Search for the near-perfect note taking software
Tags: productivity
Published: 2019-05-06 17:14:04

---
title: Search for the near-perfect note taking software
tags: productivity  
description: search for a note taking software to maintain a personal knowledge base  
canonical_url: https://animesh.blog/near-perfect-note-taking-software/  
published: true
---

I have a lot of information stored in a number of text files littered all over my workstations from as early as 2007. For a while, I would just place them in dropbox and forget about them. I had hundreds of programming notes, error logs, dotfiles, questions to be asked on stackoverflow, potential blog posts and other miscellany.

Last month, as a part of a larger effort, I decided to consolidate all these notes into a personal knowledge base. Thus began my hunt for good note taking software. 

My requirements were simple. The program must support the following features.

 - Plain text editing of markdown files
 - Hierarchical notes
 - Workspaces
 - Keyboard accessible
 - Customizable (optional)
 - In-built Server (optional)

I conducted this exercise of finding such software several times unsuccessfully over the last decade. So, a few familiar names popped up on my mind and searches.

## [Wikidpad](https://github.com/WikidPad/WikidPad)

I have used it extensively about 8 years back for a good amount of time and remember having lots of notes while working in a startup. I cannot recollect the reason why I did not continue to use it.  It does not fit my current requirements, but curious users should take a peek at it.

## [Zim](https://zim-wiki.org/)

This is a very mature program and is available in apt. It ticked every checkbox except markdown format.

## [Joplin](https://joplin.cozic.net/)

Joplin is Electron based, so it is not my cup of tea. Only VSCode seems to be whitelisted in my `electron_bad_for_laptop` policy. At least two instances of VSCode are always running on my laptop. My note taking software is the first program after terminal, to always stay opened. I did not explore it further. Again, curious users should try it.

## EverNote

I have used EverNote briefly for about a day almost 8 years back. It did not grow on me. 

## OneNote

OneNote is not cross-platform. This rules it out completely. It also has a proprietary format and is not great at keyboard accessibility. However, it is a great program. I use it regularly on my Windows laptop and wherever I have a subscription of Office365.

## [QOwnNotes](https://github.com/pbek/QOwnNotes/)

This is one name that felt familiar. Hacker News is where I seemed to have found this recommendation. I did not like its webpage design then and do not like it now. However, that is not what I am here after. As I learnt, visceral reactions are not really trustworthy.

This time I wanted to give it a try given my renewed fascination of QT based software. It ticked all boxes except the server one. I don't really care for it at the moment as I have other different plans for that.

QOwnNotes supports 

- markdown as the default plaintext editing option
- keyboard shortcuts
- hierarchical notes 
- workspaces in the form of note folders

There are few other great features.

 - Customizability - Most of the editor and the panels are completely customizable.
 - Note encryption - Always good to have encryption.
 - Markdown preview panel - With this, I have no use for other markdown editors on Linux like typora, abricotine, retext and remarkable.
 - Scripting - An opportunity for stepping into QML.
 - Auto update - It is possible to auto update from the central server, but I added the accompanying repository to my sources, so that, I could get the latest on `apt update`.
 - Vim mode - Not for me, but good to have it.
 - Nextcloud support - Not for me, but good to have an alternative cloud sync option.
 - Versioning - Not for me, but great to have. Also, I have not figured it out fully yet, but since my notes exist inside Dropbox, this is not a must have at the moment.
 - Cross platform - I don't use this feature yet, but it is great to have it, if you need it.

It took me around two whole weeks to organize all my files into a single folder called notes.

I love this software and wholeheartedly recommend it. I will explore these features in detail in the next post.