Good possibilities but too many flaws

I purchased Outline as an alternative to Microsoft OneNote because my company has security policies which prevent me from storing data in the cloud. I really wanted to like this app, but after a few weeks of use it just has too many basic usability flaws to continue with it.

Where it immediately falls down is as a note taking tool. I often need to record a lot of notes at meetings, which includes the ability to quickly type a header with nested bullet points below it, followed by another main header. Unfortunately, once you create a bulleted list it’s incredibly difficult to get out of ‘bullet mode’. Most good word processors or note taking programs allow you to just hit return a couple times and the cursor jumps back to the left margin, but in Outline it just keeps making bullets forever. The only way to get out is to do a convoluted combination of multiple returns followed by multiple deletes. It interrupts the process of just taking notes.

Also, as far as I can determine there’s no way to export notes except as PDF files. No way to export as Word, RTF, or anything else that preserves formatting. (If it’s in there I haven’t found it yet.) The lack of any font choices is annoying as well as I find it difficult to read the default font.

Outline has a lot of potential, but it’s just too unpolished at this point to be a useful productivity tool for me. The user interface is attractive, but I hope the develoer can make the underlying features more robust. If so, I’ll definitely give it another try.

nwmtnguy about Outline: Notes for OneNote