Business card scanning and saving to contacts

[JHE 0]

Hi,

How to define default notebook / tag for scanned business cards? 
How to make them be automatically saved into Contacts?

BTW: nice look. 
J. 

[amongu 0]

I am also looking for a solution. 

 

[monyw 1]

I can't find this feature is it really gone? nothing works in this version you can't add a picture of the back of the card and editing the contact info on the ios app is now imnpossible 

[Greg Chew 0]

I am also seeking for this option that was previously available .. not the default / save to address book options are missing in the settings.

[theresashaw 3]

Is this feature really gone? It is the only reason I have a premium subscription. Otherwise what is the point of scanning business cards if it is not saved to your address book?

[PinkElephant 8,071]

It is in general working: Hit the up arrow right beside the new note text on the green button.

Select scan document. When it detects a business card, it switches into that mode. Or you can switch it yourself after scanning.

If in a note already, hit edit, then the blue + to the left, above the keyboard. Select camera, scan, it selects or let you select business cards.

The downside: It will try to find name, phone and e-Mail, and put it into fields in the note with the card. But it will not export it into contacts.

[jeanmiele 32]

It's a bad change that business cards can no longer be exported to contacts. This used to be possible. Is it still possible? If not, this is a huge loss, and makes entering business cards into Evernote all but pointless. Evernote is not, and will never be the primary way I manage contacts.
 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

When I tried early in the process, I found no easy way to export from the fields with extracted information.

Then I did not follow up, because I use a special app (CamCard) to scan business cards and move the information to contacts. I don’t feel that EN is really good on this, especially if you get business cards from a roaster of European countries, all with their own conventions about how a business card should look, different coding systems for addresses etc. In CamCard I can sort a Stack of cards by country, select the country in presets, scan and have a good chance that local properties will reflect, up to the language settings. Then I move on to the next country, reset settings, and so on.

It works great as well when you only have one setting, and just scan ahead. With a paid version you can even sync to Outlook, Google and Salesforce.

[nvautier 8]

No update from Evernote on this? A functionality I was depending on was removed from a product I paid for. It's very disappointing and I feel deceived.

[Sayre Ambrosio 520]

This feature is coming. Read the release notes when updates come out. They tell you what has been added, fixed, or is coming.

[estemmer 2]

Why was the ability to save as contacts at all taken away?  Used to work and is why I have been paying for Premium for years.  Wish someone from Evernote would chime in.

[David Good 0]

On 11/11/2020 at 11:23 PM, Sayre Ambrosio said:

This feature is coming. Read the release notes when updates come out. They tell you what has been added, fixed, or is coming.

When

[Sayre Ambrosio 520]

On 12/16/2020 at 12:55 AM, David Good said:

When

I have no idea. Just another user like you. I just know that it is slated to come back.

[henryhampton 4]

I guess I’m in the same boat.. just went to do this and it’s not there.. ***** this new app

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Card scanning is available. It recognized a business card, will extract some information from the scanned card, and save it into the note with the new contact information.

It just won’t export to contacts at the moment.

So you can debate whether the glass is half full or half empty.

[DannySands 8]

Scanning and doing OCR on business cards and then syncing to Contacts on my iOS device was a terrific feature. I hope it's slated to be coming back.

[Huy Tran 1]

On 9/17/2020 at 6:57 PM, JHE said:

Hi,

How to define default notebook / tag for scanned business cards? 
How to make them be automatically saved into Contacts?

BTW: nice look. 
J. 

Thanks for posting this, this is exactly what existed and now gone (with no idea why). I need them back, also plus "Option to automatically send hello email to scanned namecard"

[scanMike 0]

I was just about to get a subscription with CamCard and a friend said Evernote has a good scanning card option which links to Linkedin with same features as Camcard in gathering all the tel/address/email details and you can add notes like where you met the person etc. So today I just paid for whole year upgrading to Premium and name card just scans but not saving it in the business card directory. Or recognizing any details. I hope I'm doing something wrong as will be really upset if cant use this function as I have thousands of name cards want to keep in 1 place with searchable tag functions to put them in different categories like media/finance/property etc. Can someone help me or do I have to apply for a refund and use another app as spent 5 hrs today and still cant find answer. Using newer Samsung Android and PC. M

[Sayre Ambrosio 520]

On 2/20/2021 at 2:22 AM, scanMike said:

I was just about to get a subscription with CamCard and a friend said Evernote has a good scanning card option which links to Linkedin with same features as Camcard in gathering all the tel/address/email details and you can add notes like where you met the person etc. So today I just paid for whole year upgrading to Premium and name card just scans but not saving it in the business card directory. Or recognizing any details. I hope I'm doing something wrong as will be really upset if cant use this function as I have thousands of name cards want to keep in 1 place with searchable tag functions to put them in different categories like media/finance/property etc. Can someone help me or do I have to apply for a refund and use another app as spent 5 hrs today and still cant find answer. Using newer Samsung Android and PC. M

Unfortunately the Linked in partnership was terminated by LinkedIn a while back. 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

I wonder whether your friend will refund you ....

With EN, you may try by a support ticket. If you subscribed through the Apple AppStore, you can cancel your subscription there within 14 days without a problem.

[henryhampton 4]

On 2/13/2021 at 5:21 PM, DannySands said:

Scanning and doing OCR on business cards and then syncing to Contacts on my iOS device was a terrific feature. I hope it's slated to be coming back.

It never should have disappeared!!

[PinkElephant 8,071]

2 out of 3 exist in v10.5 already. Missing at the moment is the link to contacts.

Hope as well this will return in a future release.

[jfonger 9]

Evernote is always working on new improvements but the "user pain" from removing "save to contacts" is huge for everyone and this feature needs to be prioritized to the top of the development stack. Amazon listens first to their "customer concerns" and it has worked well for them. Customers are screaming for this to be reinstated and are feeling cheated with it removed during their subscriptions. Please fix this soon and send out a notice of when you plan to have it working again to assuage the anxiety. 

For those currently lamenting like me, note that you can keep scanning cards in EN and when the "save to contacts" returns, go back and send all those cards over to your contacts. No-one wants to be forced to subscribe to yet another App just to accomplish what EN used to do so well. 

[SDF 0]

I have been a premium Evernote subscriber for 10 years. I am very upset about the removal of business card scanning to contacts. EN sends lots of messages indicating additions and improvements regarding features. I certainly don’t recall ever receiving one indicating that this important feature was removed. Business card scanning to contacts should be prioritized. 

[Vistaro 2]

Been premium with Evernote since 2010 and can't help but feel we are going backwards, losing the ability to insert a business card into contacts is just one more example, wouldn't mind if it was free but I'm struggling to see why I would continue paying

[Vittal 2]

hv been a Evernote user since 2011 & upgraded to Premium years before.  Hv used the scanning feature of Biz Cards with an option to add this to Phone contacts which was helpful.  I find this is not happening anymore & many others are complaining about this feature withdrawn suddenly.  Can Evernote please confirm when this would be available again?  Pls consider this a priority!

[Avatarslink 1]

Why is the scanning of business card back side removed?  It’s hard to imagine why you remove that.

[Huy Tran 1]

Became Premium user just for save business card to contact and now this feature was gone.

[Ultymax 0]

Agreed it's a pretty terrible change, after 10 years on my end as a premium user as well, it's getting harder to support staying with it...except for the fact that there isn't a great alternative.

Regardless, I had the same issue today and found a workaround which is to copy/paste the contact into Cardhop from Flexibits (also creator of Fantastical). Cardhop has long been my go-to for importing eSignatures into contacts, and now Evernote's scanning feature pretty much results in something equivalent to an eSignature. Works well in my tests and the Flexibits content is worth it on its own.

[hadio 0]

I’m also still waiting the function to save business cards to iOS contacts. It is the only reason I have a premium subscription.

Please let me know if EN has intention to make this function available again? Or I need to consider other way to do this… 😢

[PinkElephant 8,071]

It saves currently to EN , and that is it for the moment. No roadmap if and when the sync to iOS contacts will be restored.

Since the mobile apps are digital twins, EN will probably take some time to release it, because it needs to integrate on Android as well.

[dwaine 5]

If I have to go out and find another subscription for this, I will definitely reassess if I need premium for business cards. About to type in information now or pay for another service as time is money

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Do as you please.

Scanning cards is not the only feature of the subscription plans - and if it is the only one you need, you would be better off with one of the many card scanning apps you find in the AppStore. They do Contacts, just to mention it, but not much else.

Personally I found the combination of scanning cards to EN and make the contact then actionable with Tasks quite interesting. If you are on Professional or Teams, you can even assign the follow up with new contacts to other people. Since you can email or phone directly from the card note, direct Contacts integration may be not that important any more.

[pendolino 6]

On 11/17/2021 at 1:47 AM, dwaine said:

If I have to go out and find another subscription for this, I will definitely reassess if I need premium for business cards. About to type in information now or pay for another service as time is money

I second this! I was confused since I remembered it being there. I've been a premium member for so long but now rarely use the app. Whatever happened to this company??

[PinkElephant 8,071]

1 hour ago, pendolino said:

I second this! I was confused since I remembered it being there. I've been a premium member for so long but now rarely use the app. Whatever happened to this company??

To sum it up: You rarely use the app, are confused by it and still declare being a longtime Premium user. I hope I got it so far.

And what is your point now ? Time is money - at least you second this ?!

[TTAHJr 0]

On 11/16/2021 at 7:48 PM, PinkElephant said:

(A) Personally I found the combination of scanning cards to EN and make the contact then actionable with Tasks quite interesting.

(B) Since you can email or phone directly from the card note, direct Contacts integration may be not that important any more.

(A)  Yes - I use this to attach tasks to contact, but more so in the initial phases of attaching news stories from Feedly to the contact.  I'm finding Nobze.com to be a potentially valuable primary "project/task" provider that pulls from EN and adds more robust project/task management...jury still out on the synching...

(B) Contacts should always be freely transferable among many different platforms (just like calendars)...too many other uses like bulk sending etc

Edited January 13, 2022 by TTAHJr
emoji

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Currently if you want stuff extracted from scanned cards, you need to use another app.

It works fine for everything you do directly from EN, but that is it at the moment.

Will the improve on it ? Hard to tell - if I make a prognosis, I think they may do this one day, but not any time soon. It is a too specific use case.

[EricaK 1]

That isn't so specific. Most of us use our phones as the primary place to store contacts. Will I add every business card there? No; but I do for many of them, and thanks to this reduction, now I have to type or paste it in. Very annoying.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Some people do not scan business cards at all. Others use apps specialized to do it - properly, which means they try to extract all information.

EN is somehow on a middle ground: They only extract part of the information, but they make the whole card (including information not extracted) searchable.

If you want all information in contacts, EN was never a good solution. Get an app that is specific for it, it reduces mistakes and will fill the whole contact, not only a persons name, mail and phone.

[EricaK 1]

I was happy with the Evernote version, which I found got more fields than that. Yes I can put in a dedicated app, but it's annoying.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

... EN will not create a contact in the Contacts app. Fine if you want to keep all contacts in EN anyhow - less so if you prefer the integrations coming with the Contacts app.

EN makes the cards searchable, but as with other EN OCR features it only works inside of EN. The OCR results will not carry over when you leave EN, or when you export content. Since OCR search is one of the subscription features, it practically means continue to subscribe to EN, or get no value from scanned business cards when quitting or downgrading to Free.

My preference is to own my data, independently from any app I am using, at least those that require a subscription.

[jfonger 9]

We all continue to hope that EN reconsiders this glaring defect in their information service. It defeats the holistic environment for information that EN is trying to create and foster. If EN Contacts simply ported to Google Contacts then Google would be able to send those contacts wherever that particular user wanted them to go. This is one simple API that would make hundreds of EN users happy again. I am not sure what the reticence for this is within EN since if you asked EN management they would say they wholly aspire to optimize customer satisfaction. Any credible reason why they don't do this?

[dwaine 5]

Totally agree with you both. I ended up downloading another app designed for business card conversions. Changing what use to work to the current offer, definitely not a good look for EN version did work well for me. The app version I found is better in functionality, however not enough that I would use it instead of EN if the scanning and integrating with the contacts app was still available. 

[AMS123q 0]

Didn’t realize this wasn’t supported.  I watched an old vid on how to scan and save business cards to EN and export to Outlook and assumed the interface changed and but EN would of course still do this.  I bought a subscription in part because of that but may now cancel.  Not sure why that important functionality would cease to be supported.  I also assumed a LinkedIn link would exist.  Unfortunately, I understand that isn’t the case either.  Hopefully this can all be addressed in an update.  EN development team: kindly take notice of these requests from the user community.  Many thanks. 

[jfonger 9]

I gave up with Evernote and now use a 3rd party App (Camcard) for taking pictures of business cards and importing them to my Google contacts. This then talks to my Iphone directly and to my Outlook for Mac contacts using Contacts + to make the Google to Outlook connection. Now if I scan a card or put something directly into Google it will be in all 3 locations and any location will populate the other two. Should be easier but the real world requires real work - when Evernote is not willing to cooperate and do it for us. Please implement Evernote scanned cards to Google contacts. We can take care of our contacts from there. 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

The LinkedIn integration was already canceled years ago - not by EN, it was LI dropping the ball on that feature, right after they were taken over by Microsoft. Sure you can still find YT stuff talking about it - some years old, by 3rd party vloggers. If one follows that old advise, it can easily be that a feature has moved, or was removed.

Currently the build in scanner of EN mobile will create a business card note, and extract name, email and phone number from a scanned card. It does not export to any contacts book, not to the native ones by Google (Android) and Apple (iOS), and not to Outlook and the like. Maybe this feature will be added one day again.

Personally I use CamCard as well, but only scarcely. They have a new pricing model that has reduced the Free versions feature set a lot. The subscription for business card scanning (including the export to the contacts book) only cost nearly as much as a full Personal subscription for EN Personal.

Maybe all those who criticize EN for their approach think a little bit about it - they ask for a functionality as a secondary feature that stand alone is nearly as expensive as EN as a whole. There is nothing from nothing - if one decides to keep all business contacts in EN, maybe in a notebook with all business card scans and properly tagged, there is everything needed for a basic setup. it can even be used as a sort of CRM, holding more information about a contact than the usual contact or BC app.

[jfonger 9]

Thanks for your reply. The issue is really functionality across MS, Google, and iOS platforms with a single set of contacts, especially when that list is big and input comes from within email, scanning, and manual inputs. Most of us, myself included, don't use LI for our contact management but do use Outlook for Mac as one of our working environments - hence the need to talk amongst all three platforms with Google as the anchor. Developing a contact environment within EN would not be helpful and prior to EN decommissioning the contact sharing function we simply took an image in EN and exported to our connected contact environment. I do that now with CamCard and pay whatever is required to make that happen. All of us would like EN to give us the choice once the contacts are imaged into EN, to remain in EN for contact management which most will not do, or export to Google Contacts or the like to enable our current contact ecosystem. I will have to continue to pay CamCard until EN rises to the customer groundswell to reinstate that export function. Your primary goal as a software service company is to please your loyal paying customers and adding some tweaks to a team platform is pleasing EN more that it is listening to its general customer base. 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Good description of a use case.

If you want to reach EN PM, use the feedback function build into the clients.

[Chris_44 1]

Wow, like many others, I am extremely disappointed by this loss of functionality. I HAD been happily using it for years with Outlook, then noticed that the integration wasn't working. Never heard anything from  EN.

I was very happy with EN for years, but am becoming less so. OneNote is looking more attractive now. Noone is going to use EN as a contacts database.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Maybe you will not use EN as a contact database - if other will do, is out of your reach. As you put it, one single user among 200 million would be enough to prove you wrong.

Maybe the feature will return one day - and maybe not. Posting in the forum won't change this - use the feedback function of the client to express your view to EN PM. They are the guys who take decisions about what to code next.

[jfonger 9]

Good suggestion to take this request to the feedback section of the EN client - we will all do that. Hopefully that will find a responsive audience. 

[stepru 3]

On 10/29/2020 at 4:01 PM, PinkElephant said:

When I tried early in the process, I found no easy way to export from the fields with extracted information.

Then I did not follow up, because I use a special app (CamCard) to scan business cards and move the information to contacts. I don’t feel that EN is really good on this, especially if you get business cards from a roaster of European countries, all with their own conventions about how a business card should look, different coding systems for addresses etc. In CamCard I can sort a Stack of cards by country, select the country in presets, scan and have a good chance that local properties will reflect, up to the language settings. Then I move on to the next country, reset settings, and so on.

It works great as well when you only have one setting, and just scan ahead. With a paid version you can even sync to Outlook, Google and Salesforce.

Disappointing Evernote killed this business card & contact feature.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

The card scanning feature is still there, it just got more down to earth.

One must not forget that the card is a picture file, and as such it will be OCRed. This means that the information on the card is searchable - even when only name, email and phone number are extracted. This includes the back side of the card, if you decide to add it to the contact note.

The LinkedIn connection that existed some years ago was severed by LI, after Microsoft bought LI.

In my opinion EN business card scanning  does the job if you want to keep contact information for yourself, or in a Teams account. If you want to feed a professional CRM, use a solution build to that end.

[GlobalJZ 0]

Scanning works (business card), including adding back side.

But, saving to contacts requires using desktop app.  Clicking Share and then More Sharing will take you to Save to Contacts.  Cumbersome, but reduces potential error on automatic OCR.  You edit the entry before saving to contacts.  Makes sense and is more "down to earth.""

[EjectTheDead 0]

I'm new here and I just wanna add that regarding your question on defining default notebook/tag for scanned business cards and having them automatically saved into contacts, it would depend on the specific app or software you're using for scanning and saving business cards. Each one may have different settings or options for customization.
In terms of the financial viability of the business model for business card scanning and saving, it could be a potentially profitable venture depending on the market demand and competition. It would be important to conduct market research and analyze the costs and potential revenue streams to determine its feasibility.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

On 4/7/2023 at 11:42 AM, GlobalJZ said:

Scanning works (business card), including adding back side.

But, saving to contacts requires using desktop app.  Clicking Share and then More Sharing will take you to Save to Contacts.  Cumbersome, but reduces potential error on automatic OCR.  You edit the entry before saving to contacts.  Makes sense and is more "down to earth.""

The option you describe is only available in the legacy app.

It is not available any more in the current version.

[Brad Apple Notes 0]

Been a subscriber since 2010. Cancelled today.

I can OCR and scan to a database of contacts that I can't access. That's pretty useful. 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

You can use the scanned data inside of EN, for example to build your own custom CRM-style system. Backlinks can be used to bidirectionally connect information. Tasks make notes like scanned business cards actionable (when to call, what to send etc.).

As long as you stay within EN the scanned business cards are pretty useful. They won’t show up in the contacts app, which leaves room for improvement.