I’ve no problem with using LibreOffice for most of my document needs, but i haven’t found a good substitute for microsoft’s OneNote yet. I mainly use it to plan my RPG games and it helps a lot. What alternatives are there for organizing notes on linux, with similar features to those that OneNote provides?
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I am surprised that no one has mentioned Rnote yet.
It is my favourite newly-created program for Linux. It is a relatively new app which supports annotating files and taking handwritten notes. You can import PDFs, set the page size to infinite or a fixed size (something OneNote can’t do), adjust the background to display grids or lines or dots or nothing with any spacing you like, input text with your keyboard, … It is available on Flathub for easy installation.
The only major downside is the following: Disclaimer: The file format is still unstable. It might change and break compatibility between versions.
For text-based notes I use Obsidian.
It isn’t open source, but it writes standard markdown files to disk, so I can switch programs whenever I like and I am not locked into the Obsidian ecosystem with my notes. That was the main reason why I decided against using Joplin, especially after my experience with converting recipes from Nextcloud Cookbook to markdown …
In general I am always trying to find a simple file-based solution for whatever I need to do. I want to be able to sync it with Syncthing instead of something fancier that requires a centralised web server or even relies on a cloud service.
Synching works but if you have a server, Obsidian live sync is fantastic and seamless.
Actually that’s one of the main reasons I use Syncthing: It doesn’t need a server, as it is a peer-to-peer architecture. Unlike a centralised solution (cloud storage, Nextcloud, etc.) devices sync directly with each other. If they are on the same local network, you get to enjoy the full bandwidth of your local network. If they need to sync over a long distance over the internet, you are limited by the upload and download speeds of your internet provider, just like with centralised storage.
I have a server that serves as an introducer, so I don’t have to connect each device with every other device manually. But the server doesn’t need to be available once all devices are connected with each other.
Syncing continues to work without it for as long as I don’t reinstall any of the other devices. And even if I’d reinstall a device, I could delegate any other device to be the introducer or connect the devices manually with each other. It really is quite robust and fail-safe.
That’s unlucky, I’ve never had any issues with importing and exporting markdown files with Joplin. I even export my library in cleartext every so often as a backup just in case. I’m also very satisfied with Joplin’s sync capabilities with Syncthing.
Amkng all note taking apps, FOSS or not, online and offline, Obsidian still holds the top spot unmatched. I don’t even dislike to admit it anymore. It’s just that good and really has almost everything.
Did you know that you can even sync your note using git and thus a git remote server for syncing? It even works with iOS 😃
oh my god, this looks like the note app i’ve wanted for so long on linux!!
it’s still missing some text formatting features imo, but maybe i could hack those in a submit a patch… definitely keeping on my radar! thank you!
Haha, that’s what I was thinking as well when I first discovered it. Glad you found it through my post!
I took my handwritten notes with PDF Annotator in a Windows VM for over three years …
I was asking a similar question a few months ago, and my search turned up Joplin. It’s a free, open source app that works across multiple platforms and can sync data through a cloud service, either through Joplin’s own cloud storage or through a third-party cloud storage like Dropbox.
Joplin also supports encryption straight out of the box, which is nice if one wants to host on a third party cloud. Native support for both Nextcloud (WebDAV) and Syncthing (Direct file sync) is nice if one wants to self-host.
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
I use and enjoy Joplin. It’s much less feature-rich than OneNote, but if you’re predominantly using it to make text-based notes it does that with aplomb. I enjoy the cloud syncing, which is very useful combined with the fact that there’s an Android app (so I can access my notes on the go).
I use logseq and notesnook.
I absolutely second logseq. Would you mind elaborating why/how you use notesnook in addition?
Thanks in advance!
I’ve used both, honestly can’t justify the price of notesnook after using logseq. I’m in the process of switching over entirely to logseq.
I will say though that notesnook is a great alternative to Evernote and OneNote that is private and secure. I just don’t use its features enough to justify using it over logseq and syncthing.
Notesnook required me to re-login every week or so. I paid for it in the beginning but after that kept happening over and over (it was fixed for a while and then regressed) I just gave up. If I need to quickly write something down I don’t want to context-switch into my password manager first. Especially since auto-complete wouldn’t help me, since for whatever fucked up reason Notesnook first asks for the TOTP token and THEN for the password.
I absolutely second logseq. Would you mind elaborating why/how you use notesnook in addition?
Thanks in advance!
You might want to explain the features of OneNote, particularly the exact ones that you want. I get the impression that most people don’t know its organization structure.
My short input: it’s not just note taking. It’s has a tiered level of organization for the notes to categorize and quickly move about. The example I read was like it’s set up like you have multiple binders, with dividers in each, and pages (notes) within those. The page is very open ended, you can add text boxes in any spot, mixed with pics in any spot.
Your input is very accurate. Being able to write notes freely anywhere on the page, draw on it, attach images, links, etc is a big part of it, but one of the most important things to me is organizing different pages into dividers/binders like you said.
I set up various sections for quests, locations, npcs, etc, for my rpg worlds, and need it to be well organized and be able to link to different sections within the same binder. I also like to color code everything.
You should check out Affine.pro then. It’s FOSS and you can draw anywhere, it’s one of their selling points.
There’s a program called cherrytree that I think is very underrated. It’s probably not a 1:1 replacement for OneNote but I recommend checking it out in case it fulfills a similar but different need.
I’m feeling old. I have a folder called Notes with a directory hierarchy with text files in them. If I want to edit something, I navigate to the appropriate directory and type “vim -S”. If I want to get to them remotely (which I haven’t really needed) I would SSH in to my system with whatever terminal emulator I had available.
I’m not sure what features of OneNote you are talking about, but maybe logseq will suit your needs.
I switched from OneNote to Logseq. Its feature set is pretty much completely different, but in the end I realized it’s fine with me and resulted in my notes being more useful.
The main downside that I see now is that it’s kind of slow - much faster than the Electron version of OneNote was last time I used it, but slower than old native OneNote app or Obsidian. Otherwise its main differences from Obsidian are that in Obsidian the basic building unit is a page, whereas in Logseq it’s a paragraph (and, usually, its sub-paragraphs - it’s an outliner), which Obsidian can only do with plug-ins and not as seamlessly, and that with Obsidian you pretty much need to use community plug-ins, whereas with Logseq a lot of the functionality is built-in.
It’s open-source and uses markdown, not completely standard, but close enough for the files to be entirely usable if Logseq ever dies. Its community is smaller than with Obsidian, which is a downside, but it’s not exactly obscure either.
Really probably the most important thing about Obsidian and Logseq is to read an article or watch a video about how automatic backlinking works. It’s especially useful for something like Zettelkasten, but it also works for more “normal” approaches as well as concepts like Getting Things Done.
Both are OK tools and are similar in many ways, but they’re quite different from OneNote. Downside of both is that synchronization between devices sometimes creates issues unless you use their paid service.
You might look at these relative newcomers to this category of app…with some caveats for why I haven’t switched from Obsidian.
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Acreom - Not open source yet, but planned. Flat markdown files like Obsidian and Logseq. Dealbreaker for me is that in order to use the app on Android, you have to sign in with Google, Apple, or Github and use their cloud for sync. I’m trying to convince the dev to allow their “local first” mantra to permeate all versions of the app regardless of platform. He is very receptive, so we’ll see. If they do, I can see myself switching to Acreom instead of continuing with Obsidian. But that’s the beauty of open file format, you can pack up and leave very easily!
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Notesnook - Is FOSS. But not self-hostable yet. That is on their roadmap. Potential dealbreaker is that it doesn’t support markdown, rather shortcuts that behave similar to markdown syntax. As a result of that and their E2EE, the file format is not as open as Obsidian and others that use simple .md files.
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Probably logseq or Obsidian, but… if you like plain text and really need customization you might go with what I use: emacs + org-roam
Guides
text: https://jethrokuan.github.io/org-roam-guide/
video:
Start Using Org-roam Today | Install, Configure, and Use https://piped.video/watch?v=AyhPmypHDEw
A Text File… No, really, a simple text file is imo the best way to take notes, you can open it on any computer, it’s fully FOSS, you can sync it in 100 different ways
You check out this video: https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/XRpHIa-2XCE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I want to like libre office, but every time I have tried to use it, it ended up crashing eventually
On the windows side of things (at my job) i dumped onenote for cherry tree. Its on portable apps website.
Not sure for linux. I run linux at home but only need one note- like programs at work.
+1 for Cherrytree, I can even recommend it on Linux. The tree structure makes it so much better to sort things than OneNote with the limited depth.
Joplin self hosted on a NextCloud instance!
Only because self hosting is satisfying and fun. You can have your Joplin notes synced on OneDrive as well.
