{"id":74,"date":"2017-02-15T11:52:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T11:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i3works.bluetree.uk\/news\/?p=74"},"modified":"2019-12-08T21:38:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T21:38:46","slug":"paper-or-digital-how-should-you-take-notes-nowadays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/2017\/02\/paper-or-digital-how-should-you-take-notes-nowadays\/","title":{"rendered":"Paper or digital How should you take notes nowadays?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>A part review, part investigation into the options for digital note taking and the benefits that it offers over pen and paper.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author: Dave Roney&nbsp;is a consultant at i3Works<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>I have always been a pen and paper note taker, its quick, easy, no \nneed for fancy apps or gizmos and I prefer to read from a page rather \nthan a screen. Recently though I have found myself wishing there was a \nbetter way of organising and referencing my notes than the physical \nnotepads I have been using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this in mind I decide to explore the options available for \nelectronic note taking. These options revolve around two areas, software\n (the applications themselves) and hardware (the tools that will work \nwith them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I use a laptop for work but my first thoughts were that I wanted as close to a paper noting taking experience as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tools I chose to work with were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>IPad Air 2<\/li><li>Wacom Bamboo Fineline 2 Stylus<\/li><li>Paper by 53<\/li><li>Bamboo paper<\/li><li>GoodNotes<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The stylus worked very well with the iPad, the writing sometimes came\n out slightly offset from the stylus nib but could be altered by \nchanging the pen angle setting. Paper by 53 and Bamboo paper were both \nexcellent for drawing but, for me, did not allow accurate handwriting. I\n eventually settled on GoodNotes which has an excellent magnified \nsection that enabled me (once I had got used to it) to take fast \nhandwritten notes and draw and annotate them as required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I did consider trying a Smart Pen which transcribes everything \nwritten on paper in to digital format and send it to your computer or \ntablet. This is a great solution but I could not find one that worked in\n the way I wanted at the time. Smart Pens are constantly evolving and \nthe choice is getting greater with some now able to use normal paper \nrather than the Smart Pen specific stuff which greatly increases \nusability and decreases costs. This is an area I feel I will investigate\n further in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Being able to record my notes digitally enabled them to be saved and \norganised in a variety of different ways. This can be done in the \napplication they are created in, which essentially turns the application\n into a collection of almost infinitely large note pads that allows you \nto cut, copy and file them, pull out pages and swap them into anywhere \nelse you want. You are also able to export them into other formats, \npublish them as PDFs and email them. Short of putting reformatting the \niPad (and they are backed up to the cloud anyway) it is pretty much \nimpossible to lose them, they are automatically dated, can have keywords\n assigned to them and are searchable. All in all, exactly the solution I\n was looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make it easier or colleagues to read my notes, the application \nallowed me to convert my handwriting to text (if I was neat enough). I \nalso toyed with using a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad which \nessentially turned it into a mini version on a laptop. This is useful \nwhen typing a lot of text and it doesn\u2019t create a physical barrier like a\n laptop does. There are also a huge number of applications that are very\n capable including Word, OneNote, Evernote or Notes. The downside is \nthat it is difficult to find applications that allow a combination of \nkeyboard and stylus to work together effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given the range of applications available most tastes and \nrequirements can be catered for. If you take a lot of minutes, then an \napplication like OneNote allows you to sync with other Microsoft \napplications such as Outlook and you can automatically pull the \ninformation from your meeting appointments in to the notes you are \nmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will continue to keep an eye out for the application that will give\n me the perfect combination of keyboard and stylus. It may be that the \niPad pro will have something developed to answer this or I may find an \napp that I have overlooked. Whatever happens I will be sticking with \ndigital note taking, I value the ease and versatility that it offers is \ntoo much to go back to the pen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A part review, part investigation into the options for digital note taking and the benefits that it offers over pen and paper. Author: Dave Roney&nbsp;is a consultant at i3Works<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}