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New-style PDF viewing - ugh!


Tocco

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Further to what I wrote above .......

I would like to suggest that there has been a lack of forethought and/or testing of this new style of handling PDFs.

Via the right-click context menu, it is possible to reduce a PDF to an icon (see it as an attachment) and then double-clicking it brings it up in your default PDF reader (mine is Foxit). However, each PDF has to be individually set as an attachment since I can't find a way to set the whole note to 'attachment mode'. [Actually, I wouldn't want to do this anyway!]

On the context menu there is an item 'Open PDF in Foxit' but it doesn't work! It just opens my browser to a Foxit website!

Previously I used to select a number of PDFs (Ctrl-c) and paste them into a note. They would then appear in a predictable order. Now the order is unpredictable and not all of them get pasted!

C'mon guys, let's revert to the old system!

 

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I also agree with the previous comments. One of the reasons I liked Evernote was it's ability to make reviewing pdfs relatively painless. I did have a brief exploration of OneNote recently, but that is disastrous for handling pdfs. You can add the file, and/or 'print' the file as a png - no ability to scroll through the pages easily. Yes, I have pdf solutions on my desktop that allow me to do everything I need, but the pdf viewer in the Windows version sucks now - but not enough to drive me to trying another note-keeping program (yet!).

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Hello,

I also hate the new PDF system in evernote. Please give us back the old one!!!

My workflow is strong with PDF Files and with the new viewer it is very time consuming to do work which a short time ago was done with one click.

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Evernote - Please give us the option that will let us choose to use new PDF changes or not.

Evernote Business has been the biggest platform our company uses for keeping up with thousands of orders and tens of thousands PDF files for purchase orders, vendor acknowledgments and order tracking.  Additionally, all the AR & AP statements, remittances, invoices, etc...  My point is, we used the PDF & merge feature heavily all the time.  We had it working for us so well using desktop scanners, being able to quickly drag PDF from EN to other applications.

When EN made the big changes to how PDF files are managed, they said it was improved.  That is an opinion for the person using it and should not be assumed for everyone else by making those changes mandatory for them.  That mentality is much of what's wrong with this world today.  Now we need the option of turning those items off as this is not an improvement for our team at all and in fact is causing problems. We don't need to deal with problems that can be avoided so our current goal is to find another solution.  If EN was to correct this before we move, we would stay.

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On 3/11/2018 at 3:34 AM, Tocco said:

I use Windows and I don't think I have an icon corresponding to the 'eyeball' you mention.

I can do a right-click and choose Open, or 'Open With' followed by FoxIt from the context menu - this does work. Less convenient than a double-click, though.

Since I initiated this thread I have seen what looks to me like the same PDF interface in other software products and on the web. So I think that it must be a software widget.

However, it seems that very little thought has been given to interfacing it conveniently with Evernote and there are bugs - for example, regarding pasting a number of PDFs into a note as a single operation. This doesn't always result in all of them being pasted. Further, the order in which they appear is strange and is not what it used to be!

The other big issue for me is that it has changed my whole way of working with Evernote to the extent that I may not ever have chosen it as my software tool. Or I may have done things differently. As it is, over the course of several years I have built up a database and a way of working that has now been crippled.

I am not a fan of the new interface for PDFs either. I posted it before to different threads that it feels like that the PDF is no longer "part" of the note. I don't like the borders and the scrolling within scrolling.

I am not sure whether this is due to I liked it the way it was and did not see a need for "fixing" so I am not even giving it a chance but I still have not warmed up to it. Although I must admit, I use the old version at work since I am in Evernote all day long and I have the updated version at the house. I am still giving it a little chance but reading the forums here, I think a lot of people would like to have the option to select which way their PDFs are displayed within the notes. I am sure that is not easy to do but there have been a lot controversy (if you want to call it) about the PDF viewer since the update. 

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Second the comments above.  They have taken one of the best features of evernote and made it into a very negative user experience.  i use evernote to collect multiple documents and organize them in a specific way with context in between.  I have a half dozen ways to 'view' a .pdf via other programs on my computer.  I don't need evernote to do this...totally wrecked functionality.  This needs to be rolled back asap.

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On 26/03/2018 at 3:20 PM, jbenson2 said:

Is there any Evernote documentation that tells us why they believe the new PDF system is better than the old one?
 

I have not seen anything, it's as if they have changed something out for their benefit under the hood, not ours as users. This looks exactly like Chrome/Chromium PDF reader, embedded like an iFrame. If there is a reasoning I would be very interested in seeing it. The combination of annotating PDFs, creating the summary page at the start, and displaying that as an embedded image/pdf preview was a great handling of PDFs.

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6 hours ago, DTLow said:

If you support this request, please use the voting buttons in the top left corner of the discussion.

In my opinion, this is a smoke screen.  The voting program was launched by Evernote a couple years ago. Several people immediately predicted the weakness of such a system. And now those weaknesses have been proven correct. I never use the voting system. It is pointless. 

  • Voting has to be reminded over and over again by a few power users. 
  • Voting validity is questionable on the original post when the ongoing discussion evolves into a different topic.
  • Voting is not effective when the original post contains several specific issues.
  • Voting is duplicated when multiple threads cover the same subject. 

Other than the typical pre-recorded answering phone service response "Your call [vote] is important. Thank you"  I have not  seen any formal analysis from Evernote on the actual effectiveness of this voting system.  

 

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Dear developers,

the new version of EVERNOTE came without the option of seeing a PDF without downloading it to my PC memory which makes all the work very difficult.

I loved EVERNOTE for the ease of organising and viewing my PDFs but now I am reconsidering whether EVERNOTE is worthy anymore because of that hassle with openning PDFs and deleting them from my PC memory.

I hope you will reconsider the opening of PDFs straight from your software. Other option would be if the EVERNOTE would synchronise with PDF storage (e.g. PC or external drive) so all the changes done to the PDFs would be automatically saved to EVERNOTE (I backup my PDFs on an external drive from where I also open them to add some notes).

Best wishes,

Radim

 

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On 3/11/2018 at 3:34 AM, Tocco said:

to the extent that I may not ever have chosen it as my software tool. Or I may have done things differently. As it is, over the course of several years I have built up a database and a way of working that has now been crippled.

We can relate to this so well.  I would not have selected EN for us knowing the functionality of working with PDF files would be the way it is now.

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On 1/23/2018 at 1:45 PM, DTLow said:

You can downgrade to a previous app version 

The problem with downgrading, to avoid the PDF viewing problem, is you lock yourself out from any future improvements.

Companies promote the benefits and features of their products. 

Is there any Evernote documentation that tells us why they believe the new PDF system is better than the old one?
 

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On 23/01/2018 at 6:45 PM, DTLow said:

You can downgrade to a previous app version 

The discussion has been moved to the Windows Forum 

Are you serious? Every time someone has a complaint about EN, you jump to their defence, regardless of what it is. Just 2 comments above yours is the below.

On 26/03/2018 at 3:20 PM, jbenson2 said:

The problem with downgrading, to avoid the PDF viewing problem, is you lock yourself out from any future improvements.

Companies promote the benefits and features of their products. 

Is there any Evernote documentation that tells us why they believe the new PDF system is better than the old one?
 

To simply downgrade does lock us out of everything and everything EN does from this point on. Including bug fixes, security patches, etc, everything. Simply downgrading is not an option!

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46 minutes ago, SirPPingTon said:

Are you serious? 

Yes, I was seriously answering a question from @Tocco about turning the clock back.
I believe in taking action and helping myself if there's an issue that isn't working for me.

And yes, I'm not into boohoo posts.  
If you support this request, please use the voting buttons in the top left corner of the discussion.

>>To simply downgrade does lock us out of everything and everything EN does from this point on. Including bug fixes, security patches, etc, everything. Simply downgrading is not an option!

Downgrading buys time until Evernote fixes an issue.  Its a process I use often.

@jbenson2's post was a response to my post and is a valid concern.  Users will have to evaluate the benefits of each version and decide which works best for them.

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9 hours ago, SirPPingTon said:

This looks exactly like Chrome/Chromium PDF reader, embedded like an iFrame. If there is a reasoning I would be very interested in seeing it.

Coincidence? I think not. Evernote uses the Chromium Embedded Framework as their editing / rendering engine.

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On 5/19/2018 at 7:30 AM, brunokon said:

I have been an Evernote customer for years, and absolutely loved the product ... until the new way of handling pdf attachments came.

I just joined this forum, only to add to the comments here about the backwards step.

This is so obviously a wrong decision - the question is why? Is it just incompetence, or was there a reason for this?

I am not a fan of the new PDF style either. Here is a response from an employee for the reason as far as he could tell:

 

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I am an Evernote user since Evernote exists and this is the first time I seek them to change something. That new PDF implementation utterly sucks! I am using Evernote for so long that I can get around and do stuff with my eyes closed. Not anymore! This PDF implementation is a step back on the users productivity, which has always been the whole point of Evernote. Please rollback that change immediately. I am already looking at the alternate options and if this doesn't get fixed soon I am going to fix it for good.

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On 1/23/2018 at 11:42 AM, Tocco said:

The visual aspect of a PDF placed in a note has changed in the latest version (6.8.7.6387) - much for the worse in my opinion!

I now see less of the PDF on the screen owing to a charcoal border, and I have to independently scroll the PDF itself instead of the (entire) note. This is even more cumbersome when there is more than one PDF in the note (I typically use 1-page PDFs).

There are also buttons that really are not necessary and could have their functionality less obtrusively provided with a right-click context menu.

But the worst things of all are  that:

1)  I can no longer double-click on a PDF in a note to open it (independently) in my PDF reader! In previous versions this has been possible.

I do see a button for downloading the PDF and saving it in the file system, but this manoeuvre is way too cumbersome and time-consuming if I just want to read the PDF in the most flexible way possible (e.g. in Adobe Reader). I would also have to be cleaning up the file system all the time.

2) I am unable to remove a PDF from a note! So I have to delete the note, re-create it and add all the PDFs except the one I wished to remove!

Please can we turn the clock back. It was fine before but it is broken now.

These issues plus others with the new PDF viewer were reported in the Beta threads before the GA as well, to no avail I am afraid.  Relative to point 2 you should be able to position above or below the PDF and to delete it.  If not, right click on the PDF and select view as attachment.  That icon is easier to delete.

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I use Windows and I don't think I have an icon corresponding to the 'eyeball' you mention.

I can do a right-click and choose Open, or 'Open With' followed by FoxIt from the context menu - this does work. Less convenient than a double-click, though.

Since I initiated this thread I have seen what looks to me like the same PDF interface in other software products and on the web. So I think that it must be a software widget.

However, it seems that very little thought has been given to interfacing it conveniently with Evernote and there are bugs - for example, regarding pasting a number of PDFs into a note as a single operation. This doesn't always result in all of them being pasted. Further, the order in which they appear is strange and is not what it used to be!

The other big issue for me is that it has changed my whole way of working with Evernote to the extent that I may not ever have chosen it as my software tool. Or I may have done things differently. As it is, over the course of several years I have built up a database and a way of working that has now been crippled.

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On 3/26/2018 at 9:44 AM, Vincents360 said:

I will also be downgrading. This new pdf viewer is awful!

Just downloaded to an earlier version (6.5) got back my old PDF viewer as well as the image viewer. Can anyone explain the added benefits of the latest version in relation to these two tools for me? 

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I have been an Evernote customer for years, and absolutely loved the product ... until the new way of handling pdf attachments came.

I just joined this forum, only to add to the comments here about the backwards step.

This is so obviously a wrong decision - the question is why? Is it just incompetence, or was there a reason for this?

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53 minutes ago, RY27 said:

Why does it bother you that some other person found a solution to the problem in a form of a different app 

Doesn't bother me at all.  I often recommend alternative apps to solve problems not addressed by Evernote

I also recommend users switch to a different service if Evernote doesn't fit their needs

>>he or she wanted to share here

My comment was regarding the point "and never looked back to Evernote"

It would seem he or she is still looking back

>>I bemany people who switch to another platform secretly (or not so secretly) wish that Evernote did what they wanted it to in the first place so they never had to switch. 

And submit posts to a request discussion on pdf viewing?

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On 1/23/2018 at 1:42 PM, Tocco said:

I can no longer double-click on a PDF in a note to open it (independently) in my PDF reader!

If you select the preview icon (the eyeball) on Mac, you have the option to open it in your default PDF app; for me, that is Adobe Reader. Although it isn't a double-click, it is suitable functionality for me as I often wish to view the PDF before scrolling and editing.

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3 hours ago, TK0047 said:

I am not a fan of the new PDF style either. Here is a response from an employee for the reason as far as he could tell:

Thanks for including the Evernote explanation.  It reminds me of a similar explanation: The fictional Retro Encabulator device, which uses six hydrocoptic marzel vanes and an ambifacient lunar wane shaft to prevent unwanted side fumbling.

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Agree.  The change of PDF handling in the current version is NOT GOOD.  I hate in-line frames with scroll.  Aside from all the reasons stated above,  almost EVERY TIME the PDF scrolls and not the note I am working with.  ARRGH!!  Please change back to previous method or at least give user an option.  

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17 hours ago, Fiveby21 said:

I just wanted to say that I do NOT like the new PDF feature and I would like to downgrade to an older version of Evernote. Would someone advise me on how to do that?

You can locate older versions on filehippo.com

 

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On 3/23/2018 at 4:21 AM, atkinson58 said:

Second the comments above.  They have taken one of the best features of evernote and made it into a very negative user experience.  i use evernote to collect multiple documents and organize them in a specific way with context in between.  I have a half dozen ways to 'view' a .pdf via other programs on my computer.  I don't need evernote to do this...totally wrecked functionality.  This needs to be rolled back asap.

Fully agree.

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The visual aspect is pretty terrible, but the aspect that really drives me nuts is that they hi-jack the scroll wheel without you taking an UI action like say selecting the embedded pdf to give it focus before the scroll action shifts from the note proper to the embedded pdf.

Off the top of my head I can't think of a single example of any graphical application that does this.

It seems most likely that this is the result of a lazy programmer move to incorporate some 3rd party code, but it's such a UI wart you have to wonder if anybody at the corporate level pays any attention to what their developers are shipping. It would appear that they have no usability standards within their organization, and that generally comes down from the top.

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Folks, I stopped worrying about this. I moved to Notion (http://notion.so) a few months ago and never looked back to Evernote. I previously was what you can consider a hard-core Evernote user, thousands of notes and many different use cases to my digital life organization needs. When I found out Notion offers an automatic migration from Evernote I decided to give it a try. Of course I was totally skeptical about it, I have used many different features of Evernote and I wouldn't expect any tool to be able to migrate it correctly besides Evernote itself. Sometimes it's just good to be wrong. Notion brought all my notes and tags and attachments flawlessly, in a pristine condition. I was still skeptical about it and spent weeks validating the migration was really successfully and if nothing had fallen through the cracks. Well, it's been 6 months I don't open Evernote and I only regret not doing it earlier. Evernote was making me so frustrated that I wasn't enjoying using it at all. I don't have any affiliation with Notion and won't ask you to use my link or any ***** like that. Just see for yourself if Evernote is frustrating you, it's worth it.
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1 hour ago, George Anderson said:

and never looked back to Evernote. 

And yet, here you are

                                     How can we miss you if you won't go away

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On 6/22/2019 at 1:34 AM, George Anderson said:
Folks, I stopped worrying about this. I moved to Notion (http://notion.so) a few months ago and never looked back to Evernote. I previously was what you can consider a hard-core Evernote user, thousands of notes and many different use cases to my digital life organization needs. When I found out Notion offers an automatic migration from Evernote I decided to give it a try. Of course I was totally skeptical about it, I have used many different features of Evernote and I wouldn't expect any tool to be able to migrate it correctly besides Evernote itself. Sometimes it's just good to be wrong. Notion brought all my notes and tags and attachments flawlessly, in a pristine condition. I was still skeptical about it and spent weeks validating the migration was really successfully and if nothing had fallen through the cracks. Well, it's been 6 months I don't open Evernote and I only regret not doing it earlier. Evernote was making me so frustrated that I wasn't enjoying using it at all. I don't have any affiliation with Notion and won't ask you to use my link or any ***** like that. Just see for yourself if Evernote is frustrating you, it's worth it.

Thanks for the hint ! Just took a look at notion and it seems to have even more features than Evernote. I think I will give that a try !!

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On 6/21/2019 at 6:31 PM, DTLow said:

And yet, here you are

                                     How can we miss you if you won't go away

Why does it bother you that some other person found a solution to the problem in a form of a different app that he or she wanted to share here?

If Evernote cannot meet a certain need, I don't see why it's an issue to suggest a different solution in a forum directed to Evernote users. 

It's like some Cold War era mentality - don't you dare cross the Iron curtain and say anything positive about the other side! 

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6 minutes ago, DTLow said:

It would seem he or she is still looking back

I'm sure it's hard not to when you spent the last decade in Evernote. I bet many people who switch to another platform secretly (or not so secretly) wish that Evernote did what they wanted it to in the first place so they never had to switch. 

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5 hours ago, jbenson2 said:

In my opinion, this is a smoke screen.  The voting program was launched ...

Yes, the voting method has flaws, but I wouldn't call it a smokescreen.  Do you have a better method?

Evernote has publicly stated that user opinion is one of the priority factors, but I know there are many considerations as to the commitment of development resources.

These forums are provided by Evernote for user discussion, and there are over 100,000 posts; some with  valuable feedback and request information.  There are various methods to indicate support for a feature request; for example a lengthy post, a +1 post,  or a simple vote.

From an analytics viewpoint, the voting system makes the most sense.  It cuts to the chaff and directly indicates the user support #s.

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