Evernote

Evernote is a creative writing, content management and collaboration software. You can store documents, notes, images and anything you can clip off the internet. As well as take photos from your smart phone or record auto and instantly save it to your account. Content is synced across all of your mobile, computer or tablet devices which can be accessed anytime and anywhere that you have an internet connection. The clip feature is very useful and automatically curates the images, text and links which is great for citing resources and creating an index. The ability to instant message other Evernote users, or collaborate with them by sharing notebooks and other files is very useful too. You can also import document to use a templates. That's a great idea and I would utilize this almost certainly. I like the idea of world building for a fiction novel and my research into the best software for this task is my motivation. I like Evernote a lot it's simple to use and has a lot of features that will save time when researching online and sharing updates with my editor. I like the idea of using Evernote for trip planning too. Setting up an itinerary would be a useful and efficient thing to do using Evernote. It's easy to search documents in Evernote with the quick search bar available on every page. The ability to scan documents with your smartphone and immediately send them to my account is invaluable. You could track receipts and expenses this way though there are other softwares which may suit you better for this but if you're already using Evernote in the writing field, or as a reporter perhaps, it could be useful to you. Evernote is a software which you must download to your laptop or computer. That's good in the sense you can use it without having an internet connection, but can sync offline updates anytime when you establish a online connection. The user interface is very user friendly. It's quite clean with lots of space dedicated to the creative task at hand. You can utilize keyboard short cuts which can speed up your writing process and improve efficiency by saving time. You can embed PDF's and view them inline to read or attach notes to. You an attach images, audio, spreadsheets and more to your notes. You can also set up reminders to get tasks done, or to meet goals and deadlines inside the app. This feature differentiates it from Microsoft OneNote. You can also create check box lists for to do's. This would be great for creating an itinerary.

The lack of tabs like an internet browser is a feature I had been searching for in a writing tool and found in Microsoft OneNote. The automatic sync between offline and online accounts is terrific but it's easy to become reliant on this. It's important to create manual backups and export your data in other forms and to other storage locations just in case to prevent a worst case scenario. I understand that naming images automatically using the Evernote app is not always effective but I haven't used the app yet so I can't for certain. I've also heard the sync functionality may be a bit on the slow side and that it's best to check everything is synced especially if it's for work purposes before shutting down your computer. I like the user interface but it could be improved in my opinion. The far left menu with overall account information can be shrunk but cannot be minimized or removed. That would open up space and help focus of the writing. And the notes tab has three options for viewing notes in different way such as list, snippet and card which is cool but none of them are my favorite compared to Microsoft OneNote. You can sketch or write using the pen tool option. But unless you have a stylus it's difficult to do so without looking hilarious. Perhaps people utilize this function but I can't understand why for the life of me. If it were quicker than writing on a napkin in a jiffy that's one thing, but to draw a circle with your mouse and then write inside it for example, would take more time than this. I don't believe this feature adds much value but that's only my opinion.

Evernote has a free version which is always great news. It's definitely worth checking out to see if it's the best writing tool for you. I prefer Microsoft OneNote. They both have a lot of similar features, but the user interface is cleaner and more intuitive in OneNote which is also free and available as offline while syncing online anytime.