Subject Guides: Note-taking: a Practical Guide: Note-taking applications

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Note-taking applications

Taking notes isn't just about what notes you take...it's also about where you take them.

There's no best place to take and store your notes. What is important is that you find an approach that works for you, ensuring that you can find your notes again when you need them and can access them however you want to. You might find one particular application is good for you, or you might use a combination of apps for different purposes, or use a physical notebook and an app, or even just use a physical notebook — there's nothing wrong with using pen and paper; it's a question of whatever works for you. In this section we'll look at the features of some note-taking apps available at the University of York, but you may find other ones that suit you better.

Google Keep

Keep is Google's note-taking application. You can log into Keep in a web browser at keep.google.com or use the Keep apps for iOS and Android to use it on your phone or tablet.

Key features of Google Keep:

Write notes in a sticky note format, with the ability to add a title, or add checkboxes to notes to turn into a to-do list.
Handwrite and draw notes either in a web browser or on mobile apps, with some handwriting recognition features.
Change the colour of notes and add labels for organisation.
Use the mobile apps to record voice notes that have some transcription features.
Turn a note into a Google Doc for futher formatting by clicking a Copy to Google Docs button.
Share notes with others by adding Collaborators.

Google Keep allows you to add sticky notes which can have checkboxes, images, and audio files, and can be tagged up.

Google Keep is good for short notes or for making handwritten or spoken notes, particularly on the go. You might use it together with Google Docs, by making brief notes in Google Keep and then copying them to Google Docs to write up more fully or add other content.

Keeping organised in Google Workspace
A look at some of Google's organisational tools.

Microsoft OneNote

OneNote is part of Microsoft 365 and is a tool that allows you to create notebooks of notes, adding pages and formatting and using various Microsoft Office functionality. It has mobile apps for iOS and Android as well as a desktop app and a web version, but your access may depend on what kind of Microsoft Office access you have.

At the University of York, some staff with newer laptops may have OneNote available to then and linked to their Documents folder. For anyone else at York you can get OneNote for free as part of the University's Microsoft 365 subscription, but you'll need to sign up for a free personal OneDrive account to use it, as OneNote only works in partnership with OneDrive. If you're using a personal account for storage, you should not use it to store sensitive data.

Here are some of the features of OneNote:

Create named notebooks with pages inside, making it easy to organise by topic, module, class, or piece of work.
Use the Draw tab on compatible devices to handwrite notes with different colour pens and highlighters.
Format notes using Office tools for lists, fonts, etc.
Insert a range of content including tables, images, audio, and equations.

Microsoft 365
IT Services webpage about the University's Microsoft 365 package and how to access it.

Digital reading and notetaking

In the resources for our note-taking applications session, we showcase a range of note-taking applications, looking at how you can annotate PDFs and other online documents:

View in Google Slides.