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Student stack

Notes, sources, PDFs and revision: a complete study setup that costs almost nothing.

Student

A near-zero-cost setup for classes, notes and long assignments. Everything here is free to start; the only app that asks for money is PDF Expert, and only for advanced editing.

How the pieces fit

  1. Obsidian is the base: a folder of Markdown notes that you link to each other like a personal wiki. Start simple, with one note per subject, and add links as connections appear.
  2. Zotero looks after your sources. Install its browser connector and save each paper or page as you find it; when you write, it inserts the citations and builds the bibliography in the style your department asks for.
  3. Anki is for what simply has to be memorised. It schedules each card according to how well you remembered it, so a few minutes a day go further than a night of cramming.

Before paying for anything

Preview already fills in and signs forms and combines PDFs, and macOS dictation turns spoken notes into text. The related tips below show how.

Apps in this stack

  • Obsidian · notes Free

    Linked notes in plain Markdown files, in a folder you own. Free with no sign-up, including for work; Sync and Publish are optional paid extras. Needs macOS 12 or later.

  • Zotero · bibliography Free

    Free and open source. It saves sources from the browser with their citation data and creates bibliographies in Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs, with over 9,000 citation styles.

  • PDF Expert · PDF Freemium

    Free to download; editing, OCR and conversion need a subscription or a lifetime licence. For signing and merging PDFs, Preview is enough. Needs macOS 12 or later.

  • Anki · revision Free

    Flashcards with spaced repetition: reviews are scheduled by how well you remembered each card. Free on Mac; the official iPhone app, AnkiMobile, is paid.

  • Keka · archiver Free

    Creates zip, 7z, dmg, tar and more, and extracts RAR and dozens of other formats. Free from its website; the App Store version is the same app, paid.

Installation

The apps available on Homebrew install with a single Terminal command. If you do not have Homebrew yet, start at brew.sh.

brew install --cask obsidian zotero pdf-expert anki keka

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