Keep the layout AND ability to edit the web clipped note?

[Paladine 3]

Hello!

I have just found the note taking programs (not sure how I have evaded them for this long) and I am trying to find The Best one. Unfortunately there are lots of them, but for me, it would need to clip web pages so that they keep the layout AND so that I could edit them (for example, remove unneeded parts from the middle etc) as well. So far I have tried three: Evernote, Microsoft OneNote and Joplin.

Neither of these seem to work perfectly.

OneNote: The only way to keep the layout is to clip the whole page, and then you cannot edit it anymore in OneNote. the clipper at least in Chrome is very buggy. Currently I cannot clip the whole page at all.

Joplin: Doesn't keep the layout but you can edit the clipped page easily.

Evernote: The best web clipper out of those three, BUT you cannot edit the clipped page in Evernote. "Simplify and make editable" breaks the whole layout. I understand that this worked fine in older versions though?

This might be the wrong forum to ask, but is there any other note taking software that actually clips web pages, keeps the layout AND lets the user edit that clipped note?  

[gazumped 11,652]

4 hours ago, Paladine said:

is there any other note taking software that actually clips web pages, keeps the layout AND lets the user edit that clipped note?

Web pages are created in a variety of ways using different layouts and systems.  Once copied,  the content is basically a snapshot of that layout,  and changing any detail - even adding one word - is liable to break the whole thing.  The only options you have are to screenshot the page and annotate those images - you'd be able to add arrows and short text comments forinstance - or to make your comments in a separate note,  maybe merging the two later.

[Paladine 3]

I managed to install Legacy version of Evernote as well (v 6.25.2.9198), and that actually lets me edit the web clipped note while preserving the layout more or less. It's not perfect, but it preserves the layout better than OneNote or Joplin, so I wonder why Evernote has made that functionality worse in v10 instead of improving it.

As a side note, backupping notes is not too simple with Evernote (if you want that to happen automatically, that is). I managed to set up a sync to Google Drive using cloudHQ which saves all my notes in GoogleDrive both in database format AND PDF (it's great to have backups in readable format as well just in case). However, Joplin has built-in functionality to sync to NAS drive for example, which I think is always better as I don't have to rely on third party services. From NAS I can backup again to Google Drive, for example for maximum safety.

I guess I need to think about which software suits me best and what kind of layout regarding webpage imports is enough for me.

[MickyD 0]

On 2/27/2021 at 7:29 PM, gazumped said:

Web pages are created in a variety of ways ....  Once copied,  the content is basically a snapshot......and changing any detail - even adding one word - is liable to break the whole thing

Well I'm not too sure about that.  Case in point, using Evernote back in 2010 I captured an article from the web using the clipper.  Just now the Evernote client quite happily let me edit it the very same note to make the word "blocked" bold.  See Capture01.png below

I know it was only in the last year or so Evernote made it very difficult in the client to find that "edit" button for web clips and sometime this year you can't at all.

 

On 2/27/2021 at 7:29 PM, gazumped said:

...and changing any detail - even adding one word - is liable to break the whole thing.  The only options you have are to screenshot the page and annotate those images 

The current Evernote web clipper regardless of which text-based capture format option is chosen simplifies or removes formatting ultimately resulting in data fidelity loss. So Evernote has already broken it.

With no ability it edit the unattractive web-clips we create this year we might just have to take raster-style "screenshots" in which case I will cancel my Premium subscription of 13 years and use Microsoft OneNote.

 

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022954093-The-new-note-editor-in-Evernote

https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/128961-how-to-edit-webclip-note/

 

 

[gazumped 11,652]

On 6/6/2021 at 5:52 AM, MickyD said:

using Evernote back in 2010

Just for the record,  web pages 11 years ago were coded differently from those available now.  HTML5 came out in 2014 forinstance...  and changing one word isn't quite what I meant;  "snapshot" wasn't meant to imply an actual image of the page,  just a block of code which ensured that the layout and format of the content was preserved.  Adding some random edited improvements on top of that will break things.

Good luck in finding something which fits your needs.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Web clipper is made to clip content, to retrieve the information, not to create working, editable copies of a site. There is a zillion of content management systems out there (WordPress probably the most popular), and they all have their own ways to build sites.

Nobody can reasonably expect EN to build a web site editor that covers all of them. When you want to make an edit, simplify the content by using the magic wand symbol (or the menu item), and you can edit it. It NEEDS to break the site in this moment. If you want to keep both, duplicate the note with the web clip first, then simplify the copy.

[Theday1smine 15]

On 2/26/2021 at 10:46 PM, Paladine said:

This might be the wrong forum to ask, but is there any other note taking software that actually clips web pages, keeps the layout AND lets the user edit that clipped note?  

I feel your pain.

The real issue you're running into, is the inability to save CSS @media queries in web clips. 

If web clips saved the media queries from the source web page. . . then your, my, & everyone else's desire to edit a web clip would — in an instant — vanish!

If you could save media queries, all web clips would look like the source web page — on Evernote desktop & mobile.

Problem is, the evernote webclipper makes everything in-line styles. & It strips all media queries from the clip. 

There's ways to get around it, like using flex-box selectors, but doing that taxes a ***** ton of time.

Even now, with the irritating innability to save god blessed media queries, evernote's clipper is the best in the world.  No other app lets you clip semi-full html & css, and displays it, inline, next to other native note content. None!

I've likely spent more time than anyone on this forum, trying to circumvent the limitations of evernote's web clipper. 

If you want workarounds, send me a dm. I'll tell you. Why not just say here?

Because every time I've every publicly posted a workaround, they patch it. 

Example: you used to be able to edit web clips, on evernote web by switching to the "classic editor." In the old classic editor, on evernote web, on desktop, you could edit any content in a note (web clips included) via the web inspector. And your edits would save.

Now, on my version, you can't edit content in the classic editor any more.

 

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, Theday1smine said:

I've likely spent more time than anyone on this forum, trying to circumvent the limitations of evernote's web clipper.

- According to your profile,  you joined about 8 months ago.

1 hour ago, Theday1smine said:

Because every time I've every publicly posted a workaround, they patch it. 

The same profile says you've posted 29 times.  None of those (that I can see) included workarounds.

Given that Evernote is updating their code every couple of weeks,  I'd think it very unwise of anyone to attempt to "work around" the normal operation of any of its features. 

Any active patching that's going on is more likely to be related to bug fixing and new features than closing backdoors,  but any given tweak might not last past a day or two before bad things happen to your content.  Just sayin'...

[PinkElephant 8,071]

With every turn and twitch in web design and browser development it probably got more difficult to achieve proper clipping and full editing abilities at the same time. My interpretation is that they split the problem into 2 separate ones: One part occupies itself with the clipping, the second one with the editing. 

To make both independent from each other, the „simplify formatting“ act allows the second group to edit based on a known interpretation of the web code. This makes the solution more stable - even if some fellow users seem to dislike it, for being sort of clumsy.

Personally I can easily live with it. I accept not everybody will agree with this opinion.

[Colleen O 10]

Yes, the clipper is "broken"! 🤣

Something has changed because other notes from the last few weeks that I clipped and annotated are fine. Some were clipped using "Article" and some were clipped as "Simplified Article".

Today, I clipped a page - it looked fine - then I added comments to the top. A few minutes later, because I'm clipping multiple pages for various products, I go back to the first note and my comments are fine, but the rest of the clip is "scrambled" (layout lost, text on top of text, format skewed, unreadable). 

Ok, so try something different...highlight what I most want to keep...clip. Note looks fine until I add my comments to the top; scrambled again. I'm gathering specs for (5) different video cards. Did each page twice in different ways - Article, Selection. 

I work mostly in EN Legacy. (Let's not open that can.) But, when I look at the EN web app these new notes show the block (Web clip) for the "selection" method, however,  the actual text takes up a half a page and there's at least a page, maybe two, of nothing before I get to the end of the block. Why? If I try to make editable...gibberish. 

Lots of time lost and goal of saving the information not yet achieved.

 I've seen the explanations of WHY web pages can't be clipped "nicely"...so Evernote should just ADD itself as a printer (print to Evernote) and have that as an additional clip option.

For what I'm doing today, that seems to be my only option...print (selection) to PDF, create EN note, insert PDF...*sigh* repeat 4 more times...(yes, I also tried "simplified article" and the information, visually in tables, comes out in one LONG list making it difficult to read.)

[PinkElephant 8,071]

These observations that the WebClipper works better on some sites than on others are not new. Since websites don’t follow strict design and code rules, there is a large spectrum of technologies to cover.

As long as it extracts the key elements of a page, and makes it accessible in a note, nothing is „broken“.

When you encounter a page that is hard to clip, a support ticket will help the dev team to take a look and improve the clipper.

[cleo 0]

Aren't things supposed to get better? Why did Evernote abandon a clipping process that worked well and allowed editing and adding comments for the POS that they have now? I was one of the very earliest Evernote paid clients, joining in March 2008, and it is sad to see them ***** up this program. 

[gazumped 11,652]

22 minutes ago, cleo said:

Why did Evernote abandon a clipping process that worked well and allowed editing and adding comments

Hi.  It didn't.  Clipping a web page has occasionally been difficult and adding anything to the original content has almost always led to... odd... reactions,  largely because of various web browsers' and lots of page authors' use of various flavours of HTML, CSS, Javascript,  Python,  Ruby and heaven knows what else,  all lurking inside the note body waiting to do their thing with any edits.

To annotate a web page - use a screenshot.  Or another note (you can even merge them later).  Or the 'remarks' field in Clipper. 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

… or create a pdf from the website, and use the annotation tool on it.

An original sites code can only be edited without a risk of loosing content and formatting by the tool used to create it. This is why EN uses the „simplifying“ tool - to build a standard code page that can be edited by its own editor.

[cleo 0]

So it is months later, and they have done nothing to fix this.

I would NEVER recommend Evernote to anyone. I am in too deep to escape, having joined in 2008. But watching these monsters destroy this program over the years has been heartbreaking.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

There is nothing broken, so there is nothing to fix. EN does what it is build for.

If you want to edit a downloaded website, stop the whining and get the tools to do it.

The rest of your post violates forum rules and simple human respect for each other.

[CR5150 14]

I love EN web clipper. I can’t stand Onenotes. It is total garbage compared to EN - best in the business IMO