Max Pages to OCR with Evernote Moleskine Notebook

[youngb55 0]

Coming up on year's end, I am going to be archiving 3 Evernote Moleskine Notebooks that I have amassed over the last year. I would like to optimize my notebooks/notes as much as possible, so I wanted to see if there were any suggestions or best practices on the following:

 

OCR:

• Is there  a limit on the number of pages I can OCR at once?
• Would you scan in an entire notebook as a note, or break it up in some other way?

Tags:

• Other than using the smart tags, has anyone found a good way of making topics (self created text tag) searchable? I have tried using the hashtag (#tag) and that doesn't work as an option.

To Do's:

• Does anyone use this feature to manage their real life to-do list? Thinking about it, but not sure if it makes sense.

 

Thanks again!

 

Bryce

 

[gazumped 11,656]

OCR

• If you're leaving Evernote to do your OCRs it depends whether or not you're using PDFs or images to archive with.  The OCR limit on PDFs is 25 pages (I believe) - don't know if there is a limit on individual page JPGs attached to a note;  but if you use JPGs you might run up against the note size limit,  so
• I'd keep your notes short - maybe a separate note per topic or per day/ week/ month.  Easier to find content anyway if a search jumps you to a close page if not the actual item you need.

Tags

• For speed and convenience I'd suggest no (or minimal) tags unless you have real need - use good (ie long) titles for your notes with lots of keywords

To Do's

• No clue - I use a mixture of software to run my to-dos with similarly mixed results...!

[jbenson2 2,147]

OCR

• Limit? - see point #4 below for the Evernote OCR rules
• Scan an entire notebook? - I find Evernote to be much more powerful if I use a larger number of smaller notes than one humongous note.

 

 

It takes a bit longer, but I always let my ScanSnap scanner do the OCR for me (instead of Evernote).

Why?

1.) Exported PDFs:
ScanSnap: The PDF document remains OCR'd if I export it from Evernote.
Evernote: The PDF document loses its OCR if I export it from Evernote.

2.) Consistency:
ScanSnap: The search results are consistent in Evernote, whether I view them from my desktop client or the Evernote web.
Evernote: The search results are not consistent because Evernote uses different OCR software depending on the platform.

3.) 100% OCR:
ScanSnap: Works on notes that are stored in my local non-sync'd Evernote notebooks.
Evernote: Evernote cannot see my notes on my local non-sync'd notebooks, so the PDF's cannot be OCR'd.

4.) No rules:
ScanSnap: OCR's all my PDF's - no rules and I know it is done.
Evernote: Evernote has 6 technical rules to follow and no warning if the document fails to meet all the rules
https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/23169032
 

[gazumped 11,656]

Those Evernote Moleskine notebooks can be a pest to get into the document feeder though..

[jbenson2 2,147]

TAGS

 

Evernote does not search the text in tag names. So I would recommend you follow Gaz's instructions mentioned above involving well structured titles. Starting the title with a date (yyyymmdd) can be very powerful.

I use a lot of tags, so I rely on 3-character prefixes on many of my tags for easy remembering and grouping of similar tags.

More info can be found at:
http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/28840-question-about-tag-levels/#entry155962

[jbenson2 2,147]

To Do's:

I use the To Do check boxes as a fail-safe to prevent items from falling through the cracks.

Search terms

todo:false (unfinished - unchecked checkbox)
todo:true (finished - checked checkbox)
todo:* (all checkboxes)

 

But my primary Evernote method for managing To Do items is to modify the "Created Date" so that becomes my actual "To Do Date".

[youngb55 0]

Thanks for the help Gaz and J Benson. I plan on using a combination of your suggestions with this archive project.

 

Here is what I am planning on doing:

- Create Separate E-Notebook in Evernote for each physical notebook.

- Smart tag all pages 

- Add tags to all pages in the three letter format here: http://discussion.ev...ls/#entry155962 - I will then have another note that holds the master key to all of the 3 letter codes, so when I forget, I have something to refer back to. 

- Create individual notes in each notebook with the date in in the note title in YYYYMMMDD format

 

thanks again!

[Ian Bradbury 1]

Using my iPhone - I can only scan 4 pages at a time.  It will not allow me to scan passed 4 note book pages.