With so much information and so many of your ideas coming to you when you're outside the office, a good note taking app can be an essential tool for your law practice. If you've got an Android phone or tablet, many note apps are available for download.
Below is a discussion of five of the more popular free note taking apps for Android devices and some of their defining characteristics:
1. Evernote
Evernote lets you take notes, save web pages and e-mails, capture photos, create to-do lists, and record voice reminders. Once you create your Evernote account and get in the app, you create a note window with the click of a button. You can enter text, drag in an image, or add content from the web via a button Evernote's Web Clipper installs in your browser. Evernote will automatically save and synchronize your new note so that is available on all of your devices on which Evernote is installed.
2. ColorNote Notepad Notes
ColorNote is known for being a quick and simple note taking tool. Its name comes from the ability to assign colors to different types of notes. Notes are viewable by list or grid, and searchable by text or color. ColorNote has a built-in checklist maker for your to-do lists. You can sync notes between phone and tablet or you can restore notes on a new phone.
3. Catch
Catch is a powerful note taking app that allows you to save text, emails, photos or voice notes that will be synced to the cloud. It has a web clipping service, and the ability to group notes into folders, or a stream for collaboration. You can "geotag" notes that will map the location of where you were when you entered the note. Search and retrieval of notes in Catch can be done by hashtag, location, date, and keyword.
4. Note Everything
In addition to text and voice notes, Note Everything supports "paint notes" for quick drawings with your finger, rendered with different pen sizes and colors. Note Everything acts as a receiver of data in your Android device, so you can use the send functionality of other apps to create a note. A Pro version of Note Everything is available to give you features such as photo notes, checklists, and reminders.
5. FreeNote
Some prefer to take notes by handwriting them with a stylus. FreeNote allows you to do this exclusively, or in combination with painting and keyboard input in the same note. Freenote is a good substitute for pen-and-paper note taking.
Other Note Apps
On the web, you can search the Android Market app section for "note." Demo some different note apps to see which one you like the best and which one best meets your needs. With a note app for your Android phone or tablet, recording information on the go just became a lot easier.