Organize Your Thoughts With This Markdown Note Taking App
Windows / Mac: I admit I’m not as good at Markdown as I should be, but Notable’s awesome free note-taking app makes me want to learn the ins and outs. The app, available for both Windows and Mac, is a complete notes experience, it’s league better than any default app you’ll ever have on your system. You just need to learn Markdown to make the most of it, but that sounds a lot worse than it actually is.
From the moment you install and launch it, Notable will be more than ready to hold your hand as you jump into the scary and unexplored world of the new note taking app. It might sound too dramatic, but let’s be true: if you’ve spent years immersing your thoughts in something like Evernote or your Mac’s Note app, you’ll be reluctant to switch to something new. You should. Take the plunge.
I really like Notable. First of all, it’s ingenious how its creator, Fabio Spampinato, gives you a guide to the app in the form of pre-filled notes. Not only will you learn how an app works when you read these instructions, but if you’re like me and love tinkering, you can jump straight to the basics of the notes he created to see how the app’s note – the way things work – and Markdown.
All the notes you create are in one folder on your computer, which you assign when you first start the program. Any attachments you insert into a note are stored in a different folder. While it sounds like chaos – on your hard drive, of course – Notable will make things better if you use the app’s numerous note-organizing tricks.
For example, you can assign notes to an infinite number of notebooks or themed collections of ideas that you want to keep in one place. You can also assign as many individual tags as you like to a note, which is a secondary method of organizing their content. Finally, you can even mark notes as “favorites” if you need another way to find your gems, or pin important notes across all your notebooks and tags so you don’t lose them. The app even comes with a built-in search tool in case you need more help finding something.
On the Markdown aspect, I found it easiest to learn the syntax of the language by storing all of the Notable learning notes in a new notebook. Then you can refer to them if you need to quickly learn how to italicize text, create a list, or turn a phrase into a hyperlink. (You can also copy and paste one of the many Markdown cheat sheets on the web into a new note.)
As much as you focus on your code, you’ll find that Markdown is a fast and efficient way to format a lot of your thoughts – at least much better than having to click on all sorts of toolbar buttons.