AudioPen

Around a year ago, I published a tutorial on how to sync your AudioPen notes with Obsidian. This method worked brilliantly until recently, when it stopped importing the dates in a format Obsidian could read. Although the notes were all imported, they were no longer automatically attached to my daily journal entries through a backlink. While seeking a solution, I discovered there’s a new official AudioPen plugin for Obsidian. When I say new, I mean it’s only appeared in the last month. Consequently, it’s not yet officially approved by Obsidian and it’s still quite basic. However, I was keen to adopt this plugin to simplify my workflow and remove my reliance on a third-party web hook. The previous AudioPen Sync plugin might still be a better solution if you want to customise the notes. ...

I always start with good intentions when I’m reading: “This time, I’ll take careful notes as I go along, rather than imagining I’ll somehow remember the important bits.” In reality, I’m trying to balance a cup of tea and book, so can’t possibly manage my writing materials, too. Happily, AudioPen has solved at least one of my problems. AudioPen is an AI-based app that turns your voice notes into structured, edited text. Any repetitions or ums and ahhs are automatically eliminated, and it adds all the punctuation. That two-minute ramble is turned into a perfectly respectable paragraph. You can then organise your transcribed notes with folders and tags. For instance, you might have a folder for a specific research project, then a tag for each related book or article you read. It’s not quite hands-free, but using AudioPen can be less disruptive than physically writing. There are well-known benefits to using pen and paper, but recording and transcribing a voice note is better than not making any notes at all. ...

I’ve been an enthusiastic user of AudioPen for a few years. This brilliant app records and accurately transcribes your voice notes in moments. You can either opt for a light tidy to add punctuation and remove your ums and ahs, or ask it to make you sound like Cicero. Although you can organise your notes in AudioPen using folders and tags, most of us nerdy types already have a preferred note-taking app. In my case, that’s Obsidian. If you don’t know Obsidian, it’s a powerful yet simple app that stores your notes and plain markdown files and gives you various ways to make connections between them. ...