Nontrivial Exercises

EverNote vs. OneNote

I’ve been living in the dark ages when it comes to note-taking and organizing software. Since the experience I describe below, which started in early February of this year, I’ve come to learn of several different software options in this genre. Before this, I was unaware of any.

The first I saw was  Microsoft OneNote – I saw an on-line add for it and immediately went to check it out. After seeing the screen shots and an overview of its capabilities, I thought Microsoft had read my mind about what I wanted. I attend a lot of meetings and take a lot of notes, so I consume notebooks fairly rapidly. Organizing and finding past information in notes is always an issue, but sometimes just the act of writing things down helps me retain the information better.

With OneNote, I saw a way to capture notes on my computer, search through them, and index them in a virtual notebook. I had tried to accomplish the same on-line note taking capability by using Word and some fancy paragraph and character formatting styles, but it just wasn’t functional enough. There were too many manual formatting commands I had to use to organize my notes, and even then I couldn’t easily group into categories. I tried it for about 2 weeks and then gave it up.

So after being inspired by what OneNote could do,  I quickly downloaded the free trial starting using it. I was impressed: I was quickly able to organize notes into categories and sub-categories. I could import appointment descriptions from Outlook into OneNote, I could type anywhere on the note “canvas”. I could even “ink” free form notes and mix them with typed text – if I actually had a tablet PC, that is. I was off and running with my on-line note taking.

Shortly after starting to use OneNote, I found the EverNote application in a CNET review. I downloaded it and tried it out. My first impressions were that it appeared to not have many features and the interface was stark. Though easy to use to write notes, I didn’t see any formatting tools and it didn’t have the “canvas” concept of being able to write anywhere in the note. After some preliminary time working with it, I decided to go back to the more obvious “bells and whistles” of OneNote. My initial concerns with EverNote were:

• EverNote’s Categories vs. tabbed sections and sub-sections in OneNote. The OneNote sections were a more familiar paradigm to me,  like organizing a notebook.
• No apparent text formatting capabilities in EverNote. I couldn’t even see how to bold or italicize words, much less make billeted or numbered lists. This was a significant detractor.
• EverNote does not have the Note Flags feature in OneNote – the ability to add both pre-defined and customizable flags to any line in any note, and then to compile a list of all such flags across all notes. This is very handy for flagging actions or items to remember within notes.
• EverNote’s lack of a “canvas” concept, to be able to write on any part of the note. This can prove useful when engaging in free-thinking and brainstorming type activities.

Fortunately for me, I decided to provide my initial evaluation concerns to the EverNote team. I received a prompt reply from Michael Lunsford, an EverNote customer interface prime. He responded to each of my concerns, and encouraged me to continue to try EverNote.

He went on to explain the purpose of the “endless tape” metaphor that EverNote uses, as compared to the sections and tabs style of OneNote. The “endless tape” simulates a real blank notebook that you would write in sequentially as you took notes throughout the day. After thinking about it further, this actually simulates my actual “real paper” note taking experience exactly.

The power of using the “endless tape”, however, comes when coupled with two other functional elements of EverNote – the TimeBand and the category lists.

The TimeBand is a vertical timeline showing the specific dates or times when there are note entries. It automatically adjusts its scale appropriately to fit the note contents that are currently selected. You can use the TimeBand to go to a specific date or date range to find notes.

Secondly, after giving the concept more thought, the EverNote use of categories rather than sections and tabs turns out to be much more useful for the daily and varied subject matter notes I take. You can create categories, sub-categories and arrange their hierarchy in any manner you like. You can then assign one or more categories to notes. This makes it easy to make notes applicable to as many different themes or groups as you want.

Now, the really powerful and cool element to EverNote categories is the AutoCategories. You can define a category such that a note is automatically assigned to that category based on certain criteria, such as the presence of a keyword or phase, the type of note it is (ink or text), status of to-do items, date ranges in which it was created, etc. EverNote sets up some default AutoCategories, but you can easily add more.

To address my other concerns:

• Text formatting – there are actually text formatting capabilities in EverNote; they are only accessible through the context, or right-click, menu, however. You can change font, color, bold, italicize, etc., as well as make numbered and bulleted lists. It is inconvenient to have to right-click to get it, but it is there.
• Note flags – not available today in EverNote, but it is on their roadmap. However, I have found a way to essentially achieve the functionality of noteflags by using AutoCategories – I will write a future post about how I do that.
• “Canvas” functionality – EverNote is developing the ability to mix ink and text within the same note (this is currently not possible). However, I don’t believe they’re planning for the ability to create text “boxes” anywhere within the note. As I’ve used EverNote more, this is really not an issue for me.

After thinking through these concepts more, I decided to give EverNote another try. I quickly caught on to the effectiveness of the categories and “endless tape” paradigms and have been using it exclusively for the past 4 weeks. The more I use it, the more useful I find it to be.

Also, did I mention that EverNote is free??? It’s in the beta stage of development, but has garnered quite a large following. The EverNote team constantly monitors their customer forums, and responds quickly to suggestions, requests and criticisms.

In Summary

OneNote is a powerful application with many useful and advanced features. In my opinion, it is best suited for research-type note taking, where the majority of the subject matter will fit within 3–5 broad categories, and require no more than 2 levels of sub-categorization.

EverNote is best suited for capturing day-to-day notes and can efficiently handle as broad and as deep of a categorization hierarchy as you need. It mimics the experience of writing notes in a blank notebook, and adds powerful search capabilities. It is still in beta and therefore is undergoing churn, but the support level is excellent and there is a significant user base that actively shares questions and ideas in the user forums.

For my work and life, EverNote is the note taking application for me. To find out more, visit the EverNote home page: www.EverNote.com.

What do you think – do you have any experiences with OneNote or EverNote? I’d love to hear about them.