Top 11 Note-Taking Apps for Writers and Authors in 2023

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Ideas can strike any time of the day. Sometimes when I am out in the city, I see or hear something and I feel I could include it in my next story or article. Something real or random always gives the story some depth.

Well, I remember once or twice while trying to write the instant thoughts; I ended up typing in my phone messaging and saving them as drafts, which I never remembered for the next 5-6 months.

Similar instances happen when I read a book full of information, and I just wanted to write for referencing later. This is when I realized the importance of note-taking apps.

Writers are always inclined towards perhaps the best grammar app or best novel writing software but I believe that every writer must also have dedicated note-taking apps on their smartphone, tablet, or desktop. This is a minor step but can affect the final outcome of your project to a large extent.

Why are note-taking apps necessary?

After all, creative blocks are a real thing and generally strike us out of nowhere. It is during that time, that these amazing note-taking apps come in handy. One can easily pick up any of these note-taking apps and quickly jot down ideas, tales, plots, or thoughts just when it had strike your brain.

Besides, note-taking is an essential prerequisite of writing. Be it a novel, thesis, articles, books, blog, etc., taking notes becomes the most important event even before one starts working on the project.

Thus, while jotting down ideas from a non-fiction book or an article, note-taking is a habit for most writers and these note-taking apps are a savior for them before starting the actual writing process. 

As technology has already slipped into our lives, let us take advantage of it by upgrading to electronic note-taking apps or software. So, here are my recommendations for the best apps for writers. 

Let’s dive into these Note taking Apps and their features

1. Notion

Since it launched a few years ago, Notion has become the he go-to app for taking notes and project management. Bear and Evernote. This app has tables, kanban boards, and calendar views. Notion initially started as a costly service, but then has launched affordable plans recently.

Notion lets you add icons and background images. The collaboration feature in Notion is a bit similar to that of Google Docs. When multiple people are logged in, you can see their profiles.

Pros of Notion:

• Hybrid Editor: Notion features a Markdown editor for formatting your text. You can also use normal keyboard shortcuts and UI elements for formatting.

• Flexibility: Notion is so much more than just a note-taking app. It can be anything. You can use it as a management tool, a database tool, or a collaboration tool.

• Tables: Notion did many things right with the table feature. Someone who uses them will know the importance, but for some, it might be bloated. Tables in Notion can be explained as a blend of Google Docs and Google sheets.

Cons of Notion: 

• Slow: Notion can be pretty slow depending on your network connection. There have been reports of occasional bugs also.
• The windows app is still not good enough as the mobile app.

Pricing: 

• Free for personal use up to 5 people
• Plus: $8/month
• Business: $15/month

2. Evernote

Evernote is everything that one could ask for in note-taking apps. Evernote is quite an old software and widely evolved with changing needs and it is full of features. You can create both simple and complex workflows.

Evernote can be helpful in processing handwritten notes. The web clipping feature is one of the best features it offers to its user.

Recently added features include new tables and Siri integration (for iOS).

Pros of Evernote:

• File formats: Multiple file formats are available in Evernote. Evernote will even create a Google Drive icon in-line should you paste a Google docs link.

• Photocopying: Evernote can be used as a scanner for taking photos of notes or books like generally done for photocopying.

• Web clipping: The web clipping feature is customized and helpful. You can choose if you want to save the whole article for later use or just the part that matters. 

Cons of Evernote:

• It doesn’t have Markdown support. 
• The free plan has only 60MB of storage.

Available on: Browser, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS.

Pricing: 

• Basic Plan: Free
• Premium Plan: $7.99 / Month
• Business Plan: $14.99 / User / Month

3. Ulysses

Ulysses is one of the most simple and clean note-taking apps that most people prefer, given they are users of Apple products. That’s right, Ulysses is only available on Apple’s computing platform and uses iCloud to save and sync your documents. 

With Ulysses, you can embed images in the form of links, wherein double-clicking the link will show the image on the body of the document.

Pros of Ulysses:

• Full-screen mode: Ulysses provides a full-screen mode so that you can only focus on your writing. For this reason, many use this app for writing their novels even. 
• Flexibility: Ulysses provides flexibility to its users, from offering a dark mode to different markup styles and publishing formats. 

• WordPress publishing: Ulysses makes publishing to WordPress a whole lot easier. After crafting a blog post, you don’t have to log in to your WordPress dashboard separately.

Cons of Ulysses:

• Availability: Only supports Mac and iOS. 

Pricing:

• Free trial
• $5.99/month
• $49.99/year
• For students: $1.83/month up to 6 months 

4. Bear

Bear is an app similar to Evernote and Ulysses, with one exception of supporting Markdown. It has a three-pane interface, like Slack, and you can apply hashtags to your notes. Bear is lightweight, and it lets you insert images directly into notes.

Bear allows you with a lot of formatting tools, like themes, typography, etc. With Bear, you can link notes just by using the hashtag.

Pros of Bear App:

• Markdown editor: This is probably the best feature provided by Bear. This feature formats your texts as you keep writing and you don’t have to worry about how your text will turn out. 

• Archiving: When you archive a note in Bear, it will take out the note from the platform without actually deleting it. Sometimes it is quite helpful when you don’t want to see the note anymore but can’t let it go.

• Design: Bear has a simple minimalistic user interface and people find it easy to write and read the notes.

Cons of Bear App:

• Availability: Only for Mac and iOS. So, if you are a Windows user, it’s not for you.

Pricing: 

• $1.49 monthly, with a one-week free trial
• $14.99 annually, with a one-month free trial

5. Roam Research

Roam Research is perhaps one of the most innovative note-taking apps out there. Considered to be exceptional from the other apps, Roam Research doesn’t take away all of the useful features of other note-taking apps. But what it does take away is all the pointless features and replace them with additional benefits.

Note linking is one of the unique features provided by Roam Research. 

Pros of Roam Research:

• Writing Experience: Roam Research is supported by Markdown, which makes writing easier.

• Note linking: This is one of the features where you don’t realize its usefulness unless you start using it. Linking notes is easy and simple, and you will get into the habit very soon.

• Visualization: Unlike most hierarchical views offered by many note-taking apps, Roam Research uses a graph-based visual to show the connection of your notes.

Cons of Roam Research:

• Available Web browser only.

Pricing:

• 31 days of free trial
• Professional- $15/month, $165/year
• Believer- $500/5 years

6. Apple notes

Since Apple Notes comes pre-installed on many iOS devices, so many iOS users are likely to have used it. Apple Notes is one of those note-taking apps that is simple, for which people tend to prefer it. Apple Notes can be considered as a convenient note-taking app. 

Apple Note integrates with Siri. And it makes organizing notes easier by providing as many folders as required.

Pros:

• Formatting tools: No, you won’t get special formatting tools with Apple Notes. But, it has the simple old bold, italics, and different font styles.

• Cross-platform editing: This is possible while using Apple Notes in the browser. You need to log in to your iCloud account and edit the existing files.

• Shared notes: This feature allows more than one user to use, view, and update notes. This way, no matter who is updating everyone can see the updated contents.

Cons:

• Doesn’t allow attaching files except with the share extension.
• Useful for spontaneous note-taking only.

Pricing: Free

Available in: iOS, OSX

7. ConnectedText

ConnectedText is a very different approach to note-taking apps. It has all the powerful tools to take care of all of your important stuff and store it in one accessible place. 

Anyone who has written for Wikipedia pages will understand the similarities because ConnectedText is based on Wikipedia principles.

Pros:

• Flexibility: You can connect anything to whatever you want. Links to a web, another note, another URL, etc. 

• Classification: ConnectedText’s classification system is interesting. A page features category, attribute, and property command, all of which are embedded in a markup language.

Cons: 

• Visuals: The editing mode is not at all visually appealing and quite a boring one.

• Not easy: ConnectedText is not your simple note-taking app. It does take care of all your high-performance work but it can be equally complicated to use.

Available in: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, Server 2003, Server 2008

Pricing:  

• Free trial 30 days
• A single license costs $39.95

8. Quip

Quip is one of the apps where you can share your documents and collaborate with your team. Although it’s best for professional use, integration with Salesforce, you can still use it for your notes.

With an intuitive interface, this app can be your friend while doing daily office work. Among many collaborative tools, it includes spreadsheets, images, tasks, etc.

Pros of Quip:

• Formatting: Quip features great formatting tools. One of them is code block formatting which is most loved. With Quip, you can get multi-language formatting, indenting, etc.

• Easy to use: Quip doesn’t take all your time while you are trying to understand how it works. With Quip, you can watch real-time updates and your updates are saved instantaneously.

Cons of Quip: 

• Missing collaborative feature: Since Quip’s collaboration is one of its biggest features, it should also have an option to see the history of changes made.

• Supported system: quip doesn’t have a desktop application for Linux. It would have been better if it were inclusive of all the systems.

Available in: iOS, Windows, Android.

Pricing: 

• Free trial
• Quip Starter – $10/user/month
• Quip Plus – $25/user/month
• Salesforce Anywhere Advanced – $75/user/month

8. Editpad

If you are looking for a clean and simple interface, then Editpad is the note-taking app for you. There are no distracting buttons or options that might disrupt your note-taking process. It is an online notepad that allows you to write and save notes easily and quickly.

Editpad can be useful for list-type notes because of its paragraph numbering feature. Also, this note-taking tool offers great post-processing options. In this way, you can keep your notes highly optimized.

Pros of Editpad

• File-Saving: You can securely save your notes in this tool’s online directory. Other than that, you can also download and upload text files as well.
• Pricing: Editpad is available to use for free. Also, there aren’t any writing limits, so you can use it for extensive note-taking as well.
• Word Counter: You can keep count of the words and characters you have written using this tool.

Cons of Editpad

• Formatting: Editpad doesn’t provide the option to format your content with the help of headings and subheadings.
• Font: This tool allows you to take notes only in a single font.

Pricing

As explained in one of the points above, this tool is available for free.

9. Google Keep

Google Keep is a simple and lightweight note-taking app. It can be your go-to note-taking app with time. It can be useful while trying to write down your thoughts. 

With Google Keep, you can create notes and lists, which will be saved on your Google Drive. It has similar features to Evernote, like image recognition, converting images, etc.

Google comes pre-installed on many devices, which is why many people started using it.

Pros:

• Accessibility: With the help of your Gmail account, you can access your Google Keep notes from literally anywhere. 

• Color codes and labels: For making your customization fun and easy, Google Keep offers different color codes for assigning different colors to different kinds of notes. It also offers features to create labels

• Simple: Perhaps everyone who uses Google Keep will tell you the easy user interface. 

Cons:

• No hierarchy: Almost all note-taking apps have an organization based on hierarchy. Google Keep being one of the major note-taking apps and lacking this feature is a negative point.

Available in: iOS, Android, Browser

Pricing: Free

10. Microsoft One Note

Microsoft OneNote was launched in 2003, and now is a part of Windows 10. It can also be used solely for free. Organizing becomes very easy with One Note because after creating the notes, you can search them and sync them on platforms like Windows PCs, Macs, iPads and iPhones, Android devices, and the web.

If most of your work uses Microsoft Office, this is a good choice as it syncs with Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook. One Note is easy to use and you can use it collaboratively.

Pros:

• Organizing: You can create a desired structure of notebooks. Within individual notebooks, you can create section groups that have multiple sections. Again, within each section, you can create individual pages, and within pages, you can create notes.

• Note creation tools: What makes One Note so great is its note creation tools like drawing, checklists, tables, the embedding of contents like spreadsheets, videos, etc.

• Collaboration: You can share your note with multiple other people and work together to make changes on the same draft. It gets easier when it lets you see who makes particular changes.

Cons: 

• Sorting: One Note lacks one of the basic features. You cannot sort your note by the time created. 

• Interface: The interface can be a bit messy. Notebooks have notebooks and dividers, and notebooks can be found on the left, dividers go on top, notes can be found on the right. This can be messy for some.

Available on: Tablets, Windows devices, Apple devices, Android devices, Web. 

Pricing: Free

11. Simple Note

This is another free note-taking app in which you can create to-do lists, jot down ideas, and more. 

Pros:

• Markdown Support
• Extremely user friendly
• Edit history tracking while sharing it with collaborators.
• You can sync between different machines like tablets and mobiles.

Cons:

• There are no pre-built templates for taking notes.
• No option to set reminders

Pricing: Free

Conclusion

As we have come to conclude the article, it is important to mention that any of the apps above will get your job done, considering it is only note-taking. However, choosing the right one will be based on your personal preference and requirement.

However, denying the need for note-taking apps must be thought over because I will strongly recommend the use of any of these note-taking apps to ease up your content generation process.

Be it writing a screenplay, crafting a storyboard, writing a TV commercial, or just planning your next digital marketing strategy, any of these note-taking apps will not only ease up your task but also subtly and gently contribute to a large extent to your project.

FAQs

What are note-taking apps?

Note-taking apps are digital tools that allow you to create and organize notes in a variety of formats, including text, images, audio, and more. These apps can be used for a wide range of purposes, from taking lecture notes to brainstorming ideas for writing projects.

How can note-taking apps help writers and authors?

Note-taking apps can be incredibly helpful for writers and authors, as they allow you to capture ideas, organize research, and keep track of notes and drafts all in one place. With the right app, you can easily access your notes from any device, collaborate with others, and even sync your notes with other productivity tools.

What features should I look for in a note-taking app for writing?

When choosing a note-taking app for writing, look for features like easy organization, the ability to attach multimedia files, collaboration tools, and support for multiple devices. You may also want to consider features like handwriting recognition, dictation support, and the ability to search through your notes.

Are note-taking apps secure?

Most note-taking apps offer some level of security, such as encryption of your data or the ability to lock individual notes or notebooks. However, it’s always a good idea to read the app’s privacy policy and take steps to protect your data, such as using a strong password and avoiding sharing sensitive information.

Are note-taking apps free?

Many note-taking apps offer a free version with limited features, while others require a subscription or one-time purchase. Some apps also offer premium features that are only available to paid users. When choosing a note-taking app, consider your budget and the features you need to find the best option for you.