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Electronic Note Pad

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marinaman

marinaman

Structural
Mar 28, 2009
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I am thinking of going paperless. I am a structural engineer that designs and provides analysis of existing buildings. I often times am completing hand calculations. Often, I will knock out a hand calculation for a beam, or column, or a footing, or something like that. I may sketch the load/shear/moment diagrams, perform the calculations by hand, and then take care of a report and/or a drawing, based upon those calculations.

I'd like to perform my hand calculations digitally on an electronic note pad by hand sketching. I've been looking at the "remarkable", but there's some things I want that the remarkable does not seem to have, and vice versa.

I want to do these calculations (by hand), store them to a file within the note pad, and eventually, when the job is done, transfer them to my desktop computer via a USB thumb drive or via direct connection to my desk top via the USB.

I do not want cloud storage. I want to store my files on my own hard drive.

I'm not interested in any subscriptions. I'd like to purchase the product, and be done with it.

Essentially, I need a note pad. I'm just trying to get away from having sheets of calculation papers all over my office.

Any suggestions here?
 
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iPad + Apple Pencil if you can handle the up front cost. For the actual notetaking OneNote will give you a lot of flexibility for synchronization between IOS and Windows for backup. DrawboardPDF recently became available for IOS which is a solid option for PDF markup.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab S8 series includes their SPen tech which will come in slightly cheaper than an iPad and land you access to the android market of apps, again though for best flexibility I'd still recommend OneNote.

If you don't foresee any need for any of the other apps made available in the Apple or Android marketplaces the Remarkable may be an OK option. Their subscription service is not required to sync notes to your other machines you can either do the synch via their limited free cloud account or their desktop app via a usb connection to the device.

I'm making a thing: (It's no Kootware and it will probably break but it's alive!)
 
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I get by quite nicely with SMath, Excel, Libreoffice, Bricscad, Thunderbird... and have for about 5 years now... and my memory... computer is liquid cooled. The Sabrent drives are M.2 and have the OS and the Applications loaded. [pipe]

Clipboard01_odn17i.jpg


So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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No cloud and no subscription will limit you to rather old software. I'd recommend keeping an open mind on both subjects.

I use OneNote on my phone and computer for most everything. Notebooks are shared and editable on both devices, I use the phone to take shorthand notes and add images/movies/sound then clean everything up on the computer afterward. Pictures of sketches are easily uploaded. You can also attach project plans, reports, and other docs so everything is easily referenced from a notebook. It is cloud-based, but my IT guy assures me that the work login saves to an internal server for data security, my personal account saves to a MS server. It is also subscription based but MS365 is fairly cheap and comes with other apps.
 
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Bricscad is the only program I have that is out of date, and I don't do a lot of drafting... and I have image viewers and use Adobe Reader a lot... DoroPDF is my printer driver.

My stuff is local, and I don't use the cloud at all.

If I take my files out of the home to work on elsewhere I use an encrypted USB stick... just to avoid the embarassment in case I lose it... All my work files are also regularly backed up on my laptop (weekly)... all the other backups are daily (3 of them)... and on a local USB stick as the files are done.

I lost a critical file about 20 years back... since then, overkill. [pipe]

So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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I have been considering the Remarkable 2. They force you into a subscription service to be able to sync with your cloud accounts but it is a very realistic duplication of the feel of paper and pencil. No opportunities for distractions. It only takes notes and stores the files..
 
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I have that for my paper notes... little Fujitsu Scansnap 1500C... small, very good and nearly 10 years old, and a shredder I picked up at Costco. [pipe]

So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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My son decided to go paperless at university 4 years ago and did his research and got an ipad pro 200 hz with a pen. Said it was great and the faster pen speed really made a difference when you are writing. He could draw, write, annotate, store, send via email or Google drive. No subscriptions I know of and swears by it

A good wallet for protection, maybe a keyboard to type things a lot easier and away you go.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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No one has mentioned Microsoft surface products, aurface pro plus surface pen and you can replace your current laptop or desktop. Not the most powerful, but works fine. Bit fragile though for taking to site.

Combine with onenote.

One warning about onenote, the printing to paper or pdf can be horrendous quality. It was never designed to print, it was always envisaged as a note taking app. To get anything good out of it I had to maximise the quality and only use adobe printer. Anything else including bluebeam just resulted in awful quality. The downside of maximising the quality is it could take an hour to print 100 pages to pdf.... But I'd rather have that than the pictures being down sampled until you cannot read any text, or pen markups inheriting a look like a child did them.

You can create local notes, doesn't have to be cloud based.

 
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Thank you guys for all of your input.

I really like the remarkable 2, but, I will not buy it if I can not operate it without a subscription.

Ideally, I would:

- Take notes at a meeting or do hand calculations
- Save them as pdfs
- Take them to my desktop via a USB thumb drive and store them there
- I back-up my desk-top regularly....not on the cloud, but via local hard drives

I have no interest in the cloud, drop-box, google drive, or any other cloud based storage. Like dik said above, I want control of my drawings and calculations and their safety. I've had "lost" drawings and calcs before, and I'm not doing that again.

I'm a simple guy. I do not need nor want any fancy bells nor whistles. I want to take notes, or do calcs, on the pad, by hand, and ultimately store them on my desktop.

I simply want to substitute a digital pad and hard drive files.....for paper and filing cabinets.

Again guys, I appreciate all the input.
 
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for what it's worth the Remarkable folks offer a 100 day return window if you purchase directly from them, Link

If all you want is simple note taking then your options are Remarkable, Supernote, Boox, or Fujitsu Quaderno
I believe all but the Remarkable are built off of a version of Android as a base, while the Remarkable is a custom linux alternative.

I'm making a thing: (It's no Kootware and it will probably break but it's alive!)
 
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I've seen dry erase boards with built in printers.
Click to expand...

Recently? We got rid of all of ours about 8 years ago; the resolution was pretty pitiful, comparable to a older fax machine. We then tried some "smart" displays that had some form of applique that allowed you to "write" on a live display while in PowerPoint. Not sure why we got rid of those, but probably those 1st gen systems were clunky and unreliable.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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I've considered one of the tablets from Boox, but haven't bought one yet.

It runs on Android, so in theory syncing between the tablet and PC should be easy as any app from the Play store, incl. OneNote, can be installed.

Remarkable also looks great on the hardware front, but I just don't see how to organize notes in project without a lot of hassle..
 
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I use an iPad Pro with an apple pencil for my notes/hand calcs. I use the Notability app, that at one point was a fixed price app, but now appears that it is "free" with monthly and yearly subscriptions. As a general rule, I don't like to recommend subscription based apps, but not sure what I'd recommend in it's place.

Please note that is a "v" (as in Violin) not a "y".
 
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I recently bought an old Lenovo X220 Tablet, second hand machine in good condition at relatively low price.
Writing speed is not ideal but overall the pencil is not too bad for writing short memo.
I tend to stick with product that are of old design, even for phones. If I am able to make it work new software, OS etc., then it is my preferred approach. I know people may disagree but I find the quality of most products going downward since say 2012-ish.
So far I used basic/free sketching software; it is possible that professional tools could improve comfort when writing/taking notes with this laptop.
 
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With the "workflow" that you describe i cannot see why a paper pad and a scanner at your desctop would not be the ideal solution?

--- Best regards, Morten Andersen
 
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