Notetaking software suggestions please

January 17, 2007 2:28 PM

'm looking for a easy-to-use software package that will allow me to 1) take notes during phone conversation, 2) copy & paste from email, website, word processing document into it, (I use and favor Open Office Writer, although I own MS Word and Wordperfect), allow to copy and paste the other way too. It should live in my system tray to allow fast access but not hog a lot of RAM. Any body here have anything like that? Oh, and I prefer it be free MS OneNote looks great, but too pricey for me right now.
posted by NorthCoastCafe to computers & internet (9 comments total)

NoteLens should fit the bill.
posted by ajr at 2:32 PM on January 17, 2007

Notepad?
posted by mrbugsentry at 2:33 PM on January 17, 2007

I have a standard scratchpad file, called scratchpad.txt, that I keep under My Documents. I've dragged a shortcut to scratchpad.txt to the Quick Launch bar, so I can get at it with a single click regardless of what other windows are open. Using a shortcut to the text file, rather than a shortcut to the application, means I can skip the file-opening and Save As steps. Putting the shortcut in the QuickLaunch bar means that nothing's using up any RAM at all until I click to open it, and Notepad is very small so it opens very fast.

If you want to do essentially the same thing but also be able to preserve formatting, create Scratchpad.rtf under My Documents, use Tools->Folder Options->File Types to associate .rtf files with WordPad, then drag a shortcut to Scratchpad.rtf to your QuickLaunch bar. Wordpad is very nearly as fast to open as Notepad.
posted by flabdablet at 2:50 PM on January 17, 2007

Either NoteTab (for plain text) or Atlantis (for RTF) will give you a head start on the "copy & paste from email, website, word processing document into it" part. Each has tool that monitors the clipboard and automatically keeps a copy in a particular document. Each also uses tabs so that you can have many documents open at one time.
posted by megatherium at 3:25 PM on January 17, 2007

EverNote is really nice, and should be able to handle everything you've mentioned.
posted by jknecht at 3:28 PM on January 17, 2007

I second Evernote. It does everything you mention, plus it has browser plugins that you can send to a note straight from the browser that will retain all the web formatting and will remember what page it came from.
posted by Ookseer at 7:13 PM on January 17, 2007

3rd Evernote (It's also free.)
posted by IronLizard at 7:30 PM on January 17, 2007

i may be misunderstanding--especially if you want to replicate formatting or graphical/layout elements from websites--but it sounds like you want a place to simply take notes. i use notepad++ for all my note-taking. it's a superb text editor (and much more).

additionally, i use hotkey bind to launch the application with a keystroke (for me: ctl-alt-n). this allows me to launch the editor right when i need to record something... phone number, phone call notes, todo list, etc.. it's also a nice way to intentionally lose formatting: e.g. you want to copy from msword to an email body but it's hanging onto some weird formatting, simply use this as an interim and the funny formatting is gone.
posted by mdpc98 at 10:46 PM on January 17, 2007

MS OneNote looks great, but too pricey for me right now.

I bought Onenote on eBay for $1, check there if you really want to use it. I like it a bit better than Evernote. I never got used to the infinite roll of paper metaphor that Evernote uses, I prefer folders, binders and pages.
posted by Boobus Tuber at 2:56 AM on January 18, 2007