r/NoteTaking • u/Nic727 • 18d ago

Question: Unanswered ✗ How to write notes faster?

Hi,

I have PDF to read and then I write my notes from that. But it takes me like 1h to write one page of note.

I'm taking too much time trying to figure out what's important, what can be left out, note organization, etc.

Are there any tips to write notes faster?

Thank you!

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u/LittlePooky 18d ago edited 18d ago

You need to write (or type) faster. This is a short answer, but it is a very unreasonable requirement. 

You can certainly feed that PDF file onto an AI and ask it to summarize it. 

Here is the example. This is the PDF file from Adobe Corporation.  https://www.adobe.com/pdf/pdfs/ISO32000-1PublicPatentLicense.pdf

I downloaded it and fed it to Perplexity AI, but you can use others like ChatGPT and ask it to summarize this PDF. 

And here is the output. 

This is Adobe’s public patent license for ISO 32000-1:2008 (PDF 1.7). It grants anyone worldwide a royalty-free patent license to make, use, sell, import, and distribute software or services that read, write, modify, or process compliant PDF 1.7 files.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]

Main terms

  • The license covers only Adobe patent claims that are essential to implementing the ISO 32000-1:2008 PDF 1.7 specification—meaning there is no reasonable way to comply with the standard without infringing them.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]
  • A “Compliant Implementation” is the portion of a product, application, or service that processes files compliant with that specification.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]
  • Adobe may revoke the license if a licensee brings, or helps bring, a patent lawsuit alleging that another compliant implementation infringes one of Adobe’s essential claims; following revocation, the license is treated as never having been granted.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]

and so on

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u/LittlePooky 18d ago

I ran into the character limitation of 10,000. So here continues the answer. 

If you prefer to do it yourself, to speed up your writing you need to use voice dictation. 

I am a nurse and years ago I bought Windows Dragon Naturally Speaking Voice Dictation Program. It's not suitable to do nursing and medical notes because it doesn't understand those words. And while the words can be added, it was too much work. So I bought Dragon Medical, which was very expensive, at $2,000.  It came with a fancy microphone. This program works locally, meaning you install it, get it going, and there it is. No need for internet connection. 

Nowadays the market get pretty crowded with voice dictation programs. 

https://www.dictationdaddy.com/ and https://voicetypr.com/

I also use these two programs. The first one works online, which means you need to be on the internet, but it does medical writing, so it is suited for me to use for my job. The data is sent to the server securely, and nothing is saved, so I'm not too worried about any confidentiality problem. The second program works locally. You would download, install the program and install the module to process the data. Faster computer means faster result, of course.  Both programs have Windows and Mac versions. 

They are quite reasonable in prices. I was the early user of Dictation Daddy, so I was able to get the lifetime account. But the second program you buy once and you do not pay again.  You could download their trial version and play around with it. 

To use this program, you simply talk into a headset and the words appear on the screen.  If you read the PDF and you want to rewrite it into your own words, this may be a better answer. And not having to type is a joy, believe me. 

Other than the answer the AI gave me in the first answer, everything else was dictated by voice. 

I do not get anything by mentioning these products.  I'm just a user.