The table below compares features of Notetaking software.
| Name |
Licence |
Platforms |
Annotate and save PDF |
Whiteboarding |
Enter text with the keyboard |
Debian packaged |
Printing |
Formats |
Remarks |
| Adobe Reader |
Freeware, but needs Adobe pro (~600€) for enabling annotations |
Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X |
Require someone to manually open the document in Adobe pro, allow comments, save. Then the PDF file can be annotated on any platform with Adobe Reader installed. |
No |
Yes |
unofficial |
Yes |
PDF, with proprietary extension |
|
| Google Notebook |
Freeware |
Web-based |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Web-based; export to ODF, Microsoft Word, PDF etc. via Google Docs |
|
| Gournal |
GPL |
Linux |
? |
? |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
SVG |
|
| Jarnal |
GPL |
Any Java capable platform, including Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes (available on site, donated by a third party) |
Yes |
ad-hoc (zip compatible archive containing an SVG per page, a config file, optional background PDFs/images). Can export to txt, html, jpg, pdf. |
|
| Microsoft Journal |
proprietary |
Windows XP Tablet PC edition |
No |
? |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
proprietary |
|
| Microsoft Office OneNote |
proprietary |
Windows XP, Windows Vista |
No |
Yes (Office One Note Version) |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
proprietary |
supports audio and video-recording, screen clipping, importing from Web pages, and drawing |
| NoteLab |
GPL |
Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X |
No |
No |
? |
No |
Yes |
save as SVG, export to many including PNG, JPG, BMP |
|
| NoteScribe |
proprietary |
Windows |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
save as .NSE (NoteScribe), export to .rtf |
supports image, video, text, PDF, spreadsheet attachments, generate citations and bibliographies |
|
| PDF Annotator |
Proprietary, base licence for 50$ |
Windows |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
save as SVG, export to many including PNG, JPG, BMP |
|
| Xournal |
GPL |
Linux |
Yes. Save notes in a separate file. |
No |
yes (recent versions) |
Yes |
Yes |
XML, export to PDF |
Fast boot, smooth curves |
| NoteFinder |
BSD, GPL |
Crossplatform |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
Plain text |
Features adding, managing note entries, Wiki markup, tagging, smooth search, importing files, etc. |
| Name |
Licence |
Platforms |
Annotate and save PDF |
Whiteboarding |
Enter text with the keyboard |
Debian packaged |
Printing |
Formats |
Remarks |
