Notetaker vs OmniOutliner

[raffir]

I'm wondering about the use of NoteTaker vs OmniOutliner to take lecture notes in class. I tried out a variety of solutions, and have pretty much narrowed it down to those two. I like OmniOutliner's speed and simplicity, but appreciate NoteTaker's organizational abilities. I found this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/110510/

But it doesn't really address this topic specifically.

Ideally, I'd be able to outdent (I think it's Shift-Tab in Notetaker), put in logical symbols (therefore, if and only if, etc.) and embed equations (maybe with LaTeX or something)?

Thoughts?

 

[blodwyn]

I'm wondering about the use of NoteTaker vs OmniOutliner to take lecture notes in class. I tried out a variety of solutions, and have pretty much narrowed it down to those two. I like OmniOutliner's speed and simplicity, but appreciate NoteTaker's organizational abilities. I found this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/110510/

But it doesn't really address this topic specifically.

Ideally, I'd be able to outdent (I think it's Shift-Tab in Notetaker), put in logical symbols (therefore, if and only if, etc.) and embed equations (maybe with LaTeX or something)?

Thoughts?

Boy, this is a tough question to answer, as personal preference plays a huge part in what you feel comfortable with.

I've tried most of the note programs, and bought several. I bought Notetaker and ended up not liking it much. If I remember rightly it used to infuriate me when I tried moving blocks of text around. I tried VoodooPad, and liked that, and still use it for some purposes. I also got Circus Ponies Notebook, which I use for writing online manuals - the web export is pretty good.

I use OmniOutliner for brainstorming and organizing tasks and projects. For note taking it's hard to beat Tinderbox. It's an expensive application so may not suit a student budget. Not sure how it would cope with some of the funky symbols you might want to use, but for sheer speed of creating and writing text notes it's the best I've found. It has (I believe) awesome organizational abilities that I haven't scratched the surface of yet

Lastly, I've found Entourage notes quite useful. You can use the projects and categorize to help organize the notes

Good luck

 

[Mechcozmo]

Hard to beat SubEthaEdit for collaborative note-taking.

 

[Daveway]

Have you heard of Notebook? Its advertised heavily on Your Mac Life.

 

[raffir]

Have you heard of Notebook? Its advertised heavily on Your Mac Life.

I've tried Notebook, but frankly felt Notetaker "works" a bit better. I was able to go for several classes in Notetaker, but didn't really take to Notebook, which is odd, since they're almost identical...

Notetaker doesn't seem to have a great RTF export, I must say. Do either Notetaker or OmniOutline have the ability to let me define symbols or typeset equations?

 

[seattlemaclover]

I'm wondering about the use of NoteTaker vs OmniOutliner to take lecture notes in class. I tried out a variety of solutions, and have pretty much narrowed it down to those two. I like OmniOutliner's speed and simplicity, but appreciate NoteTaker's organizational abilities. I found this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/110510/

But it doesn't really address this topic specifically.

Ideally, I'd be able to outdent (I think it's Shift-Tab in Notetaker), put in logical symbols (therefore, if and only if, etc.) and embed equations (maybe with LaTeX or something)?

Thoughts?

I use OmniOutliner 3 Professional for all of my notes in class and love it. I am a PoliSci/Law major and so have detailed notes that use archaic symbols as well. OmniOutliner tackles this with ease as it uses the OSX Character Palette. I have tried NoteTaker, as well as Notebook and found the speed and usability of OmniOutliner superior in the classroom.

I would also highly reccomend the Pro version of OmniOutliner. It adds two features that after using, I can't live without; clippings(for those in class Google searches and definitions) and voice annotations(great for boring classes).

Also Omni Group offers all of it's software on it's website at student discounts (I think that it is $40 for the Pro version).
Hope that this helps.