After a good drawing application...
I'm trying to use my powerbook exclusively with taking lecture notes at uni at the moment. I study physics, which means it's a mix of text, equations, and diagrams that I need to take down. I'm using Word and Mathtype at the moment, but I've not been able to find a decent drawing program yet.
I'm basically after something which will take down exactly what I put into the graphics tablet - like a pen and paper. I could just use something like a pen tool in an adobe app, but that seems to be overkill. Ideally, I'd also want it to take my squiggles and make sense of them - i.e. if I draw a line, it'll straighten it up so it actually looks like a line... Obviously, it wants to be copy-paste compatible with Word too.
I've tried using OmniGraffle, but found that it took too long to take the diagrams down. I want to do it at pretty much the same speed as taking it down with pen and paper, which seems to be impossible with most apps.
Can anyone suggest anything?
I'm basically after something which will take down exactly what I put into the graphics tablet - like a pen and paper. I could just use something like a pen tool in an adobe app, but that seems to be overkill. Ideally, I'd also want it to take my squiggles and make sense of them - i.e. if I draw a line, it'll straighten it up so it actually looks like a line... Obviously, it wants to be copy-paste compatible with Word too.
I've tried using OmniGraffle, but found that it took too long to take the diagrams down. I want to do it at pretty much the same speed as taking it down with pen and paper, which seems to be impossible with most apps.
Can anyone suggest anything?
Comments
Originally posted by Mike Peel
I'm trying to use my powerbook exclusively with taking lecture notes at uni at the moment. I study physics, which means it's a mix of text, equations, and diagrams that I need to take down. I'm using Word and Mathtype at the moment, but I've not been able to find a decent drawing program yet.
I'm basically after something which will take down exactly what I put into the graphics tablet - like a pen and paper. I could just use something like a pen tool in an adobe app, but that seems to be overkill. Ideally, I'd also want it to take my squiggles and make sense of them - i.e. if I draw a line, it'll straighten it up so it actually looks like a line... Obviously, it wants to be copy-paste compatible with Word too.
I've tried using OmniGraffle, but found that it took too long to take the diagrams down. I want to do it at pretty much the same speed as taking it down with pen and paper, which seems to be impossible with most apps.
Can anyone suggest anything?
I sounds like you need AppleWorks. It gives you wordprocessing and graphics in an integrated environment. Like M$ Word, it is bundled with Equation Editor from MathType. The only reason that anyone needs Word is to transparently share files with other people who use Word. Darned near everything on the Mac is copy & paste compatible with darned near everything else. Beyond that, you can get MacLinkPlus 15 for file conversion.
expression
However, I found that it was always easier and faster to draw by hand on paper. Especially during a lecture where time is short you don't want to spend time fiddling with software tools. Now I use Stone Studio Create when I need to draw something but I wouldn't want to use it during a meeting or a lecture.
My impression is that most drawing programs are made for people (like artists or draftsmen) who are not time constrained and who are trying to create something sophisticated.
I think that we need a new drawing application for note taking during lectures and meetings. It would have a few tools to limit distractions. The drawn objects would be flexible (like in SmartSketch) so that you can accomplish a lot just with a click and drag. It would be very fast so that you could use a tablet at the same speed you use a pencil and paper.
For example, you could have a short library of commonly used objects (cartesian axes for example) that you could quickly access. After you drew something you could control click on it and from a popup menu access quick modifications. If you drew a rough shape you could change it to a true circle, straighten a line, make a sign wave, change a line to an arrow, etc.
It would be nice if you could customize it for the field you work in.
Here are two things you might check into I found on Version Tracker
EazyDraw ($95)
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17906
Cenon (free)
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23788
Originally posted by McCrab
Sounds like a job for the Newton MessagePad!
True that!