Xara NoteTaker

I'm one of those folks that is drowning in paper sketches, notes and such and sometimes to aliviate this, will use so-called note-taking software. However, a lot of them cost money, require internet connectivity which isn't available, etc., so I thought I'd see how far Xara could be pushed into 'note taker' functionality. Personally, with a few small issues, it can do pretty dang well on it's own in most personal situations, even able to serve as a personal handwritten wiki, even though it's not exactly optimized for that.

I'm posting a couple of files here to peruse on setting up Xara's menus and tool settings to use it as a digital notebook. Hopefully you can read my handwriting! :P

Quick analysis of why might one use Xara as note-taking app and the pros and cons that seem most relevant to doing so.
Attachment 129642

The actual guide to using Xara for doing note-taking stuff.
Attachment 129643

Save these as templates if you don't want to make your own notebook or graph paper. Includes minimal palettes for pens and hiliters.
Attachment 129644
Attachment 129645


Hopefully someone here might find this useful or at the very least amusing someone would even consider this. :)

Peace

But ....

One note is capable of converting your scribbles into readable text (as in ascii discernible characters)

My favourite notetaker would be "Write" (http://www.styluslabs.com/download/) but given the build in of OneNote in W10 and the possibilities it gives (Updating and syncing with a OneDrive account, good pressure sensitivity etc etc) it's still my first call whenever I want to take notes.

Write saves your notes as SVG/XML. Nice!

I go over some of the lacking features, BUT if you have a cloud drive mapped to your machine, you can still get cloud sharing style features out of Xara. I do mention there's no handwriting conversion in Xara. This was more or less an experiment in thinking about Xara in a different way to see how it would stack up. Personally, I have a reMarkable 2 on the way, so that's going to be what I actually use from then on. Most doodling/note taking I do is for me, so things like cloud sharing isn't a priority for me, but I know for others, that and ability to do handwriting recognition is important, especially if you need to email something or want to take a lot of notes you've worked to a more final stage without having to retype everything you already wrote down.

That said, as a basic tool for note taking, Xara seems like it might be up to the task, albeit with limitations. :) I even suggest if someone has 2 versions of Xara, they can install the older one (if it's not already there on the computer) along side the newer one so that their tools and screen setup is tailored to note taking and they don't have to mess around with it between graphics/web sessions and note taking sessions.

I think it was just a fun exercise and if others find use or amusement in this experiment, cool!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Michael

But ....
One note is capable of converting your scribbles into readable text (as in ascii discernible characters)
My favourite notetaker would be "Write" (http://www.styluslabs.com/download/) but given the build in of OneNote in W10 and the possibilities it gives (Updating and syncing with a OneDrive account, good pressure sensitivity etc etc) it's still my first call whenever I want to take notes.
Write saves your notes as SVG/XML. Nice!

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Michael, I am impressed with the compressed SVG Write that exports. The SVGZ file imports nicely into Xara as Groups of Pages that are Grouped for the stationery and the prose.
The size of the resulting XAR is still small even though it is lots and lots of little objects.

Sadly, if you wish to embed the SVGZ, you cannot and you have to unzip it first.
You would do this so you could add animation to it.

Acorn