Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with outliner

Sugestions for a lightweight and open source notetaking and outlining editor

sk381 — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:53:49 -0800

Looking for alternatives to Keynote, a hierarchical note taking and outlining editor for Windows that is no longer under development. I'm looking for something that:

- is equally lightweight and can be run from a USB flash drive
- is ideally open source
- handles data in a manner similar to Keynote, i.e. allowing multiple notes to be open at the same time as tabs.
- ability to open more than one database at a time would be a bonus.

Thanks!

Software Reccomendations: Writing a Paper While Keeping An Outline

rossination — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:19:44 -0800

Need toms help finding a good program or method for maintaining an outline structure within an essay. As you can tell, I'm having a hard time describing my problem. Basically, I want to be able to write a paper in an outline format, and then expand that outline out into paragraphs. At any time, though, I'd like to be able to go back to the outline "view" of the paper and be able to do things like drag sections around, reorder them, etc.

It seems like Omnioutliner, Word, or Pages should include something like this, but they don't seem to (I'm on a mac, obviously). Basically, I'm just looking for some embedded structure to be preserved when I go from outline -> double-spaced MLA style paper.

I'm not writing dissertations here, either. This is mostly for simple, easy-peasy 5-10 page papers.

Any ideas? Obviously, free or cheap programs are appreciated. I'm seeing some of these types of features in "novel writer" programs like Ulysses and Scrivener, but those still seem like overkill for the small scale that I'm working at. Plus, they're a bit more than I'd like to spend (even Scrivener). But, if you can convince me that it's worth a second look, go for it.

[Also, should this go in "writing & language", or "computers and internet"?]

Word Notebook View Default Formatting

rossination — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:42:23 -0800

How can I change the default formatting for Notebook View in Word 2004 (for Mac, of course)? Changing normal.dot doesn't seem to help -- changes are only made to the given section [tab]. I'd like to set some blanket rules as you can in Omnioutliner -- in this case, make it so the font is always Optima (instead of always Verdana) and I'd like to make the body font a bit smaller (why am I not using Oo, you may ask? Formatting issues when printing, ironically enough).

Is this possible? In some ways, Notebook view in Word is pretty lacking -- but it's really great for other things. I'm using it to transcribe class notes, and I'd like it to look a tad prettier when printed out (such as when studying for finals, like I should be doing now). Am I asking too much of Word?