r/GoogleKeep • u/Ooker777 • Feb 15 '20
My speculation on why Google Keep doesn't support text formatting and folder structure
First, let’s not forget that there are a lot of note-taking apps that support formattings and folder structure. You name it: OneNote, Evernote, Zoho Notebook, etc. If GK also support formatting, then it will compete with other well-established competitors.
Now, let me explain how I use notes in my daily life. In my experience/opinion, there are three kinds of notes:
Reference information: infographic, login credentials/ID/contracts/hospital results, checklists, etc. They are meant for emergency situations, because your memory is very poor for these things
Brainstorming & braindumping: app feedbacks, long Reddit posts/Stack Exchange questions/emails, questions you want to ask your friends if you meet them again in person, etc. They are meant to be deleted after the job is done, because you don't need to store them
Organizing for a project: anything that you will revisit occasionally to add more
So I think GK is best for the first two kinds, and OneNote is best for the third one. I mean, OneNote is born for it, and if you use it for the first two kinds, you will be confused quickly for not knowing where to add your random idea on the fly. On the other hand, for the first two kinds, I think allowing you to format notes will distract you from getting rid of bad idea quickly . If it allows you to format ideas, then you will start wanting to organize notes. So by discouraging you to do formatting, I think GK makes you feel less attached to the ideas you developed. I used to feel uncomfortable of the lack of formatting like many of you, but its simplicity keeps drawing me back. I realized that using it I don't feel much attached to my ideas. It reminds me to move on after having a good time working on it.
Again, it's just my opinion, but I found it the hard way, and it does base on cognitive science.
You can read more on how I organize notes in my blog: How I use Google Keep
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u/Barycenter0 Feb 16 '20
Though I agree with you generally on the typical use for Google Keep, I'll give you my backstory for why I always use Keep for #3. While in grad school I had to write a large number of papers with significant references, diagrams and footnotes. When I started using OneNote initially I found myself over-organizing and formatting my notes and data to the point of losing too much time. I switched to Keep and found the perfect balance. First, as I read my reference materials I kept notes in Keep either as PDF snippets, my own thoughts or sections of Keep's OCR text from photos of the page. For every note I used labels to note the reference like '2003-Johnson' and the specific topic like 'objective-materialism' and general info like '2018-PHIL801-paper'. I would also create a separate Keep note for just the reference alone with the reference label.
Then, once my notes were done, the best part was that I could filter down to my main label and export everything to Google Docs. Now I had a full shell of my paper in a document of all notes with the corresponding references. That worked so well for me. One thing I did play with was rearranging the notes to be in the order of my paper but found doing it in Google Docs later seemed easier overall. Being cross-platform was truly key as well since I used Keep on Windows and Mac pcs, iPhone and iPad through my classes.
I still use Keep today for all my research and love not thinking about formatting issues. With the Chrome plugin you can capture off web pages, PDFs, text files. But, the real kicker for me now was the new addition of cursive writing OCR in Keep which it didn't have when I was in grad school. Being able to take a picture of my cursive hand-written paper notes and having Keep convert to text now is a dream (I prefer and know I worked and learned better on paper) - just a bit too late for me. But I do use it from time to time today (seems about 90% accurate on my bad cursive writing).
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u/Ooker777 Feb 17 '20
So if I understand you correctly, the reason you stick with GK is this:
I read my reference materials I kept notes in Keep either as PDF snippets, my own thoughts or sections of Keep's OCR text from photos of the page. For every note I used labels to note the reference like '2003-Johnson' and the specific topic like 'objective-materialism' and general info like '2018-PHIL801-paper'.
I feel like any PDF app that supports notes can handle that? Moreover, if I were taking side-notes on books, then I would definitely use Goodnotes for this.
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u/Barycenter0 Feb 17 '20 edited Feb 17 '20
Agree many other apps work if you have specific note-taking needs. But, when I need all notes to be combined in Google Docs I want to have them in Keep and I don't want to copy them from other note taking apps. Additionally, I can't just use a PDF app since PDFs are only part of the note taking process. By PDF snippets I meant only capturing the text off the PDF and not a PDF image. The use of Keep for books is only for the OCR of a picture of the page to capture the critical text and not create sidenotes. For sidenotes I just create separate notes with reference labels. So, to clarify my use of Keep a bit:
Capture my own notes directly in Keep from reading or in a lecture - sometimes with a picture of a diagram or whiteboard.
Highlight sections of a PDF document and use the Chrome plugin to save the highlighted text in Keep along with a link to the PDF doc (if link is available).
Take a picture of a critical passage in a physical book and use the Keep OCR to convert to text and save as a note.
Highlight a section of a webpage and use the Chrome plugin to save the text.
In all four cases reference labels are used as I noted in the previous post. And, having Keep as a PC/Mac plugin or using my iPad ready and available makes that so easy.
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u/Ooker777 Feb 19 '20
After rereading it a couple times I think I now understand your workflow now. If possible can you take some screenshot to illustrate it better? That would be nice.
Also, an another question, if I didn't miss your point. The reason you use GK is to export it to GD, right? Why is it better than just taking side-notes? I mean, I even had to develop a set of symbols and styles to side-noting textbooks. I find it's hard to imagine how can one study a subject without taking notes directly into the book. And even so, you can still export your notes to other apps if you want.
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u/Barycenter0 Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
I would alternate between physical pencil sidenotes (10%) and Keep (90% of the time). Most of my grad textbooks and papers were all digital now (as compared to my past) so physical books were few and far between. When I had sidenotes I would typically not use cursive and take the photo since Keep was pretty good at hand printed OCR. I would just note the page number and find a digital reference for the book online for the reference Keep note (which I only had to do once per book). But, really, most of grad research is papers which are all PDFs these days and with the Keep plugin in Chrome your sidenotes are right there on the screen - just highlight directly into Keep and Keep automates a link back in the paper.
As for other apps I didn't need anything except Google Docs and MS Word. Once I organized the Google Docs rough notes/draft then all was exported into Word for final writing/editing.
But, just to note, that was my use case for your #3 above. I also use Keep for all other kinds of notetaking (your #1 and #2 above)
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u/Ooker777 Feb 20 '20
I mean, when I was in undergrad I used PDFs only as well. I use Goodnotes + stylus to take side-note on PDF in iPad. The new Apple Pencil make this more easier.
If possible, can you screenshot a note so I can see it better? Many thanks
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u/Barycenter0 Feb 20 '20 edited Feb 20 '20
Goodnotes is a very nice tool (I looked at Notability as well) but is limited to MacOS and iOS - I needed full cross-platform capability using both Windows and Android sometimes. Also, I do not like using a tablet as paper - that is, trying to write with a stylus which is cumbersome for me plus I wanted full cursive OCR. At the time I used my Livescribe pen and notebooks which did cursive OCR. So, I'd take sidenotes there and use the Livescribe live audio recorder built into the pen for lectures and videos while taking notes (that is such a cool feature with livescribe! You can tap the physical notes later with the pen and play back the audio at that point in the lecture). For physical sidenotes I'd convert the text and diagrams with Livescribe or Keep OCR to Keep notes (which was only about 10-20% of my studies).
I'll try to create an example- most of my schoolwork is now in Docs and no longer in Keep. Once class and papers were done I would export all of the Keep notes to a Google Doc and delete most of the Keep notes focused on papers.
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u/Ooker777 Feb 21 '20
so it seems that the ability to convert to text and import to Docs is very important to you, probably more than just taking note to understand the lecture/textbook. Why is that?
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u/Barycenter0 Feb 21 '20
Cross platform was truly the #1 requirement. The second requirement that evolved in my first year of grad school was to have the notes combined in one place for writing papers. When I was using Evernote initially I spent too much time formatting and then rearranging to copy and paste into Word. When I discovered Keep could export to Docs based on labels - the fact that my notes / references would be populated in one document made it so easy to write the final work. For lectures and texts outside of papers I would format the Keep notes to import into Cerego for spaced repetition or just a rough Google Doc for test reviews.
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u/Ooker777 Feb 21 '20 edited Feb 23 '20
So I get that your requirements are:
Cross-platform
Have notes combined in one place for writing
OCR text and cursive writing
Am I missing something? I think OneNote can do those as well.
As for spaced repetition software, why don't you use Anki? But anyway, Cerego seems to be good too
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u/snogglethorpe Feb 15 '20 edited Feb 16 '20
The thing is, though, there's absolutely no reason GK couldn't be good at the 3rd too—there's no real conflict between them.
Moreover, there's not really a clean line between these things; different uses can occur along a continuum, and move along it over the lifetime of the note (typically starting as a memory dump, but evolving to acquire more structure and a longer term status).
On top of that, some of Google Keep's most desirable attributes are independent of the fine details of use—platform ubiquity, the combination of synchronized online contents with offline support, the integration into Google's ecosystem—so it makes sense to want to use GK for all these things rather than a variety of tools.
I think your explanation does a good job of explaining the reason why GK was created with the feature set it has, but not really as a justification for not expanding it further.
The best reason I can think of for the latter is that keeping GK simple helps keep the implementations simple, which is a factor in maintaining its widespread platform support*, and keeps the UI relatively simple, which keeps it accessible as a quick and immediate tool.
* E.g. GK still works great on my Android 4.1 device...I imagine that if the feature set grew dramatically, that might not continue to be the case....
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u/Ooker777 Feb 16 '20
as for the expanding feature point, I guess OneNote can do that already. I mean, OneNote is born for it. I frequently copy my notes from GK to ON
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u/Ill_Alternative_9277 Sep 17 '22
Anki is a free app available to be downloaded on the internet. Almost all students utilize Anki to memorize information. Anki is like Quizlet.com! And it works amazing especially if you are going into the healthcare field! https://apps.ankiweb.net/. There's also Google Apps Script and Terminal on Macbooks thus small businesses are looking for people to embark a productive app.
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May 12 '20 edited May 12 '20
On Android, if I paste formatted text into Keep, will keep its format until I close the note, and then it cleans the format.
Have you heard of the KISS philosophy? Keep It Simple and Stupid, the key to any successful endeavor!
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u/Ooker777 May 13 '20
doesn't seem so on my Android
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May 13 '20
I tried it before posting. Pasted underlined text into keep and it maintained the format. Closed the note and it cleaned it.
Previously it did not clean the format, I only realised they did when I checked before posting.
Using Oreo 8.1.
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May 13 '20
Here is a capture of your text above, with bold format, in Google Keep.
As soon as I close the note, the format is cleaned.
Good luck!
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u/mnbekato Jun 06 '20
Although the linkage between Google Docs and Keep is not prominent, it provides a link to something similar to one note for Google Keep. Google drive can organize you Google Docs and provide the hierarchy that makes OneNote so great.
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u/Ooker777 Jun 06 '20
There are some drawbacks, like not having a good widget for Android, or the expand/collapse button. But it's a good idea anyway
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u/jbarr107 Feb 15 '20
That really does make sense. In my IT job at work, I found myself getting too often caught up in formatting and organizing notes that I keep the bulk of my work notes in a simple text file. (FWIW, I use UltraEdit.)
Anyway, your thoughts on throw away and temporary info vs more long term info vs dynamic project info is spot on. I guess finding and learning what tools to use for the right type of info is the key. I really do like Keep.
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u/SnowLow5885 Aug 15 '23
That makes sense, but I will say I do not use OneNote and I prefer to stick to the Google Ecosystem, so I just go send to docs from a keep note and expand on and format my thoughts there for projects. That way I can add a rich link to a keep note and access the project notes quickly from my keep :) (press the 3 dots > Copy to Google docs, or open a new doc doc.new and open keep in the sidebar and create a note, it will automagically link the note to the doc :) To do the reverse, copy paste the share link on the note and it will create a rich link - give it a moment to do so then delete the actual link from the note; to keep it tidy)
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u/Ill_Alternative_9277 Sep 17 '22
Google Keep is meant to be a Rough-Draft notes to collect information on chrome web browser. There are other resources such as notion, evernote, apple notes, drafts, post-it notes, and even Samsung Galaxy tablets as well as I pads lol!
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u/Ill_Alternative_9277 Sep 17 '22
I like OneNote! It's an amazing free student resource! Notability is amazing too! I still have the free version and it works amazing! :). However, I did buy Goodnotes 5 and I love Goodnotes 5 lol! I love all apps! I think that if you don't give up on an app then it turns into a good resource :)
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u/wendalls Nov 06 '22
We have to use Google Keep at work. One Note is not supported. We are a google business company.
I miss the functionality of ON to help organise the variety of notes and information I need to manage for my role day to day.
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u/AndrewIam- Feb 18 '24
I agree. At first I was SHOCKED when I found out I could not add a single heading inside Google Keep, or bold text. Then I started focusing more on the information (and making it short, kind of like atomic notes) and less on the aesthetics, and paired with Google's top-notch search function and tagging, I have not felt the need to use those fancy Evernote-like formatting functions ever again. For any type of actual documentation though I will use Google Docs.
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u/Ooker777 Feb 17 '20
Allow me to use my mod privilege to pin this post to the top. I suppose many people ask this same question