ActionOutline for Windows

User Reviews

• Excellent software for note taking, staying organized

  alderon1August 18, 2013

  Pros

  Action Outline is great at its basic purpose - a lightweight application that builds outlines and allows for fast review of notes, in a hierarchical format. It is simple and easy to use - you create an outline for the subject matter you need to outline, then create your headings, then fill each heading with subheadings or just start writing notes. AO also offers a lot of printing options, which is very helpful for note review when you prefer to be off the computer. Action Outline is very easy to use and its biggest advantage is allowing you to keep all of your notes in one highly organized place. It is also a very stable application - it has never crashed, and does not rely on having internet access, and does not ask you to login. It also does not pester you with constant reminders to update. It saves files locally, which can easily be backed up to USB drives. It does not have a monthly fee (Uggg!). It is also very fast - it opens instantly and is very snappy.

  Cons

  Some cons might be potential missing features. Spell check and the creation of tables would be nice. A tab ruler would be nice. But there doesn't seem to be any major or minor issue that prevents work from getting done. Some people may not like the lack of automation in the outlining process... there is a lot that needs to be done by hand. If you have extremely complicated outlines, this may be a problem. The lack of automation has an upside, however, in that creating an outline is more "free-form", and doesn't force you into a preset format.

  Summary

  Don't be discouraged from trying this application from the negative review. What works for one person doesn't work for someone else. I use this program everyday, and it stays open on my computer all day. It is a go-to place for my note taking. My opinion is that AO is one of the best "outliner"/note taking programs available for Windows. An example of how I use this program: I create one outline (database) for each of my school classes, and create a heading for each chapter, and organize my notes this way. I also put each week's lab notes under the chapter that I am studying. Organizing class notes this way allows for much better study results when exam reviews are undertaken. Everything for one class goes into the class Outline. If you are the type of person who learns primarily by organizing things, and gets really frustrated when your notes are out of order, spread throughout different notebooks, or are missing entirely (which is no fun when reviewing for tests), then you should try this program, it might make your academic life much easier. Another example: personal notes, to-dos, and a journal all reside in one separate Outline. I journal by adding a heading for the month, and write every day in the text area, with the most recent day on top. You can add a date by hitting F5. I hate having separate apps for everything... AO combines my journal, to-dos, plans, class notes, and notes on all of my books into one flexible, easy to use application.

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• Slick, easy-to-use UI, does exactly what I need

  RebeccahQPDecember 30, 2011

  Pros

  This is an outliner, not an all purpose index-everything-in-one-file app. 1. It has a very clean, tabbed, 2-pane UI without a bunch of unneeded doo-dads. 2. The most commonly used functions (inserting and moving outline items) are accomplished with very intuitive single keystrokes, and the less common ones, even if slightly less intuitive, have a definite logic to them and again - very few keystrokes. 3. Unlike the vast majority of outliners out there, this one can export outline and notes to RTF - *and leave the outline formatted as an outline, with hierarchical indentation* 4. Supports linking to external files or web sites 5. Supports embedding images (see cons for limitations) 6. Tabbed multidocument interface (can have multiple outlines open at once) 7. A variety of easy-to-use and configurable formatting options for outline items to flag them, mark them as done, color code them, etc.

  Cons

  1. I wish it had a way to link to other parts of the same outline (kind of a bookmark-like feature). Not really necessary, just a nice-to-have. 2. It's very easy to copy/paste an image into the notes pane of an outline, but doing so has a HUGE impact on file size. Adding 3 JPGs, under 1MB each, to a 60K AO file resulted in an overall file size of 23MB! 3. Customer support is so-so. They did reply to feedback when I initially installed, and again when I accidentally replied to them instead of a colleague regarding an e-mailed year-end special, but they haven't replied to a couple of general UI feedback/feature request/tech support-ish kinds of questions. There's no forum, for users to help each other, and most google hits on ActionOutline are for download sites. At least it is so intuitive that it's pretty easy to figure out how to do what you want or to determine that it isn't possible.

  Summary

  Summary: An excellent little application. To me, it's worth $40 as it allows me to VERY quickly organize and reorganize my thoughts. It's far above the other free and non-free applications in this respect, and I don't find its price out of line compared to its non-free competitors. BTW, to the previous poster who wanted to get a product key: they don't do product keys. When you register, they give you a link to download the non-trial version of the program. There is no key to enter to activate it, it's actually a separate build of the software. You can install it right over the trial version without uninstalling, though. The web site does not make this clear at all, but they did answer my question about it.<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Nov 1, 2012<p/>I came back to update that I find myself using this little app every day, all day, in my work as a software engineer; it's very, very useful to me, but obviously not for everyone. I use it mostly for creating task lists, test plans, feature lists, instructions, and other hierarchically-organized documents. I typically keep a number of AO files open at once - the separate files serve as another layer of organization. I don't need advanced sorting or filtering, or subclassing or cloning of items (so that changing one causes others to change). I occasionally use the search feature or search and replace. For me, this replaces notepad for this kind of activity (I have another notepad replacement, notepad++, for other purposes, that don't involve outlining). It is NOT an adequate replacement for tracking things that I would otherwise put in a spreadsheet. I didn't try the network version, as it didn't seem to me to offer much added usefulness.<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Nov 1, 2012<p/>I know I haven't been accused of it, but for the record, I have no relationship whatever to the company, Green Parrots Software. That appears to be a DBA name for a software company located in England and Wales, with a UK name (LogicProvider UK), "company number", address, and phone number on their contact page.

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• Superb program - so why only one star?

  CyberCrone4January 16, 2010

  Pros

  Clear, easy interface; ideal for keeping information on myriad topics.

  Cons

  ZERO support. None. Zilch. I need to get product key so I can install on a second computer and emails are not answered, nor is their online form answered. Furious, because it's expensive compared to similar programs.

  Summary

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