As far as note-taking apps are concerned, Evernote and OneNote rule the roost. They serve a similar purpose of organizing your notes. We compare their features and help you make an informed decision about which one to use.
Fact
Evernote and OneNote categorize their notes in a special folder called notebooks.
So often, we struggle to find a pen to quickly jot down information and feel helpless on not finding one! Many times, we try to remember a line from our favorite TV show and wish we had written it somewhere. Note-taking apps make this easy. They allow you to take notes, and also to store and organize them. Here, we give you a comparison between two of the very popular note-taking applications in use today-Evernote and Onenote.
Evernote
Evernote was launched by the Evernote Corporation in June 2008. It works more like a database that stores information. It has a feature of clipping entire web pages and saving it as a bookmark for later use. It lets you create a hyperlink to other notes, which makes it easy to find them. It lets you create ink notes and multimedia notes with the help of a graphic tablet.
It’s very popular among students for taking lecture notes but works well for professionals too, due to its integration with many popular software.
OneNote
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking application created as part of the Microsoft Office suite. It was launched in 2003. You can choose to hide or show some notes, reducing the visual clutter. One of the unique features of OneNote is that it lets multiple users make changes on the same file at the same time. The changes and the author’s name are highlighted differently. It’s ideal for brainstorming and for professionals who need it on the go.
Comparison
| Evernote | OneNote |
| Interface | |
| Evernote has an interface similar to a digital cabinet which lets you write notes, take audio notes, scan pages using OCR, and share it on the go. It even categorizes different files in the notebook as stacks. The best thing about the interface is that it works well across all platforms. | OneNote has an interface akin to a notebook and categorizes the information in colored notes called sections. Each section has multiple pages which can be collaborated with others. You can add text, images, and tables, and format them like in a Word document. OneNote has rich-text formatting and offers support to more data types than Evernote’s simple text-based interface. |
| Compatibility | |
| Evernote has apps for Windows Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Blackberry, etc. It synchronizes notes among all connected devices. | OneNote has always been a part of the Microsoft Office suite. Hence it’s available on all Windows phones. It has released OneNote for iOS and Android which are free for up to 500 notes. |
| Reminders | |
| Evernote has built-in reminders. | Reminders can be added to OneNote but it requires the installation of Microsoft Outlook. |
| PDF Indexing | |
| Evernote doesn’t have this capability, which makes it difficult to use in finding older notes. Evernote doesn’t work well with handwritten notes. | OneNote lets you clip entire web pages or information in a PDF and send it to OneNote and lets you tag them individually to remember them later. |
| To encrypt a note in Evernote, you need to right-click on it. | OneNote lets you encrypt entire sections but only if you have a premium version. |
| Web Clipping and 3rd party Integration | |
| Evernote not only clips the entire web page but also lets you select certain portions of it and save it in a different category as well as add tags to it. It integrates with third-party software like Skitch, that makes it easier to draw images, Evernote Hello, which keeps track of the conversations with your contacts, and Penultimate, which lets you take notes in your own handwriting. | OneNote saves web clips using the Quicknotes section. It takes a screenshot of the web page which is searchable but you can’t copy the text. It supports third-party software which allows you to send a text to OneNote, or lets some websites send data to it. |
| Tagging | |
| Evernote lets you tag information in different groups like Descriptors, Knowledge, and Projects. If you run a search on any previous notes using these tags, they’ll pop up easily. | OneNote allows tagging of individual items such as headings, sentences, or images. It even allows the creation of custom tags. |
| Exporting | |
| Evernote lets you export its data into its own format or HTML and XHTML. | OneNote, on the other hand, lets you export in PDF, Word, or HTML. |
| Pricing | |
| Evernote is a premium service that allows users to upgrade for a fee of $5 per month or $45 annually. | Since its launch on Mac desktops, OneNote is free. But OneNote which is a part of Office 2013, supports Outlook integration and comes at a price. |
Whether you use your notes to write a novel or jot down important events in your daily life, these note-taking apps can do it all. Choose the one that suits your usage requirements.