(Archived) Duplication of large files...or not?

[PaperQueen 50]

At first glance, this may sound like a repeat of other posts asking where Evernote stores data. It's not quite...at least not in my mind.

The project:

Importing 3Gb of historic document files (PDFs, JPGs, mostly)---currently on my hard drive, into Evernote

The reason:

Easier to organize, categorize, and cross-link documents

The question:

The original documents already take a significant chunk of space on my computers (plural). By importing them to Evernote, am I essentially doubling the space they require on each machine because they now appear in two places?

If yes, I can easily move the originals to a server-only Dropbox folder (thanks to Selective Sync). Just want to be sure I understand this correctly before diving into things.

Thanks in advance for your ever-wonderful wisdom.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Yes!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

The project:

Importing 3Gb of historic document files (PDFs, JPGs, mostly)---currently on my hard drive, into Evernote

There are some definite disadvantages to storing a lot of large files in Evernote.

For a good discussion of the pros and cons, see:

Organizing PDF library with Evernote

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I have significantly more data I would "like" to have in Evernote, but do not, because of various concerns (see the link above). I have pulled out about 50GB of the most important stuff and selectively synced it to Dropbox (you are right, a great benefit to using the service). In my Evernote account, I have a bibliography (120114 index bibliography (master list)), which has note links to reading notes (for example, 120322 reading doe john 2007), and a note link to a note with the PDF file if it is small, or the text I have extracted from the file if the PDF is not. For primary sources (photographs of documents), I have the name of the file in the reading notes, and I can easily go to Dropbox to find it if necessary.

I used to put everything into Evernote, and 3GB isn't all that much, but if you are using Evernote for everything (me), then once you get to 25GB or so (me), you might start thinking that the costs outweigh the benefits (at least, at this point in the development of technology -- not just the app, but the processors and devices it runs on).

[PaperQueen 50]

Thanks to all of you for the great feedback, even though it confirms what I feared most. I'm doubling up on storage space by popping things from the hard drive into Evernote. Hmm.

I see the wisdom of extracting text from a PDF, then copy/pasting it into EN. In my case, however, doing so would be tricky since most of my PDFs are images of historic documents including rows and columns of text (ex: an 1870 US Census page). The benefit to porting them to EN is that I can add my own notations above the image, in the note, making searches easy and targeted.

@JMichael: Thanks for the link. Not only was that helpful reading, but it led to other links that explained things further yet. Lots to chew on and consider moving forward.

@GrumpyMonkey, in one of those linked posts, you mention using Automator for PDF text extraction and Dropbox storage. Not sure what you're describing, but am curious about if/how that might help on non-spreadsheet type PDFs...?

Also--and I'm fairly sure I read this in a requested features thread, not a "We have it" thread, drats--is there a way to create links in a note that point to an external document, say, one on my local computer, in the Dropbox folder? That would be a Godsend.

(I feel your pain, GM. Am installing a 480Gb SSD into the Air today, having hit the wall on storage space more than a couple of times. If you're running in to the same, check to see if Dropbox is hanging on to multiple archives--if so, deleting those opens a ton of space with no risk.)

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

is there a way to create links in a note that point to an external document, say, one on my local computer, in the Dropbox folder? That would be a Godsend.

Yes you can do this today.

All you need to do is enter the full Mac path as text into the Note in this form:

file:///YourFilePath/

Of course you can also use this to create a link over text by selecting the text and pressing CMD+K.

You can get the Mac path by dragging the file to the Address bar of any Browser.

If you are going to be doing this often, then you may want to install this Mac Automator Service:

Copy file or folder path to the clipboard in Mac OS X Lion | MacYourself

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thanks to all of you for the great feedback, even though it confirms what I feared most. I'm doubling up on storage space by popping things from the hard drive into Evernote. Hmm.

I see the wisdom of extracting text from a PDF, then copy/pasting it into EN. In my case, however, doing so would be tricky since most of my PDFs are images of historic documents including rows and columns of text (ex: an 1870 US Census page). The benefit to porting them to EN is that I can add my own notations above the image, in the note, making searches easy and targeted.

@JMichael: Thanks for the link. Not only was that helpful reading, but it led to other links that explained things further yet. Lots to chew on and consider moving forward.

@GrumpyMonkey, in one of those linked posts, you mention using Automator for PDF text extraction and Dropbox storage. Not sure what you're describing, but am curious about if/how that might help on non-spreadsheet type PDFs...?

Also--and I'm fairly sure I read this in a requested features thread, not a "We have it" thread, drats--is there a way to create links in a note that point to an external document, say, one on my local computer, in the Dropbox folder? That would be a Godsend.

(I feel your pain, GM. Am installing a 480Gb SSD into the Air today, having hit the wall on storage space more than a couple of times. If you're running in to the same, check to see if Dropbox is hanging on to multiple archives--if so, deleting those opens a ton of space with no risk.)

Hi. My use case was: scan document, perform optical character recognition (OCR), extract text, and stick this into Evernote. If you cannot do the OCR, then you are out of luck. I also work with historical documents (in my case, sixteenth-century manuscripts from Japan) and the content cannot be OCR'd, so I leave them outside of Evernote. As I mentioned with the "reading notes" I can write transcriptions, comments, translations, and so forth in Evernote, but just have the file name for the Dropbox file. I used to stick the PDFs into the bottom of each reading note, or get them into Evernote and then link directly to them, but for various reasons (see those links) found this untenable in the long-run. If Evernote changes some things, by adding the ability to toggle notebooks offline/online (as we do on the iPad), for example, I might revisit this.

Thanks for the advice on the Dropbox archived files. I will take a look!

[PaperQueen 50]

All you need to do is enter the full Mac path as text into the Note in this form:

file:///YourFilePath/

Oddly, pasting the path into EN imported the file itself. Tried it with a couple of photos--both times, the link immediately converted to the photos themselves, defeating the purpose.

Photos, by the way, are going to be my Achilles Heel. They've been scanned at super-high res for possible printing later on. Too big for EN, but need to be indexed there...thus, the desire for live links.

If you are going to be doing this often, then you may want to install this Mac Automator Service:

Copy file or folder path to the clipboard in Mac OS X Lion | MacYourself

Tried that next. Great for the path, but doesn't make it a clickable link. Close, but....

My use case was: scan document, perform optical character recognition (OCR), extract text, and stick this into Evernote. If you cannot do the OCR, then you are out of luck.

Ahhhh. Got it, and yes, I can do that. Thanks for the tip.

I also work with historical documents (in my case, sixteenth-century manuscripts from Japan) and the content cannot be OCR'd, so I leave them outside of Evernote.

That's where my head is pointed for the mountains of historic documents (most of which are in hard-to-decipher handwriting) and high res photo scans. Ideally, I'd like to insert live links into EN that point directly to the documents stored in my local Dropbox folder...not unlike the "Copy note link" function EN provides for items within its own stacks.

Thanks for the advice on the Dropbox archived files. I will take a look!

Hey, it's the least I can do--your wisdom has been a huge help here in the forum threads more times than I can count.

Here's my cheat sheet--hope it helps.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

All you need to do is enter the full Mac path as text into the Note in this form:

file:///YourFilePath/

Oddly, pasting the path into EN imported the file itself. Tried it with a couple of photos--both times, the link immediately converted to the photos themselves, defeating the purpose.

The path pasted fine for me -- did NOT convert actual image

Make sure you are pasting the path into an existing Note, not on top of the Evernote app icon on the Dock.

If you are going to be doing this often, then you may want to install this Mac Automator Service:

Copy file or folder path to the clipboard in Mac OS X Lion | MacYourself

Tried that next. Great for the path, but doesn't make it a clickable link. Close, but....

Looks like you have to apply the file path as a URL link to selected text using the CMD+K shortcut.

Make sure to prefix the path with "file://".

Works on my MacBook Air running OS X 10.7.4 and EN Mac 3.3.0.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thanks for sharing your cheat sheet! It has been duly Evernoted

My contribution to this, small as it might be, would be to just use Gmail online, and not to set up a Mail account on your MBA. This saved me a bunch of space, and hassle.

[PaperQueen 50]

The path pasted fine for me -- did NOT convert actual image Make sure you are pasting the path into an existing Note, not on top of the Evernote app icon on the Dock.

Not sure why they convert to the actual image for me; I was pasting the path string directly into an EN note. Huh.

That said...

Just tried typing alternative text (ex: Photo of document ABC), then using your Command+K suggestion. Ho-ly-mo-ly it worked!

(How in the world have I been using Apple computers for 26? 27? years and didn't know about Control+K?)

Thankyouthankhyouthankhyouthankyouthankyou.

Thanks for sharing your cheat sheet! It has been duly Evernoted

Happy to help. I only owe you, oh, about a bazillion more of those.