Zettelkasten by Niklaus Luhmann
An open source file card system / slip box for Windows, Macintosh (Mac OS X) and Linux.
http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/
Zettelkasten - Wikipedia
A Zettelkasten is a method of personal information management and a note taking methodology. This programme mimics one of the classic Zettelkasten methods that of the German social science professor, Niklas Luhmann and was originally created in German. Now it has English and Spanish variants but there is little documentation on how to use them. So I have decided to create my own guide, based largely on my own experience of using the programme, to help other who follow in this path of exploration. If I have got anything wrong, or omitted major items, please let me know by adding a comment at the bottom of this blog post.
NIklaus Luhmann
Instructions
Luhman's Terms
The original programme, like the original Luhman paper version, was written in German and then translated into English. Given this there is some ambiguity about the terms used and so a short glossary may help to explain the programme's terms and synonyms that may explain the concept a little more clearly.
Zettelkasten literally 'slip box' - Card Index Box. (Slip as in slip of paper, not lose ones balance)
Zettel or Note - Index Card
Note Sequence - a series of linked Index Cards
Cross Reference or Link - a manual link between two Index Cards
Bookmark - Named bookmarks can be created to group several Index Cards together
Outliner or Luhman's 'desktop' - a sub-programme for collecting together a group of Index Cards and sorting them into a coherent order broken up by Section Headings so extracting the information from the Zettelkasten.
Section or Bullet Point - Interchangeable terms used in the Outliner
Bib-tex file - file format used for importing Author and bibliographic data from citation reference manager programmes such as Zotero
The original ‘Zettelkasten’ or Card Index Box
A short note about versions of Zkn3. The latest stable version is 3.2022.8 of August 2022 and the last version produced by Daniel was 3.27 of October 2015. Luckily, both these versions still work with the data and so I have tried to include elements of both. If you do not see a feature on your programme try Daniel’s version.
Index
Menu Items
Menu Item linked to Data window Tabs
New Entry Window
Creating a New Zettelkasten
Navigation around the Zettelkasten
Authors: Importing bibliographic data
Creating a New Note (Zettel)
Creating a New Note Sequence
Links (Cross references)
Bookmarks
Keywords
Authors: Adding Authors manually
Editing a Note
Search strategies
Extracting information from the Zettelkasten - Using the Outliner
The Main Window
Menu Items
File
New Note (Ctrl+N) - creates a new note in the Note Editing Window
New Note Sequence (Ctrl+I)
Quick Note (Ctrl+Alt+N) - creates a new blank note without opening editing window
Quick Note with title (Ctrl+Shift+N) - creates a new blank note with title without opening the Note Editing Window
Duplicate Note - creates a duplicate of the current note
Open (Ctrl+O)
Recent Files
Save (Ctrl+S)
Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S)
Create New Outliner
Create New File
Import (Ctrl+Shift+I)
Export (Ctrl+Shift+E)
Information
Quit (Ctrl+Q)
Edit
Edit note (Ctrl+E)
Remove note (Ctrl+Shift+Delete)
Remove keyword
Copy (Ctrl+C)
Copy (Plain text) (Ctrl+Shift+C)
Paste (Ctrl+V)
Select all (Ctrl+A)
Add text selection to keywords (Ctrl+Shift+K)
Set first line as title (Ctrl+Shift+U)
Set selection as title (Ctrl+Alt+U)
Insert cross reference (Ctrl+Alt+L)
Insert note sequence (Ctrl+Alt+I)
Add bookmark (Ctrl+B)
Add to outliner F9
Find
Find (Ctrl+F)
Replace (Ctrl+R)
Notes
Note keywords
Find in note (Ctrl+Shift+F)
Goto first note (Ctrl+Shift+Minus)
Goto previous note (Ctrl+Minus)
Displays next note (Ctrl+Plus)
Goto last note (Ctrl+Shift+Plus)
Show random note (Ctrl+Number Sign)
Show next note in history (Alt+Left)
Show previous note in history (Alt+Right)
Goto note (Ctrl+G)
View
Links (Ctrl+F1)
Note sequences (Ctrl+F2)
Keywords (Ctrl+F3)
Authors (Ctrl+F4)
Titles (Ctrl+F5)
Keyword cluster (Ctrl+F6)
Bookmarks (Ctrl+F7)
Attachments (Ctrl+F8)
Display current note F5
Highlight keywords F7
Highlight coded paragraphs
Window
Search results F3
Outliner F4
Edit Window F11
Log
Zettelkasten
About - Info links
Preferences
General
Appearance
Font and colours
Tables and list views
Directories - sets path for images and attachments
Updates
Return to Index
Menu Item linked to top right hand Data window Tabs. Select Tab and right click on entry to gain menu items:
Links
Refresh links
Remove cross references
Filter (logical OR)
Filter (logical AND)
Add cross reference
Add note sequence
Add to outliner
Export
Export as search result
Note Sequence
Remove
Add note sequence
Add Bookmarks
Add to outliner
Find origin of note sequence
Export
Export as search results
Show note numbers
Visible levels
Keyword
Find (logical OR)
Find (logical AND)
Find (exclusion)
New keyword
Edit keyword
Remove keyword
Add keyword
Add note sequence (logical OR)
Add note sequence (logical AND)
Add cross reference (logical OR)
Add cross reference (logical AND)
Add to outliner (logical OR)
Add to outliner (logical AND)
Export
Authors
Copy
Find
Edit
Add
Add/update from Bibtex
Export
Import Bibtex file
Refresh Bibtext file and authors
Titles
Copy
Edit Title
Remove note
Automatically set missing titles
Add cross reference
Add note sequences
Add bookmarks
Add to outliner
Export
Clusters
Export
Export as search results
Bookmarks
Edit
Remove bookmark
Edit category
Remove category
Add cross reference
Add note sequence
Add to Outliner
Attachments
Copy
Edit attachment
Remove attachment
GoTo Directory
Export
Toolbar Items
New - opens New Note Window
Open - opens a new Zettelkasten
Save - saves current Zettelkasten
Edit - opens Edit Note Window
Remove - deletes the note
Copy / Paste / Select all
Links - adds a link to the current note using note numbers
Note sequence - adds a note sequence to current note using note numbers
Bookmark - adds note to a Bookmark - can choose from list or create new one
Outliner - adds note to Outliner
Find
First / First / Previous / Next / Last
Search
Zkn3 in use: three windows open, main screen, search results and outliner, overlapped so that you can easily switch from one to another.
Sub-menus
Opens new window when command is selected. Typically when working with Zkn3 you might have three windows open, so minimise them to a suitable size and overlap the pages so that you can switch easily from one to another
New Entry Window
Menu items
File
Apply changes (Ctrl+Shift+S)
Edit synonyms
Close (Ctrl+W)
Edit
Cut/Copy/Paste
Select all (Ctrl+A)
Link keyword to text selection (Ctrl+Shift+G)
Add text selection to keywords (Ctrl+Shift+K)
Set first line as title (Ctrl+Shift+U)
Set selection as title (Ctrl+Alt+U)
Undo (Ctrl+Z)
Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z)
Find and replace (Ctrl+H)
Take over keywords (Ctrl+Alt+G)
Remove - double line breaks, Tabs, single line breaks, single spaces
Insert
New author (Ctrl+Shift+L)
Insert hyperlink (Ctrl+K)
Cross reference (Ctrl+Shift+M) - select an author in the data window, then a block of text and click this link. Creates a footnote number in the text linked to the author information at the bottom of the note. Useful if a note contains a number of sources.
Author footnote (Ctrl+Shift+N)
Images (Ctrl+Shift+I)
Insert table (Ctrl+Shift+T)
Insert form (Ctrl+Shift+F)
Attachments (Ctrl+Shift+A)
Symbols (Ctrl+Alt+S)
Insert timestamp (Ctrl+F7)
Format
Bold (Ctrl+B)
Italic (Ctrl+I)
Underline (Ctrl+U)
Strikethrough (Ctrl+D)
Heading 1 (Ctrl+Shift+H)
Heading 2 (Ctrl+Alt+H)
Cite (Ctrl+Shift+C)
Quotation marks (Ctrl+Shift+2)
Font (Ctrl+Alt+F)
Colour (Ctrl+T)
Background colour (Ctrl+M)
Code (Ctrl+Alt+C)
Inline code
Align left (Ctrl+L)
Centre (Ctrl+E)
Align right (Ctrl+R)
Justify
Margins (Ctrl+Shift+R)
List (Ctrl+Alt+L) - bullet points
Numeration (Ctrl+Alt+N) - numbered list
Superscript (Ctrl+Plus)
Subscript (Ctrl+Number sign)
Window
Input focus to entry field (Ctril+F2)
Input focus to keyword list (Ctrl+F3)
Input focus to author list (Ctrl+F4)
Toolbar items
Cut / Copy / Paste / Select all
Undo / Redo
Authors - adds new author to list
Footnote - inserts footnote into text box
Link - inserts a link to another note
Image - inserts an image from file
Table - inserts a table
Attachments - inserts an attachment link into text
Bold / Italic / Underline / Strike through
Colour
Highlight
Edit Window
Menu items
File
Apply changes
Edit synonyms
Close
Edit
Cut / Copy / Paste / Select all
Link keyword to text selection
Add text selection to keywords
Set first line as title
Set selection as title
Undo / Redo
Find and replace
Take over keywords
Remove - double breaks, line breaks, double spaces and tabs
Insert
New author
Insert hyperlink
Format
Window
Toolbar items
Cut / Copy /Paste / Select all
Undo / Redo
Authors
Footnote
Link
Image
Table
Attachments
Bold / Italic / Underline / Strike through
Colour / Highlight
Search Results Window
Menu Items
File
Detailed search description
Duplicate search results
Remove search result
Remove all search results
Export
Close
Edit
Copy
Select all
Remove
Edit note
Duplicate note
Replace
Completely remove note
Edit keywords
Edit authors - allows you to make changes to the Authors or delete ones
Add cross reference
Add note sequence
Add Bookmark
Add to outliner
Filter
For find terms
For keywords
For authors
Find top level note for sequence
Find
Text selection
Keywords (logical OR)
Keywords (Logical AND)
Keywords (Exclusion)
View
Show outliner of selected note
Highlight find terms
Change highlight style
Display note immediately
Align window elements
Full screen
Toolbar Items
Copy
Select all
Edit - opens editing window
Remove
Links - opens new link
Note sequences - opens new note sequence
Bookmark - inserts new Bookmark
Outliner - opens Outliner window
Highlight
Outliner Window
Menu items
File
New outliner - creates a new outliner
New bullet point - creates a 'heading' within the text
Create an insert new note
Add note sequence
Inset complete note sequence
Export
Archive
Read Archive
Print
Close
Edit
Edit note text (Ctrl+E)
Accept changes also for original note
Accept all changes also for all original notes
Cut / Copy / Paste
Edit note
Move Up / Move Down
Rename
Comment
Remove
Find
Search outliners content
Next / Previous
View
Refresh
Show comments
Hide comments
Comments only
Show/Hide note titles
Show/Hide note numbers
Show/Hide sequence icon
Display item
Full screen
Note numbers in outline
Show/Hide note field (F11)
Toolbar items
Section - adds new bullet point
Note - adds a note to the outliner using its number
Note sequences
Edit
Cut / Copy / Paste
Move Up / Move Down
Rename
Comment - adds a sidebar to text where you can add in comments (once updated)
Remove
Update
The original Zettelkasten is now being studied at Bielefeld Univeristy