Zettelkasten Zkn3 English Language Manual - part 1 Menu Items

zkn_header.jpeg

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

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

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

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.

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

The original Zettelkasten is now being studied at Bielefeld Univeristy