(Archived) How can I paste in plain text in iOS?

[Sang Dang 0]

Accept my appologies if this issue was solved.

How can I paste in plain text in Evernote iOS? And by the way, how to remove link?

Thank you.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi. Welcome to the forums. One method I use is FormatMatch. The app is free sits in your toolbar, and can be easily activated / deactivated. Just make sure to activat / deactivate it before copy / cut. Then, CMD + V to paste.

[Sang Dang 0]

Sorry, how can I do it in iOS, mean iPad, or iPhone?

(After an hour search in this forum, I think there is no way.)

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Sorry, how can I do it in iOS, mean iPad, or iPhone?

(After an hour search in this forum, I think there is no way.)

LOL. My mistake. I wasn't paying attention. Sorry!

The best solution I know is to run it through a plain text app like PlainText, SimpleNote, Notesy, etc. That will strip the formatting and you can paste into your note. It is basically a manual version of FormatMatch on OSX. Instead of an app or keyboard shortcuts, you do the work.

Technically, there is no plain text, as Evernote notes are a forked version of XHTML. However, this will get you relatively close on the iPad / iPhone. It also helps with text size and fonts, which Evernote currently does not enable us to change.

[Sang Dang 0]

Thank you, it's a little painful for me. Hope Evernote can improve it in future, I don't want to change to another one app, but it's pain.

Any way, thank you so much for fast reply.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Glad I could help. I've been asking for plain text ever since we got rich text in August 2011

To be honest, though, at the moment there are other things I would prioritize over it. Maybe, after some of the more critical changes have been made, then they can put it back into the app.

[Mike Wood 139]

@Sang Dang another App you could use is FastEver, this doesn't support formatting and thus strips formatting when you paste into it. FastEver is also a very fast way of getting a new note into your EN account, unfortunately its only useful to create new notes.

[SteveJam 7]

Or Drafts.app. Great little app which plays nice with TextExpander and sends to most of the popular note-taking applications in iOS, Evernote and Omnifocus in particular. Defaults to plain text but does Multimarkdown too.

[Sang Dang 0]

Thank you all guys, you are so friendly

[megsaint 441]

I second SteveJam's recommendation for Drafts. It is probably the app I use most frequently on my iPhone for creating text. It's fast and has hooks to almost everything. The TextExpander integration is what got me started using it but I keep finding more and more uses.

[Andreas Urra 0]

Please allow for pasting plain text, e.g. via a mode switch. For me plain text is the option I use 95% of the time.

And honestly: Evernote is an app for taking notes, which happens mostly via copy&paste. Right now Evernote documents are an aggregation of a multitude of fonts. So, getting rid of the orginial formatting in order to allow for formating within Evernote should be a primary concern for Evernote development, IMHO. For me, this would enhance usability way more than new features.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Please allow for pasting plain text, e.g. via a mode switch. For me plain text is the option I use 95% of the time.

And honestly: Evernote is an app for taking notes, which happens mostly via copy&paste. Right now Evernote documents are an aggregation of a multitude of fonts. So, getting rid of the orginial formatting in order to allow for formating within Evernote should be a primary concern for Evernote development, IMHO. For me, this would enhance usability way more than new features.

Hi. Welcome to the forums. You may already know about this, but iOS does have a plain text formatting option (http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2013/02/28/evernote-for-ios-update-new-view-better-pdf-support-evernote-business-improvements-and-more/) that will convert an entire note into plain text. It is quite handy, especially because we don't have font control, and this standardizes everything.

[Andreas Urra 0]

> that will convert an entire note into plain text.

 

Yes, but what I want is to do is use Evernote's formating tools to do my own formating (Heading, Sub Heading, etc.). Right now I have the choice of having all kinds of fonts mixed (Evernote's "Heading" option will not overwrite the pasted formating) or to have no formating at all. You already implemented all the formating tools. The only thing that prevents them from being used properly is the option to get rid of the original formating during the paste action.

Imagine an extensive note that I wrote and formated. Now I want to paste something in there. At this stage I do not want to loose all my formating work. And I want the pasted part to integrate into my text. I think this is a valid scenario.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

> that will convert an entire note into plain text.

 

Yes, but what I want is to do is use Evernote's formating tools to do my own formating (Heading, Sub Heading, etc.). Right now I have the choice of having all kinds of fonts mixed (Evernote's "Heading" option will not overwrite the pasted formating) or to have no formating at all. You already implemented all the formating tools. The only thing that prevents them from being used properly is the option to get rid of the original formating during the paste action.

Imagine an extensive note that I wrote and formated. Now I want to paste something in there. At this stage I do not want to loose all my formating work. And I want the pasted part to integrate into my text. I think this is a valid scenario.

I agree. It would be nice to have that control. We don't, though, and that is why I tend to work entirely in plain text with markdown. For me, there isn't much point in having the rich text formatting if I don't have complete control (for the reasons you pointed out).

Ideally, we'd have a stylesheet and our markdown would be beautifully formatted according to our individual settings (other apps on the iPad do this really well). However, we don't have this, and I kind of suspect it is a bit to "geeky" to ever make it into the app.

[timwong 2]

I agree with Andreas. Well said.

As a quick work around I just paste things into the address bar of Safari, then copy from there. Safari (or some web browser) is almost always a recently opened app.