(Archived) Opinion about Evernote +how compares to Onenote +suggestions

[polocanada 15]

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Summary: Great software. Really impressive! Different use than MS Onenote.

Evernote = JOURNAL & ARCHIVING. Great for filing, journaling and tagging.... Onenote = ORGANIZER. Great for brain storming, job and task management, tracking vacation plans, sketch ideas etc...

Evernote is a good application for FILING stuff and keeping stuff organized to find it easily. The main difference of EN to MS Onenote is (by its design) that EN is more rigid in structure and the notes can't be so easily RE-ORGANIZED, sorted and can't be so easily TRACKED. So tracking and constant re-organizing information, this is where Onenote shines. However, Evernote is better at filing stuff because it keeps it easily accessible in journal. Evernote has Timeband, which is interesting feature and offers a sort of chronological tracking.

Evernote:

In Evernnote the search function is important and Note List. In evernote you have a journal with entries (titles) and tags. Notelist is useful especially if there are many notes under a specific tag.

Onenote:

In MS Oneote the search function is OK, there are even tags, but work like lame ducks, so they are not useful to their full potential as on Evernote. There are tabs. I miss the categories in Evernote, you removed them from version 3.

Evernote:

Evernote is kind of Gmail type of application.

Onenote

Onenote there are separate notes and tabs. So kind of Yahoo mail approach, if I can say it that way..

Evernote:

Evernote shines where you need to file your notes from school, receipes, invoices, documents etc... Good if you have many notes. However if you need to move things between categories frequently, than Evernote right now is not very good it its job.

Onenote:

Onenote on the other hand shines where you need to track your projects, jobs, ideas (brain storming) etc... if you need to move things around frequently between tabs/categories.

Evernote:

It can be synced through internet and flash drive (Onenote only managed to offer sharing locally and Sharepoint). Also it has View in Google, encrypt selected text(vs the whole category in Onenote), evernote portable available (unlike Onenote portable which is I think unofficial software..), Evernote basic is free. Online web version available! No tables? Pen function is better than Onenote.

Onenote:

You can keep or hide note containers on pages and ability to WYSIWYG full page editing, including tables. Great for moving thigs around. So blocks can be moved around. Create appointment/reminder for note in Outlook. And an Outlook bar within Onenote? Hmmm, this is a good one, but let's admit it, Microsoft has an unfair advantage here. Many add-ons for Onenote? OK, ok.

Minor differences:

There are a couple of minor differences in some functions and shortcusts, like automatic copy/past (tape in EN and icon function on ON)... but this is not a big deal.

To summarize my long writing (thank you for reading this):

I can imagine work with both Onenote and Evernote, because they are for different things. If you don't care so much about about the features I posted above, you might be well off with any of these applications. Hope this review helps someone.

Wishlist for EN:

1) CTRL+ or ALT+ drag drop on Tags could make notes to change their tags. Right now, when you drag a note on a tag it will be stamped with that tag, but the previous tag will stay as well.

2) I wish I could edit the title of the note in the blue bar instead of clicking under Title in the Note list.

3) There should be an option to decide whether a file copied into the note is: copied into note, or link to original file location, or copy file to storage and link to it (as in Onenote.)

P.S.... where did lock function go in EN 3.0? Can't find it.

Thanks. -polo-