(Archived) linking with in a note/text/pdf - for scholars (or anyone)

[Scytale 0]

Hey Evernote Community! I've recently started graduate school and got into using Evernote to help with my studies and research. I'm looking for a way to link to specific points within a note (anchor links) or perhaps within an attached pdf file. Perhaps I'll explain in a little more detail what I'm trying to do, and if anyone knows if or how it's possible, that would be great.

Primarily I use Evernote to compile reading notes on journal articles or book chapters. Often in the notes I will refer to specific points of the text, or to related ideas in other articles. For example, I might write something like:

On page 8, Torgovnick argues that blahblahblah, a position not dissimilar from the one Kuper takes blahblahblah.

I'm looking for (wishing there is) a way to make "on page 8" and "Kuper takes" links to the parts of those texts I'm referencing (either PDFs attached to the note, or at the very least, text copied and pasted to the bottom of the note).

If in anyone has any leads for me, I would really appreciate it. If this isn't possible, let this be my humble request of the Evernote team. Believe me, grad students world over would use evernote if you supported this feature.

Thanks.

JTW

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

The functionality you are looking for doesn't exist. In an ideal world, maybe it would, but I can imagine all sorts of technological challenges that will keep it from happening, even assuming that Evernote wants to do it. As for me, it isn't something I am terribly interested in using.

So, what about reading notes? I've got a bunch of reading notes as well (http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/template.html), though my templates wouldn't even stand up to KustomNote.

So, what about PDFs? I used to import each source (primary and secondary) into its own note in Evernote, and then make note links to connect it with the related reading note (http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernote-organization.html). It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect, it would have been smarter to do it a little differently. My account is huge, the PDFs can't be searched offline on the iPad, and they are unwieldy when you do find something.

So, what am I doing differently? I have a bunch of PDFs, some of them much larger than the upload limit, and I've spent months squeezing them in -- I still have months / years to go. This month, I extracted all of the text from every PDF, the text from each one forms a note, and it didn't even take up a month of my upload allowance. When a search turns up a hit from one of these, and I need to see the PDF version, I go to Dropbox and open it up there. It's pretty easy to find your place in a text note, so it is easy to go back and forth from a reading note to the text.

How does this help you with your problem? Kuper says "the world is flat" (1999, p. 8) could easily be found by searching for "the world is flat" in the search box, and then a second search within the note for the phrase. Cut once, paste twice. It is not as smooth as a link, to be sure, but it will work on every single client (even mobile) and it will actually be faster to find the passage, because the PDF doesn't have to load (quite slow on mobile).

Is it perfect? No. But, it is pretty nice, and works so well that even if Evernote could manage to implement your suggestion immediately, this would still be faster (assuming, of course, that you don't need the whole PDF, but just the text in it).

[gatorbrit 70]

For this kind of functionality you might be better off with a citation manager like Mendeley. I think that you can highlight and tag parts of documents in that program. Personally though I found it a bit too much. I use evernote to store articles on papers that I am writing - and then just use search as described above to find the bits I want. (I'm an academic).

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

For this kind of functionality you might be better off with a citation manager like Mendeley. I think that you can highlight and tag parts of documents in that program. Personally though I found it a bit too much. I use evernote to store articles on papers that I am writing - and then just use search as described above to find the bits I want. (I'm an academic).

Lots of great apps out there for bibliographic materials, but... putting stuff in a bunch of different places isn't much fun, especially when it comes to notes. There is nothing like sticking a search term in a box and with a single search find every primary and secondary source as well as my own reading notes on them.