Notetaking and Export?

jjb · May 16, 2008

I will be teaching a course on Digital History that involves electronic notetaking, among other things. I have tweaked Endnote so it creates "note cards" with the citation at the top followed by notes and then keyword tag. I used this for my last book (6,000 "note cards") and could print them off 4X6 (or two to page). Great for sorting ideas.

I'd love to assign Zotero rather than Endnote ($$$) but it seems to be a poor notetaker:

*Export notes: it inserts citations but doesn't export notes. I've fished all over FAQ and the forums but this seems to be a limitation. What good is a stand-alone note if you can't export it with the citation???

*Lack of italics. Is there a way to include italics and rich text? When taking notes some of the original quotations have italics or underscore.

Thanks in advance.

Professor B.

noksagt · May 16, 2008

I personally dislike being mandated any tool. Give me a task & I'll choose my own tools. You might recommend tools & point to tutorials, but what do you accomplish by requiring a particular tool?

This aside: For note export, try to generate a report: this contains stand-alone notes, child notes, bibliographic info, etc.

Rich text has been discussed in length, so please search. The native note taker doesn't yet have it. It is a planned feature. There are work-arounds, such as using a lightweight markup language.

If you find zotero's reference gathering and citation abilities to be good, but the note taking to be lacking, there is nothing to stop you from using zotero as a citation program & using something else to take notes. You could use the Word and/or OO.o plugins or use Quick Copy to put reference information into nearly any program that has rich text and other features that you like.

erazlogo · May 16, 2008

Export notes: it inserts citations but doesn't export notes. I've fished all over FAQ and the forums but this seems to be a limitation. What good is a stand-alone note if you can't export it with the citation???

You can export notes in reports.

Lack of italics. Is there a way to include italics and rich text? When taking notes some of the original quotations have italics or underscore.

Your can use markup (html or wiki) to indicate where italics or underscore happens in the quote. As noksagt notes, some form of rich-text notes is a planned feature.