(Archived) Request Printing Option: PDF Book

[LukeH 1]

I really enjoy being able to copy and paste note links within Evernote. This allows me to read through notes and quickly move to closely related notes. But the most useful thing about note links I have found is making table of contents for "books." I have a number of articles/books I am working on. I start with an outline in Evernote, and then create a new note for each point on the outline, inserting a link to that note in the outline. In the end I have a note that acts as a hot-linked table of contents.

Here is what I'd like to see: a print option that would print all linked notes when printing a "table of contents." I would prefer it to "print" to a PDF (save as PDF) so that I could then view, e-mail, print, post, whatever.

The printing option would work like this: You print a note with links and have the option to "print linked notes." If you check that off, the first thing to be printed would be the main-note (whichever you are printing, the TOC) and then in order of links, each of the linked notes.

A few additional options would be:

• begin each note on new page/print continuously
  
• include page numbers (w/ options for each of the 6 usual places)
  
• include footer/header (options for main note "TOC" title as header/footer or each individual notes title as header/footer)
  
• include title page (maybe tricky, but using the title of the TOC, including some additional information like creator name, date? etc.)
  
• include page numbers in TOC (probably the most tricky option, but possible. Having the page numbers inserted after the hyperlinks. The hyperlinks are already being "noticed," so maybe it is possible to insert numbers after them corresponding to the pages that the notes will end up on. Maybe the user would need to insert some coded text after the hyperlinks that could be read by this print option.)
  

Maybe there is even more that could be done here, but it seems this would be an excellent print option that would open up a number of possibilities.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi Luke. Welcome to the forums!

Those are some good ideas for turning your notes into a book. All of my writing projects start off in Evernote, but at some point I move to Scrivener (does pretty much everything you are wanting), Pages, or Word. I would, of course, prefer to keep everything in Evernote from start to finish, but I think there are so many word processing features I would need that this is unlikely in the near future. I could imagine a third-party developer, though, using the API to do something really cool like this! If Scrivener integrated with Evernote, for example, I think It would make a huge difference in my workflow.

Anyhow, It's good to brainstorm about possibilities. Thanks for kicking off the discussion

[gazumped 11,708]

Hi Luke - these are all good ideas, but you yourself say this could "open up a number of possibilities".. If we add more options in here - there's better formatting, indexing, footnotes, image handling - all the stuff that goes with a full-featured word processor, publisher or web page editor; where do we stop? Many options means big menus and drop-downs within drop-downs, more complexity, more disk space and slower processing. Lots of users might only use the extra features once in a blue moon, but have to navigate past them every use. I'd rather see Evernote stay as my lean and mean memory machine and as GM says, rely on another add-in or external software if and when I need that extra functionality.

[LukeH 1]

I'm not really thinking of turning Evernote into a full-featured word processor. I agree, that could be cumbersome. But, while I am still in the working stage on a project, it would be nice to print out things easily every once in a while to see where I am. I'm thinking this could be a simple add on, where, when you print, there is this option. Right now I have the option to "print" a PDF booklet when printing from Pages (I think it was cocoa booklet that gave me that functionality). It's a great option. All there would need to be is an option there to "Create PDF from TOC." Only after you clicked that would a pop-up window come up with the other options. Most people would never even see the option to print booklet unless they went to the PDF option (which is already there when I go to print from Evernote in Lion).

The usefulness of this for me, is I could continue to edit things in Evernote (on my iPhone, iPad or Mac) while getting to see a "rough draft" printout. Seeing the printout for me is more about seeing the flow of things. But I don't want to take it out of Evernote yet, because I'm still working on the individual parts.

I like the idea about linking up with Scrivener. I had not seen this program before. It looks good. The only problem for me with simply using it instead of Evernote (for writing projects) is the inability to edit on the iPhone and iPad. Scrivener does sync with Simplenote, but I am already dedicated to Evernote. If Evernote would sync with Scrivener, this would be ideal. It looks like it would be even better than what I was first suggesting.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

I like your suggestion, and I would like to do that as well, because I prefer to do my writing in Evernote. However, I think we may still be a very tiny minority, and Evernote mightbe unwise to spend resources on things that wouldn't have a large impact. I'll spread the word among third-party developers. Maybe someone will make this feature for us

As for Scrivener, I prefer to sync it with Elements on the iPad and iPhone myself, but SimpleNote, PlainText, and IndexCard work as well. It is quite seemless in the case of Elements. I'll also talk up an Evernote / Scrivener integration. That would be some real magic