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Problem with the way Evernote do search in some non-english language.


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Hello,

I encounter a problem with how Evernote implement note search: it search from the start of the word (I guess it use space as a word separator).

 

For example:

If note no. 1 has a word "ant" and note no. 2 has a word "important". When I search for "ant", it will find one note (Note no. 1). This is the way it should be and it make sense.

 

However, in some language (in my case Thai), we doesn't use space to separate word. For "cute girl", it is "เด็กผู้หญิงน่ารัก" in Thai (cute = น่ารัก, girl=เด็กผู้หญิง).  So, when I search for "น่ารัก", it will not find the note with "เด็กผู้หญิงน่ารัก". Now suppose a year ago I wrote a diary note "Today I have my computer fixed by Sam" which is "วันนี้ฉันให้แซมซ่อมคอมพิวเตอร์ของฉัน" in Thai (Not exactly the same, but close in meaning). If I want to find what Sam do for me (maybe he help me a lot), if I search "แซม" Evernote will not find any note!

 

This cause a lot of trouble for me. Do anybody have the same problem? What is your solution? Is there a workaround? 

 

P.S. I already inform Evernote about this, but I don't know whether they will do anything about this. 

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  • Level 5*
11 minutes ago, Wvit said:

I encounter a problem with how Evernote implement note search: it search from the start of the word

Evernote's search feature is great, but it does have limitations

My solution is to have an alternate facility for searching
For backup purposes, I maintain a backup of Evernote data
Its an html export on my Mac.  The notes are available for searching using the Mac OS
I can search for phrases at the end of a words59259cff7e774_ScreenShot2017-05-24at7_46_59AM.png.2769af89ff20ba55a8d69c5602e6e9cb.png

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Hello DTLow, 

Thank you very much for your solution. I find that it is very useful, especially for the backup purpose. However, for a day to day usage, it is inconvenience. Hopefully, Evernote team will come up with a solution.

By the way, I have try it on alternative note taking tool and it works. I've try this in Google Keep and it find the note as it should. (The note contain 1 sentence: "วันนี้ฉันให้แซมซ่อมคอมพิวเตอร์ของฉัน"). I also try at simple note and it also find the note.

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One solution that may work is to have a prefix that tell Evernote search differently. Another is to have an option in preference to set the prefer search method.

 

I think the first one is easier since it doesn't have affect on those who doesn't use it, for example searchinword:"some word".

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  • Ex Employees

@Wvit Thanks for reporting this. We are working towards a solution. but I don't have an estimated date for when it will be resolved at this time. We will post updates here as they develop. Thanks again. 

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  • 10 months later...

Even though my crew and I are very happy with the UX of note taking, we also find this same issue as our major pain point too.

As we are using Evernote as our center knowledge base, we have high concern on an accurate search function.

I'll be waiting for the updated solution. 
Thank you in advance. (Hope my voice helps speed up this ticket :))

By the way, have you found some other best workaround for this issue, @Wvit ?

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@Natt P.

I wonder if Evernote gonna do anything about the issue.

The workaround that I used is:

  1. At the very bottom of the note, I have a line called "keywords" with I format with a very light grey color.
  2. I copy the whole note and paste it into the little program that when paste a Thai message to it, it will break each word with space. For example, if I paste "ไปเรียนก่อน", it will convert to "ไป เรียน ก่อน".
  3. I then copy the converted message and paste it in the keywords section

However, I stop doing this because it is a very tedious work and it waste HD space.

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I see. Thank you for your response.

For mine, I had ever tried to use Tag feature to record my notes' keywords , just similar to you.

However, after did that for a while, I gave up as I found out that Tags would make no sense and useless if I cannot remember them! (which is too much to remember)

So, what I can only do now is waiting for the improvement of the search feature.

Hope that it could work as good as Mac Spotlight Search.

@Austin G Any update on this ticket?

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  • 4 months later...

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