Native Markdown Support

[brampeirs 116]

The ability to use markdown native in the App.

[PinkElephant 8,244]

The forum issuer2user. The only research we do is a list counting how many fellow users take us for EN staff, somehow, and try to explain us what we have to do.

Nope.

If you want to improve massively on what EN does, you can try here:

https://evernote.com/intl/en/careers

If you want to improve just a little, try feedback or a support ticket instead.

[k.tch 0]

On 1/6/2023 at 4:37 PM, PinkElephant said:

The forum issuer2user. The only research we do is a list counting how many fellow users take us for EN staff, somehow, and try to explain us what we have to do.

Nope.

If you want to improve massively on what EN does, you can try here:

https://evernote.com/intl/en/careers

If you want to improve just a little, try feedback or a support ticket instead.

You want hire me for tell in person that you wont to add markdown ? 😂 

[PinkElephant 8,244]

In fact I don’t care. 

But watching you in complete despair to get MD, I just wanted to point out one alternative to achieve it. As a parchyderm I sometimes have to show off my philanthropist element.

[k.tch 0]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

In fact I don’t care. 

But watching you in complete despair to get MD, I just wanted to point out one alternative to achieve it. As a parchyderm I sometimes have to show off my philanthropist element.

Users asking for this functionality from 2015 year , yep we see that you don't care. Despair ?   I’m just asking before make a choice 😁 

[agsteele 2,964]

It isn't coming anytime soon. At least there is no apparent discussion. So you'll be waiting a long time. If Markdown is important for your workflow then try a different product.

[PinkElephant 8,244]

@k.tch Surprisingly as another user I don’t need to care.

We are not staff, you know …

Pick the app you need - there are others that do support MD. Move yourself instead of expecting the world to move around you.

[harrismarkc 1]

I've exported my own content to a local repository shared by Obsidian.md and Ulysses and backed up via Obsidian backup to GitHub. 

Now it's mainly some domestic files I share with my spouse that are still important in Evernote. I'm going to migrate those somewhere else, probably OneDrive, since we have that anyway. Wife would NEVER use markdown. 😅 But markdown works best for my writing projects and for capturing highlights and notes from multiple sources. 

Tomorrow marks my 12th anniversary with Evernote, so it's a sad time for me. It has served me so well in so many ways. I do see improvements trickling out fairly regularly, but they're just not the one I need. If Evernote would work natively with my locally or web hosted markdown files, I would stay with it. Since the feature request is 8+ years old, I'm giving up. 

 

[PinkElephant 8,244]

This is anecdotal, your story told. Others leave untold, stay untold, stay told. 

If you define something as what you need, then use the tools that support it. No need to excuse yourself for doing so, nobody ever expected you to wait for it, so if you stayed, it was your own decision. No need to believe leaving or staying for your own reasons would be of significant relevance for others. Not even for your wife, it seems.

Good luck.

[Boot17 1,484]

3 hours ago, harrismarkc said:

Tomorrow marks my 12th anniversary with Evernote, so it's a sad time for me. It has served me so well in so many ways. I do see improvements trickling out fairly regularly, but they're just not the one I need.

I think this is a good take. Sometimes our needs change. Sometimes the software changes from how we use to do things. Sometimes we see an improvement in it that we can take advantage of -- sometimes there isn't one. Sometimes we just need to move on and find something better that fits what we needs out of it.

[Grunt Futuk 1]

19 hours ago, harrismarkc said:

I've exported my own content to a local repository shared by Obsidian.md and Ulysses and backed up via Obsidian backup to GitHub. 

Now it's mainly some domestic files I share with my spouse that are still important in Evernote. I'm going to migrate those somewhere else, probably OneDrive, since we have that anyway. Wife would NEVER use markdown. 😅 But markdown works best for my writing projects and for capturing highlights and notes from multiple sources. 

Tomorrow marks my 12th anniversary with Evernote, so it's a sad time for me. It has served me so well in so many ways. I do see improvements trickling out fairly regularly, but they're just not the one I need. If Evernote would work natively with my locally or web hosted markdown files, I would stay with it. Since the feature request is 8+ years old, I'm giving up. 

 

Thanks for sharing. I think PinkElephant has made a good point in terms of people are free to do whatever they wish to suit their needs.

That said, given the topic, I think it is of benefit to others who are interested in this feature for those that are moving on to share what they are doing instead. No one else needs to follow the same path. Completely free choice.

For me personally, I'm inclined to use obsidian as you do. Used it in anger for a few months now and am very happy with it. Similarly, I already have Onenote as part of a discounted family account. I'm very used to the application from work.

I renewed with Evernote for a year recently. I don't anticipate renewing again.

My biggest challenge is apathy. Going through the effort involved in migrating. No doubt there are other threads covering this topic well.

[DanielZhou 7]

On 2/6/2023 at 11:53 AM, Grunt Futuk said:

Thanks for sharing. I think PinkElephant has made a good point in terms of people are free to do whatever they wish to suit their needs.

That said, given the topic, I think it is of benefit to others who are interested in this feature for those that are moving on to share what they are doing instead. No one else needs to follow the same path. Completely free choice.

For me personally, I'm inclined to use obsidian as you do. Used it in anger for a few months now and am very happy with it. Similarly, I already have Onenote as part of a discounted family account. I'm very used to the application from work.

I renewed with Evernote for a year recently. I don't anticipate renewing again.

My biggest challenge is apathy. Going through the effort involved in migrating. No doubt there are other threads covering this topic well.

Agreed. Anyone who even bothers sign up on this site and leave a comment really wants to help make EN better because at different stages of our lives we loved EN. To me, the thing with Markdown support is not just about this feature, but that EN gives no feedback to the community and it seems they don't care to listen to their customers given that this has been consistently voted in the Top5 most wanted features over the years. I don't see how a product can improve like this.

I was a paid EN customer last year. I stopped my paid plan and I'm creating all my new notes in Obsidian and slowly migrating my existing notes to it too. It's sad because I wanted to use EN but I jsut have no confidence that it'll keep getting better to meet my needs.

[Boot17 1,484]

I wonder if Evernote's feature-rich note editor isn't one of the biggest reasons that Evernote won't (ever?) support markdown. Most markdown editors or markdown-like editors are pretty basic aren't they? Notion is one I can think of that is more complex, but even "Notion's markdown is hit or miss" (https://www.markdownguide.org/tools/notion/).

I see a lot of talk about Obsidian in this thread, but Obsidian's editor isn't near as feature-rich. I'm no Obsidian expert, but it seems like you type in the Editor and then can alternatively view the actual markdown with Source Mode (raw markdown) or view a more pretty view in Reading View. I think Joplin is like this too.

I like Evernote's super feature-rich editor vs toggling the different modes.

[Paul A. 634]

36 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

I wonder if Evernote's feature-rich note editor isn't one of the biggest reasons that Evernote won't (ever?) support markdown. Most markdown editors or markdown-like editors are pretty basic aren't they?

Personally, I'm not looking for a complete markdown implementation. I agree that's impractical given the rich options that the Evernote editor supports. But just a few more markdown features would be welcome, similar to how Evernote already supports hash-marks to indicate header levels and backticks to start code blocks.

Very high value to me and (presumably) easy tweaks would be seeing **bold** support and *italics* support. Markdown doesn't officially support underline, but I'd love Evernote to add underline support as well (perhaps _underline_).

A bonus for me would be "> quote" support, though that would require Evernote to add support for quoting text, first!

[Boot17 1,484]

6 hours ago, Paul A. said:

Personally, I'm not looking for a complete markdown implementation. I agree that's impractical given the rich options that the Evernote editor supports. But just a few more markdown features would be welcome, similar to how Evernote already supports hash-marks to indicate header levels and backticks to start code blocks.

Very high value to me and (presumably) easy tweaks would be seeing **bold** support and *italics* support. Markdown doesn't officially support underline, but I'd love Evernote to add underline support as well (perhaps _underline_).

A bonus for me would be "> quote" support, though that would require Evernote to add support for quoting text, first!

I'm for all of that you mentioned too (especially the quote block), but I suspect a lot of others in this thread would like to see it go even beyond that -- a full markdown implementation for *everything* -- or for those things that aren't possible in markdown, then a stripped down editor experience for full markdown compatibility... so that when you copy a whole note that you could then paste it as markdown in another markdown editor and vice-versa and also export from Evernote as markdown.

[Paul A. 634]

2 hours ago, Boot17 said:

I'm for all of that you mentioned too (especially the quote block), but I suspect a lot of others in this thread would like to see it go even beyond that -- a full markdown implementation for *everything* -- or for those things that aren't possible in markdown, then a stripped down editor experience for full markdown compatibility... so that when you copy a whole note that you could then paste it as markdown in another markdown editor and vice-versa and also export from Evernote as markdown.

I could see the utility of a fully markdown-compatible (or as close as possible) export. It would be a nice portability feature. I suppose this feature request could be split into three, rough order of feasibility / likelihood (as per my opinion at least):

1. (the most practical short-term IMO) of adding a few more markdown functions for bold/italics/underline

2. Adding the ability to export into markdown (as close as possible) to facilitate note portability

3. Updates to the editor to allow switching to a "markdown" mode

[Boot17 1,484]

11 hours ago, Paul A. said:

I could see the utility of a fully markdown-compatible (or as close as possible) export. It would be a nice portability feature. I suppose this feature request could be split into three, rough order of feasibility / likelihood (as per my opinion at least):

1. (the most practical short-term IMO) of adding a few more markdown functions for bold/italics/underline

2. Adding the ability to export into markdown (as close as possible) to facilitate note portability

3. Updates to the editor to allow switching to a "markdown" mode

I think #1 and #2 are more doable/worth-while than #3 which brings me back to my earlier comment that Evernote has a very feature-rich Editor and most other fully markdown capable note-taking editors (like Obsidian) don't so they rely on markdown to format the notes so they can make them more presentable in a read-only mode. Evernote already has that more presentable view directly in their (WYSIWYG) Editor and doesn't need markdown in order to render that prettier, but read-only view.

[agsteele 2,964]

14 hours ago, Paul A. said:

1. (the most practical short-term IMO) of adding a few more markdown functions for bold/italics/underline

2. Adding the ability to export into markdown (as close as possible) to facilitate note portability

3. Updates to the editor to allow switching to a "markdown" mode

I'm not interested in adding to the heat or light in the discussion of Markdown.  It wouldn't trouble me if this was available for those that want it although it isn't of personal interest or value.

However, I'm not sure that the first level suggested really adds anything.  In Windows I can type Ctrl+B and then the text is bold followed by Ctrl+B to turn it off.  Likewise Ctrl+I for italics and Ctrl+U for underline.  I'm not sure why the more standard markdown codes of ** _ or * would be more useful.  At least not on their own.

If I was advocating Markdown I'd want level 3.

But I truly hope that Markdown is lower on the list of things to be done than some of lingering issues connected to restoring functions that have been lost or are still not working correctly. Not an attack on Markdown - just looking to get what we have working seemlessly first.

[agsteele 2,964]

I think I was pondering the value of the markdown strings on their own with nothing else. I type without much use of the mouse but use the Ctrl keys as I type along. Much as you like to use Markdowns. Each to his own. I was actually supporting the more comprehensive outcome when/if markdowns ever arrives.

Indeed, I suspect I might have reached the point where my ability to type will long have passed before this comes along. But I have no secret knowledge. I have, though, learned to manage my expectations 🤐

[dubidubno 0]

Why does it make business sense to Evernote not implementing Markdown?

[dubidubno 0]

A very big +1 to Markdown support!

[Hakan Bayındır 4]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:50 AM, k.tch said:

 7 years , still no markdown 🤦🏻‍♂️  maybe evernote team need help ? 🤔

 

It's not that they need help. Their data format and formatting options is a superset of markdown, and they may handle some markdown inside the editor during the writing, but the data format they use (.enex) stores this data differently and in a more flexible manner.

I think attacking the markdown formatting from a "support" perspective is wrong. I think the problem can be solved by handling markdown formatting and converting to Evernote native data structures, since Evernote supports everything markdown already supports.

You can always export your note as .enex and convert to markdown with Pandoc.

[DanielZhou 7]

I work in a large tech corp, and I know that seemingly simple things like the Markdown support not getting prioritized or even communicated back to the community implies that management / leadership has some issues. It's not a tech problem. I paid for premium last year to support them and thought that they needed some time to figure out how to execute effectively and get things done. But one year later it's just the same thing. Since then I have migrated to Obsidian with Dropbox to sync and it works perfectly for my use case (thanks to another user in this thread who suggested it). The only missing part is Skitch integration which I still use with Evernote. But sooner or later Obsidian will have a plugin to replace it. It's a little sad for me to have to migrate since I've been using Evernote for 10+ years and it's a "one-way door" decision. But I can't risk saving my notes with a company that I have lost trust to believe that they'll still be around in a few years. I don't have much trust with Obsidian either since it's maintained by a very small team, but the nice thing is that everything is saved in plain text (marked down format) on Dropbox and even if they go out of business my notes are still safe.

[Hakan Bayındır 4]

I understand what you're saying, but I think you're acting with incomplete information.

First of all, I understand that you want to work with Markdown files. That's fair. But the situation is not as bleak as you portray.

First, Evernote supports Markdown-like syntax for fast formatting on the fly. It's at the bottom of their keyboard shortcuts. I just learnt that, and it's a big facepalm moment for me. Now, I can write like I write Markdown, at the same speed.

Also, as I said, .enex contains information as a superset of Markdown, and can be downgraded to Markdown pretty easily. It's XML with a well defined DTD (see details here). There's at least one tool which converts .enex files to Markdown files. So if you want a small backup script which downloads everything and converts to Markdown, it can be done pretty easily.

It would be ideal if this would be done by Evernote themselves, but this is the state we're in now.

Obsidian is a nice tool, but I don't want to use a closed source Markdown editor for solely taking notes and syncing them over Dropbox, because I use many of the Evernote's features like sharing and collaboration. Dropbox part is not a problem. I pay them good money. But sharing notes over Obsidian will add another subscription with same price. If I want sync + collab, it's another expensive subscription. At the end, Obsidian is both closed source and expensive for a simple file format. Instead, I use Evernote, and collaborate much better in the end, with a better price too.

Evernote's is not a one way door. In the last 13 years, I have left Evernote twice, took everything out and migrated elsewhere, however I came thrice, and have no intention to leave this time.

[Notes4Darren 0]

On 1/5/2023 at 1:28 AM, PinkElephant said:

Maybe it simply is not on their list ?

Not everything some users want to get will be implemented - ever.

What is on their list? Is there a road-map somewhere?

They have done a better job of not 'interrupting' users when they push an update, but still, some of these updates don't explain well what they are for and and explain little to nothing of what's coming later/soon

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Nobody knows what's on the backlog, but from what we see, I doubt that markdown is anywhere to the top.

There are a lot of markdown commands available already in keyboard shortcuts, ready for use. I doubt we will see any more in the near future.

[k.tch 0]

Yep + rising price 😂 . Finally  switched to Craft ✌️ 

[PinkElephant 8,244]

If you were looking for a markdown editor, craft is fine (some others as well, just to mention it). As a full replacement for EN it is not, lacking most of the feature set of EN, which BTW is what subscribers pay for.

If Craft is all you need, probably with EN you picked the wrong tool in first place.

[Æsc 0]

+1 for native markdown, though I doubt it will happen in the next few years, so it will end up being a reason to let my subscription lapse and try something else.

[Kethryn 1]

I have recently tried exploring Obsidian and LogSeq. Both supports markdown and seems rather interesting applications to use; given it has a way to maximize on the knowledge graph concept too. EN needs to understand sometimes it is not UI that is important for users but rather how easily the data can be sorted and categorised through the common language means. Imagine if you are on phone or tablet, I still have to take my fingers off to look for the bullets, indent, bold or italic when I can just simply type commands like "*" or "_" or h1/2/3 to quickly format the information I have. 
Why don't Evernote just share on some of the asks customers have raised in a survey and let us know to be involved in the prioritization too? We are mostly paid subscribers and should have some influence on how the product to go towards to.

[agsteele 2,964]

Evernote has never offered full markdown support. This thread dates back to 2015. So no evidence that there is the slightest intention to go beyond the basic markdown style text shortcuts for things like headers.

The new owners might be persuaded to reconsider but, at least for now, that seems unlikely. Even if it was accepted as a suggestion to take forward Is guess that it would require a returning of the editor code. That's so fundamental that it would likely take months to develop and integrate.

So make a request to Evernote but don't expect anything in the near or mid-term.

[Gabriel de Oliveira 2]

I would also love to see Markdown native support.

[agsteele 2,964]

As noted above. This doesn't seem to be on any agenda. If markdown is essential for you then an alternative note taking application may be the way forward.

[Boot17 1,484]

This thread was first started 8 years ago when markdown was relatively new and there weren't many markdown apps out there. So this request kind of made sense back then. However, now there are a ton of markdown-based apps out there! Evernote also has some really nice markdown-like syntax shortcuts that are really convenient and many don't realize that as evidenced by numerous comments above.

It seems weird to me to want to take an app with a more robust editor than what markdown affords and pigeon-hole it backwards to just markdown.

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Anybody asking for markdown should check the current keyboard shortcuts. I don’t think there is much left to implement for full Markdown.

[ykevernote 0]

On 10/23/2023 at 11:04 AM, Kethryn said:

I have recently tried exploring Obsidian and LogSeq. Both supports markdown and seems rather interesting applications to use; given it has a way to maximize on the knowledge graph concept too. EN needs to understand sometimes it is not UI that is important for users but rather how easily the data can be sorted and categorised through the common language means. Imagine if you are on phone or tablet, I still have to take my fingers off to look for the bullets, indent, bold or italic when I can just simply type commands like "*" or "_" or h1/2/3 to quickly format the information I have. 
Why don't Evernote just share on some of the asks customers have raised in a survey and let us know to be involved in the prioritization too? We are mostly paid subscribers and should have some influence on how the product to go towards to.

I just switched to Obsidian. You can use a sync app to sync content across devices. They store the data in markdown files, so there is no vendor lock-in. Markdown is especially extraordinary for people in STEM and programming who badly need this.  I have been a former paid user of both Evernote and Notion.

Let's see how the new owners of Evernote take it to places. I was surprised to find 50% discount offers from Evernote which never had happened before.

[ubermuse 0]

Absolutely agree... came here just to vote this up. Longtime user but as a developer, the lack of markdown support is a dealbreaker so I resort to plaintext notes or Notion. Definitely decreases the value of my subscription.

[WCG-Taskforce 1]

I'm supporting this idea.

The main feature I'm looking for is:
* Automatically formatting Markdown formatted text that was pasted into a note.

[chikega@mac.com 0]

Has it really been six years since this post was created? Markdown should not be that difficult to implement. If little apps like Bear app(mac) can support it, Evernote with much more revenue, can certainly pull it off. Why the delay? 

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Most likely because the majority of users is not interested in getting their editor experience broken. We have had users migrating to EN for not wanting MD.

If you want MD, choose one of the apps offering it.

[Mike P 2,721]

The ability to import markdown is apparently coming.

 

[PinkElephant 8,244]

Which is great, because the Import from other apps was always a weak point. 

It will allow users who are fed up with MD enforcement to migrate their content out of it 🙃😅

[agsteele 2,964]

1 hour ago, Mike P said:

The ability to import markdown is apparently coming.

Yes, it is gradually arriving in a desktop app near you.  Go to Settings / Import and, when available, you can drag and drop from Apple Notes, OneNote, Word, Google Docs and Notion (Markdown).  I've tested the Word and Markdown and a coherent note is created from the original document.

[Mike P 2,721]

7 minutes ago, agsteele said:

Yes, it is gradually arriving in a desktop app near you.

Given that I'm still waiting for a new Android home screen and full screen tasks on desktop I won't hold my breath.

[agsteele 2,964]

I think the Android Home roll out has been very cautious to test user response. This function will, I think come at a more predictable pace. You may already have it

[PinkElephant 8,244]

iOS new Home is rolling out right now.

The Home Screen on the iPhone has changed dramatically. Not so on the iPad, there it still reminds at the desktop app. Which is ok, given the difference in screen size and shape.

[agsteele 2,964]

Yes, I believe that this is the plan.  The new mobile home screen is for phones only.

[Notes4Darren 0]

Those that want Markdown editing and are fed-up waiting (to be taken seriously), should trial Obsidian.

It’s free, has huge community support via a plugin architecture, supports MD natively and integrations with Excalidraw and Mermaid for diagrams and mind-maps.

I’m not all that happy with the note organisation (navigation etc, as it’s closely coupled with the filesystem… so note naming has restrictions); alas, I’ve been on the EN-koolaid for a long time, I probably just need time to adjust

That said, note linking and the cluster/cloud view is very cool.

Device syncing can be done via a paid vendor plugin, or you can roll your own; I have ResilioSync so am personally tinkering with that

[Boot17 1,484]

10 hours ago, chikega@mac.com said:

Has it really been six years since this post was created? Markdown should not be that difficult to implement. If little apps like Bear app(mac) can support it, Evernote with much more revenue, can certainly pull it off. Why the delay? 

That's because Bear is only a markdown editor. Markdown editing is much more basic than the rich editor features that we get with Evernote. Why should Evernote dumb down their editor to markdown? (Saying this as somebody migrating to Obsidian.) Or why should Evernote have to support two different kinds of editors?

More markdown-like shortcuts could maybe be nice, but we already have most (if not all) of the common ones.

On 4/17/2024 at 2:47 AM, WCG-Taskforce said:

* Automatically formatting Markdown formatted text that was pasted into a note.

This is one of the few requests in this thread that makes sense IMO. Importing a markdown file (which is nice and is coming soon) is close, but not the same thing. Native exporting to markdown would also be nice, but there are tools like YARLE that can already do it.