(Archived) importing pdf files

[frogman 0]

I'm not having luck getting pdfs into evernote. I copy the pdf and paste it in but all formatting is lost. What are the steps please?

Cheers

[engberg 89]

Drag the PDF and drop it onto a note, or onto a Notebook, or onto Evernote's icon in the dock.

[frogman 0]

Thanks. None of the three options works. PDFs will not drag and drop. ??

[engberg 89]

Drag the file from the Finder. (I.e. don't drag from within the Preview application.)

[frogman 0]

Tried that still no joy..... ??

None of your options has worked. Can you assist in sorting this please?

Premium member

[chem242 0]

What version of Evernote are you using? What version of OS X? I have never had a problem drag and dropping PDFs into Evernote. Have you tried multiple PDFs from various sources? Could be something with the PDF itself.

[dbabbage 1]

I'M PRETTY SURE I WAS WRONG ABOUT THIS! SEE MY NEXT POST

frogman, don't copy and paste. Drag the icon of the pdf file itself from the Finder and into Evernote.

You aren't, perchance, trying to import a PDF that is being displayed off the web in a web browser? If so, as far as I can ascertain you need to:

1. Control-click/right click on the pdf and select "Open in Preview"

2. In Preview save the pdf to somewhere in the Finder.

3. Locate the icon of that file in the Finder. (You can Command-click on the title of the pdf in Preview and then select its parent folder to speed this up.)

4. Drag that icon on the Evernote icon in the dock, onto the Evernote window, or into an existing note.

I know. It seems a crazy three-part work-around. They should just add a "Add PDF to Evernote" option in the original contextual menu. But it's not there.

[Lougoose 0]

Just to clarify, let's make sure we are talking about the exact same thing. I realize it seems very basic, but sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to find/fix.

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

[dbabbage 1]

Actually, I take it back. I think if you are using Safari and have the Evernote clipper installed you can just click the Evernote clipper and it will take the PDF into Evernote in its original form. Since I almost always Shift-click that icon to get a PDF for standard webpages, I hadn't realised that it correctly imported the source PDF if that is what was displayed in my browser...

Which means you've fixed the problem that brought me to the forums myself. Thanks!

[chem242 0]

It is ok to copy/paste from within Preview. Just make sure you are selecting the page previews in the sidebar to copy. Though Drag and drop is the preferred method for bringing in whole PDFs I often use page selection/copy to grab smaller parts of large PDFs that are relevant to my current note.