Columns Notes

Without taking notes, only 10% of what you hear may last in memory [1]. With good note-taking, that number can go up to over 80%. Despite the benefits of note-taking, 1 out of every 3 students do not take notes.

Two-column note-taking is one of the most frequently recommended note-taking formats by universities and high schools. Also known as Cornell note-taking, it's a note-taking strategy that helps you take thorough notes in an efficient way, while allowing the notes to be used for review and self-quizzing.

Columns makes it easy to do the Cornell method of note-taking on your Mac.

Benefits

• Retain more of what you study
• Organize information in a useful format.
• Take amazing notes during a meeting, while listening to a lecture, watching a film, or reading a book.
• No prep-work required such as drawing lines and templates onto your sheets. Instant two column notes wherever, whenever.
• Especially useful for language learning - One of the well-researched use cases for Cornell note-taking is its effectiveness in improving language skills and its components. [2]

Features

• Instant Two Column Notes No more forcing a word processor to do what it wasn’t designed to do. Columns is built from the bottom up for the Cornell Notetaking format and strategy, complete with title column, detail column, and summary footer.

• Write Clearly Use custom text formatting to give your notes structure and make the important points stand out.

• Easy Organization Put sheets into folders and sort them by name or date. Star the important sheets for quick access.

• Easy editing Notes are a work in progress. Edit and rearrange your notes as you go.

• Find everything you ever wrote Use the Cosmic Search to search through all of your sheets, notes, and summaries. Results are filtered and highlighted in real-time as you type. Click on a search result to be taken to its sheet.

• Print to printer or to PDF Print out your sheets as full-spec Cornell notes. Fold along the vertical split to quiz yourself just like old school Cornell notes.

• Increase / Decrease size Increase or decrease the size of the app elements.

• Focus mode Just want to focus on the current sheet? You can hide the Folders and Sheets panes by clicking the hamburger menu button on the top-left corner of the app.

• Fullscreen Mode Fullscreen compatible

• 100% Keyboard Navigation Compatible Typist? Power-user? You can write and navigate through a sheet using just your keyboard. Custom formatting options have keyboard shortcuts.