Zim
Zim brings the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Store information, link pages and edit with WYSISYG markup or directly typing some lightweight markup syntax and see it previewed as-you-type. Creating a new page is easy by either clicking on the "Create new note"...
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Flathub
- Flatpak
Features
Properties
- Lightweight
- Distraction-free
- Privacy focused
- Educational
Features
- Works Offline
- Plain text file
- Wiki-like interface
- Hierarchical Structure
- Cross-Platform
- Note organization
- Outliner
- WYSIWYG Support
- Text formatting
- Portable
- Ad-free
- Notebook
- Wiki
- LaTeX Editor
- Export to HTML
- Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
- Full-Text Search
- LaTeX Equations
- Dark Mode
- Save as txt
- Calendar Integration
- File Versioning
- Spell Checking
- No registration required
- Outline folding
- Nested Notes
- LaTeX Math
Sync with Dropbox
- Export to LaTeX
Git integration
Tags
- Xfce
- markdown-export
- getting-things-done
- convert-notes-to-html
- hierarchy
- hierarchy-notes
Zim News & Activities
Recent News
Recent activities
yousef-mohamad added Zim as alternative to myfreelancermate- vantapink liked Zim
eluzja added Zim as alternative to TreeProjects and Knowledge Canvas- eluzja added Zim as alternative to Chronicler Pro
gamosoft added Zim as alternative to NoteDiscovery- brokken liked Zim
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What is Zim?
Zim brings the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Store information, link pages and edit with WYSISYG markup or directly typing some lightweight markup syntax and see it previewed as-you-type. Creating a new page is easy by either clicking on the "Create new note" button, by linking to a non-existing page or by writing a CamelCase name in any note. Pages are stored in a folder structure, like in an outliner, in plain text format with lightweight markup, and can have attachments (stored along the notes).
This tool can be used to keep track of TODO lists or ideas, to take notes during a meeting, to draft any other kind of text (blog entries, important mails, etc.) or to write long texts like lab research notebooks thank's to the headers structure and the table of content navigation.
Zim handles several types of formatting markup, like headings, bullet lists, checkbox, tables and of course bold, italic and highlighted. This markup is saved as a hybrid wiki/markdown text so you can easily edit it with other editors. Because of the autosave feature you can switch between pages and follow links or even close the software anytime while editing without worries. The interface also provides multi-document tabs, and it remembers the cursor position in all notes for quick resuming in your note taking endeavors.








Comments and Reviews
If you would like to sync your Zim wiki database between computers, but don't want to have the plain text version synced (e.g. because of Dropbox/GoogleDrive/OneDrive/Box privacy concerns), you can always save your Zim database file in an encrypted Vault using the excellent open source and cross-platform app Cryptomator.
Otherwise, you can sync using Spideroak, Tresorit, or pCloud's encrypted folder. All of these are end-to-end encrypted.
An additional benefit of using Cryptomator is that you can close Zim, lock the vault in Cryptomator and other users on the same computer won't be able to open or access your Zim database contents.
This solution should be included on the Zim FAQ page, which says that you can't have encryption. This is an easy and convenient solution.
Please send a mail to the devs, this is indeed a very good idea! Thank you for the report!
The best note-taking app for Linux in terms of features... but it doesn't use markdown. Seriously, I am so used to markdown that I even use it on paper, so any software that does not offer such a basic feature is totally unusable for me. :(
I like Zim because of its small size window for note-taking while reading
Zim is a really good app to store notes, data, to do, knowledge and more. It is open-source and there are a lot of plugins to extend Zim, there are options for customizing it's look and it is really comfortable to use.
Doesn't bring in webpage hyperlinks like CherryTree and Obsidian does. No text colors. You could use it as a ToDo Manager since it does make checkboxes easy, but it's not really set up like that with drag/drop calendar functionality like
Elisi: Digital Bullet Journal Installing plug-ins is an effort. To install plugins for Zim on Windows, you should create a plugins folder in %APPDATA%/zim/data/zim/plugins/ etc
Zim is a good way of organizing and accessing the piles of useful and often referenced information in my life.
A trustworthy companion for your notes and to-do lists. Can even serve as your personal knowledge base (read: wiki). Sadly lacking in modern features (like native use of markdown files). Development has slowed down a lot.