Software for highlighting and note taking on the web?

January 31, 2007 8:33 PM

Software for highlighting and note taking on the web?

I read ALOT on the web. Is there a software or service which allows me to save a webpage onto my harddrive, highlight important points, and leave post it notes, bubbles, or whatever kind of comments on the highlighted points? I want to start taking notes and retaining the information I read online.

posted by herbiehancock00 to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Any reason you want to save it to your hard drive?
Google Notebook works pretty nicely for stuff like this.
posted by base_16 at 8:49 PM on January 31, 2007

Response by poster: It doesn't have to necessarily be saved to my harddrive but I would like to be able to access those pages in the future along with the notes and highlighting that i've done on the page. I've tried google notebook, it's only for note taking in general and doesn't allow you to reference to parts of an article or webpage.
posted by herbiehancock00 at 9:05 PM on January 31, 2007

You could print the page to a PDF and then use Acrobat to add highlights/notes/annotations.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:46 PM on January 31, 2007

Seconding notebook. It's good stuff.
posted by jourman2 at 11:52 PM on January 31, 2007

I don't have any personal recommendations beyond Notebook (which obviously isn't working for your needs), but wikipedia has a large list.
posted by logic vs love at 12:21 AM on February 1, 2007

Diigo does this. It does not save the pages for use offline though.
posted by davar at 3:00 AM on February 1, 2007

Few ideas.....

1) Google Notebook lets you copy something from a page straight to an annotated notebook that sits in your tray.

2) Scrapbook Extension for Firefox -- lets you capture and save entire webpages.

3) Line Marker (I think) extension for Firefox -- lets you use a virtual highlighter on web pages.

Hope this helps.

GB
posted by gb77 at 3:45 AM on February 1, 2007

For online annotations, try dilgo, stickis, fleck, or trailfire.

Furl saves web pages and lets you download a zipped copy of all your saved files.

Maybe some combination of those tools will work.
posted by bored at 6:53 AM on February 1, 2007

Google Notebook has a great service that lets you use a browser extension to automatically create a small note associated with a given URL and manage them in a notebook like format.

It's very handy for pulling up quick notes associated with a particular page you are reading. You can then load up the note and load the associated page tied to it.
posted by morallybass at 7:48 AM on February 1, 2007

Here is a link I found; it gives tons of suggestions on how to take notes from online sources, and describes several web tools available to help you do this: Fifty Ways to Take Notes

I used EverNote for a while, and it came highly recommended, but I couldn't get used to the format. That might just be my own quirk, though, so you might want to give it a try. They have a free version as well as a paid version. It isn't online-based, so you can still read the information offline, which might fit what you're looking for.
posted by susiepie at 10:41 AM on February 1, 2007

Check out the "Annotation" section of this page: I want to do things with webpages
posted by bumper314 at 10:42 AM on February 1, 2007

I use the Firefox extension Scrapbook and it is muy fantastico.
posted by loiseau at 1:24 PM on February 1, 2007

Zotero
posted by singingfish at 6:58 PM on February 1, 2007

nthing Scrapbook for Firefox. It kicks ass.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 7:55 AM on February 2, 2007