Zettlr: One-Stop Publication Workbench

I think it’s trying to be a markdown-based Obsidian/Logseq zettelkasten with built-in support for (1) interfacing with reference managers and (2) exporting/publishing with LaTeX/pandoc.

If you want to see it and get an idea about what it does and how it’s supposed to be used, go here:

https://docs.zettlr.com/en/core/user-interface/

Finding that information took some digging — although there is a visual on the homepage after scrolling several screens down (at least on mobile).

Constructive feedback for the team: I find the website and documentation difficult to use because they present details first and main ideas later. See if you can put the bottom line on the top line.

Also, as I navigated through the site, every time I followed a link I got asked, again and again, whether I wanted to opt out of cookies and data collection. Answering once should be enough.

I ended up on Zettlr after a long search for a note taking application that would allow not only easy note taking but retrieval and linking as part of the process of creating larger rigorous documents. I especially wanted something that wasn't about a gimmick, was operable without a cloud, was reliable, and was open source. I've found Zettlr wonderful for personal note taking, academic note taking, and putting that together in creating academic and professional use papers.

For me: It fits the Zettlekasten method as far as I want to take that. However the tools in doing to don't impose that. Tools I like in particular:

Configurable left pane with files and folders similar to a code editor like VSCodium or SublimeText.

Quasi WYSIWYG markdown. It helps, especially for things like quotes.

Inline tags, inline references via linked bibtex (for me, from Jabref), timestamps.

Another pane on the right I configured summarising links, references. These panes can be hidden for full screen editing too.

Exports in a wide range of formats.

Zettlr facilitates the creation of knowledge better than any other note taking application I've tried. On top of that, it's open source.

Apologies in advance if this sounds like an ad. I have no affiliation with the project other than as a user.

I use Zettlr somewhat often. Honestly my favorite features are just:

- inline markdown preview

- VIM Keybinds (with some issues, as many implementations have)

- mermaid and LaTeX math support built in

(Notice that 2/3 of these are easily done on many other editors via plugins/extensions)

It has some other nice things too but I find it to be kind of slow and clunky. Still I come back for the way markdown works there because it feels like WYSIWYG but without so much mouse clicking. I have minimally used the pandoc and other publishing features but wasn't blown away by them vs just using pandoc

I have tried Zettlr, but would recommend other solutions for academic writing. For example:

* Manubot: https://manubot.org/ - Demo: https://trangdata.github.io/treeheatr-manuscript/

* Quarto: https://quarto.org/docs/manuscripts/ - Demo: https://quarto-ext.github.io/manuscript-template-jupyter/

Pandoc and git are powerful tools that I think may improve scientific research, but there are some obstacles before these can replace word

I'm trying this out on Linux but for the life of me I can't get the split window stuff to work. The Flatpak for some reason wouldn't even open files - but the Debian package seems to work fine.

Does anyone else judge these knowledge engine tools on whether or not they generate their own static docs?

Please reply links here for some nice zettlr-generated static sites :)

I was trying this for a while, but the inability of labeling and refering to specific math equations became a deal breaker.

Seems like it's doing what I've been doing with org-mode for years.

From quick glance it's like open source scrivener?

grammarly but local? given that grammarly started way before heavy llms, i assume there's none of that here also?

What makes it better than iA Writer?