Looking for a simple yet attractive notebook app to serve as an Evernote alternative? Zoho’s free Notebook tool is a popular choice thanks to its user-friendly interface, ad-free experience, customization and collaboration options, as well as its encryption and security features.
Called the most beautiful note-taking app across devices, Zoho Notebook boasts a variety of device- and platform-specific features in its design, while it eliminates unnecessary lists and menus for quick and easy access to all a user’s notes and notebooks. Indeed, the note-taking possibilities using
Zoho Notebook are limitless.
“You have limitless possibilities on how you can use Notebook within your teams,” says Zoho Notebook product manager Ashok Ramamoorthy. “There will be different teams in an organization… and in each and every case Zoho Notebook has its capabilities. Whatever way we think of it, you can definitely start using the notebook in your business.”
8 Benefits of Zoho Notebook
Organization at Every Level
With Zoho Notebook, notes can be organized in a variety of ways. Users can create individual notebooks, or they can group their notes together into notecard groups, which also can be converted into boards. Thus, Zoho Notebook can provide a different notebook for every file, message or task so users have all sorts of ways to organize their ideas.
In fact, Zoho Notebook provides a different type of note card to accommodate the types of notes a user might be taking with the tool, including:
- Text
- Checklists
- Audio
- Photo
- File
- Sketch
- Smart cards
A Notebook for Any Device
Zoho Notebook is available across multiple devices, and it boasts strong design continuity between each version. Therefore, Notebook users never have to worry about an unfamiliar version of the app, even if it’s the first time trying it on a new device. Not only does Zoho Notebook offer desktop versions for devices running Windows, Linux or Mac, but users also can take advantage of the Notebook for Web and Web Clipper versions.
Notebook even offers mobile users the ability to control the app using gestures such as flick, pinch and swipe.
A Notebook for Every Idea
Zoho has focused on creating premium user experiences when designing its Notebook app, and so the organization offers the personalization of its notebooks. Users can make each notebook their own by selecting any of Zoho’s handcrafted covers. Each cover is hand-drawn by Zoho’s in-house artists based on certain categories that are drawn and digitized. Users also can add their own photos from their personal photo galleries to illustrate their notebooks.
In addition to personalized covers, Zoho Notebook features the ability to customize the order of notecards to keep ideas in order, to assign customized colors to notecards to stay organized and to see notecards in either grid or landscape-style views.
Share Notes and Collaborate
With Zoho Notebook, users can share notes and securely collaborate with trusted associates. In fact, the app boasts a variety of features that enhance real-time collaboration efforts, including tags, custom permissions and @mentions. Plus, when there is sharing or collaborative activity within a note, Notebook also provides an option to view the activity to see who has create the note, how has viewed the note, edited the note, etc.
Admin Controls Also Allow External Sharing
Zoho Notebook also enables secure sharing of notes outside of an organization. With this feature, a user within an organization can share notes with external clients by controlling the permissions from the Admin Control page. This security element includes an audit log controlled by the administrator, who can then determine if there are any discrepancies or other issues. The administrator also can access a feature known as a note version, which allows them to control the version history.
Suite Integrations
Like its top competitors, Zoho Notebook has been integrated with other major productivity suites of applications. Notebook’s integration, however, is highly contextual, ensuring easier access and optimized speed, both contributors to enhanced collaboration efforts. Some of Zoho Notebook’s integrations include:
- Google Productivity Apps – Notebook is extensively integrated with the Google Workspace, and it seamlessly works with tools like Google Mail, Google Calendar and Google Slides.
- Microsoft Teams – Zoho Notebook has been tightly integrated with Microsoft Teams, which has acknowledged the desktop integration and promotes Notebook within Teams.
- Slack – Zoho Notebook features tight integration with Slack, allowing users to manage their own workflows and boost productivity.
- Zoho Applications – Zoho Notebook has been integrated with nearly all other Zoho applications. For example, Zoho Mail users can associate emails to their notebooks. Likewise, Notebook has been integrated with Zoho Connect so users can start creating notes for a particular status or publish their own notes from within meetings.
Privacy, Security and Compliance
The team at Zoho has placed a significant emphasis on privacy, security and compliance when developing its Notebook software. Notebook users have full control over their data while using the app, so any notes taken are always available.
Zoho doesn’t read the data, sell the data or take any other action with a customer’s notes. Plus, the data is always encrypted when sent to the server and secured with the highest protocols.
HIPAA Compliant
Zoho Notebook is also the only note-taking application that is HIPAA compliant.
