Cut and Paste into Evernote with checkboxes

[byronsalty 0]

Is there a way to setup text in a way to paste into Evernote (Mac app) in such a way that checkboxes are created?

I know there is an autoformatting feature of including '[]' but that apparently only works if you are typing it in. Perhaps another way to solve this would be to be able to force an "auto-format" on a body of text. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 1,997]

Hi and welcome to the forums. Interesting idea. I don't use a Mac, but others here may have suggestions. Can you say a little more about how your workflow involves doing this?

[PinkElephant 5,174]

This is nothing specific to EN. When using the Mac feature of text shortcuts, the expansion from the abbreviation to the full text only works when typing it in. When pasting the same set of characters from the clipboard, it does not convert.

This happens in other apps as well. Only typing the characters of a shortcuts has the desired effect.

[byronsalty 0]

15 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Can you say a little more about how your workflow involves doing this?

Sure, I have a little program that I'm writing outside of EN that will spit out something like:

[] drink coffee

[] do laundry

 

How can I then paste these in without typing them over (or editing each one to make the autoformatting kick in)?

I'm wondering if instead I could use the developer API to directly create a note fully, but that seems heavier weight than just cut/paste.

 

(FWIW - I know there are other features inside EN that will allow me to do todos but I have an external system that I'd like to use.)

 

 

 

[byronsalty 0]

14 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

This is nothing specific to EN. When using the Mac feature of text shortcuts, the expansion from the abbreviation to the full text only works when typing it in. When pasting the same set of characters from the clipboard, it does not convert.

This happens in other apps as well. Only typing the characters of a shortcuts has the desired effect.

Interesting. I'm not using text shortcuts from Mac though.

I'm simply using an application to generate some text that I want to use to create a note in EN. However that text/note needs to include checkboxes.

[Boot17 529]

On Windows, there is an app called Clipview that you can use to inspect the raw content of the clipboard.

 

Take this snippet here:

When copied to the clipboard, here is the clipboard content in HTML represented format:

 

You can see that the clipboard knows there is a difference between the first two lines and the third line. I think on MacOS the clipboard would be similar.

 

You can't actually copy any of that HTML shown in the 'Content' window above to the clipboard and paste it back to get it to the format you want, but I just wanted to show that the clipboard knows there is a difference there. 

 

If whatever application you are using can set meta-data in the clipboard then I would think you could do this. If you are just stuck with generating plain text to copy then I think you are going to be out of luck.