(Archived) Printing...PLEASE!

[Cindy 1]

I think I've been in denial for a couple of weeks because I refused to believe that I couldn't print a view of whatever notebook list or tag list I was looking at in Evernote. After realizing I could not really count on Microsoft OneNote, Tasks, Notes, etc. due to sharing issues I searched around for a solution and loved Evernote. But the one thing I was missing was tasks. After searching for what others have done, I ended up coming up with a perfect system, making Evernote my all time favoriate software.

However, after spending hours moving over all my tasks, I was SHOCKED to see that I couldn't print it out! I checked all the sites and forums and was more surprised that I coudln't find hundreds of people asking the same thing. I did try someone's suggestion to copy the title links to a new note, but that messes up the formatting and if I want to sort in a particular format, I lose all that as well and have to manually cut and paste everything. It's a royal pain! I can access the links on my computer and my android phone but many times I just need that sheet of paper. Whether it's because I'm in a place that doesn't allow phones/laptops, or need the visual point of view, having the paper makes all the difference in the world. I don't need the *content* of the note, per se, just all the list titles. And I even tried doing print screens and spent hours trying to find apps for capturing scrolling screens so I could just screen print and see all the note titles in the list. But even the fanciest of scrolling print screen apps don't work with Evernote's scrolling.

So, I've been looking for the last two weeks at one app after another to see what I can replace Evernote with from a tasking perspective. While some are good, none seem to be so compelling to make me want to split my use of evernote, even with them integrating with Evernote! All my problems would be solved if I could just sort a list the way I wanted it and then print so that the titles of all my notebooks would appear!

Is it possible to get this feature?? If it's already there and just hidden, does anyone know how to do it? Is there a third paty solution that will integrate and do this for me and if so, who??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi Cindy. Welcome to the forums. Have you posted before under another name?

I am not sure I understand what functionality you are requesting. If you want a list of note titles, you can just select them, and drag them into a note. This will create note links as well. It looks like you already know about this, so I am unclear about how this "messes up" the formatting and why you have to do any cutting and pasting. If you sort before you select the note titles and drag them into the note, then they'll be in order. If you could explain this in a little more detail, perhaps I could understand it a little better, and maybe we could offer workarounds / solutions to your problem.

[Cindy 1]

Hi GrumpyMonkey,

I have not posted before. I'm one of the population of people who reads forums but never posts. Usually, if I google search long enough someone else has whatever problem I have and it's already been solved by someone else! But alas, today I realized I might need to just post myself.

Let me try to clarify a little more what I'm looking for. I have all my to-do's individually listed as notes. For each they are assigned to folders that represent contexts and then they have tags that represent other things, one of them being the level of priority. It is an altered version of something called "The Secret Weapon" which was published online by someone named Braintoniq. Anyway, so let's say that I wanted to see a list of all my "tasks" that are my top priority but I still wanted to be able to view them by context. On my mac, I could simply look in my "Actions Pending" folder and have the list sorted by priority (which I had to creatively name so that would happen the way I wanted it). On the screen I can see the title of the note, the notebook it's in (giving me the context) and then the tags, which based on the way it's written sort it out by the things I need to now first.

So, really, I just want a screen print. Actually, on my android using the app there, I have a short cut that takes me to a list of my notes tagged with the highest priority, but they are sorted by notebook. I could use *that* screenshot as well. Except that I'd have to take screen shots of multiple lists to be able to see all my to-dos sorted by priority.

But let's go back to my desktop version. If I take all those notes and drag them to a new note, what I get is a list of links. Problem #1: those links are green and underlined. When I print, they print so light that I need to go back and change them to black. Not a problem, I suppose, if I just had to do this once. But I want to print this thing daily. Or every other day. Problem #2: I lose all the other information associated with the organization of the notes. My first workaround was to create a compiled list. I would basically look at the sorting on the screen, cut and paste those into a note, go into the note to change them to black and put them under the header of whatever it was (e.g. Work Tasks). And then I'd print. I did that for a couple days before I realized that was totally not going to work. I then realized the short cuts on my phone and just have a ton of little short cuts so I can click them there during my work day. But it didn't solve my printing problem.

Another kink in my evernote plan is that I can't actually ACCESS evernote from my work computer. Our system denies access since it poses a security risk as we could upload information from our machine onto evernote, which, of course, would be frowned upon. The system detects sites that allow uploading and blindly denies them. So...it's not like I could even in the middle of my day access the web version to make updates or changes or anything like that. I must rely on my phone. And although handy, it's not *that* handy and way too difficult to be making updates. Or, for that matter, to be looking at all the time. I just need the sheet of paper.

I *could* go use something like iqtell which is conveniently linked to evernote and can process things in the inbox, etc. However, I really, really want to just have one application to store all my info. I already have to jump between all my work apps which don't integrate and between PCs and Macs and Android and so one app would be so much better. I don't even care that Evernote doesn't have something specifically for tasking since this little technique works for me...except for the ability to print!!

Does that help?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi GrumpyMonkey,

I have not posted before. I'm one of the population of people who reads forums but never posts. Usually, if I google search long enough someone else has whatever problem I have and it's already been solved by someone else! But alas, today I realized I might need to just post myself.

Let me try to clarify a little more what I'm looking for. I have all my to-do's individually listed as notes. For each they are assigned to folders that represent contexts and then they have tags that represent other things, one of them being the level of priority. It is an altered version of something called "The Secret Weapon" which was published online by someone named Braintoniq. Anyway, so let's say that I wanted to see a list of all my "tasks" that are my top priority but I still wanted to be able to view them by context. On my mac, I could simply look in my "Actions Pending" folder and have the list sorted by priority (which I had to creatively name so that would happen the way I wanted it). On the screen I can see the title of the note, the notebook it's in (giving me the context) and then the tags, which based on the way it's written sort it out by the things I need to now first.

So, really, I just want a screen print. Actually, on my android using the app there, I have a short cut that takes me to a list of my notes tagged with the highest priority, but they are sorted by notebook. I could use *that* screenshot as well. Except that I'd have to take screen shots of multiple lists to be able to see all my to-dos sorted by priority.

But let's go back to my desktop version. If I take all those notes and drag them to a new note, what I get is a list of links. Problem #1: those links are green and underlined. When I print, they print so light that I need to go back and change them to black. Not a problem, I suppose, if I just had to do this once. But I want to print this thing daily. Or every other day. Problem #2: I lose all the other information associated with the organization of the notes. My first workaround was to create a compiled list. I would basically look at the sorting on the screen, cut and paste those into a note, go into the note to change them to black and put them under the header of whatever it was (e.g. Work Tasks). And then I'd print. I did that for a couple days before I realized that was totally not going to work. I then realized the short cuts on my phone and just have a ton of little short cuts so I can click them there during my work day. But it didn't solve my printing problem.

Another kink in my evernote plan is that I can't actually ACCESS evernote from my work computer. Our system denies access since it poses a security risk as we could upload information from our machine onto evernote, which, of course, would be frowned upon. The system detects sites that allow uploading and blindly denies them. So...it's not like I could even in the middle of my day access the web version to make updates or changes or anything like that. I must rely on my phone. And although handy, it's not *that* handy and way too difficult to be making updates. Or, for that matter, to be looking at all the time. I just need the sheet of paper.

I *could* go use something like iqtell which is conveniently linked to evernote and can process things in the inbox, etc. However, I really, really want to just have one application to store all my info. I already have to jump between all my work apps which don't integrate and between PCs and Macs and Android and so one app would be so much better. I don't even care that Evernote doesn't have something specifically for tasking since this little technique works for me...except for the ability to print!!

Does that help?

Hi Cindy. I was a lurker myself, for a couple of years

I guess you want to things?

(1) A way to list your notes with their accompanying metadata (notebooks, tags, etc.) .

There may be a third-party integration that does this, or it may be something that someone wants to develop, but this feature does not currently exist. You have certainly made a compelling case for it, but for better or worse, you might be better off refashioning your system to make best use of the tools available. How does TSW recommend you go about dealing with your desire to see this information? My memory of the system they outlined was that they had things structured a bit differently.

(2) Access at work.

You might want to look into the Evernote business accounts (available in December), but to be honest, it sounds more like you have a strict IT department, and there is no cloud service they would allow you to use. Get an iPad and/or an Android tablet with an external keyboard? That's what I use for most of my work. Of course, this has meant developing a system that functions well in the more restricted mobile environments (see this for my system http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernote-organization.html).

I wish I could help! I have to say that there probably isn't much chance (based on past precedent) that Evernote will be implementing this, so I'd reiterate my suggestion that you adapt your system to the environment rather than trying to adapt the environment to your system.

[Cindy 1]

I'm bummed that Evernote might not ever get to adding in the functionality to print! It seems so obvious to me as a need! As I searched around the internet it was clear I was not the only one searching for this capability. Do they check these forums or if I *wanted* to put in a request for the functionality is there some place to do that? I'm assuming they watch these forums and search for new functionality requests. Even if they do put it as item number 10,000 on their backlog.

Even if I tried implementing TSW exactly as prescribed, I'd still have the problem. Nobody from TSW seemed to experience my pain (or at least they hadn't written about it). I just broke down and sent in a comment on that site too. So we'll see if they have the magic answer. I may indeed need to use one of the apps that integrates with EN but I'll hold off until I am convinced Evernote will not create an ability to print the notes in notebook/tag order. Which might be sooner rather than later. *sigh*

I debated getting a keyboard for my android tablet. But honestly, I don't use the tablet once. And I can't connect that through wireless at work anyway (same strict security) so then I'd just be lugging around a laptop, my phone, and the tablet. I could get a keyboard for my phone (I think) but still seems kind of silly to do all that a little piece of paper is all I need!

Thank for your help, though!

[Cindy 1]

I'm so excited! I'm posting this here in case anyone else out there is searching for an answer to be able to print (although I like to think I'm an early adopter for technology, my mind will always process things better when I see it on paper so I'm glad I found a solution for now!). Although I had tried screen prints, I couldn't screen capture my entire list since I often had to scroll. So I finally remembered that I had SnagIt for work, which I believe recently added the ability to capture scrolling screens on a mac. I had to enable an add-on (although in retrospect I'm not entirely sure I had to do it, but I did that first in case anyone else is attempting this at home, ) but I was able to go to Evernote, list out all my actions sorted by tags (which is how I happened to want to view them since I have a specific ordering to my tags) and then "snag" the entire scrolling screen! Then I just cut out the part where it had last updated date column since I didn't really care about that and hit print...and there it was! A lovely printout of all my tasks for me to be able to read without having to be staring at a computer or phone. I am SO excited. My productivity has literally doubled. This should tide me over until Evernote hopefully one day enables printing of the list views. But if anyone out there is trying to do the same thing, you'll either need to wait for evernote to cater to the not-so-loud printing community *or* go get snag it and do wha I did. Good luck!

[Laura O 0]

I concur that this would be a very handy feature... I love having everything online in one place but sometimes I'd do better reviewing my list of notes for a given notebook (i.e. my to be done now notebook) in print.

[Wilco 1]

I use tags to collate tasks. When I click on the sidebar tag to list all the related notes I then Select All (cmd-A) and at the bottom of the screen click Email. It sends the complete tagged list to my email address from which I can print it out.

The Note title font size is big and all the note details are included so the output can be many pages as-is, but the email content can also be copy-and-pasted into a text editor for formatting if desired.