(Archived) PDF support

[AllenWatson 0]

It would be terrific if Evernote recognized PDF files, which are virtually universally available. On Mac OS X, "print to PDF" is built into the OS, and simply by placing an alias to Evernote into the "PDF Services" folder, an option to print a PDF directly to Evernote would be included in every print dialog. (Equivalent to dragging and dropping a PDF file onto the Evernote Dock icon.)

When can we expect PDF support??

[engberg 89]

PDF support will be available really soon.

[busse 0]

Very glad to hear this! That will make Evernote so much more compatible with scanning multi-page documents, which is my biggest hang up with it at this point.

[ljun 0]

thankfully it's coming soon

That's single-handedly, the only reason I haven't switched off Together on the Mac.

After PDF support, there are still a few things I would like to see implemented ....

- better OCR of standard Apple font in the OS/desktop

- some sort of "rules" system to be able to move things around.... for example: have an imported document with "dog" in it to automatically get placed in the dog notebook

- auto-OCR documents by putting it in the sync notebook and get OCR'ed, then auto-move to a local notebook so it can retain the OCR but not be sync'ed with EN servers

- better webarchive support

- importing via daemon instead of opening the main application just to import

[f00fighter 0]

I am REALLY looking forward to support for PDF's in Evernote v3!! I save all online receipts and confirmation pages as PDF's and the inability to add them to Evernote is a show stopper for me.

[bengrech 0]

Yes fully seconded. A universally accessible PDF printer that files directly into Evernote would certainly be a killer feature!

[jstam 0]

Hi there,

I'm very happy to read that EverNote was able to incorporate PDF support into the Mac software, and that similar support for PCs and the web is being worked on (I'm a PC user). Great job on a much needed feature!

Despite the somewhat limited PDF functions on the PC/web software, I'm happy to let you know that I'm already finding it very useful. As a learner in the medical profession, I come across many articles in PDF format. I find it helpful to take notes on important facts, but inevitably, the notes and the PDF files becomes separated on my computer.

With EverNote, I'm now able to take notes and quickly access the relevant original information in the PDF when needed.

Thanks for all the hard work,

Julian

[cr5595 1]

Yeah! Thank You.

[engberg 89]

Just to clarify ... you can add PDF files to notes via the Windows as well, and open those via either Windows or the web UI.

[dmwyatt 0]

Just to clarify ... you can add PDF files to notes via the Windows as well, and open those via either Windows or the web UI.

Is there any reason evenote can't index the contents of those notes?

I've been storing information in PDF's for years, and all the major search solutions like Vista and GDS can search the contents of PDF files. This leads to a major disconnect where I've got to decide whether to go through the extra step of storing PDF files in Evernote...because after all I can already do full-text searches of all of my PDF's.

This also leads to another decision I have to make. When scanning documents, I have two choices:

1. Scan them to Evernote and be able to search the content, but the content is stuck in Evernote.

2. Scan them to PDF and be able to search the content via Vista search, and be able to get the text out of the documents to use elsewhere.

If Evernote indexed the contents of PDF files I'd just scan most things to PDF and then insert the PDF's into notes in EN.

[crane 40]

Just to clarify ... you can add PDF files to notes via the Windows as well, and open those via either Windows or the web UI.

Now I'm confused. I just dragged a pdf to EN. I now have a link to a pdf (although it doesn't look like a link). If I double click on the icon, I open that pdf, but it's not the pdf I dragged, it's a copy of the pdf, which is being stored in my document & settings/.../temp directory. If I make a change to the pdf, e.g., highligh a passage, then close it, then click on the link again, I get *another* copy of the pdf open, again in the temp directory.

Can someone explain the usefulness of this to me? I fail to see why I would want to have a bunch of copies of pdfs in my temp directory. Perhaps I'm using it wrong? What's the proper use case?

Also, how do I just insert a link to the original pdf? This is how I tend to use EN and pdfs. I see the desire to have pdfs "embedded" (although not in the temp directory) and yet, it's still important to be able to link to a pdf already on my system. I tried right-clicking, but I only get the option of embedding the content, or creating a new note. Both of them create a copy of pdf. Please put back in functionality to embed a link.

[dmwyatt 0]

Just to clarify ... you can add PDF files to notes via the Windows as well, and open those via either Windows or the web UI.

Now I'm confused. I just dragged a pdf to EN. I now have a link to a pdf (although it doesn't look like a link). If I double click on the icon, I open that pdf, but it's not the pdf I dragged, it's a copy of the pdf, which is being stored in my document & settings/.../temp directory. If I make a change to the pdf, e.g., highligh a passage, then close it, then click on the link again, I get *another* copy of the pdf open, again in the temp directory.

Can someone explain the usefulness of this to me? I fail to see why I would want to have a bunch of copies of pdfs in my temp directory. Perhaps I'm using it wrong? What's the proper use case?

Also, how do I just insert a link to the original pdf? This is how I tend to use EN and pdfs. I see the desire to have pdfs "embedded" (although not in the temp directory) and yet, it's still important to be able to link to a pdf already on my system. I tried right-clicking, but I only get the option of embedding the content, or creating a new note. Both of them create a copy of pdf. Please put back in functionality to embed a link.

I don't see anything about embedding the content when I right click the icon created when I drag a PDF into EN.

I found out that to create the link to the original content that you're talking about you can select the original pdf in Explorer and right click>copy and then in Evernote paste it. It give you an option to insert link which is an actual link to the original file. Oddly, the insert link menu option has "(REMOVE!)" next to it...

I fail to see the usefulness of PDF support as implemented.

We need an easy way to link the original content, or embed the original content in an indexable fashion. Ideally, embedded content will maintain the formatting of the PDF while still being indexable.

A person can open a PDF in Reader, select the text, and then clip it to EN, but this is way too many steps and Reader doesn't let you select images and text at the same time. And, of course, you lose any formatting.

[CaptainCowPie 0]

I just wanted to say thanks for the PDF support on the Mac side. So far it works great, and syncs flawlessly on the web. I realize that not having a link back to original file limits its usefulness, but I am sure it will be coming. The Evernote team has probably worked some long hours just to get the PDF support out there.

Also, the new mixed view is very interesting. I am starting to see where it will become very useful in the future. A nice update overall!

Vince

[engberg 89]

Is there any reason evenote can't index the contents of those notes?

We intend to add indexing/searching for PDF notes on Windows soon. (You can search for PDF content via the web UI today, but we need to integrate a PDF processing library into the Windows client to pull the text out of the docs and index them on the desktop.)

[dmwyatt 0]

Is there any reason evenote can't index the contents of those notes?

We intend to add indexing/searching for PDF notes on Windows soon. (You can search for PDF content via the web UI today, but we need to integrate a PDF processing library into the Windows client to pull the text out of the docs and index them on the desktop.)

Very nice.

How will this work? I mean if PDF's work as they do now, where you have this kind of pseudo link to the PDF file, when you search and a term matches the PDF, will it just highlight the pseudo-link?

[Jims 0]

I am very pleased that PDF importing and support is coming to Evernote for Windows, especially the adjustment of the auto-import folder to accept PDF's, as it does now.

But I still wonder about Crane's question. If you use commenting tools at all in a PDF, or make changes, and it simply creates a new copy of the original PDF in the temp directory without the changes, that seems to defeat the user's goals. Also, what is the system supposed to do with hundreds of copies of pdf's in the temp directory? Do the old ones get deleted automatically at some point? Is the plan for windows to eventually "embed" the file in the database? Is that how it works in the mac version?

And finally, what do PDF's in the Mac version look like? Do they display the pages or just the icon, as is currently in Windows. If so, how does EN handle a 100 page PDF for display? Anyone have a screenshot of a PDF in Evernote for Mac?

Thanks...

[engberg 89]

How will this work? I mean if PDF's work as they do now, where you have this kind of pseudo link to the PDF file, when you search and a term matches the PDF, will it just highlight the pseudo-link?

As a first version, you'll be able to search for notes by text in their PDF document, but there won't be highlighting (since we're launching a third party application like Acrobat on Windows). This will get fancier at a later date.

[dmwyatt 0]

As a first version, you'll be able to search for notes by text in their PDF document, but there won't be highlighting (since we're launching a third party application like Acrobat on Windows). This will get fancier at a later date.

Ok.

As long as what is in there now isn't the final goal in PDF support. I can completely understand rolling out what you've got to the users and then enhancing it later on. As it is now, it's not very useful to me, but thanks for getting it out there for those who may find it more useful and also for confirming that the current PDF handling is just a step on the way to something fancier.

[ThomasStraten 0]

Although PDF would be great for some, it will probably be of very little use if the search engine keep beeing as limited as it is.

Tom