Bullet points never seem to work as expected

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Hello --

Have others found that working with bullet points is extremely tedius - especially when copying/pasting between notes? I've found so many times where I'll hit enter to go to the next bullet and it's just a blank spot instead of a bullet. I've also run into a situation where when I went to decrease the indent, the text moves to the left but there is no bullet.

Simplify formatting seems to have no effect.

This is on version 4.5.3 - public release.

The only way I've been able to get around this is to copy the note contents into another app like notepad, then select all in evernote and paste in the raw text and start applying bullets from scratch.

Thanks

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Yes, I have observed this behavior.

It seems to happen most often after pasting from a web page that has bullets.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Or perhaps forwarded content to Evernote's upload email address.

[lawvol 8]

This happens to me quite often as well.

[dlu 628]

Hmm, I have seen it once or twice when editing a web clip or something I pasted in from another program, but I haven't seen it with just the regular bullet points in Evernote. Could someone post or PM me some specific steps to reproduce?

[t-bird 0]

Yes! That happens to me all the time, it's really frustrating. And seems to have gotten worse in the last release. Half the time when I hit return to add another list item, the new line doesn't have a bullet but just a blank space. And sometimes it creates a paragraph break in the middle of the bullet list, which is impossible to fix without removing all formatting and starting over. I also find it very frustrating that bullet list hierarchies don't transfer from the Windows interface to the iPhone interface. If I have list organized how I want it in Windows, I don't dare open it for editing on the iPhone or it will strip most of the formatting. These issues are getting bad enough that I'm considering paying the money to use OneNote instead. OneNote has absolutely the best bullet functionality around. (Moving line items up and down by dragging is awesome.)

To me this is pretty bad considering the level of formatting options that other note taking applications have had for years. I love Evernote's syncing, but they are way behind in terms of interface. And now they've gone and moved the "Favorites" notebook to the bottom of the list in iPhone. (Are you kidding me?) They really need to get a User Experience team to work fixing these problems.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Hmm, I have seen it once or twice when editing a web clip or something I pasted in from another program, but I haven't seen it with just the regular bullet points in Evernote. Could someone post or PM me some specific steps to reproduce?

Hi,

It seems to happen just in regular day to day use of Evernote. In fact, it happens so often, I'm surprised that Evernote's employees haven't noticed it already. I'd guess that the majority of times it starts to happen when copying and pasting either between notes in evernote or from another application. If you stay within a single note and never copy anything into the note, it doesn't happen nearly as often but it still does happen.

What t-bird explained above happens to me as well. Is it helpful if I PM'd you an evernote export of a note when it starts happening again?

I appreciate the active engagement to get down to the root issue as it is definitely a very annoying issue - especially for those that use bullet points a lot

thanks!

[Guest mrossk]

I agree to all writers before. I have exactly the same experiences. I have given up to paste text from other programs. I only do this over the extra step of pasting all text in notepad and then copying this notepad-text in evernote.

But even then the bullets are sometimes destroyed.

Today I have made an addition at the top of a bullet list in en android. This list i have created in en win.

After syncing it back to win the bullet-formatting at the top of the list was completely destroyed and I had again to go over notepad to be able to correct this.

[dlu 628]

I'll play around with copy/pasting of bullet points into and between various notes. If it happens again, pls PM me the steps involved to reproduce

[chriso 0]

This is frustrating for me too. I just use a simple indented bullet list (no cutting and pasting from external web pages) and I get this in the fat client (Havent tried the web version, although I expect its the same)

Its seems to happen when deleting more than one bullet point and indentation. Or cutting and pasting elsewhere in the bullet point list. You then get these gaps that you cant delete.

You can reproduce some of this behaviour by simply cutting and pasting some bullets (and indentations) from the bottom of the list to the very top. This doesnt create the annoying blank, but looses the bullet marker, even though it thinks its there. Then start to cut and paste around and you begin to get in an awful mess.

This is the show stopper for me at the moment.

C.

[dlu 628]

I suspect it has to do with the HTML of making bulleted lists. Copy/Paste between the <ul> or <ol> tags tends to wreak havoc on the rest of the note.

We've made some general progress that fixes some issues here and there. Will try to revisit it when we have time

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I suspect it has to do with the HTML of making bulleted lists. Copy/Paste between the <ul> or <ol> tags tends to wreak havoc on the rest of the note.

This is a well-known and understood problem.

The rule I belive is to convert the list type to the type you are pasting into.

So, if I copy several unordered lines (Bullet list) and paste into an ordered list (Numbered List), then the lines would be converted to ordered lines.

For an example of this see the Free Online HTML Editor.

Maybe this editor can be of some help to your Dev team.

[dlu 628]

I suspect it has to do with the HTML of making bulleted lists. Copy/Paste between the <ul> or <ol> tags tends to wreak havoc on the rest of the note.

This is a well-known and understood problem.

The rule I belive is to convert the list type to the type you are pasting into.

So, if I copy several unordered lines (Bullet list) and paste into an ordered list (Numbered List), then the lines would be converted to ordered lines.

For an example of this see the Free Online HTML Editor.

Maybe this editor can be of some help to your Dev team.

Thanks! Will send it along

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

This is frustrating for me too. I just use a simple indented bullet list (no cutting and pasting from external web pages) and I get this in the fat client (Havent tried the web version, although I expect its the same)

Its seems to happen when deleting more than one bullet point and indentation. Or cutting and pasting elsewhere in the bullet point list. You then get these gaps that you cant delete.

You can reproduce some of this behaviour by simply cutting and pasting some bullets (and indentations) from the bottom of the list to the very top. This doesnt create the annoying blank, but looses the bullet marker, even though it thinks its there. Then start to cut and paste around and you begin to get in an awful mess.

This is the show stopper for me at the moment.

C.

This is exactly it! It's like when copying/pasting bullet points around in the same document, highlighting some bullet points must be selecting more than intended from a back-end HTML storage perspective. In other words, even though I'm only intending to select the one <li> element, I'm selecting a parent <ol> as well and then when I copy/paste we get malformed HTML representing the content. At this point, the whole note has malformed HTML and you are pretty much stuck unless you remove all formatting in the note.

Extremely frustrating.

Thanks

[spg SCOTT 736]

I'll play around with copy/pasting of bullet points into and between various notes. If it happens again, pls PM me the steps involved to reproduce

I've just run into this...

I find that if the content of the bulleted line is from the clipboard, i.e pasted content, the list breaks.

A screenshot, and exported note to explain (I hope).

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s26/sh/27516b10-d45b-4e41-a582-3a107397f8fe/2d8e9feb6ba7b7fb10a17a4721ace184

EN: 4.5.4.6170 (222832)

[dlu 628]

Will be looking into it. Thanks for the example. I think I have pretty clear idea. We have a heavy bullet point users in the office and I got a nice list of "things to improve on."

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Will be looking into it. Thanks for the example. I think I have pretty clear idea. We have a heavy bullet point users in the office and I got a nice list of "things to improve on."

Thank you! We appreciate it. Looking forward to the improvements.

Grant

[spip72 10]

Hi,

I see you are already on it, but I still want to add that these issues with bullet lists and numbered lists is really getting to me to the degree that I consider simply stop using Evernote. I am a Project Manager, and lists are a very important part of my daily work. I see a lot of erratic behaviour with just editing the lists and moving items between lists within evernote. No copying/pasting from webpages. But you may also want to put more focus on copy/paste to/from Word/Powerpoint/Excel. This is not working very good.

Please please please put a lot more focus into this matter. In fact, this is much more important for me than adding new features for the moment.

Thanks!

Jakob

[Jimmy T 0]

To further elaborate on bullet issues:

My problems do not relate to copy and paste. They relate to normal usage.

Commonly, when I am three or four tabs deep, I cannot move the indent back to the left (remove a tab/shift-tab). The bullet will disappear and the text will remain at the same place. If I then shift-tab again, the text on that line itself will disappear.

If I hit backspace, the cursor will move to the end of the previous line. There is no way for me to move the indent to the left even with the indent move button (next to the bullets).

For a text example:

• This is fine
  
  • And this is fine
    
    • but then things start getting messed up
      
    • Because I'll want to go back on the next bullet
      

but instead this will happen

and I won't be able to get to the previous tab (the empty circle/donut)

and if I hit backspace as I'll pretend to do for the next line. <hypothetical next line>so here I am stuck with no way to create any bullets except ones at the same indent or an indent even farther to the right

So the point is I can't use tabs normally. My most common solutions are to copy and paste a start tab (which doesn't always work) or to cut and paste the whole thing into Word and fix the formatting then copy and paste it back (this results in other formatting problems, but solves this one. Annoying as heck).

I'd say this happens 1.5-2 times per hour of use.

[dlu 628]

To further elaborate on bullet issues:

My problems do not relate to copy and paste. They relate to normal usage.

Commonly, when I am three or four tabs deep, I cannot move the indent back to the left (remove a tab/shift-tab). The bullet will disappear and the text will remain at the same place. If I then shift-tab again, the text on that line itself will disappear.

If I hit backspace, the cursor will move to the end of the previous line. There is no way for me to move the indent to the left even with the indent move button (next to the bullets).

For a text example:

• This is fine
  
  • And this is fine
    
    • but then things start getting messed up
      
    • Because I'll want to go back on the next bullet
      

but instead this will happen

and I won't be able to get to the previous tab (the empty circle/donut)

and if I hit backspace as I'll pretend to do for the next line. <hypothetical next line>so here I am stuck with no way to create any bullets except ones at the same indent or an indent even farther to the right

So the point is I can't use tabs normally. My most common solutions are to copy and paste a start tab (which doesn't always work) or to cut and paste the whole thing into Word and fix the formatting then copy and paste it back (this results in other formatting problems, but solves this one. Annoying as heck).

I'd say this happens 1.5-2 times per hour of use.

Hmm, I gave this a quick try and couldn't reproduce it. I could tab in 10 levels deep and then tab back out all 10 levels without a problem.

Will keep an eye on it though, esp when we revisit bullet pointing

[spip72 10]

Hi,

I just played around a bit, and I now have 3 reproduceable errors with bulleted lists: (4.5.3.6131)

1)

Created two bulleted lists:

• Bullet 1
  
• Bullet 2
  

• Bullet 3
  
• Bullet 4
  
• 
  

Move the cursor to left of "b" in "bullet 4".

Press shift+<arrow down> to mark the line and press ctrl+c

Move cursor to the end of bullet 2. Press ctrl+v to paste.

Alternatively move the cursor to end of bullet 2, press enter, then press ctrl+c to paste. Two different errors.

2)

Created a bulleted list like this:

• Bullet 1
  
  • <indent with one tab> Bullet 2
    
    • <indent with two tabs> Bullet 3
      

With the cursor at end of bullet 3, press enter to add new bullet line. Now outdent by pressing shift+tab once or twice. Both yield different errors.

3)

Create a bulleted list like this:

• Bullet 1
  
  • Bullet 2
    
    • Bullet 3
      

With the cursor at end of bullet 3, press enter to place cursor in new bullet, then outdent by pressing <enter> 3 times.

Now move cursor to the end of bullet 3, press enter once to create new line, then shift+tab. Now you see an error.

Regards,

Jakob

[Doctor Andonuts 0]

Steps to Redroduce

1. Create a new note
   
2. Move the cursor to the body of the note
   
3. Click the Bullet List button
   
4. Type the words without qoutes: "Type things"
   
5. Highlight the words "Type things"
   
6. Copy
   
7. Click at the end of the bullet line
   
8. Hit return creating a 2nd bullet
   
9. Paste
   
10. Hit return again
    

At this point you should have 2 bullet points with the words "Type things" on both lines. Also the cursor will be on a third line but there will be no bullet point.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Hello,

Just curious if the Evernote team has been able to make progress on this issue.

Thanks!

[dlu 628]

Hello,

Just curious if the Evernote team has been able to make progress on this issue.

Thanks!

Haven't worked on it yet. Have other things lined up. Gonna have to give us some more time.

We don't plan our roadmap based off of last weeks forum posts

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Hello,

Just curious if the Evernote team has been able to make progress on this issue.

Thanks!

Haven't worked on it yet. Have other things lined up. Gonna have to give us some more time.

We don't plan our roadmap based off of last weeks forum posts

Hi Dlu,

Thanks - I totally appreciate that. I was more just curious if 1) you guys were indeed able to reproduce and 2) looking for confirmation it was going to be included in the roadmap. Having an answer to these would just help the community know if we should be looking for more examples or whether you have the information needed to address.

Best,

Grant

[dlu 628]

We're pretty good on examples now, thanks everyone

It is on our list, but as you probably know we don't talk about our roadmaps, give out specific dates, etc, etc

[lawvol 8]

I can send/share a few notes that have bullet problems as well if you would like them. I'll just have to look for them.

[Piotrek 0]

All of us can reproduce examples of strange behavior of Evernote (Win) when editing bulleted lists. Unfortunately I think that problem is not only related to a specific version of Evernote client software but there is also a lot that needs to be done on the server side.

When you email a note with bullet list it usually gets flattened (all bullets with the same indentation) or indented further with every change of indentation. Hence fixing a client software is only the beginning of solving much bigger problem..

Pi

[piguy 1]

This has been a big issue that people have been complaining about since EN came out. It's hardly a trivial issue and it should really be a higher priority. It easily the biggest issue I face with EN on a day to day basis and makes me strongly consider going back to OneNote. It's not for me to tell EN how to run their business but having a core product that works flawlessly should be a much higher priority then developing an ecosystem with useless social toy apps.

[dlu 628]

useless social toy apps.

Those are fight'n words...

But anyways, to make a long story short, the Mac team just rolled out a fairly big change to bullet point. Windows team is scheduled to follow suit.

Also, the teams for the core clients have grown and not shrunk. To be clear we're not pulling resources off of Windows, Mac or another platform to develop the Evernote Food or Hello, etc.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

But anyways, to make a long story short, the Mac team just rolled out a fairly big change to bullet point. Windows team is scheduled to follow suit.

This is GREAT news. I noticed a longer pause than usual for a new beta release of this windows client. Maybe that is the reason? :)

Thanks

[piguy 1]

Great to hear - I look forward to testing them. Thanks!

[Ricardo 15]

Just to add my $0.2: I've been using Evernote for almost a year, and while it is always getting better and better, the editor is still so buggy that I just can't recommend Evernote to friends and family.

Here's a simple bullet list bug that I could not find listed before. Create a bullet list with 3 lines and indent the last one:

• 1
  
• 2
  
  • 3
    

Now try to erase the 2nd line... for me (on Evernote 4.5.3.6131/Windows), it just won't go away (it will become an empty, inaccessible bullet line)! And if you keep editing it some more odd things will happen - for instance, trying to erase the 1st and 2nd line changes the formatting and add a new line before the character "3".

Picture yourself spending hours (even days) creating a text using such a simple feature, and losing all your hard work formatting it due to bugs...

I agree with piguy, Evernote should make its 1st priority to get the editor working for the users, intead of letting it work against the users!

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Just to add my $0.2: I've been using Evernote for almost a year, and while it is always getting better and better, the editor is still so buggy that I just can't recommend Evernote to friends and family.

Here's a simple bullet list bug that I could not find listed before. Create a bullet list with 3 lines and indent the last one:

• 1
  
• 2
  
  • 3
    

Now try to erase the 2nd line... for me (on Evernote 4.5.3.6131/Windows), it just won't go away (it will become an empty, inaccessible bullet line)! And if you keep editing it some more odd things will happen - for instance, trying to erase the 1st and 2nd line changes the formatting and add a new line before the character "3".

Picture yourself spending hours (even days) creating a text using such a simple feature, and losing all your hard work formatting it due to bugs...

I agree with piguy, Evernote should make its 1st priority to get the editor working for the users, intead of letting it work against the users!

+1!!

[emerick 155]

Hi,

I just played around a bit, and I now have 3 reproduceable errors with bulleted lists: (4.5.3.6131)

1)

Created two bulleted lists:

• Bullet 1
  
• Bullet 2
  

• Bullet 3
  
• Bullet 4
  
• 
  

Move the cursor to left of "b" in "bullet 4".

Press shift+<arrow down> to mark the line and press ctrl+c

Move cursor to the end of bullet 2. Press ctrl+v to paste.

Alternatively move the cursor to end of bullet 2, press enter, then press ctrl+c to paste. Two different errors.

2)

Created a bulleted list like this:

• Bullet 1
  
  • <indent with one tab> Bullet 2
    
    • <indent with two tabs> Bullet 3
      

With the cursor at end of bullet 3, press enter to add new bullet line. Now outdent by pressing shift+tab once or twice. Both yield different errors.

3)

Create a bulleted list like this:

• Bullet 1
  
  • Bullet 2
    
    • Bullet 3
      

With the cursor at end of bullet 3, press enter to place cursor in new bullet, then outdent by pressing <enter> 3 times.

Now move cursor to the end of bullet 3, press enter once to create new line, then shift+tab. Now you see an error.

Regards,

Jakob

Thanks for the detailed instructions. All of these issues are fixed in our next 4.5.4 beta (expected later this week, if all goes according to plan).

Re: #1: We don't support your first method of pasting a list item; you need to initiate the paste at the beginning of an existing (or new/empty) list item, at the moment.

[emerick 155]

Steps to Redroduce

1. Create a new note
   
2. Move the cursor to the body of the note
   
3. Click the Bullet List button
   
4. Type the words without qoutes: "Type things"
   
5. Highlight the words "Type things"
   
6. Copy
   
7. Click at the end of the bullet line
   
8. Hit return creating a 2nd bullet
   
9. Paste
   
10. Hit return again
    

At this point you should have 2 bullet points with the words "Type things" on both lines. Also the cursor will be on a third line but there will be no bullet point.

This issue is fixed in our next 4.5.4 beta (expected later this week, if all goes according to plan), with one annoying caveat:

When selecting a list item, make sure that you select the _entire_ list item and not just the text. In other words, the selection should extend from the first letter in the list item all the way to the right side of your note editor; the selection should not end at the last letter of the text in the item. To do this, I position my caret at the first letter of the list item and press Shift+Down (there are probably other ways).

We're working on eliminating this caveat, but I thought you might appreciate knowing a workaround in the meantime.

[emerick 155]

Just to add my $0.2: I've been using Evernote for almost a year, and while it is always getting better and better, the editor is still so buggy that I just can't recommend Evernote to friends and family.

Here's a simple bullet list bug that I could not find listed before. Create a bullet list with 3 lines and indent the last one:

• 1
  
• 2
  
  • 3
    

Now try to erase the 2nd line... for me (on Evernote 4.5.3.6131/Windows), it just won't go away (it will become an empty, inaccessible bullet line)! And if you keep editing it some more odd things will happen - for instance, trying to erase the 1st and 2nd line changes the formatting and add a new line before the character "3".

This issue is fixed in our next 4.5.4 beta (expected later this week, if all goes according to plan).

[Guest mrossk]

This issue is fixed in our next 4.5.4 beta (expected later this week, if all goes according to plan).

I'm really glad to hear this!

[emerick 155]

The fixes I mentioned above are now available in the latest 4.5.4 beta. If you have beta updates enabled (Tools -> Options -> General -> Update to pre-release version when available), you can run Help -> Check for updates to test them out. Please let us know what you think.

[Doctor Andonuts 0]

I just updated to 4.5.4.6438 (233406) Prerelease.

The issue I mentioned before is not fixed. I can reproduce the error in many ways involving copy and paste. Here are the steps for one of those ways.

1. Create a new note.
   
2. Start a new bullet list.
   
3. Type 'This is a test'
   
4. Copy the text 'This is a test'
   
5. Create a new bullet by pressing enter at the end of the previous bullet.
   
6. Paste
   
7. Create a new bullet by pressing enter again.
   

You now have a new line without a bullet in front of it, but indented like it should have a bullet. It appears that if you copy any text from Evernote and paste it into a bullet list, then when you return that line, it will not create a new bullet.

Here is an example. In this example I created a new list, pasted the text from earlier in the note, and hit enter after I paste.

[emerick 155]

I just updated to 4.5.4.6438 (233406) Prerelease.

The issue I mentioned before is not fixed. I can reproduce the error in many ways involving copy and paste. Here are the steps for one of those ways.

1. Create a new note.
   
2. Start a new bullet list.
   
3. Type 'This is a test'
   
4. Copy the text 'This is a test'
   
5. Create a new bullet by pressing enter at the end of the previous bullet.
   
6. Paste
   
7. Create a new bullet by pressing enter again.
   

Yes, we're still working on that issue, that's why I mentioned using this temporary workaround:

When selecting a list item, make sure that you select the _entire_ list item and not just the text. In other words, the selection should extend from the first letter in the list item all the way to the right side of your note editor; the selection should not end at the last letter of the text in the item. To do this, I position my caret at the first letter of the list item and press Shift+Down (there are probably other ways).

We do plan to remove the need to use this workaround, but due to the timing, it won't make it into 4.5.4 unfortunately. Does using the workaround help?

[emerick 155]

Doctor Andonuts,

The problem you mention is fixed at revision 233928. It may make it into the final release of 4.5.4 (fingers crossed). If not, it'll be in the next beta that we release. Thanks for your patience.

[dmevernote 0]

Thanks so much for working on bulleted lists! This will help me a lot. Quick question - does this only work for new notes or new lists? It doesn't seem to fix issues with my current lists.

Thanks again

[spip72 10]

Just to add my $0.2: I've been using Evernote for almost a year, and while it is always getting better and better, the editor is still so buggy that I just can't recommend Evernote to friends and family.

Here's a simple bullet list bug that I could not find listed before. Create a bullet list with 3 lines and indent the last one:

• 1
  
• 2
  
  • 3
    

Now try to erase the 2nd line... for me (on Evernote 4.5.3.6131/Windows), it just won't go away (it will become an empty, inaccessible bullet line)! And if you keep editing it some more odd things will happen - for instance, trying to erase the 1st and 2nd line changes the formatting and add a new line before the character "3".

This issue is fixed in our next 4.5.4 beta (expected later this week, if all goes according to plan).

Thanks so much for working on this! I look so much forward to the update. As Ricardo (see above) lists are also a very important part of my day.

[emerick 155]

Thanks so much for working on bulleted lists! This will help me a lot. Quick question - does this only work for new notes or new lists? It doesn't seem to fix issues with my current lists.

Yes, if the current list is mangled in some way, this isn't going to help unfortunately. Are newly created lists behaving correctly for you?

[TerDale 7]

Happens to me all the time, really a PIA!

Evernote is a great application while looking at its feature, but its editor is really not at the expected level, while it is the heart of a note-taking software.... really disappointing.

This is extremely easy to reproduce, I can do it even by copying pasting some text within a single note: eg. a line with an URL, if I try to move it elsewhere in the text, in a bullet list, I get the issue almost 100% of the time.

[fhansen 2]

I've just tried the new beta, and (for now) it has removed my problems. So thank You to the Evernote team for removing this troublesome and annoying problem.

[TerDale 7]

The problem you mention is fixed at revision 233928. It may make it into the final release of 4.5.4 (fingers crossed). If not, it'll be in the next beta that we release.

Stop crossing your fingers Emerick, just tried the 4.5.4 RC, and most of the issues I used to face with bullets are still here... very disappointing

[dlu 628]

Stop crossing your fingers Emerick, just tried the 4.5.4 RC, and most of the issues I used to face with bullets are still here... very disappointing

Don't particularly like your tone there. Play nice now.

Copy/paste of a partial bullet list is something we're still working on. We'll be working on a second pass of bullet points functionality soon.

[jefito 5,589]

Stop crossing your fingers Emerick, just tried the 4.5.4 RC, and most of the issues I used to face with bullets are still here... very disappointing

If you have specific, reproducible cases that exhibit problems, you should submit them to the development staff so that they can fix them.

[fhansen 2]

I've just tried the new beta, and (for now) it has removed my problems. So thank You to the Evernote team for removing this troublesome and annoying problem.

Hmm, maybe I was to fast. I ran in to a problem, when copying from another bullet and inserting in a new. The bullets disappeared. Hope a new shot at the problem will solve this in an upcoming release.

By the way. My notebook and notes icons are gone in the left side menu, after updating to the newest Beta.

[Owyn 457]

By the way. My notebook and notes icons are gone in the left side menu, after updating to the newest Beta.

I saw that once. File/Exit & restart of EN restored the icons.

....

There are other reports that this problem is solid when language is other than English.

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/24658-left-panel-no-icon-in-version-4545438233406/

[emerick 155]

just tried the 4.5.4 RC, and most of the issues I used to face with bullets are still here

If you provide specific steps that cause your problem (and tell me the specific version you're running, via Help -> About), I can look into it. I think a lot of problems have been cleared up, but I'm sure there are others.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I know this is an EN Win thread, but I would like to advise the EN Devs that I'm seeing similar issues on EN Mac 3.0.7 Beta 4, in case there is some common issue here.

For example,

1. Do a "Paste to Evernote" from this web page (this forum) http://discussion.ev...post__p__130436
   
2. Select the first 7 sub-bullets and click the Ordered List button to convert from bullets to numbers
   
3. The sub-bullets on the last line are now disconnected from the list
   

[emerick 155]

I know this is an EN Win thread, but I would like to advise the EN Devs that I'm seeing similar issues on EN Mac 3.0.7 Beta 4, in case there is some common issue here.

For example,

1. Do a "Paste to Evernote" from this web page (this forum) http://discussion.ev...post__p__130436
   
2. Select the first 7 sub-bullets and click the Ordered List button to convert from bullets to numbers
   
3. The sub-bullets on the last line are now disconnected from the list
   

It works fine for me in 233963. Here are my steps:

1 - Select from the word "Since" in the first bullet to the word "issues" in the last bullet.

2 - Ctrl+C

3 - Switch to Evernote Windows

4 - Ctrl+N

5 - Ctrl+V

6 - Ctrl+A

7 - Ctrl+Shift+O

Does following that sequence of steps work for you? Or was that a Mac issue only?

[TerDale 7]

Don't particularly like your tone there. Play nice now.

OK sorry, didn't want to be rude, but just wanted to tell that the issues were still here, with a bit of exasperation as these are quite old and very annoying issues that could make one to give up with EN. Anyway, after re-reading my post, I can understand that it could be interpreted as not very nice.

Copy/paste of a partial bullet list is something we're still working on. We'll be working on a second pass of bullet points functionality soon.

OK thanks, looking forward for it

just tried the 4.5.4 RC, and most of the issues I used to face with bullets are still here

If you provide specific steps that cause your problem (and tell me the specific version you're running, via Help -> About), I can look into it. I think a lot of problems have been cleared up, but I'm sure there are others.

I already did, 2 comments above the quoted one: http://discussion.ev...post__p__130298

It was with EN 2.5.4.6387 (230954), so didn't include the latest revisions as referenced in your latest post.

Just tested again with RC2 (2.5.4.6451 (233963)), and just tried the vey simple below scenario: but failed gain, and was even a bit worse than with 230954.

Here is this repro scenario, very simple, this one pasting a formatted line instead of one embedding a URL as I previously reported:

• create a brand new note
  
• in the body, start by clicking on the bullet button
  
• write some text, <Enter>
  
• <Tab> to create an indented level with 2nd-level bullet
  
• now paste "Name: command line", as it is formatted,
  
• => while it was properly pasted in 230954, now it is pasted the line after the indented bullet (cf. attached screenshot)
  
• then any line below is properly indented but without bullet
  
• if one fights a bit (several steps, probably too long for here), one succeeds to get the pasted line on the same line as the bullet,
  
• => but then, again, next lines are without bullet
  

This was a simple one, I also faced more tricky ones (with 230954, not yet seen with 233963, but I just installed it a minute ago, so...), not easy to describe:

• in which after pasting I have 2 bullets on the same line,
  
• or a large space between existing text and the pasted one, that cannot be deleted,
  
• or multiple bullets on multiple lines at different indents
  
• along with others
  

[EDITED to add missing screenshot]

[emerick 155]

Just tested again with RC2 (2.5.4.6451 (233963)), and just tried the vey simple below scenario: but failed gain, and was even a bit worse than with 230954.

Here is this repro scenario, very simple, this one pasting a formatted line instead of one embedding a URL as I previously reported:

• create a brand new note
  
• in the body, start by clicking on the bullet button
  
• write some text, <Enter>
  
• <Tab> to create an indented level with 2nd-level bullet
  
• now paste "Name: command line", as it is formatted,
  
• => while it was properly pasted in 230954, now it is pasted the line after the indented bullet (cf. attached screenshot)
  
• then any line below is properly indented but without bullet
  
• if one fights a bit (several steps, probably too long for here), one succeeds to get the pasted line on the same line as the bullet,
  
• => but then, again, next lines are without bullet
  

Thanks, detailed instructions like this help a lot and are really necessary when talking about problems with lists, since there are a lot of variables at play. Following these exact instructions, I'm actually not able to reproduce the problem in 233963. Looking at your screenshot, though, I suspect that the end of your pasted text may include a <br> or all of the text is wrapped in a <div>, so I'll explore those scenarios.

I also faced more tricky ones (with 230954, not yet seen with 233963, but I just installed it a minute ago, so...), not easy to describe:

• in which after pasting I have 2 bullets on the same line,
  
• or a large space between existing text and the pasted one, that cannot be deleted,
  
• or multiple bullets on multiple lines at different indents
  
• along with others
  

These are the exact types of problems we tried to address in 4.5.4, so I'm hopeful that you won't run into these anymore. If you do, please provide instructions on reproducing them (step by step) and we'll investigate all of them.

Thanks!

[TerDale 7]

Hey... was offline for a few days.... and discovered the latest 4.5.4.6497 yesterday afternoon, using it since then, and I must say that it is much, much better than any other one concerning bullet points issues!

Just saw a little glitch so far, but can't reproduce it, so hoping that most issues are now just bad memories.

Anyway, thanks for all people involved in fixing this at Evernote!

[whjm 0]

I stopped using EN more than a year ago and went back to Google Docs. It's all because of the bulletted list issues. And that's the only reason I don't recommend it to others. I'm glad it's fixed now and I'll try it now. Thanks.

[TerDale 7]

Well, though I confirm that there is tremendous progress on bullet issues, using the latest version for a few days showed that there are still a few remaining issues. Though less critical than the fixed ones, they are still annoying. I yet have to post repro scenarios for the one I faced...

[emerick 155]

Well, though I confirm that there is tremendous progress on bullet issues, using the latest version for a few days showed that there are still a few remaining issues. Though less critical than the fixed ones, they are still annoying. I yet have to post repro scenarios for the one I faced...

Let us know what they are and we'll look into them.

[TerDale 7]

Here is one example, more to follow...

Scenario (check associated screenshots, starting at step0) :

- step1: add a new bullet after "Eclipse"

- step2: select lines containing "Autoruns" & "Console2", as shown

- step3: <Ctrl-X" to cut selection

- step4: <Ctrl-V> to paste it => result is not what one would expect

TIA

[jbenson2 2,147]

- step4: <Ctrl-V> to paste it => result is not what one would expect

Not what you would expect, but it can be corrected relatively easily with a couple clicks on the promote and indent icons.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

I've been trying 4.5.5b1 and the bullet points still seem totally broken.

I created a new note, and just started bullet pointing using tab and shift-tab. All of the sudden my shift-tabs start de-indenting but there was no bullet point. Hitting enter just created a new blank line. Now the whole note just won't work with bullets. Extremely frustrating.

No copy/paste was used at all.

So far I haven't seen any improvement in this regard.

If anyone at evernote, wants me to send them my note, I'd be happy to so they can take a look.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Further, on a previous note I had created in Windows, I went to open the note on my mac using latest beta and the all the bullet points were corrupted. I had to re-do the entire set of bullet points.

[dlu 628]

I've been trying 4.5.5b1 and the bullet points still seem totally broken.

I created a new note, and just started bullet pointing using tab and shift-tab. All of the sudden my shift-tabs start de-indenting but there was no bullet point. Hitting enter just created a new blank line. Now the whole note just won't work with bullets. Extremely frustrating.

Sorry I don't quite follow. Could you post or PM me a list of steps?

[jornhanssen 0]

Dear forum readers,

I just want to add my voice to "Jimmy T"'s post of 7 February.

I regularly have the same problem. I'm using Evernote 4.5.4.6497 (235205) Public on Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit.

As Jimmy T explains - I use bullet points, indent them, but sometimes ( 1 out of 2 ) when re-indenting ( going "back" ) - I loose my bullet :-(

The "bullet" button is still active, so to re-enable the bullets, I have to click it twice.

Would be great if this could be solved since it is quite annoying.

Kind regards

JoernH

[JeffreyC 66]

Just wanted to add my "vote" to this and "ping" it to see if there is any progress on the horizon for this.

Jimmy T hits the bullet point right on the head. I frequently need to "back up an outline" level, and when I do (normally by pressing [ENTER] to get the next line, then pressing [sHIFT + TAB] to back up. Sometimes I use the toolbar button), you get what he shows. You have to monkey around with things to get back on track.

Side note: Just noted that it really happens when you are at the end of the list. Things (at least this time) worked okay in the middle of a list.

Improvements in this area would just make this program the absolute cat's meow!

Thanks for a great product and your willingness to keep improving it.

[wil_case 2]

Have to throw my hat in on this one as well. I recently came under some pretty intense project management and needed to bullet point out a ton of steps. Evernote is just too buggy to trust with this, and the problem is that its my major GTD system. So, now I'm off to Google Docs.

I hope everyone doesn't think that EN can't fail, because these little drops tend to make people wander over to possibly better products...

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

I am on the latest beta: 4.5.8 and I can say that bullet point functionality is still completely broken. I created 2 notes from scratch this morning and ran into a number of issues such as: hitting enter makes a new indented line without a bullet, hitting enter after a bullet creates a weird bulleted nested outside my list between the parent and children bullets.

I still am unable to use Evernote for brainstorming using bullets. I have to assume I'm still not alone in believing this should be a high priority for the Evernote team. It's extremely frustrating.

Edit: Attached capture2.png showing a simple test I did in 2 minutes. Then simplify formatting.png shows what happens if I try to use that feature to fix the issues

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

EN why you don't fix the above (old, very old issue), give us due dates promised for years and fix other bugs, and then bring new things like switching account!!!!

It is annoying, the direction you are going towards.

I agree.

I'm very surprised by the development and Release of the Account Switching feature.

I have to seriously question what percentage of users (out of 20-30 million) really have or need more than one Evernote account.

I would be quite surprised if there are more than 5% that have multiple accounts AND need to switch on the same device.

It is easy enough to setup either separate Notebooks (for Personal & Work, for example) or to use Tags.

So, what is the real use case for account switching?

Meanwhile, there are some critical bugs (particularly Search bugs) that need to be fixed, and several features (long requested by many users) that would most likely benefit most users. Seems like these would be higher priority than Account Switching.

[Owyn 457]

Just a guess, but, I suspect that it was for the many users on this forum who want separate work and personal accounts. Part of the push to make Evernote more Enterprise friendly.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

/bump - awaiting reply from Evernote.

Also for some reason my previous attachments seem broken. Re-attaching here. I'm also attaching the Evernote document as well.

Example 1:

Example 2:

What Simplify Formatting does:

Evernote Export of broken note:

Bullet Tests.zip

Previous images as ZIP:

format_examples.zip

[Guest mrossk]

I have imported your file "Bullet Tests.enex" and as you can see in my screeenshot the bullets that you are missing are present in my Evernote:

http://www.evernote....a63b5d0da3f47cd

I have nearly no problems with bullets in Evernote for Windows since the issue was solved a few months ago and I im using bullets a lot.

Are you using the last public version 4.5.7.7146 of Evernote for Windows?

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Ah, I realized I attached my note that I had already applied "Simplify Formatting" which does fix the issue but mangles all the bullets (as you could see in one of the screenshots). I'll recreate another broken note. It's not too hard.

I am using the latest Evernote 4.5.8 beta.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Here is a note that has missing bullets. I noticed it started happening after I started using (shift-tab) to reduce the indent.

Bullet Test.zip

[TerDale 7]

Here is a note that has missing bullets. I noticed it started happening after I started using (shift-tab) to reduce the indent.

As Grant, I'm also continuing facing some bullet issues, even since the last fixes about these, months ago.

For sure, some very annoying issues were fixed, but there are still a few ones that I'm facing every day.

Like Grant, one of them is when using shift-tab, causing the bullet to vanish. The other (worst) one is when copying a bullet list and pasting it into an existing one (eg. while restructuring a list): in such case it happens often that I end up with 2 bullets on the same line. Example:

- in those screenshots:

* list before edition: https://www.sugarsyn..._4165930_289788

* list after cut and paste: https://www.sugarsyn..._4165930_289772

- see the result of cutting 4 lines from "00000110" and then setting the cursor just before "mem. address" and pasting them:

- line "00000110" shows 2 bullets

- while "mem. address" lost its one.

Hope this helps to further improve bullets management. Major improvements were already done, fixing what's left could lead to forget bullet issues hopefully forever ;-)

PS : using the latest EN release: 4.5.7.7146 (258477)

[vineetw 21]

TerDale,

Thanks for the report - ticket #5142 has been filed.

[B Strand 1]

I have a lot of problems with the bulleted lists as well, and have been reading the promises of improvements on the forums for months and waiting for them, but in my experience they haven't materialized.

It seems that the Evernote apps' rendering is masking problems present in the document source. When copying sections around within the note, copying into other applications, or sharing notes by email, the formatting is always different. The biggest problem is changes in indent/level and extra, blank lines. My notes look fine in both my Mac and my Windows systems.

It's a huge problem when using Evernote for business matters. I'm trying to convince our director to license it for our teams as a collaboration tool, but it's a hard sell when I send out notes that look like this (excepting the redactions):-

Note the different bullet types at the same level, the extra, blank lines. This looked fine in the app.

I also get font quirks when copying between sections.

On a related note, what are the chances we'll ever be able to write notes in Markdown?

[dmevernote 0]

I'm still having issues with the bulleted lists and as much as I love Evernote, this issue is starting to make me look at alternatives. Can someone from the Evernote team update us on the status of the fixes? If you need step-by-step recreations of problems, let me know - I'm happy to help with a fix. Thanks!

[matt.joyce 0]

Hello, long time Evernote supporter, becoming somewhat jaded.

Created lists is so fundamentally important, it beggars belief that these issues have not been sorted out.

Bullet points are not working, they do weird things, they don;t copy/paste intuitively either within notes or from Evernote to windows apps.

[TerDale 7]

How long must be this (bullet ) list of disappointing users?

[IsaacB 1]

This is a very frustrating issue for me. How can something so fundamental as a LIST not work correctly for an application that is so focused on note taking? Every note I create includes bullets. Its the only way to organize large structures of notes within a single page. On every single note that I create it has issues with bullets, either during the original creation or when I go back to modify the note. Drives me nuts. I use the iPhone/iPad/desktop/web-app daily.

Previous to Evernote I had been using Google Docs for my notes and I never recall having this issue. I would venture to say that this web forum WYSIWYG app doesn't even have this bullet problem. It would seem to be a rather basic and required functionality that everyone else has already figured out.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

I completely agree. It's sad Evernote doesn't take this issue seriously.

[TerDale 7]

First time looking for an alternative to EN...

[xyphonic 1]

I just signed on/logged in to contribute my voice.

I create lots of lists, and I'm really tired of having to use all kinds of different workarounds. Just encountered another problem of double bullet points (among many!). The only fix I have here is to delete ever bullet point - and this problem keeps coming up! Never mind how it's constantly buggy to move text around or to copy/paste with bullet points. Now in the process of looking at a different system. Hopefully this can be fixed ASAP!

[DanielZhou 7]

I'm a paid premium user. I expect this to be fixed soon since bullet list is such an important feature I use everyday, and it has been problematic for so long. I heard Evernote gets $1 billion evaluation. Can you guys put in the resources needed to fix this problem?! I'm getting frustrated with it everyday. If it's not getting fixed soon, I'll stop paying you guys or perhaps stop using EN at all and switch to Google Drive or WorkFlowy.

I see this problem mostly on the Windows platform. My EN version is "4.5.10.7472 (267980) Public". OS version: Windows 7.

The Mac version of EN has this problem too: Version 5.0.0 (400524).

----- Edit:

Also, I'm a developer myself. This bug seems to be because when you cut/paste, the closing tag </ul> was not cut/paste correctly. So you would see incorrect nested <ul></ul>. See my exported *.enex file and you'd know what I mean.

The problem shows in the Web version too. I guess if the <ul> tags got messed up, you need to figure something out to display/correct it.

export.zip

[xyphonic 1]

Unbelievable there's no response on this. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating.

[dlu 628]

Unbelievable there's no response on this. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating.

So a few things.

1. This is a user forum, aimed at letting Evernote users talk with other Evernote users

2. While Evernote employees spend a lot of their time reading the forums on top of the their regularly scheduled day jobs, we don't always reply. Do rest assured that we've read this though.

3. Thanks for posts everyone.

[xyphonic 1]

Unbelievable there's no response on this. Incredibly, incredibly frustrating.

So a few things.

1. This is a user forum, aimed at letting Evernote users talk with other Evernote users

2. While Evernote employees spend a lot of their time reading the forums on top of the their regularly scheduled day jobs, we don't always reply. Do rest assured that we've read this though.

3. Thanks for posts everyone.

Which is all well and good except just this topic has been up for a year (and its been a problem longer) without any response or change from Evernote.

[dlu 628]

We made a series of improvements earlier this year. A good chunk of the posts in this thread are me and Emerick (who does *real work* aka can actually fix issues).

Apologies for not being able to fix all the issues in one go. We'll circle back soon.

[descendents1 2]

I'm an aerospace engineer looking to simplify his life. I've used Evernote for about a year now and bulleted lists are my primary means of organizing information. That said, Evernote has an incredibly difficult time managing bulleted lists whether I'm on Mac, PC, or even using the web-based editor. I keep up with software updates.

I like Evernote but I don't like the hanging bullet artifacts and inconsistent spacing generated between lines. I spend more time fixing the formatting (because I'm obsessive about organization, that's why I use Evernote in the first place) than note-taking. This ruins my note-taking experience. I am starting to use MS Word and Dropbox for more consistency.

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

I'm an aerospace engineer looking to simplify his life. I've used Evernote for about a year now and bulleted lists are my primary means of organizing information. That said, Evernote has an incredibly difficult time managing bulleted lists whether I'm on Mac, PC, or even using the web-based editor. I keep up with software updates.

I like Evernote but I don't like the hanging bullet artifacts and inconsistent spacing generated between lines. I spend more time fixing the formatting (because I'm obsessive about organization, that's why I use Evernote in the first place) than note-taking. This ruins my note-taking experience. I am starting to use MS Word and Dropbox for more consistency.

I am still experiencing issues as well. For all the great new features being added to Evernote, it is at its heart a text/note editor. If there are basic editing features which do not work and cause frustration by its end-users, all other wonderful features are useless because you won't end up using the product due to basic features not working as expected.

[Mits 1]

Seriously Evernote? More than a year for getting the bullets right?

[xyphonic 1]

Seriously Evernote? More than a year for getting the bullets right?

 

Just a matter of time before a better app comes out, or companies like Springpad introduce more advanced formatting.  Love everything else about Evernote, but not being able to bullet consistently is STUPID.  It's the heart of what Evernote is SUPPOSED to do.

[jefito 5,589]

Everything is "just a matter of time" (e.g., sun going supernova). But yes, Evernote needs better (including more consistent) note-taking abilities. On the other hand, I'd say that note-taking is not exactly Evernote's raison-d'être. See the main Evernote page : the motto is "Remember Everything. Capture Anything. Access Anywhere. Find Things Fast.", not "Just Exactly Perfect Note-Taking". 

[xyphonic 1]

Everything is "just a matter of time" (e.g., sun going supernova). But yes, Evernote needs better (including more consistent) note-taking abilities. On the other hand, I'd say that note-taking is not exactly Evernote's raison-d'être. See the main Evernote page : the motto is "Remember Everything. Capture Anything. Access Anywhere. Find Things Fast.", not "Just Exactly Perfect Note-Taking". 

 

We still fundamentally retain the vast majority of our information through writing.  I know quite a few people who use Evernote and in every case pictures are absolutely supplemental to note-taking - anecdotal but I'd be shocked if it was any different for the majority of Evernote users (just look at how Evernote is structured).  That's where Evernote starts, and the rest of it "access anywhere" etc. flow from having the information written down in the first place.

[jefito 5,589]

Some people use Evernote for note taking, many do not. I am far more apt to clip from the web, or save scans and other documents: the ratio of my own written content vs. clipped/scanned/saved content is a lot less than 1.0. Obviously your use case differs. But I do agree that note-taking facilities ought to be improved.

[an_evernote_user 1]

Reviving this issue because it is a huge nuisance. I used to have a subscription to evernote but have since cancelled it because of the inconsistent and buggy behavior of the bullets. When should we expect to get this issue addressed? I understand bullets are not relevant to some evernote users, but for many others like myself it is absolutely crucial.

 

The only reason I haven't jumped to something like spring pad is because evernote has all my old notes, and I do not want to go through the hassle of exporting them.

[peanut0000 0]

I'm having huge problems with bullets as well. It's honestly my only complaint with the service.

 

Three issues:

(1) THIS HAPPENS CONSTANTLY For sub bullets, if I try to "shift tab" to make it a higher-tier bullet, it sometimes undoes the bullet entirely and I have to spam the "bullet" button to get it back as a bullet.

(2) THIS HAPPENS OCCASIONALLY Horizontal line spaces between bullets occasionally

(3) THIS HAPPENS RARELY BUT IT IS A PAIN IN THE BUTT WHEN IT DOES I will have a page set up with dozens of bullets and sub bullets, and sometimes I will open up my note to add another... only to find that ALL, EVERY SINGLE ONE, of the sub bullets has been turned into a first-order bullet and a horizontal blank line (as described in (2)) will be left above and below the former sub bullet. I really dislike this one. It's like coming home and finding the whole house has been ransacked -- draws opened, clothes thrown everywhere, broken glass on the floor, etc. And then I got to spend forever cleaning up.

 

Thank you. I hope I don't sound angry or rude. Great service otherwise.