(Archived) Accessing MS Office Docs from Android phone?

[dalemccl 1]

I am an new EN free user (Windows version) who is considering upgrading to premium. Question regarding MS Word and Excel documents if I upgrade:

If I have an Excel spreadsheet or Word document on my PC's hard drive and place it into an EN note using the Windows EN program, I believe it will not put the contents of the file into the note, but rather a link to the file on my hard drive. Then whenever I click the link in the note using the EN Windows client, Excel or Word will open and I can view the spreadsheet or document on my PC. Right?

Now, if I want to access the file from my Android phone using the EN Android app, when I view the note that contains the link to the file, I can "click" the link (well, on the phone, I would "touch" the link) and my Android Office app (Documents to Go) will open the spreadsheet or document so I can view it on the phone. Right?

Now let's say some time after placing the document into an EN note, I update the spreadsheet/document on the PC directly by using Excel or Word (that is, with no involvement of EN). The next time I access the file from the phone, will the updates be shown -- or does it only show the contents as they existed at the time I originally placed the document into a new EN note?

[baumgarr 17]

If I have an Excel spreadsheet or Word document on my PC's hard drive and place it into an EN note using the Windows EN program, I believe it will not put the contents of the file into the note, but rather a link to the file on my hard drive. Then whenever I click the link in the note using the EN Windows client, Excel or Word will open and I can view the spreadsheet or document on my PC. Right?

No. It will put a copy of the document into Evernote. You can delete, move, rename, or update the original copy and it has no impact on the one in Evernote.

Now, if I want to access the file from my Android phone using the EN Android app, when I view the note that contains the link to the file, I can "click" the link (well, on the phone, I would "touch" the link) and my Android Office app (Documents to Go) will open the spreadsheet or document so I can view it on the phone. Right?

It would open the Evernote copy of that document on your phone. It would not do anything with the separate non-Evernote copy on the PC. It would, however, synchronize with your Evernote copy on that PC.

Now let's say some time after placing the document into an EN note, I update the spreadsheet/document on the PC directly by using Excel or Word (that is, with no involvement of EN). The next time I access the file from the phone, will the updates be shown -- or does it only show the contents as they existed at the time I originally placed the document into a new EN note?

If you update the document without Evernote, your Evernote copy would not be updated. Once it is in Evernote, it is considered a separate thing in the same way as if you copied it to a different directory.

[dalemccl 1]

Thanks for the clarification. If I have a document on my PC that I update frequently, and I want to be able to always see the latest updates from my phone, is there a strategy/workflow for updating the document that will accomplish that? (I currently update by using the MS Office programs on the PC. Based on what you said, continuing to do that won't accomplish what I want.)

[baumgarr 17]

If you update the doc by clicking on it in Evernote it will save & synchronize the updates. I don't know if the Android client automatically updates it since I've never tried it.

You could use Dropbox or something similar if you just want to update the documents outside of Evernote.

[dalemccl 1]

Thanks baumgarr. I tested your suggestion on the free version of EN by using a jpg picture, which the free version will allow. I added the .jpg to a note, sync'd, and then viewed it from my phone.

Then I clicked the picture in the note on the PC, it opened my default photo editing program. I made a drastic change so it would be noticeable. When I saved it, the EN note on the PC reflected the change.

Then I looked at the .jpg on the EN phone app and found it had not changed. But I did a sync in the EN phone app and the change showed up.

So this approach should work for MS Office apps in EN Premium and will allow me to view the latest changes on the phone. The downside is that the original version of the file on my PC hard drive is not changed when I do the updates through EN. The version that is changed is in a EN folder. If I always update the document via EN, the original hard drive version of the file will be out of date. I use PC-based back up software to back up key files weekly, so I need to keep the original version up to date, if for no other reason than to have a backup in case of a hard drive failure. Unless, of course, I change the weekly file backups to back up the EN folder instead of the folder in My Documents where the original file resides. Then I don't think I would need the original file any longer and can delete it. That's sounds kind of drastic though, to only keep Evernote versions of my important documents. Especially if some day I would stop using EN.

Thanks again. Now I need to think about whether I want to upgrade to Premium just to have MS office files in EN. The limitations outlined above may not be worth dealing with. Your Dropbox suggestion may be a better approach.

[TheGurkha 1]

Remember that if it is in EN, it is already 'backed' up for you. If you hard disk gets trashed, re-install EN and synch everything back to the PC.

And even before you re-install EN you can get at your stuff by the web interface in a browser.

You can also backup the EN local database.