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Keyboard Shortcuts for Moving Lines Up/Down


rabarberski

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It's not as elegant as alt + shift + arrow (up or down), but here is the workaround I just discovered. For any list that is numbered, bulleted, or has a checkbox at the beginning of each line--if you hover over the number number or checkbox--you will see a little hand appear. Once the hand appears, you can left click, and easily drag the item (or line) up or down the list.

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On 1/26/2019 at 12:36 PM, JodyHeath.Com said:

It's not as elegant as alt + shift + arrow (up or down), but here is the workaround I just discovered. For any list that is numbered, bulleted, or has a checkbox at the beginning of each line--if you hover over the number number or checkbox--you will see a little hand appear. Once the hand appears, you can left click, and easily drag the item (or line) up or down the list.

 

If they implemented drag drop, a keyboard shortcut should really be a simple implementation! The functionality is already there, just click based! It also means that they have seen demand for this general functionality out there.

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Desperately disappointing to see that this 'standard' feature is missing - and likely a deal-breaker for me.

I've got probably a decade's worth of muscle memory using Alt+Shift+arrows to re-arrrange text across a range of programs (Word, OneNote, Dynalist and several others), using it dozens if not hundreds, even thousands, of times every day when taking notes and editing docs.

I'm looking for something to fully replace my handwritten notes at work, and sync across laptop, iPad and phone - so necessitating a premium subscription if I select Evernote - but I just can't see me being able to use it without this basic functionality that's totally ingrained in all my usage patterns. Oh well, off to look at (& spend any money with) competitors despite liking quite a lot of what Evernote offers...

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They finally implemented a drag and drop function, so you can click on a number (in an ordered list) or a bullet (in a bulleted list) and move the line (and it's children) to a different place. If we get a keyboard shortcut assigned to this, it would be amazing. 

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Thinking about switching to OneNote because of lack of this feature, and moreso Evernote's demonstration that they aren't listening to users (going on 9 years without response to this). I've been a subscriber and advocate for Evernote for years but now that I use OneNote in some contexts (and can use paragraph reordering shortcuts in it as well as Word), it's a terrible frustration not to have it in Evernote's editor. 

(I'm now a Mac user by the way, though have used on all platforms)

Any feedback @EverNote?

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oh wow. i am a new user of evernote and i am currently browsing the forums to look for information regarding this. so apparently, there's no way to do this yet? I find that this is very useful and will be very convenient for all users if they have this. i am very much into keyboard shortcuts and do not use the mouse as much as possible. i hope this is included in a future update.

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Yes, while there recent updates have been good for functions like sharing notes, a few simple additions would make Evernote incredibly powerful as an outliner.

The SHIFT-ALT-ARROW keyboard shortcut for moving paragraphs, including bullet points, has become standard in many programs now. One day I hope that Evernote will include it.

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With all the fancy bells and whistles the developers have jammed into Evernote I find it :shock: shocking :shock: that they have not thought of including this one... How could they have missed it???

In any case, this omission is a deal-breaker for me. I won't buy the paid version until they fix this glaring "design bug".

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I think that actually Evernote's note editor is actually pretty stripped-down; not that many bells and whistles. I just tried Microsoft Word 2010 (a program that has many bells & whistles, if ever there was one); that doesn't support the Shift+Alt+Arrow shortcut either. And you can always cut'n'paste. So I don't really see this as quite so "glaring". Sorry it doesn't match up with your needs, however; I don't mean to imply that it's a bad idea.

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I think that actually Evernote's note editor is actually pretty stripped-down; not that many bells and whistles. I just tried Microsoft Word 2010 (a program that has many bells & whistles, if ever there was one); that doesn't support the Shift+Alt+Arrow shortcut either.

In Word 2007 this shortcut does work. However, I find Word's UI responsiveness for this shortcut a bit slow (only a few microseconds, but still..), so it doesn't really feel very natural using it.

And you can always cut'n'paste. So I don't really see this as quite so "glaring".

If you have never used this feature, I understand your response. I never felt a need for it either, until I discovered the feature in Eclipse and started using it. It is a very natural way of moving paragraphs, once you get used to it. And I miss it in the editors that don't have it.

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And you can always cut'n'paste. So I don't really see this as quite so "glaring".

Oh. My. God.

You really don't get it...

Yikes. I can only hope that Evernote's software/features/design team has more of clue.

G

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I guess that they have made a design choice and for the time being this feature is not supported. Of course, in future it might be implemented......

Seems like a fairly small use case to me, so breath holding may not be the best suggestion.

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And you can always cut'n'paste. So I don't really see this as quite so "glaring".

Oh. My. God.

You really don't get it...

I really do get that your feature request has merit. I just don't think that it's as important as you seem to believe, particularly since there's a workaround (i.e. cut'n'paste). It's still allowed for users to have differences of opinion, last time I checked.

Yikes. I can only hope that Evernote's software/features/design team has more of clue.

It'd be OK to keep the melodrama down to a dull roar...

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With all the fancy bells and whistles the developers have jammed into Evernote I find it :shock: shocking :shock: that they have not thought of including this one... How could they have missed it???

In any case, this omission is a deal-breaker for me. I won't buy the paid version until they fix this glaring "design bug".

And you can always cut'n'paste. So I don't really see this as quite so "glaring".

Oh. My. God.

You really don't get it...

Yikes. I can only hope that Evernote's software/features/design team has more of clue.

G

FWIW, there are many, many, many people who have a particular feature that they think is absolutely essential. Any software that doesn't have it must have been designed/written my morons. Etc. Quite often, there are at least as many others who think that feature is nice but not essential & would never use it and still others who think it's not essential but nice & may use it if it were implemented. Whether or not EN elects to include these features depends on many things including prioritizing time & money (which is often the same thing.) Apparently, even Microsoft figured it wasn't all that essential, since it was dropped. (shrug) (The weight that carries with the reader of course, depends upon their take on Microsoft. :lol: )

I would also agree with Jeff, that the EN editor is not all that feature packed. I'm not complaining b/c if I need lots of formatting, I'll simply use Word. I think the reason is that they aren't really trying to be a text editor, plus they want the usage to be as similar as possible across all platforms, plus, all attributes of the text must be able to be viewed on all the platforms, etc, etc, etc. So I think they started out with a very basic text editor & are improving it as time/money permits.

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I also agree that this feature is VERY important for text editors.

Does anyone know if there are better workaround than copy-paste ? Maybe external tools/plugins/customized hotkeys, etc? I feel it is the only feature missed that prevents me from moving from MS OneNote to evernote for windows.

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Yes, while there recent updates have been good for functions like sharing notes, a few simple additions would make Evernote incredibly powerful as an outliner.

The SHIFT-ALT-ARROW keyboard shortcut for moving paragraphs, including bullet points, has become standard in many programs now. One day I hope that Evernote will include it.

I agree that this keyboard-based approach to text management is critical for good touch typing note acquisition

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As someone mentioned, once you start doing it in other programs, not having makes Evernote feel stunted. Though I understand many people wouldn't use this, I would argue that most users don't use the majority of features at their disposal. Anyhow, add me to the list of people that would love to have this feature.

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Plus one guys,

 

You have implemented the great functionality for task managemnt, but you give no way to prioritize tasks easily. 

Arranging lines but shortcuts is must have feature for such a software. 

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Plus one guys,

 

You have implemented the great functionality for task managemnt, but you give no way to prioritize tasks easily. 

Arranging lines but shortcuts is must have feature for such a software. 

 

Cannot say it better, but

 

+1

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I have successfully created  a workaround for moving bullet points on a Mac by automating the cut and paste key stroke combination.

 

1. Install http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/

2. Create a "move line up" macro that looks like this

3. Create a "move line down" macro like this

4. If you don't want to mess up hot keys in other applications restrict your macro (I used Shift + Commant) to Evernote only: 

 

Alternatively just import the macro library that I created.

 

Note: If using with several levels (of indent) it's a bit funky. Also it doesn't work with tasks. If you figure out a way how to do it better please share.

 

Paul

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for me this is the single most important feature request to evernote. in fact, in spite of loving evernote, I spent 2 hours sifting through all competitor aps, installing them, trying out, etc, ust to see if anyone has this feature. none had...

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Using ALT-SHIFT (UP/DOWN) ARROW in MS Word is the single most important feature I use. Other's I've shared this tip with love it!  Imagine using it in a shopping list and putting your cursor on any line and simply pressing this key combination to move the item up and down in your list.

 

One great benefit in my writing is that it frees me from having to worry about the order I use when keying in bullet point lists. Any order will do -- then I just move things around.

 

This is a huge timesaver and being a developer, It's a big-bang feature for Evernote for a pretty small effort. Maybe the Evernote developers could try it in their own writing/development. Works for moving lines of Code up and down as well. I'm sure they would fall in love with it quickly.

______________________________________________________________________________

M i c r o s o f t   O n e N o t e . . .

<<<Note: MS OneNote has this feature and it has made me consider switching away from Evernote to just to have this ability back >>>

 

_____________________________________________________

 

As a development requirement: here is what I would write:

 

EPIC: Add a keyboard key combination that allows a line or paragraph to be moved above or below the current on.

 

  • ALT-SHIFT-UP-ARROW to move a paragraph up
  • ALT-SHIFT-DOWN-ARROW to move a paragraph down
  • Since lines in a list are essentially paragraphs, this feature will work for moving paragraphs or lines
  • Should be able to move lines through/above/below other formatting features such as titles, subtitles, tables
  • Would be nice to move items within a table this way as well, but that can be added latter (MS Word/OneNote allows this)
  • All the user need do to use this feature is to put the cursor anywhere within the line/paragraph to be moved. That is, there should be no requirement to select the line to move it.
  • A future item would be to allow moving selected groups of lines up/down
  • Lines are typically identified by CRLF type characters or items within HTML <P>xxx</P> tags

Use MS Word or MS OneNote to play around with this feature to see how it might work. MS Excel also has similar abilities.

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Don't forget Alt+Shift+Right and Left promotes/demotes levels in a numbered list.

 

Promote a paragraph. ALT+SHIFT+LEFT ARROW Demote a paragraph. ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW     Move selected paragraphs up. ALT+SHIFT+UP ARROW Move selected paragraphs down. ALT+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW
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and, equally, all this would be just as important on mobile. I imagine it like this: 1 single additional button in the top or bottom bar when editing a note. when one hits that button, one goes from editing mode to marking and moving mode. then one could either

a) just pull paragraphs up and down with the finger (simple and quick solution)

B) swipe over some text with the finger to mark it, and then have some options what to do with this piece of text (not so simple, but more feature rich solution. it would also help resolving the notorious problem that it is so utterly difficult to mark any text with two finger gestures. I often use it as I work much with underlining, bold face, highlighting, etc, but it is not a pleasure at all. and far from being effective...)

 

I even could imagine a) and B) at the same time, but one had to see if things do not get too slippery with too many features and functions at whatever gestrues one does...

 

what do you think? other ideas?

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Yes, this is the big advantage of OneNote, and Workflowy. I can't imagine it is too difficult to implement. Why are Evernote so slow with this?

Imagine WorkFlowy split into hundreds of disparate outlines. I like it that WorkFlowy is "One zoomable document." I like it that I can search my lists in one place, separate from web clippings, etc. Clean and simple. Evernote is fantastic at what it does… But I can't understand why seasoned WorkFlowy users would want to do their outlining in Evernote.

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It's just insane this this feature isn't implemented yet. Evernote is meant to be the über-tool for note takers. I take notes everywhere, but principally at customer meetings. Those notes are a précis of key points from my clients, and therefore are in bullets. And often I need to reorganize things as the client is speaking, which means moving bullets up, down, left or right. These operations should be some of the easiest things to do in Evernote, but instead the process is buggy and complex.

 

Since Apple has already added this to Pages, Keynote and other apps some time ago, in a very elegant way, I would imagine they've built this into the lower-level UI libraries and it's available to Evernote to add easily--if Evernote has an interest in actually doing this. Evernote has traditionally cleaved pretty closely to Apple UI design guidelines, so hopefully this isn't too difficult.

 

Here's what it looks like in Pages or Keynote: wood1_fig03.jpg

 

 

Can we please have this in Evernote soon? And could we please also get keyboard shortcuts to make this easier? OneNote is way, way ahead of Evernote with respect to this very basic ask.

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I definitely want to see this added, and am disappointed that it appears to have been suggested back in 2011?  Is there somewhere that Evernote users get to vote on functionality?  You don't have to take away Cut/Paste... but please find a way to do this edit.  I would add my +1 to the discussion, and also add how many times I go to do this in the editor.  I would even be happy with an editor icon that does the function like the "promote and demote" icons.  Seems to me that promote and demote would be more difficult to implement. 

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I don't know if the evernote team will work with evernote if yes: how often you want to move a list item to another position?

In my work with lists: yes often want to get a point higher or lower because in my brain there are many ideas and I want to type an rank fast with the keyboard.

so +1 for this really productive feature!

(and this feature is so important that this is my first post here and no cut'n paste isn't a good workaround because it needs to many steps...)

 

 

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I wasn't aware of this in Word, and it is a nice feature. Thanks for that, Linda! I use Nota Bene for my writing--it's more a research and writing tool than an "office" one--and it's very good at transposing paragraphs (and sentences, and words), and a good outliner too. But as for Evernote, I don't know that it was ever intended to be an outliner (let alone a good one!); and its editor is notoriously not its best feature. I find it works great for gathering information and short notes wherever I am, to be converted into actual writing (or even outlines) with other tools like Scrivener and Nota Bene. So far, no one-stop-shopping for writing and productivity tools!

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/bump to this thread. An ability to move paragraphs OR BULLETED items in list would make life immensely happier. I use Evernote to take notes. I also use Evernote to manage a few lists. I've thought about developing a UI leverage Evernote as a storage engage to customize this single experience. Then I discovered Workflowy, which does pretty much exactly what I had imaged to build on top of Evernote.

Hoping this sees the light of day.

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Evernotes team - with all due respect, it has been 5 years now... Why can't some developer brain power be used for such a simple but powerful feature, instead of wasting it for - frankly - useless stuff a lá work chat?

This is a must have, seriously. 

Thanks a lot in advance

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Still waiting for this important feature. What if everyone that has asked for this in the past (on this thread) responds again so we can impress upon the developers it is very important to us. It does not seem so compelling to those who have not used it - probably because they are not aware of it.

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Use this feature in Microsoft Word to get a great experience of how it works.

Open a MS Word document. Create a list of anything.

While editing any line/paragraph in the list   Use SHIFT-ALT-UPARROW to move a line up in the list, SHIFT-ALT-DOWN to move it down.

An amazing timesaver virtually everyone has use for in everyday editing

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1 hour ago, NormP said:

Still waiting for this important feature. What if everyone that has asked for this in the past (on this thread) responds again so we can impress upon the developers it is very important to us. It does not seem so compelling to those who have not used it - probably because they are not aware of it.

 
 

I use OneNote now. Luckily it is available for Mac now. Evernote is ridiculous for not even responding here.

What I just noticed: This post ("idea") doesn't have any votes yet. Is this a new feature in the forum? Maybe voting would help more than just responding (again)?

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Every time I have to Cut, move something around in my list, Paste... (then often have to insert or delete an extra return/bullet)... .then move to another item in the list, cut, paste, repeat... it kinda does make me think about switching away from Evernote.  Isn't it just good practice to follow Microsoft editing standards?  

As an aside I have over 1,000 notes in Evernote, that mostly are lists and projects... I do A *LOT* of this activity.

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I would also love to have this ability. I find myself wanting to swap items in a checkbox list and copy pasting checkboxes in Evernote is a pain due to the way the checkbox is handled. You need to:

  1. Select the whole line and cut
  2. Delete the empty line left when you cut the item with checkbox
  3. Make a new line
  4. Delete the checkbox automatically created when you made the new line
  5. Paste the new checkbox in the new line

Evernote Checklist.gif

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This is one of those minor features that makes a huge difference when it comes to the speed you can edit notes.  Using Evernote as a todo list, personal "bullet journal", etc. involves a lot of reordering!

Please consider adding more serious text editor features such as this. These type of features are what I sorely miss after coming to Evernote from a system involving a bunch of text files organized by folders.

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This feature will generate a significant amount of good will and enthusiasm from the existing customer base. It should be a reasonably small development effort with good payback!

For the relatively small effort in development it will save us users thousands of hours in frustration and time in avoiding editing lists THE OLD  FASHIONED WAY!

Please, please do this.

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I thought it was a standard feature for any self-respecting text editor and am SHOCKED it has not been implemented so far. More concerning is that Evernote staff have not replied to this thread....

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I wish Evernote would stop sending me survey requests for my 'feedback' and start delivering value to regular users. Insane that this idea has been around for 7 years, is standard for any text editor (as many have pointed out), and seems like a feature ideal for 2 engineers running a little hackathon.

I'd move to OneNote but I have to give Evernote credit for its syncing ability...I switch repeatedly between desktop, iPad and iPhone and my stuff is always there. Not so with OneNote.

Reading between the lines it seems Evernote (perhaps understandably) is all about growing new lines of revenue (all the business and collaboration features...which, for me, are better handled by wikis) vs. incremental improvements for individuals.

Sigh.

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H O W   A B O U T   I T   E V E R N O T E ?     A N Y   R E S P O N S E ?

I've done SW Tech support -- A non-answer usually means you're afraid to be honest?

Is your response, Sorry, this is not currently on our list of planned enhancements/projects!

--or-

Our policy is not to respond to customers enhancement requests?

----

You would respond if it is something we can look forward to. A lack of response is pretty clear indication EVERNOTE is not a good long term solution for serious users.

------------------------------

Any other users watching this?  Please continue reiterating this request so it does not appear it is no longer important due to lack of interest.

 

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25 minutes ago, NormP said:

Is your response, Sorry, this is not currently on our list of planned enhancements/projects!

--or-

Our policy is not to respond to customers enhancement requests?

From my experience, I accept both as Evernote's position.

Would you be happier if Evernote actually responded as such?  Maybe a canned message with every request posted.

>>A lack of response is pretty clear indication EVERNOTE is not a good long term solution for serious users.

I'm a serious user, and Evernote is my long term solution as a digital filing cabinet for all  my documents, notes, web clippings, ...

The Evernote editor was never my solution as a word processing replacement.  It is useful for basic notes.

 

 

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Re: not a word processing replacement....

Of course it's not a WP replacement, but myself and many other use it to create lists and record other types of thoughts. To prooritize lists or organize thoughts often requires us to move lines/paragraphs up/down in a note. With EN it requires selection of the text, CUT and then select target location and then PASTE.

In other word/text processors a simple key combination IE MS Word you simply use SHIFT-ALT UP/DOWN to move the text.

 

Evernote is lots of things to lots of people. Basic text/paragraph manipulation capabilities are considered standard in today's editors. EN is not keeping up with its competitors.

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34 minutes ago, NormP said:

Of course it's not a WP replacement, but myself and many other use it to create lists and record other types of thoughts.

If that's working for you, it's all good.

I find for many extended wp features, I have to switch to a word processing editor (Word/Pages).  I add the document as an attachment to a note.  Evernote works well with office/iwork documents,

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I've recently started to use these keyboard commands for much faster organization when tackling more complex tasks.

It feels crippling to not have it there.

For people who don't use it, imagine every time you tried to copy and paste the keyboard commands didn't work...   These shortcuts are already sublimated into my outline maneuvering habits.  No fun for power users.

Makes evernote painful to use.

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It's especially bad, since Evernote already offers so many text editing features - they clearly want you to edit text within their app - and not just shove data in from the internet...

But in particular, the existence of bulleted lists and numbered lists almost NECESSITATE being able to move items up and down in the list.  Who plops down a to-do list, or topics to discuss at a meeting, or ideas for an article - and doesn't then want to move them around?  Or does Evernote only want to be the storehouse for pre-formed articles?

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10 minutes ago, RevAugie said:

It's especially bad, since Evernote already offers so many text editing features - they clearly want you to edit text within their app - and not just shove data in from the internet...

But in particular, the existence of bulleted lists and numbered lists almost NECESSITATE being able to move items up and down in the list.  Who plops down a to-do list, or topics to discuss at a meeting, or ideas for an article - and doesn't then want to move them around?  Or does Evernote only want to be the storehouse for pre-formed articles?

^^ that.  Hierarchical arrangement is essential for knowledge-work and the tools should either be all the way there or not at all.

Also, I read the suggestion above by @DTLow after my last post, and it's an idea I was thinking about as well... problem is, it's fine for documents you'd visit regularly like role/project docs, but for quick work where you just want to right-click and add a new note for something, now one has to open word, create new (or use the explorer context creation), save and name, attach... not a speedy process -- and the additional ram overhead with working with multiple such documents -- it would be better to just stay using ms word entirely.

What's frustrating is the current text editing capability seems so close to being a good fit.  It really is a pity, but based on the age of the thread it's probably not a good idea to hold one's breath. 

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1 hour ago, RevAugie said:

It's especially bad, since Evernote already offers so many text editing features - they clearly want you to edit text within their app - and not just shove data in from the internet...

But in particular, the existence of bulleted lists and numbered lists almost NECESSITATE being able to move items up and down in the list.  Who plops down a to-do list, or topics to discuss at a meeting, or ideas for an article - and doesn't then want to move them around?  Or does Evernote only want to be the storehouse for pre-formed articles?

Agreed! Thanks

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On 1/26/2019 at 9:36 PM, JodyHeath.Com said:

It's not as elegant as shift and arrow up or down, but here is the workaround I just discovered. For any list that is numbered or has a checkbox at the beginning of each line--if you hover over the number number or checkbox--you will see a little hand appear. Once the hand appears, you can left click, and easily drag the item (or line) up or down the list.

Thanks for the tip!

  In case of a numbered or bullet list, you can create a complete tree by dragging items around, you can also drag a complete subtree at once. Interesting !

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Is there a UserVoice or something where we can vote on features? I tried to find one, but it doesn't seem like that exists?

So I guess for now I'll add my little +1 to this feature request. The drag'n'drop is nice, but having the keyboard shortcut would be SO much more efficient (as has been stated here numerous times before ;] ).

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54 minutes ago, HerbCSO said:

Is there a UserVoice or something where we can vote on features?

Vote button is at the upper left corner of the discussion.  This request has 37 votes

CEB9DED4-79FD-4A3F-9E00-1B0EC813E4D9.jpeg

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Can't believe this doesn't exist! ANY other note taking app/editor I use has it... I think every few months I come back to Evernote, search for this feature, realize it doesn't exist and move to another note taking app.

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