Note Taking and Organization Tool

runs on Linuxruns on Macruns on Windows
screenshot of KeepNote

There used to be a time, way back when, when we could keep track of everything we needed to stay on top of just in our heads. As our lives got more complicated, and our brains got less efficient, we needed to transition to non-volatile forms of memory. Thus was born the To Do list. After a while, that list isn't big enough, so maybe we tried using a calendar/organizer or even a spiral-bound notebook. That was okay as long as things were easily organized by time (for the calendar), or there still wasn't a lot to remember (the notebook). After a while, though, it became impossible to find anything (digging through dozens or hundreds of pages). So next we transitioned to a searchable tool to use on our computers. That's much better, but since many of these types of tools are text-based, it's impossible to annotate our notes with images, charts, and other non-textual content. KeepNote may be the next generation of note taking tool.

With an interface that looks not unlike Outlook, you can build a hierarchy of your ideas, notes, appointments, etc. in the sidebar. Within each of these divisions, you have a list of individual posts that shows at the top of your screen. Click on an individual item, and you get your specific notes—with illuminations—in the main pane of the application window. As you'd expect, your information is fully searchable, so you won't spend minutes (or hours or days) looking for info you know is in there, but maybe not in a location you remember.

KeepNote is a free application. It's written in Python and is available for Windows (with a regular installer) as well as installers for several flavors of Linux, and a platform independent distribution for Mac OS X and just about anybody else.

Download KeepNote

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