Bullet points never seem to work as expected

[matt.joyce 0]

Just returning to this thread, via a google search, because this problem has not been fixed.

I regularly have issues cutting and pasting branched of list items, and I want to be able to do that, it's how organise my work. 

I think if the problem is not fixed by the time I have to renew, I will have to seriously think about switching to something else (no idea what, Google Drive maybe?)

Please fix it, I really really like Evernote, but this issue is a productivity killer.

[DanielZhou 7]

I have discontinued my premium membership to protest against it. A buggy service just doesn't feel right.

 

For those who have struggled about it, you might want to switch to workflowy.com to manage your list. It's much more powerful, and I haven't experienced any problem with it.

[BKK 0]

I love using Evernote for note taking. It's super practical. I'd really like to have this service available offline, so premium is an attractive option. 

 

I can't believe ordered and unordered lists don't work properly. 

[xyphonic 1]

Here's just another example of problems with evernote.  This note was entirely written within evernote.  Arbitrarily, it decides I can't indent.  The image on top is the note as it is now, the bottom image is when I select and try and indent the section. It doesn't matter whether I select a block of text or try it line by line. Stupid.  Checking out workflowy.

[NJ Jumalon 0]

I see that this issue was posted about a year ago.

 

I don't get why it's taking so long to resolve. This is still making a huge dent in my user experience from Evernote.

 

Heck, even the bullets editing feature in this simple forum editor works better.

• Bullet 1
• Bullet 2
• Bullet 3

See?

[JonEdangerousli 0]

Having the same issue with bullets as other users. After perusing the thread I've decided to stop using EN and I am discontinuing my premium membership as soon as I submit this post. Two reasons:

1. Inability of EN team to resolve the bullet issue.
2. One of the comments from an EN employee telling a poster to "play nice".

This is a known issue that goes back years. Frustrated users being told to not denigrate the buggy product is unacceptable.

 

J.

[DanielZhou 7]

To me, the problem is not about the bug itself anymore, but the lack of confidence on EN as a product. Who knows if there are other bugs hidden somewhere, knowing that the EN team does not take bug report seriously? I think some of my notes got lost during the syncing process too (there's another thread for it). Instead of adding tons of new features, the EN team should really fix the bugs first to make sure its users have trust on the product/service.

[mikeroberts3000 6]

I agree with the consensus in this thread. Bullet Lists and Number Lists remain quite frustrating on Evernote 5.1.4 (401297) for Mac. See other posts in this thread for repro steps.

 

Generally speaking, I am a huge fan of Evernote. But I have always found dealing with bullet lists to be jarring and unpleasant. This is unfortunate, because I like brainstorming with bullet lists. Anyway, I would be delighted to see these issues addressed in an upcoming version of Evernote.

 

Cheers,

Mike

[SAng 1]

Are there plans at all, to fix this? It's really frustrating...

[pmjeff21 0]

...and this still seems to not be fixed.  Numbered lists keep restarting the numbering at "1." when indented.  How hard is it really to make it use letters or something for subpoints?

 

Also, I still get buggy behavior with un-numbered lists and copy/paste.

 

And what really kills me is that when I edit a note on the destkop app, then walk into a meeting with my Android tablet, I get "unsuppoted formatting" messages and all new edits to the note on the tablet happen in a little text box at the top, not in the body of the note, where I need it.

 

I'm really, really close to giving up on Evernote.  I'm all for Food apps and everything else under the sun, but how about AFTER they get basic note taking to work correctly.  WordPerfect on Windows 3.1 was more consistent that this.  Are we really advancing?

[NJ Jumalon 0]

I've since figured out a work around: the Simplify Formatting feature (Ctrl+Space).

[Rigor 0]

Thanks for the suggestion NJ, it seems to fix most of the formatting issues I have.

[SAng 1]

Yes, thank you NJ. Just posting to say I have tried your suggestion over the last few weeks and it does help a lot. One caveat for those trying it - it removes table formatting so you might not want to use it if you have tables in the note. I find this relatively minor though and so far find this an excellent workaround.

[Hiroaki 1]

Is this bug already fixed?

[burabil 16]

I have the same problem with the bullet lists. Evernote should have a feature request, bug report tool to be used by their users. similar to https://todoist.com/Vote/ Perhaps, they have that, but I don't know of any. These posts in their forum don't help them neither the users. 

[jefito 5,589]

I have the same problem with the bullet lists. Evernote should have a feature request, bug report tool to be used by their users. similar to https://todoist.com/Vote/ Perhaps, they have that, but I don't know of any. These posts in their forum don't help them neither the users. 

If you need to submit a bug report, then that's what opening a support request is for. 

 

On at least one occasion, they've stated publicly that they're not interested in a Vote system. On the other hand, they do read every post in this forum. However, as it's a user forum rather than a support forum, they don't do a lot of dialog here.

[Hiroaki 1]

 

I have the same problem with the bullet lists. Evernote should have a feature request, bug report tool to be used by their users. similar to https://todoist.com/Vote/ Perhaps, they have that, but I don't know of any. These posts in their forum don't help them neither the users. 

If you need to submit a bug report, then that's what opening a support request is for. 

 

On at least one occasion, they've stated publicly that they're not interested in a Vote system. On the other hand, they do read every post in this forum. However, as it's a user forum rather than a support forum, they don't do a lot of dialog here.

 

 

Almost sounds like they are running this company like its a small company when the number of users worldwide exceeds some 40-50 million????

[jefito 5,589]

 

 

I have the same problem with the bullet lists. Evernote should have a feature request, bug report tool to be used by their users. similar to https://todoist.com/Vote/ Perhaps, they have that, but I don't know of any. These posts in their forum don't help them neither the users. 

If you need to submit a bug report, then that's what opening a support request is for. 

 

On at least one occasion, they've stated publicly that they're not interested in a Vote system. On the other hand, they do read every post in this forum. However, as it's a user forum rather than a support forum, they don't do a lot of dialog here.

 

 

Almost sounds like they are running this company like its a small company when the number of users worldwide exceeds some 40-50 million????

 

Dunno. With respect to a voting system, this post is the one I was thinking of: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/10644-suggestion-reduced-noise-user-feedbacksuggestion-system/ (Dave ENgberg is the Evernote CTO). It's a little old, so they might change their minds at any time, too.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

My problem is related: I often receive text that's formatted like this:

 

     • Full paragraph 1

     • Full paragraph 2

     • Full paragraph 3

 

 

And because everything's jumbled together (I really do mean full paragraphs), I simply want to add a space between paragraphs:

 

     • Full paragraph 1

 

     • Full paragraph 2

 

     • Full paragraph 3

 

 

But Evernote won't let me, because each time I position the cursor after an item and hit Return, it automatically inserts another bullet, like so:

 

     • Full paragraph 1

     •

     • Full paragraph 2

     •

     • Full paragraph 3

     •

 

 

As a result, there's no way to insert space between bullet points. (NOTE: It's not as big a deal with single-line bullet points. But keep in mind that I'm referring to full paragraphs, each of which contains any number of lines -- which all run together, because Evernote won't let me insert carriage returns without inserting another bullet.

 

I can understand how this was possibly envisioned as a "feature," but the problem is that I can't even use the delete key to backspace and erase unwanted bullets! If there's a blank line, it MUST contain a bullet, and if I backspace again, the entire line is deleted, and the two paragraphs are scrunched together again.

 

I don't quite understand the notion that a user couldn't possibly want to insert spaces between bulleted paragraphs/items.

 

 

[jefito 5,589]

@soundsgoodtome: if you hit Enter at the end of an empty bullet item, the bullet should disappear, and you wind up with space between bullet points. This is a pretty common behavior, in fact, the forum software here does the same thing.

[cwb 225]

Have you tried using Shift-enter?

 

• Item (shift-enter gives you a new line(s) on the same bullet point)
   
• item
   
• item 
  
  multiple shift-enter lines here
   
• item

 

Especially useful for not breaking the numbered list.

 

1. item
2. item
    
3. item
   
   blah
    
4. item

[soundsgoodtome 155]

 

Have you tried using Shift-enter?

 

 

Thanks. I was unaware of shift-enter. However, I just tried it (in Evernote for Mac 5.4.2), and it turns this:

 

• Line 1

• Line 2

 

Into this:

 

• Line 1

•

• Line 2

 

 

EDIT: I just discovered that (on the Mac at least) control-enter adds a carriage return with no bullet.

 

Hallelujah! (In the non-religious sense.)  :-)

 

Thanks!

[cwb 225]

Ah.  The thread is labeled windows, where it's Shift-enter (as with the forums)

Puzzled Evernote changed it on the Mac client.

 

In Pages on Mavericks, I see both work.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

Ah.  The thread is labeled windows, where it's Shift-enter (as with the forums)

Puzzled Evernote changed it on the Mac client.

 

In Pages on Mavericks, I see both work.

 

My fault for not noting that the thread began as a Windows thread. I simply searched for the topic, then replied.

 

Thanks!

[heisenberg 0]

I am so fed up with the bulleted lists. New random bullets are constantly being created, sometimes over existing bullets and are impossible to remove.  I'm not talking about the shift + enter behavior nor copying and pasting bulleted content from another source.  I'm talking simply about unexpected bullet behavior within the application that is not dictated by any sort of rhyme or reason, and creates broken formatting that cannot be removed.

 

When creating a new note this is a nuisance.  When this happens with an older, longer, note and effectively ruins the formatting for a collection of bullets that might have taken days to collect, this is truly a service-killing feature.

 

I want to love Evernote, I really do, but stuff like this makes me wonder whether management has actually ever used the client.  I'm sure this is something the developers could solve if it was prioritized -- it's a very cut and dried feature that is flat out broken.  Along with the bugginess that I've posted about here http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/47695-unintended-ctrl-space-causing-cursor-to-jump-back/ I really have to wonder what is being prioritized over this.  Is everything that's not a phone / tablet app just being sunsetted?

[Hiroaki 1]

The only working good document editor for mobile apps right now, as far as I know, seems to be CloudOn.

This one is pretty much like Google Doc or Microsoft Word.

 

Until Evernote fix this stupid problem, I suggest using CloudOn as an alternative for making and editing notes that include bullet lists.

Downside is that CloudOn is pretty laggy unless your phone or tablet has enough CPU and memory.

[StevenZhang 2]

Since I mainly care about good formatting when I copy to Google docs, and word (which doesn't happen that often), one workaround I've found is to first export the note to HTML, open the HTML in a browser, then copy from there

[Grant Gochnauer 7]

Just cross posted this topic on TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/28/evernote-sync/

[timzimmerman 0]

If this complaint has already been posted and I didn't see it (was reading back as far as 2 years ago), then Evernote... I don't know what to say to you.

 

This bullet point business is a joke. We're talking basic rich text editing functionality here. I know the application isn't necessarily a note-taking app, but a lot of people use it as such and not being able to get bullet points straight is unbelievable. I spend a great deal of time doing the End+Del+Enter trick to get rid of bullets that just magically appear at the bottom of the page that refuse to go away through any other means. Same thing when I need to reduce the level on a bullet because hitting Shift+Tab or Reduce Indent makes the bullet disappear and an extra line to show up... because why not?

 

I don't understand you, Evernote. I just don't. I've got several other complaints about annoying bugs, but this is by far the worst. I'm about to start my search for a more fleshed-out note-taking app because very basic pieces of functionality just don't work and apparently haven't for quite a long time.

[xyphonic 1]

Yep pretty ridiculous.  OneNote is worth looking at.

[Mattias 2]

Please, please, please.  Evernote, take a comprehensive approach to fixing bulleted lists ASAP!  This is a big frustration.

[DanielZhou 7]

My complaint to Evernote is not only about this particular bug, but mostly is about how they treat their customers. They don't have to fix the bug now, but at least they can tell us why they don't want to fix it and when do they think they'll fix it, or whether they plan to fix it at all. This is such a ridiculous bug that makes me doubt whether there exist more serious problems in their development workflow and management. The problems might be serious enough that they might not be around in the next 5 years. As a result, I have stopped paying them as a premium user, and am actively looking for substitutes.

[Hiroaki 1]

These formatting bugs has been around for literally years, and they haven't said a word (they said they are working on it several years ago, but then, nothing after that),

[davedoesevernote 4]

I am so fed up with the bulleted lists. New random bullets are constantly being created, sometimes over existing bullets and are impossible to remove.  I'm not talking about the shift + enter behavior nor copying and pasting bulleted content from another source.  I'm talking simply about unexpected bullet behavior within the application that is not dictated by any sort of rhyme or reason, and creates broken formatting that cannot be removed.

 

When creating a new note this is a nuisance.  When this happens with an older, longer, note and effectively ruins the formatting for a collection of bullets that might have taken days to collect, this is truly a service-killing feature.

 

I want to love Evernote, I really do, but stuff like this makes me wonder whether management has actually ever used the client.  I'm sure this is something the developers could solve if it was prioritized -- it's a very cut and dried feature that is flat out broken.  Along with the bugginess that I've posted about here http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/47695-unintended-ctrl-space-causing-cursor-to-jump-back/ I really have to wonder what is being prioritized over this.  Is everything that's not a phone / tablet app just being sunsetted?

 

I realise this is only a get around and not a fix but I do find the use of Ctrl Space (usually used to strip text formatting) does wonders in fixing Evernote's unexpected bullet behaviour.  Hope that helps.

[vitalyb 16]

 Heads up - Seems that Evernote started handling this issue, at least for the Mac version:

 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/31179-long-time-user-1st-time-poster-evernote-bullet-lists-needs-to-be-fixed-now/page-4#entry289606

 

Hopefully it will be in Windows version soon 

[DanielZhou 7]

I just tried the web version, and looks like there's no problem there. If I really need bullet points work correctly, I'll edit the note in the web version and use the client program read-only. Hope it helps.

[xyphonic 1]

I still can't believe this isn't fixed.  You can't even use number and bullet lists together.