Nota Bene is one of the few software that show up on search results when you look for academic writing software on the Internet.

1. Price and Requirements

Nota Bene cost USD 279.20. The most recent version 10.0 runs on all windows OS from Windows XP up to Windows 8. It may run on Linux and Mac by using Wine. For detailed requirements, click here.

2. Major Features

Nota Bene, currently at version 10, includes 4 basic components, which are:

• Nota Bene (word processor)
• Orbis (search engine)
• Ibidem (bibliographic database program)
• Ibidplus (general purpose database program)

Major features of Nota Bene are:

• Manage bibliographies
• Cite references
• Take notes
• Find forgotten text
• See new relationships
• Convert web citations
• Capture web text

Descriptions on the the website provide more information on the software.

• a word processor for scholars
• a bibliographic manager for those who are tired of typing/formatting their own citations and bibliographies
• a personal search engine for those who want to find anything they’ve ever written in seconds
• a database manager for those who have things to keep track of
• a Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, IPA and Arabic word processor for those who want more than just fonts
• an Internet search tool for those who need to find and capture bibliographic data
• a set of tools for scholars who want to focus on their writing and research

3. Reviews of Nota Bene

Nota Bene website has testimonials by academics.

There are not many reviews of Nota Bene on Google search results. I guess this is due to the small size of the market for academic writing software rather than any problem with Nota Bene itself.

Here are two reviews with useful information.

A. Felix Grant

“Nota Bene (NB), generally thought of as a word processor, is actually a remarkably complete academic information management environment, with a word processor as its face. Its concept-based synonym searching also makes it a useful exploratory and preparatory text analysis tool.”

B. Kirsten Wood (a short but great review of Nota Bene and Scrivener as research and writing software at the bottom of the page)

“NB is a system unlike any other I know, which supports every step of the research and writing process from the first steps in note-taking and bibliography-compiling to the final steps in producing picture-perfect manuscripts in any citation style known to modern publishing.”