Opinion

Why Notion is the best note-taking app

14.9.2020

Translation: machine translated

Evernote, Onenote, Keep. I had them all. I didn't last long with any of them. Until I came across Notion. It was love at first sight.

Whether for the show notes of the digitec podcast, my coffee bean ratings or the rules of a complicated card game. My notes app holds pretty much everything that is important to me. I have already tried out a correspondingly large number of apps. Evernote, Google Keep, Onenote and many smaller apps. Unfortunately, there's always something I don't like. Sometimes it's the dull design, sometimes the lack of accessibility. But mostly it's the lack of editing options. I need flexibility when I create notes.

Notes can be customised with icons or images.

For a long time I was satisfied with Onenote, until a mate recommended Notion to me. Since then, I've been discovering new features almost every week that make the note-taking app even more appealing to me. It starts with the simple but clearly organised display. I can view all my notebooks and all the pages below them in one go. I drag and drop pages or notebooks that I often need to my favourites. I can also add pictures or small icons to each page so that I can recognise them more quickly - or simply because it looks nice. I can either use the included emojis or upload my own images. This makes the notes even more personalised.

Many editing options, if you can find them

There is no shortage of formatting options.

The highlight is the design options for the actual notes. Notion relies on a block system. Texts, titles and graphics form blocks. This takes some getting used to at first, but ensures that you can easily move any elements around. Another special feature is formatting using Markdown. As we use the same system at digitec, I found it particularly easy to get started. Markdown allows you to format texts with certain punctuation marks. For example, ## turns the following text into a title. This shortcut system is extremely efficient. Of course, you can also format your notes manually using menus.

There are virtually no limits to the design of your notes. Texts can be easily hidden behind an arrow with a toggle list. You can use @ to refer to other notes and edit them directly on the corresponding page. You can also add various tables, Kanban boards, code blocks or galleries. You can choose between numerous predefined templates for everything. Or you can create your own templates, as I did for my game notes.

Notes can also be customised with individual properties, such as creation date, tags or a user you want to link to.

The many options mean that I can't always find what I'm looking for in Notion. However, unlike Onenote and the like, there always seems to be a workaround. As the app is based on Markdown, it's a bit like programming. There are many ways to get there.

Yes, I know. It still looks a bit thin here.

I've been using Notion for several months now and I'm still delighted. The only thing the app lacks is handwriting recognition. Onenote is clearly ahead in this respect and this is unlikely to change any time soon. Apart from that, I can highly recommend the app. It's free and available on all platforms.

79 people like this article

Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

As a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.

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Why Notion is the best note-taking app

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