-end encryption.

Cons

Media attachment is hard

Attempting to add photos right into a Notes web page might be troublesome on cell, and practically not possible on PC. Easy formatting like tables and bullet factors current no downside, however should you like to connect photos and media to your notes, you could need to discover different choices.

Home windows net browser generally crashes

Whereas iCloud syncing is dependable, there are at all times hiccups. We’ve discovered that generally the online browser model will crash unexpectedly–one thing that may actually throw a wrench in your rhythm should you’re in the course of taking notes. Whereas we’ve by no means misplaced any work, it’s nonetheless one thing to bear in mind should you’re a Home windows laptop computer person.

For the digital journalist, this app does the job and does it nicely. 

With the power to seamlessly add PDFs and add handwritten annotations, in addition to highly effective presentation options, GoodNotes is a strong alternative and a private favourite of mine.

Value: Free as much as 3 notebooks. $15 one-time fee for full, lifetime entry.

Professionals

Annotate PDFs

Whereas many apps allow you to add PDFs, GoodNote does a improbable job of creating the method easy and straightforward. As quickly because it’s uploaded into your observe, you possibly can instantly begin including handwritten notes, sketches, and annotations.

Laser pointer for shows

A improbable choice for sophistication shows, the handy laser pointer helps you to draw consideration to key areas with a swipe of your finger or Apple Pencil.

Possibility for audio recording

Whereas not as highly effective or versatile as Famous’s audio recordings, it’s nonetheless good to have the choice to concurrently file and take notes.

Search handwritten notes

Discovering a observe I’ve rapidly scribbled and did not correctly tag might be annoying. Fortunately, GoodNote’s highly effective search characteristic encompasses each PDFs and your private handwritten notes.

Collaborate and sync simply

With DropBox and Google integration, in addition to the power to ask others to your notes and create feedback, collaborative learners should not ignored.

Numerous backgrounds

Particularly for lecture notes, it’s at all times good to have the ability to select what “paper” I’m writing on. Generally it’s the small issues in life.

One-time fee for premium

Not like most subscription-based apps, GoodNotes offers you lifetime entry to its premium options with a single fee.

Cons

Typed notes are clunky

Textual content bins might be finicky to create and place. When you rely totally on typing, it could be a bit more durable to acclimate to GoodNotes.

No video or audio embedding

Whereas PDFs are simply supported, video and audio aren’t as simply embedded. Hyperlinks nonetheless work, so this is probably not a dealbreaker.

Unable to hyperlink between notes

The comfort of linking from one observe to a different is, sadly, not accessible on GoodNotes. Nevertheless, given the exercise of the event staff, I wouldn’t be shocked in the event that they add this quickly.

Generally it’s arduous to take heed to a lecture AND take notes on the identical time. It’s straightforward to lose monitor of the place you’re at, and by the point you end writing your final observe, you’re already in an entire new part. 

On the identical time, you need to write down the whole lot as a result of, nicely, it’s all necessary!

Famous solves this by seamlessly integrating audio recordings alongside note-taking. 

Value: Subscription-based fee at $4.49 per 30 days, or $29.99 a yr.

Professionals

Timestamped recordings

The power so as to add timestamps to your notes creates a novel “transcript” vibe with out the stress to sort out the whole lot that’s mentioned. It additionally makes playback and evaluate extremely straightforward and handy.

Seamless syncing

Begin recording out of your Apple Watch, handwrite some notes along with your Apple Pencil, and evaluate all of it out of your iPhone on the bus trip house.

Highly effective premium options

This is without doubt one of the few apps with premium options that I really feel are well worth the worth. Clever Playback routinely trims useless area within the recording, Dictation turns voice into textual content, and Time Stroke helps you to edit handwritten notes and drawings all the way down to the person swipe, amongst many others.

Cons

Apple gadgets solely

That is actually the largest draw back. Since Famous is just accessible on Mac and iDevices, this is probably not a viable choice should you use a laptop computer or Android system for note-taking.

Extra of a fan of sticky notes than thick notebooks? Google Hold could be extra your fashion.

We’ve all heard of Google Docs, the web reply to Microsoft Phrase. However you could not have heard of Google Hold–the lesser-known little sibling. When you desire to take a number of fast scratch notes, it could simply be the proper app for you.

Value: Free

Professionals

Most simplicity

Much more so than Apple Notes, Google Hold is designed with ultra-simple note-taking in thoughts, with labels being the one submitting system.

Visible group 

Designed to emulate the texture of sticky notes within the digital area, Google Hold notes have a tangible really feel to them, and are organized in an intuitive grid or checklist view. Coloration coding choices and the power to simply add images additional reinforces the visible focus.

Reminders, lists, & collaboration

Nice for protecting monitor of fast notes, checklists, and creating digital alerts for your self and others.

Google integration

With the helpful choice to repeat straight to Google Docs, you possibly can take any of your scratch notes and rapidly increase on them.

Cons

Very primary

Exterior of typing out your notes and importing photos, what you possibly can enter into Hold is restricted. When you’re searching for a extra customizable expertise, you would possibly need to look elsewhere.

Drawing just isn’t at all times accessible

Though we used a touch-screen laptop computer for our testing, Hold didn’t allow us to make use of its drawing characteristic.

Google has a foul behavior of killing merchandise

There’s additionally a danger that Google kills off the Google Hold app sooner or later. They’ve a behavior of eliminating merchandise that are not mainstream like their important Google Suite of instruments.

It is A Google Product

Google just isn’t making good selections in relation to privateness, search outcomes, AI, and extra. In consequence, I have been on a private journey to de-Google my life, and I like to recommend most individuals do the identical.

Which Word-Taking App Is Finest?

Actually, the selection boils all the way down to your particular person wants and your private note-taking fashion. 

Do you like an app the place you possibly can notate and set up your total life, or do you simply want one thing fast and straightforward to refresh your reminiscence? Do you like cleanly typed-out notes, or are you extra of a visible and audio learner, preferring media as your medium for memorization?

Relatively than power your self to make use of a instrument that doesn’t fit your fashion, it’s greatest to seek out an app that may complement it.