I spend a lot of my time on the computer inside Google Chrome browser. I’m not sure exactly when it was, but I realized a while ago that almost everything I do on the computer could just as easily be accomplished without standard desktop applications, in a web browser. One thing I do a lot is taking notes. All this while my choice of app for this task was Notepad. It’s great for a jot but not a good option if you want to save and find from many notes. To search for the perfect Notepad replacement, I went to the Chrome Web Store and that’s where I found Scratchpad.
Scratchpad is a free, fast, and lightweight note-taking application for Google Chrome. Unlike traditional apps which opens new tabs or pop-up windows, Scratchpad runs in its own tiny window. This allows you to take notes not only while browsing but also when you are on another desktop application. And thanks to Chrome’s application desktop shortcuts feature, you can actually launch it as any other desktop program. You can even open multiple instances for editing and comparing notes simultaneously.
As far as features are concerned, you get formatting options such as bold, italics and underline. You can also change font, font size, font color and background color for times when you need that little extra bit of formatting for emphasis. With Chrome’s spell check feature, the app can detect spelling mistakes while you are writing. All these features makes it the perfect word processor for me.
Another great feature that Scratchpad has is saving notes locally. This can come handy, if you ever find yourself without Internet for some reason. And if you like an online backup of all your scratchings, you can optionally choose to link the app with your Google Docs account and synchronize everything.
Scratch notes are saved in a collection with same name on Docs. With notes synchronized, you can then publish or share them with anyone you want. Synchronization is performed automatically every few seconds and is bi-directional. That means, if you edit and save a document inside Google Docs, you get everything automatically inside Scratchpad.
That’s not all. As Scratchpad runs inside Chrome, it boasts cross-platform ability, which means you can synchronize your notes across Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS. Hit the below link to install this awesome app right now!
Install: Scratchpad
3 thoughts on “Scratchpad – An Offline Notepad App for Chrome with Docs Sync”
I wonder if you know anything about sync problems with scratchpad. I’ve been trying to authorize it to sync with Google Docs but I keep getting sent to a “redirect” page and am stuck there – do you know what the problem could be?