Top 17 Ways How To Take Notes For Sharing

I am wondering what are the ways a person may share notes and these are what I checked out and researched to be working. There are different types of purpose or types of note-taking. Please choose the right desktop, web or mobile app for your needs. It is possible a note-taker may use some or others at one time or another, so it will be good to know what are your potential options.

How to share your notes?

1. Evernote – Cross-platform Public link & view/edit with individuals
2. Postach – Web app to Blog with Evernote 
3. Google Keep – Web app to sharing via person or email
4. OneNote – Cross-platform to share with edit/view or link via email
5. Dropbox Paper – Web app to invite to edit or comment
6. StackEdit – Web app with offline support for markdown notes collaborative workspaces & publish to blog i.e. WordPress
7. HackMD – Web app for markdown Notes collaboration
8. Apple Notes – Mac app for replicate & share note via email and social media
9. Zotero – Mac and Web App for researching purpose
10. Memrise – Web app for spaced repetition memory
11. Gingkoapp – Web app for left-to-right notes with organizational highlights
12. Papier with right click – New Tab Notes Chrome Extension 
13. Pure Writer – Simple android app to write and share
14. Notebloc app – Android/iOS app to scan, save and share
15. Quik app – Android app to create videos for sharing i.e YouTube
16. Lumen5 – Web app to create videos from some text or article link such as a blog for saving and sharing i.e. Facebook videos and YouTube
17. Mindly app – Android app to create mind maps for saving and sharing e.g. pdf

Help others by sharing (appropriately and does not infringe others’ rights) and let others benefit from your original notes as well. If it is private for some people you know like classmates, you can share it on a Facebook private page. Not only trusted friends, family and co-workers can learn and contribute, they can also comment and may start sharing their own notes. And based on their comments and their notes, we can learn from mistakes or improve on content, techniques, and skills. Social media is becoming more global, so should your notes taking efforts. 

These notes solutions are personally tested to be working but some may not last as long as others so do expect changes in years to come. Please feel free to read on, pick the best for you and share notes online.

Evernote

Evernote can take different types of notes, ranging from text, voice to scanned notes. You can use Evernote for general or perhaps even for all your note-taking needs. The advantage to this is the obvious ease with just using, managing and maintain one note-taking app. This can be particularly useful in the long run when you have thousands of notes and you have to search for what you need. Evernote is also scalable to a premium account when you can do more with it. It is by far the most powerful note app I know in terms of the features available.

To share, right click on that note -> Click copy Shareable link, and you can share that with others. Shareable link (Shortcut key: press CMD and / together, and the link will be copied to the clipboard) is a public link sharing for everyone to view on the internet. You may also invite others via name or email to view, edit or edit and invite that note. 

Or click Share near the top-right corner to start sharing.

Postach

Postach.io is a dedicated free solution to blog your Evernote. Though this is just sharing your notes as a blog, this may be a solution depending on your needs. After setup, a note will be automatically published when you tag it “published”. The FAQ is here – you may even schedule a post by tagging with published, changing the note creation date and sync. 

Postach may be a personal notes blog that everyone can view.

Google Keep

With Google Keep, you may share a note via the person’s name or email (from your contact list). Once that person logined into his/her Google keep, that shared note will appear there. It is a simple way to share your note with someone. The collaborated can both view and edit that note. I have tested this to be working. 

OneNote

For OneNote, Click File->Share for link or email to view/edit.

Dropbox Paper

In Dropbox Paper, you can invite with names or emails to edit or comment.

StackEdit

StackEdit is a markdown editor that can sync your notes to the cloud e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, and Github. There is an option to publish your notes to WordPress. You can also publish to notes to Blogger. Not only there is support for LaTex (Maths Rendering), UML Diagrams and musical scores rendering, it also has offline support. StackEdit claims collaborative workspaces can be shared and changes will be merged though I have not tested this. You may directly blog your notes with WordPress.

It is possible to publish to WordPress and Blogger after setup.

HackMD

The advantage of HackMD is that it is designed specifically for collaborative markdown. Once you created a note and click Publish, you will be assigned a link where anyone can view and watch the note, for example – https://hackmd.io/s/rkkBL04GE. The note’s permissions can be changed. You may also download an HTML version of your note or export to Dropbox, Google Drive, and Gist. Also, the feature to view revisions, slide mode and book mode can be useful for collaborators, presentation and personal reading.

Interestingly, HackMD does not collaborate via emails. It has different levels of sharing and security for your note as shown. Someone else can edit the note with the right permission (logged-in) and freely if he has the link.

Apple Notes

Apple Notes comes with a Mac OS X. Replicate & share the note via email and social media. To share an apple note, click File -> Share and select the type of sharing. You may notice there is an option to export as PDF as well.

Zotero

Zotero excels as a research resource by finding, collecting, displaying abstracts and tags, notes, citing and creating bibliographies from studies. You can enter notes for each entry. Zotero is a research assistant that also allows sharing by creating an online group, for example, Takenotesguide group on Zotero. It is useful for people with numerous resources to keep tabs on and compile. You just have to click and drag a paper, study or entry from My Libraries to a group library you created, click sync and it is shared out on the group.

Memrise

Memrise is a very good way to not just for reviewing your own notes but also to help others study as well. It will take extra effort to put it into Memrise cards format but it may be well worth the effort when you are reminded to keep reviewing at spaced intervals. I personally recommend Memrise when you have good notes and Memrise will take care of the part of reminding and flashing the cards for reviews so you are unlikely to forget it near exams. Taking notes is just the start, but reviewing it, again and again, come next unless you have a photographic memory and good understanding. Even then, please share out your notes to help others in the same situation. In addition, Memrise is free and has a user-friendly and neat interface for learning.

Gingkoapp 

Gingkoapp is a free (10 trees and 100 cards limits per month) and an intuitive way to imagine and organize your notes from left to right. To share out the note tree, click the gear icon on the top-right corner and Tree Settings…

Papier

Papier is just a chrome extension to take notes on a new tab. It has built-in simple formatting options that will help to get started. At the bottom left corner, there is setting (3 dots) that can enable night mode, font size, formatting help, and font change. If you need more markdown format in chrome, use Markdown Here extension. Using Papier to take notes is probably one of the fastest and simplest ways to take notes if you often use Chrome.

Sharing out Papier with Tweet or add to Evernote and Zoho Notebook. You can even add it to iTunes as a Spoken Track.

Pure Writer App

I usually review more popular solutions, but like Papier I think Pure Writer deserves a mention here. I like Pure Writer and hopefully, it lives up to its claim you will never lose content ever again. We all probably have lost what we typed at one time or another and that should be one of the primary concerns for note-takers. Also, I like its dark background and minimalistic feel. It can be helpful if you like to take long notes on an Android device. Pure Writer support WebDAV backup and share content with your Android apps i.e. Add to Evernote or send content to a Facebook/WhatsApp group.

Notebloc app

This is a free Android / iOS app to scan, save or share your notes. It is also an editor’s choice app currently. I rudimentarily tested the OCR (optical character recognition) to be working i.e. in the case the word ‘journal’ can be copied. Once the photo is taken, the edges are trimmed accurately as shown. And saving and sharing with this app is easy by clicking share. I tested saving to Evernote successfully. This can be helpful to students and adults who wish to just quickly take photos, scan, save or share out handwritten notes quickly.

Notebloc has some options to save and share. You can save as pdf and jpg as well. And some file sizes to choose for saving. The smallest file size available is 300+KB for the above screenshot. Notebloc works. For iPhone users, please consider Scannable by Evernote.

Quik app

Quik is an android app to create videos, currently an editor’s choice. I have included an example of a short video because I believe modern notes should not be limited to just paper text, but may even in videos accompanied by music where appropriate. YouTube videos are popular and notes can also be made to enhance our learning experience. However, notes videos probably should be concise and brief to the point just as the purpose of the kind of notes in my opinion.

You may import from the gallery, google photos and Dropbox. I clicked share link and uploaded the video to YouTube for sharing. There is also a Pro version for more.

Lumen5

Lumen5 is a web app to create videos from an article link (i.e. blog post) or some text. Copy your notes over to make a video out of it. Basic video creation is free.

Mindly

Mindly (another current editor’s choice) is a free android app to create mind maps. Mind mapping may work for some more than others. The pro version cost less than six dollars now. Mindly also has a Mac App that costs $29.99.

Conclusion

I would recommend Evernote as an all-rounder solution for note-taking and sharing in general. You may use Postach with Evernote for blogging purposes. 

For those who prefer to write notes in markdown format, StackEdit is a good markdown editor that supports publishing as well. HackMD is a dedicated markdown collaborative platform but it may not be as established and popular as other platforms.

Memrise can help enhance and share our memory retention learning experience.

Gingkoapp can help those who prefer an intuitive left to right notes organizational experience, and the gingko trees can be shared out to others.

Papier can be a very quick way to take notes on Chrome which may be just what some people need. Selected text can then be shared out with right-click. And a minimalistic experience can also be found on Pure Writer, an android app that offers different apps to send content.   

Notebloc android / iOS app is more for those who take handwritten notes and need a scanning solution to save and share out their notes. Scannable by Evernote for iPhone is also an alternative.

Quik android app offers to make free videos from images and videos. Notes text can be added before posting to YouTube while Lumen5 is a web app that can easily help to create videos starting with just text (or notes) content or from your article link.

Mindly (android app) for those who prefer a mind map experience for learning and sharing.

Related Questions

Why share notes?

Legitimate sharing with others is a good act of helping others as well. We can learn to be more selfless with acts of kindness by sharing with others what we learned and how we overcome the difficulties and obstacles. This may also serve as a motivation to encourage others. 

How to share notes between mac and android

• Evernote
• Google Keep
• OneNote
• Dropbox Paper
• Android File Transfer Mac App (For file and photos transfer i.e.including notes images)

Share notes app

To recap, here are the apps for sharing notes: Mac App

1. Evernote (optional publish to Postach with “published” tag on the note after setup) – Recommended
2. OneNote
3. Apple Notes
4. Zotero

Web App

1. Evernote
2. One Note
3. Dropbox Paper 
4. Google Keep
5. StackEdit with offline support
6. HackMD 
7. Memrise
8. Gingkoapp 
9. Papier Chrome Extension 
10. Lumen5

Android app

1. Pure Writer
2. Notebloc app
3. Quik app
4. Mindly app 

How to share notes with someone?

• WhatsApp – Text & voice notes/messages, images and even live voice & video call someone on WhatsApp. These are done via data transfer and free unless stated otherwise. Sharing to a WhatsApp group is also possible.
• Social media via Facebook private group or messages and Twitter direct messages.

Where else to share your notes in general?

1. Depending on the type and length of your notes, medium.com can be a viable venue.
2. Pinterest for visual note images 
3. Instagram a shot of your colorful or interesting note
4. Youtube for notes made into a video

How to team up with others for coding project collaboration

Technically speaking, this can be done on Github. You may get more ideas i.e. CodePen and JS Bin from How to comment codes and take notes.

How to share and collaborate on a document?

Google Docs for document collaboration is free. Students may take note simultaneously collectively – as a group activity can be both fun and competitive at the same time! At least someone thought this is genius and brilliant Students helping each other. It’s like feeding your friends with your spoon and vice versa. I have not tested this but this can be helpful in creating a common class note that everyone can compete in contributing. It can be the case when brilliant students may go through and highlight/add/edit the notes at the end of the session. 
Also, Gitbook.com can be an elegant solution for team documentation.

Other ideas for sharing you notes?

1. You may simply sign up for a free WordPress.com account and start writing your notes away like a blog. Or just buy a domain name, hosting i.e Bluehost (affiliate link) and install WordPress to start documenting your notes.
2. For the technically inclined who wish to run your own blog framework, Hexo and Jekyll are possible.

Is there a simpler alternative to Zotero for collecting webpages, bookmarks, and documents?

Scrible is free, also similar but less than Zotero in my opinion. It does not have a Mac app, only web, and extension. Sharing is only by permalink and email. Unlike Zotero, there is also no option to take notes on the source.