[Tex/LaTex] A good template for note taking

templates

One of the problems that I have read that people say about LaTeX is it isn't very good for quick note taking.

Has anyone used LaTeX for quick note taking? If so what template have you used? And how have you setup your system so it is relatively easy to make quick notes?

EDIT In response to some of the comments, I am currently using vim as my editor. Which I am very proficient in using.

Best Answer

I find note taking in Pandoc's version of Markdown to be a very efficient way of taking notes in any text editor. This provides an efficient way to mix simple outlining using numbering or bullet points, alongside the math capabilities of LaTeX.

Using this approach you can get readble plain text notes that can be readily converted to LaTeX for PDF output, HTML, or any of the other formats that Pandoc supports.

Here's a short example:

1. Level one heading
    - a bullet point
    * also a bullet point
    + yet a third way of writing a bullet point
    - pick your poison!

#. With numbered lists Pandoc will figure out the correct numbering for you
    - Isn't that cool?

#. You can mix math inline $x^2 + y^2 = z^2$ or in display mode:
    $$
    \frac{a}{b} = \frac{c}{d} + \frac{e}{f}
    $$

#.  You can mix styles
    a) sublist with alphabetical
    b) nice, eh?