(Archived) Formatting hell

[wch 0]

I've been using Evernote for a little while now. I like it a lot, except that I'm running into severe formatting problems. I use the Mac application, the web interface, and the iPad application -- well, I tried using the iPad app, but gave up after it messed up some of my notes.

(An aside: I can't understand why there was a blog post that was so proud of having rich text for the iPad. It's somewhat rich text, with some bad unchangeable default settings -- you know,16-point double-spaced Helvetica. Did anyone actually try using the app?)

One note in particular I edit a lot because it contains daily tasks and quick thoughts. It's gotten incredibly ugly and unmanageable - almost unusable. Fonts are different across systems, spacing is inconsistent, links are different colors, bulleted lists are impossible to use, I lose information sometimes when I cut and paste, the cursor inexplicably moves to the beginning and end of lines when I move up and down, and so on.

Here's an example. It looks different with this web view than it does in the Mac app -- in some ways one is better, in other ways, the other is better.

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s54/sh/e4 ... 9c5656ab04

I know one thing I could try is to remove formatting. There are at least two problems here. The first is that sometimes it just doesn't do anything -- it doesn't change the font back to the default. The second is that sometimes I need the formatting like font sizes bold, bulleted lists, and so on. I just don't need the messed up parts of the formatting.

Anyway... Is there a plan to fix these problems? I used to love using Evernote and now I kind of dread it: "Oh man, I gotta edit that note again..." I used Google Docs before to store information, and despite its other drawbacks, there were never these sorts of problems. If Evernote fixed them, it would be perfect -- right now it's almost unusable for the most basic thing: taking notes.

[Owyn 457]

The problem(s) have been acknowledged by Evernote and they are working on fixes. No ETA (never is until ready for release).

I ended up embargoing all edits of existing notes on iOS. In fact, I even purchased the FastEver app for quick new notes. This is a pain for me, but, fortunately I do most of my work in either the Web or Windows clients.

Hmmm. Another thing that bugs me. The Evernote IOS app tends to crash if I check a checkbox. Sigh.

So. You have LOTS of company and hopefully some satisfaction in the near future. If you want more info check the Mobile iOS sub-forum.

[jefito 5,589]

Hmmm. Another thing that bugs me. The Evernote IOS app tends to crash if I check a checkbox. Sigh.

Oh, a GTD user?

*whistling, reaching for the checkbox...*

Just Getting Things... *sound of implosion* ...Damn.

[wch 0]

Thanks for letting me know. I hope the changes come relatively soon!

[hozo1 0]

so there i can't tell you ... love Evernote and use it in my work to collaborate ... but the append/simplify ***** has to go ... when i simplify ... it really means confuse.

they need to fix this quick or i have to move my agency over to something else ...which is a shame because i love this application

why don't developers beta better with power users ... if they did they would have easily known this for mac/ipad/imac/iphone users

[tomvon 0]

Same here. Formatting is a nightmare. Looking at other apps. Just need simple note taking with basic formatting.

[capnb 0]

Yes. This has just bitten me on the rear again while sitting in a meeting - taking notes has resulted in the formatting going awry. If 'simplify' actually did simplify it (to the extent of just reducing to plaintext) then I wouldn't have an issue and take it on the chin, but it seems to double-space and cause all sorts of issues...

(iPad note-taking, then going to use it on the Mac app after OTA syncing.)

[Owyn 457]

One workaround that might help is to create notes in a bullet list. I don't have an iPad to test this on, but, it controls the double space issue on my Touch. Might be enough until a real fix is available.

I have also determined that the checking -> crashing problem is related to checkbox in some rich notes. Checking checkboxes in plain text notes (e.g. to-do lists) has not caused a problem (so far).

[wch 0]

One workaround that might help is to create notes in a bullet list. I don't have an iPad to test this on, but, it controls the double space issue on my Touch. Might be enough until a real fix is available.

I wish I could go that route, but I've had really annoying problems with bulleted lists in the Mac application.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Bullet lists. Good idea!

Of course, this is useless for editing notes, so I will continue to treat the Evernote iOS just as a note viewer, rather than a note editor. But, for new notes, creating a bulleted list produces single spacing, and then if you go back and remove the bullets, the spacing stays. Yay!

[Ophelia D 0]

I haven't done too much shifting around in notes to have noticed the formatting problems.

Probably because when I copy part of the note I'm working on in order to re-insert it elsewhere in the same note, paste doesn't work! At all! I have to press undo multiple times in order to get my cut text back.

Why is this? Does anyone else have this problem? I'm new to this forum and tried searching without success to see if this issue had been discussed before.

[Phlosten 0]

I am regretting paying for the premium subscription due to all these formatting problems.

I have the laptop, an Android tablet, an iPhone and previously a BlackBerry and here I am scrathcing my head and wondering why there is so much inconsistancy across platforms. The whole point of the applications is provided a way of synchronising information across devices, ie keeping things the SAME!

Every time I touch a note with a different device it goes to hell. Really really disappointing to the point of useless.

I installed the latest pre-release in the hope that some of this was fixing, but alas it was not.

Please for the love of sane developing give us a Plain Text option!

[Explorator 0]

I do also encounter (recently) a lot of formatting problems when using Evernote on my iPad: words suddenly breaking for reasons beyond my understanding (and no way to fix that), sudden jumps to the following line, etc.

Worse, I nearly lost a long note, but managed to prevent that at the last minute.

Sometimes also, it is impossible to start working on a note again - I need first to go to another note, then to go back to the one I wanted to open, and then I can do it.

Such problems were rare, but have been on the rise significantly since the last update.

A pity, since I am using Evernote primarily from my iPad. I felt fully confident until now, but I start feeling somewhat nervous now...

[Owyn 457]

iOS 4.1.6 client has just been released. It DOES fix a lot of the formatting problems with new notes and edits. It does NOT repair already damaged notes.