Is there a way to search and pull up only highlighted text?

[annygonzales 1]

I clipped a couple of articles online and highlighted important info/phrases from them, thinking I could later search by only my highlighted phrases and compile them either together, or in an easy to view list, but I can't seem to find anything. It would be so helpful if I could.

I remember when I was in school and I needed to quote certain articles, I would have to go through every article I clipped and scroll to search for my highlighted text, cut/copy, and paste it into another note just so I could have a whole comprehensive list of all my points. It was a huge pain and a big time waster. To be able to search for a certain color of text, or highlight, would be awesome. For example, if I made something red, and wanted to pull up all the text I had made red. Hope that makes sense.

I looked all over and couldn't find an answer to this! Any help would be appreciated.

[gazumped 11,667]

Hi. 

Evernote search works like this:  How to use Evernote's advanced search syntax

Unless and until Evernote publish any alternatives I don't believe there are any 'red' options.  You could raise this as a feature request if you wish...

 

[JBKELLEY 0]

On 4/17/2020 at 7:58 PM, annygonzales said:

I clipped a couple of articles online and highlighted important info/phrases from them, thinking I could later search by only my highlighted phrases and compile them either together, or in an easy to view list, but I can't seem to find anything. It would be so helpful if I could.

I remember when I was in school and I needed to quote certain articles, I would have to go through every article I clipped and scroll to search for my highlighted text, cut/copy, and paste it into another note just so I could have a whole comprehensive list of all my points. It was a huge pain and a big time waster. To be able to search for a certain color of text, or highlight, would be awesome. For example, if I made something red, and wanted to pull up all the text I had made red. Hope that makes sense.

I looked all over and couldn't find an answer to this! Any help would be appreciated.

You could always try to put a unique #tag on every Note that you make a highlight. Then you could do a search on the tag.

[jefito 5,589]

5 hours ago, JBKELLEY said:

You could always try to put a unique #tag on every Note that you make a highlight. Then you could do a search on the tag.

Except that the original request was how to search and pull up only highligted text  So before you can tag a note that has highlighted text, you have to be able to find those notes first. And in Evernote, there's no way to do that.

[CalS 5,280]

3 hours ago, jefito said:

Except that the original request was how to search and pull up only highligted text  So before you can tag a note that has highlighted text, you have to be able to find those notes first. And in Evernote, there's no way to do that.

Well there's a way but it is cumbersome to the point of not making it a way.  Export a bunch of notes to ENEX, open the text editor of your choice, and search for -evernote-highlight:true to find each note.  Not happening on my watch.  

[DTLow 5,736]

On 4/17/2020 at 10:58 AM, annygonzales said:

I clipped a couple of articles online and highlighted important info/phrases from them, thinking I could later search by only my highlighted phrases and compile them either together, or in an easy to view list

I don't clip the entire article
I clip the important info/phrase

The screenshot is from my Mac with the web clipper in Safari

 

[jefito 5,589]

51 minutes ago, CalS said:

Well there's a way but it is cumbersome to the point of not making it a way.  Export a bunch of notes to ENEX, open the text editor of your choice, and search for -evernote-highlight:true to find each note.  Not happening on my watch.  

Right you are -- probably should have specified "though the Evernote application UIs", but it seemed to be part of the problem definition.

Even so, if you want to do this with ENEX files, you'd need to understand how to figure out which note each highlight markup belongs to, and then add a special tag to the note, and then re-import the note back into Evernote in such a way that it replaces the original note. Let's just say that this isn't going to win any UX prizes any time soon...

[CalS 5,280]

16 minutes ago, jefito said:

Right you are -- probably should have specified "though the Evernote application UIs", but it seemed to be part of the problem definition.

Even so, if you want to do this with ENEX files, you'd need to understand how to figure out which note each highlight markup belongs to, and then add a special tag to the note, and then re-import the note back into Evernote in such a way that it replaces the original note. Let's just say that this isn't going to win any UX prizes any time soon...

1 hour ago, CalS said:

Not happening on my watch.

Interesting thing is if one just wanted the highlighted text you could copy/paste that which is after the marker.  But you would really, really, really want that text in its own list.  And yeah, no UX prize in the offing.  We all know all things possible aren't necessarily worth it.  

 

[ivanfield 3]

On 4/18/2020 at 2:58 AM, annygonzales said:

I clipped a couple of articles online and highlighted important info/phrases from them, thinking I could later search by only my highlighted phrases and compile them either together, or in an easy to view list, but I can't seem to find anything. It would be so helpful if I could.

I remember when I was in school and I needed to quote certain articles, I would have to go through every article I clipped and scroll to search for my highlighted text, cut/copy, and paste it into another note just so I could have a whole comprehensive list of all my points. It was a huge pain and a big time waster. To be able to search for a certain color of text, or highlight, would be awesome. For example, if I made something red, and wanted to pull up all the text I had made red. Hope that makes sense.

I looked all over and couldn't find an answer to this! Any help would be appreciated.

You don't need to clip whole article to find the text you wanted. Just copy the text, then hit "Ctrl+Alt+V". This makes a new note in Evernote with the selected text. (It actually copies whatever is in your clipboard, so if you have a smarter clipboard function it may be made more automatic). You could then combine these texts under a new note. The notes seem to retain the links that they were captured from, essentially the clipping you were doing.

[JBKELLEY 0]

On 4/27/2020 at 6:51 PM, CalS said:

Well there's a way but it is cumbersome to the point of not making it a way.  Export a bunch of notes to ENEX, open the text editor of your choice, and search for -evernote-highlight:true to find each note

Actually, if you wanted to automate it after the export, you'd have to strip out this part:

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 250, 165);-evernote-highlight:true;">

Then, you'd need to strip out the closing \span tag. Actually, it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard if you were good at scripting. i think it could be done with Automator but i'm more of a designer and know only enough coding to be dangerous. The challenge is that Evernote's export is a bloated mess of HTML.

i'd really like to see something like this myself to bring highlighted text into Roam. i just need each highlight on a separate line.

Maybe if Evernote would let me replace their highlighter app with Liner or another highlighting plugin, we could do it. (?)

[CalS 5,280]

41 minutes ago, JBKELLEY said:

Actually, if you wanted to automate it after the export, you'd have to strip out this part:

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 250, 165);-evernote-highlight:true;">

Then, you'd need to strip out the closing \span tag. Actually, it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard if you were good at scripting. i think it could be done with Automator but i'm more of a designer and know only enough coding to be dangerous. The challenge is that Evernote's export is a bloated mess of HTML.

For sure.  I was posting re the finding, not the fixing.  Not sure the juice would be worth the squeeze relative to extracting the highlighted text, for me anyway.

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, JBKELLEY said:

Actually, if you wanted to automate it after the export, you'd have to strip out this part:  ...

Then, you'd need to strip out the closing \span tag. Actually, it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard if you were good at scripting.

I'm scripting on a Mac (Applescript), 
Fairly straightforward script; Applescript does the parsing automatically and CalS identified the delimiter

[JBKELLEY 0]

1 hour ago, CalS said:

Not sure the juice would be worth the squeeze relative to extracting the highlighted text, for me anyway.

The juice might not have worth for you but i think there are a fair amount of people that, if this worked well and people knew about it, would find it extremely useful...especially academic types and writers (like me) who read and summarize lots of reading.

[JBKELLEY 0]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

I'm scripting on a Mac (Applescript), 
Fairly straightforward script; Applescript does the parsing automatically

i'm so jealous. i understand enough to Frankenstein certain things together and understand the possibilities...but writing something clean that "just works" would not be my forte. If you did it, i think you would be a hero; especially in the #RoamCult—and other "second brain"—circles!  🤩

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, JBKELLEY said:

The juice might not have worth for you but i think there are a fair amount of people that, if this worked well and people knew about it, would find it extremely useful...especially academic types and writers (like me) who read and summarize lots of reading.

Yup, that's the measure as to whether one rolls their own pending EN implementing such a thing, if/when.  For example, I created my own set of hot keys for reminders as there are none native to EN.  Worth it to me as much as I use reminders   FWIW.

[CryptoZeiss 0]

Would love this as I see it in other scholarly readying apps (Proquest), as well as Kindle....etc

I approach this slightly differently, working with Pocket to clip articles, then highlight in Pocket > which pushes the highlights to Readwise > which pushes them to Evernote.  So I end up with only the Highlighted text in Evernote, and the full text in Pocket.  Not idea, and quite the workaround.

[Lite1 2]

On 7/23/2021 at 1:49 PM, CryptoZeiss said:

I approach this slightly differently, working with Pocket to clip articles, then highlight in Pocket > which pushes the highlights to Readwise > which pushes them to Evernote.  So I end up with only the Highlighted text in Evernote, and the full text in Pocket

Interesting; definitely cumbersome as well as significant investment of money annually especially as I don't currently use either app.  Aside from that do you find any problems or annoyances with this approach?  Before I consider exploring it, want to have idea of downsides, problems.  Does Pocket allow for different color highlighters (I usually use 3 for my research reading), and do these colors end up in your EN note?

If I need this functionality my work around would probably copy/paste web article into Word.  Read and highlight/annotate there.  Then use Word advanced Find function for Format as Highlight; and then cut/paste the collective hits into an EN note.  Fuller instructions here (https://www.howtogeek.com/212319/how-to-collect-multiple-highlighted-text-selections-into-one-document-in-word-2013/)

[gazumped 11,667]

43 minutes ago, Lite1 said:

Fuller instructions here

Interesting technique, but not especially relevant to most users I'd suspect.  We're pretty much limited to offering suggestions around Evernote features here,  with occasional forays into "useful apps" - I doubt anyone has conducted any in-depth surveys into the advantages or otherwise of any given process.  We tend to work by trying stuff out - if it suits,  stick with it:  if not - try something else...