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Comment by ianbishop | Hacker News Reader

Taking notes at university has become one of those odd analog vs digital tasks where my preferences fall uncomfortably with neither.

I find software leaves much to be desired. I need the ability to tack graphs, formulas, side notes where ever I please, like Photoshop. Yet I need better text editor support, like Word or OpenOffice.

Doing it by hand is fine, but I can't take notes as quick as I can by typing. I have full control over a page, but there is no Ctrl-Z for spelling mistakes which can leave notes disfigured and unsettling to study from.

The solution to all of this would be to copy by hand and then re-type on the computer but this again takes a lot of time. Perhaps something like LaTeX etc. would help but again.. too much time spent on actual documentation preparation when it should be spent on note-taking.

Can anyone relate to what I'm ranting on about?

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When I studied math, I tried transcribing my notes into LaTex, but found that, while enjoyable, it was too slow, and I got behind. Maybe a tablet PC with some type of note-taking software would work, but that's pretty annoying. I like to use PC's for things that humans can't do themselves, like crunching numbers while I sleep.

I got fast enough at hand notes, and found that if I kept my book open during the lecture, that I could skip note taking on a portion of the lecture if it was covered adequately in the book.

One thing that I have seen others do is to create a kind of footnote system in their laptop document so that any formula or diagram gets a reference number then they quickly grab the pen and paper and jot the formula/diagram down then straight back to the computer. Then after the lecture just digitalise the footnotes. Really depends on how much of the lecture is formulas/diagrams to text I suppose.

> it was too slow, and I got behind.

This is purely a function of practice. 5 years ago, a friend of mine could TeX math notes substantially faster than I could write them by hand, including reasonably complex commutative diagrams, lots of tricky formulae, etc. A big part of TeX speed is setting up a bunch of personal macros for commonly used symbols (e.g. \a instead of \alpha, etc.).

Old-fashioned, but there's still something to be said for shorthand. Then you can hand-write as fast as you can type. Type up the notes afterwards, which (as you say) forces you to review them as well.

[I've had good experiences with Teeline shorthand; was able to learn the system in an evening, and from there it's just building up speed. Avoid Pitman's shorthand like the plague]

I agree to some extent. I have yet to find a note taking killer app. FWIW, most advice says to recopy notes after the lecture to cement the knowledge anyways. That being said, it would be nice to have a better way to do notes.

Evernote?

http://evernote.com/

Have you tried OneNote? It's still not great for math, but for a lot of note-taking applications it's excellent - particularly in tacking things wherever you please.

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