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Please, Please, Please, Fix the text editor!


Didjit

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Editing notes on the web is painful.  If I paste text the screen jumps back to the top. If I paste a list it gets indented with a blank top line.  If I try to delete the blank line it deletes what's before it.  As I recall, it's not much better on the device (Android) either.  Between that, continuous "note conflicts", and silly things like check boxes not lining up with the rest of the line or your indent/outdent icons being reversed from standard, I'm having a hard time staying with Evernote.  Are you writing your own text editors?  Don't!  Other have already solved that problem; use theirs!

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This has been mentioned,  accepted and generally moaned about since forever.  Evernote will get around to it - meantime you can always use another text editor to create the text and then just copy/ paste it into a note,  or embed the file and get better formatting.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is the same foolishness that bedeviled Netscape at the top of its popularity. I use Evernote on all of my devices (Android phone, Windows, iPad, and MacBook Pro). The editor has the same bugs on all platforms. Sounds like incompetence to me.

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This is the same foolishness that bedeviled Netscape at the top of its popularity. I use Evernote on all of my devices (Android phone, Windows, iPad, and MacBook Pro). The editor has the same bugs on all platforms. Sounds like incompetence to me.

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

Could you provide us with specific problems you have on all the platforms? This might help the developers to better address the issues.

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This is the same foolishness that bedeviled Netscape at the top of its popularity. I use Evernote on all of my devices (Android phone, Windows, iPad, and MacBook Pro). The editor has the same bugs on all platforms. Sounds like incompetence to me.

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

Could you provide us with specific problems you have on all the platforms? This might help the developers to better address the issues.

 

A Few that come to top of mind:

  • When pasting text into an indented list, It is not possible to indent or outdent the list from the point of paste. As a workaround, I will create a multi-item list and paste text in the middle of the so that there is a formatted list after paste. This does not always, though. Clearly, pasting text into a list damaged Evernote's list semantics.
  • Pasting an indented list from another application like, Microsoft Word, is extremely problematic. EN does not preserver the indenting, causing me to to either copy as plain text and re-indent in EN or spent long periods of time trying to pretty up the list. This is not limited to Word. The same problem happens copying text from Acrobat, Chrome, IE, Firefox.
  • Unlike most modern editors, you cannot paste rich text and merge it with destination markup. You either paste it as text or it just comes over and you deal with it. Editors like Word make some intelligent (and some not so intelligent) decisions about merging text. EN does not.
  • There is no mode to actually see EN's markup, so it can be corrected directly. Instead you have to guess where the problem is and try to find a workaround.
  • Often EN will identify a word as misspelled, when it is actually spelled correctly. It will not suggest alternative spellings. Many times if I highlight the word the it will remove its complaints.
  • If I tell it to add to the dictionary, then it does not automatically re-scan, removing future occurrences of the learned word.
  • Is it too much to ask for a pluggable spell checker/dictionary? Clearly, EN's dictionary is very limited, particularly for technical terms, abbreviations.
  • How about a global dictionary shared between instances of EN running on different devices?
  • Let's not even get started by inconsistent syncing rules across platforms causes frequent note conflicts. The reason I use EN on multiple platforms is that each platform has its time and place. (Take a quick note on iPad will undoubtedly lead to a note conflict unless I can fully ensure the note is synced before EN loses focus.)
  • Who in the world came up with EN's right click menu system? Should this collect context-sensitive menus? If I select a hyperlink, how about copy, select, update, etc.
  • I got an idea: Etherpad-mode! haha

 

I have many more issues, but I have work to do.

 

You may ask, with so many issues why not report them in an ongoing fashion. I don't because I first look to see if other's are having my issues. I notice many times there is either no response or the response is so truly laughable. For instance, it is onerous to create my notes in Microsoft Word and copy them to EN. That is double work. Plus I do not have Word on all of my platforms.

 

It just seems like the designers of EN want EN to be a content dumping ground, not a content creation platform.

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This is the same foolishness that bedeviled Netscape at the top of its popularity. I use Evernote on all of my devices (Android phone, Windows, iPad, and MacBook Pro). The editor has the same bugs on all platforms. Sounds like incompetence to me.

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

Could you provide us with specific problems you have on all the platforms? This might help the developers to better address the issues.

 

 

 

If you have a developer at Evernote try to write a simple article in the editor, they will find how subpar the editor is.   I don't think they need explicit pointers, it is so obvious the editor is so behind in functionality, they could fix it if they wanted it.

 

Heck, even the editor in this forum is way better than in the app.

 

 

 

 

 

It is amazing that a product of this recognition has such an awful text editor.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know how difficult it is to do a decent text editor when your user interface is a browser, having to have all kinds of special sections dealing with browser differences.  However, there is no excuse for not having a first rate text editor on the native versions.  I really like EditPro as a text editor, for example, though it has no facilities for including images.

 

Google has the best browser editor for the drive or docs part of their empire.  but they have a few more resources, too.  One thing that I think would really help would be the ability to switch to the HTML view, like the blogspot.com editor does.  Very messy sometimes, but at least you can see the markup code.  being able to directly edit what amounts to Evernote's markup code would help tremendously to those who are concerned with the final appearance of their notes -- those who might like to publish directly from evernote to some kind of blog site.

 

For the basic editing in evernote now, I believe the problem is deep in the logic.  From the behavior of my cursor, it would appear that the sync process is using the same variable that the main editing process is using to keep track of the cursor.  The random cursor jumping only occurs now when I'm working on a low end laptop and I'm in a local network with multiple users doing things like video streaming or massive downloads. So I suppose the sync code is very tight.  But not tight enough.  I think rather than focus on that code, there needs to be a walkthrough to figure out how the main editing process's cursor gets moved around.

 

 

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It's really very simple.  Evernote's focus is not to be a text/word processor.  It is a note collection/organizing & retrieval system that allows you to add text info to your notes.  If you need more robust text editing functions, please see post #2 above.

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It's really very simple.  Evernote's focus is not to be a text/word processor.  It is a note collection/organizing & retrieval system that allows you to add text info to your notes.  If you need more robust text editing functions, please see post #2 above.

That's their prerogative, of course.  But they need to know that it's unacceptable, especially if you're going to call your product and company "EverNOTE".  If they expect that users will be satisfied with opening a separate editor to write a note, save it, and then import it, then I suspect they'll find people just editing directly in a DropBox folder or with Google Docs, and bypassing Evernote altogether.  I've "settled" for what they've offered for years now, but it's gotten old.  Like, dial-up old. 

 

It's clear (like many companies, sadly) they're focusing on features over functionality.  The more features they check off, the better it appears to prospective customers, and then they can rely on inertia and apathy to then maintain the current user base.

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It's really very simple.  Evernote's focus is not to be a text/word processor.  It is a note collection/organizing & retrieval system that allows you to add text info to your notes.  If you need more robust text editing functions, please see post #2 above.

 

I don't think most users need "robust" text editing functions, we just want a very basic Word Processor that doesn't have so many showstopper bugs.

For example, every time you open a note with android version it flushes your bullet/list formatting, and your tab won't work properly, among many other small things like line spacing and what not.

I just want a basic text processor, not a robust one. I don't need office, but a regular rich text as minimum requirement for a Note...? I mean, jokes aside, even wysiwyg does it better and that's html editor.

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I don't need a full text editor or word processor - I've got those. 

 

What I want is to stay inside the EN environment for most idea capturing/note taking/meeting documentation/etc. tasks and not have to hack around what is a very old text editor implementation (I used to have EN before it is the app it has become, and I can't remember the text editor being great back then either.) In fact, until EN 4, I had basically abandoned it because it was so frustrating. I'm back now because of the better search abilities and organizational capabilities. Also - the web clipper is awesome on Chrome now (although I wish there was a preference to keep the sidebar open to avoid an extraneous click.)

 

I should be able to on both Mac and Windows:

  • Make bulleted lists that paste to/from popular email programs (mail.app, postbox, outlook, etc.) intact without generating additional spaces, or blowing up the hierarchy of bullets
  • Allow for pasting into Evernote without breaking some hidden behind-the-scenes code that prevents me from continuing a bulleted list or changing the font
  • Send a note as an email either as a nicely-formatted attachment (like in the old days) or in the body of a new email using standard email app APIs. Start the email for me - don't make me look up folks from my address book so I can paste them into an EN dialog, or - do lookups from my OS registered address book and keep the dialog. The former solution is better because I can preview it before it going out.
  • Dynamic tables (cough - a la OneNote)

But really, I don't need additional features as much as I need those features that are already in there to be rock solid. 

 

I promise this is my last post on this for at least a few weeks. I got fired up today, so I'm scouring the forums and going all active for once. ;-)

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I don't need a full text editor or word processor - I've got those. 

 

What I want is to stay inside the EN environment for most idea capturing/note taking/meeting documentation/etc. tasks and not have to hack around what is a very old text editor implementation (I used to have EN before it is the app it has become, and I can't remember the text editor being great back then either.) In fact, until EN 4, I had basically abandoned it because it was so frustrating. I'm back now because of the better search abilities and organizational capabilities. Also - the web clipper is awesome on Chrome now (although I wish there was a preference to keep the sidebar open to avoid an extraneous click.)

 

I should be able to on both Mac and Windows:

  • Make bulleted lists that paste to/from popular email programs (mail.app, postbox, outlook, etc.) intact without generating additional spaces, or blowing up the hierarchy of bullets
  • Allow for pasting into Evernote without breaking some hidden behind-the-scenes code that prevents me from continuing a bulleted list or changing the font
  • Send a note as an email either as a nicely-formatted attachment (like in the old days) or in the body of a new email using standard email app APIs. Start the email for me - don't make me look up folks from my address book so I can paste them into an EN dialog, or - do lookups from my OS registered address book and keep the dialog. The former solution is better because I can preview it before it going out.
  • Dynamic tables (cough - a la OneNote)

But really, I don't need additional features as much as I need those features that are already in there to be rock solid. 

 

I promise this is my last post on this for at least a few weeks. I got fired up today, so I'm scouring the forums and going all active for once. ;-)

I also don't need a word processor, but I also use EN as my main working space.

 

So I want the same kinds of things.  I want, for example, an additional paste or clip option:  currently have Paste and Paste as text.  I want Paste Basic, which retains HTML like lists and tables, but throws out the CSS styling and extraneous ads and stuff.

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  • 1 month later...

My question relates to markups on photos and I apologize if this is the wrong place for it. I can add a text comment to a photo but how do I go back and edit it? I can't get the cursor to move within a text box on a marked up photo and the only way I can edit previously entered text is to backspace from the end of the text and re-enter everything from that point. Am I missing something?

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

My first post in an Evernote forum.

 

I've recently tried to start using it more.  Especially now that Cardmunch is gone and my cards are over here.  Today I was using it for a todo list with bullets and 2 levels of indent and somehow I created some undeletable bullets.  Not complex, not rocket science...  I was on the web so I downloaded the windows app.  Same problem.  I've had lots of weird stuff in the editor it borders on unusable.  Not sure I can keep using it.  I'll see if I can demonstrate:

  • Everything OK so far
  • Oops, wrong bullet type - should have a hole in it
    • Oops again - 2 bullets on 1 line, impossible to delete the extra bullet
    • Test 3 - OK here

I just played around with cutting, pasting, indenting and was able to demo 2 bugs in a few seconds. 

 

Thanks for letting me vent.  Please fix.

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My first post in an Evernote forum.

 

I've recently tried to start using it more.  Especially now that Cardmunch is gone and my cards are over here.  Today I was using it for a todo list with bullets and 2 levels of indent and somehow I created some undeletable bullets.  Not complex, not rocket science...  I was on the web so I downloaded the windows app.  Same problem.  I've had lots of weird stuff in the editor it borders on unusable.  Not sure I can keep using it.  I'll see if I can demonstrate:

  • Everything OK so far
  • Oops, wrong bullet type - should have a hole in it
    • Oops again - 2 bullets on 1 line, impossible to delete the extra bullet
    • Test 3 - OK here

I just played around with cutting, pasting, indenting and was able to demo 2 bugs in a few seconds. 

 

Thanks for letting me vent.  Please fix.

Funny, it different now than in the editor, try quoting the post and it looks different...

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Evernote editor is sad. On all devices.

 

I make tons of bulleted lists for outlining, and they have many problems as mentioned above. C'mon guys!?!?!

 

For now, if you use tons of bullet list for outlining, you should use Workflowy.

It's the best alternative for Evernote's broken bullet list now.

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  • 1 month later...

Watch this:

 

w00t, I'm indented!

 

OMG, some generic forum software is more capable than Evernote.  Do these options look familiar:
 

23wodus.png

 

Rocket science for sure.  Or gmail:

 

9kxfzl.png

 

Not much in the way of "note" in Evernote, eh?  I actually had to write something in gmail then paste it into Evernote to get the functionality I wanted.  Sad.

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Whoa, I tried to put a checkbox in the forum!?!?!? I can't do it. And a reminder!?!?!?! Can't do that, either. Oh phooey, no audio notes. Or annotations. I was sad until I realized that apples are not oranges. And notes are often considered to be less formal/complicated than word-processing documents (Notepad, anyone? NotePad++ is a *text* editor).

 

Oh well. w00t, indeed.

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Whoa, I tried to put a checkbox in the forum!?!?!? I can't do it. And a reminder!?!?!?! Can't do that, either. Oh phooey, no audio notes. Or annotations. I was sad until I realized that apples are not oranges. And notes are often considered to be less formal/complicated than word-processing documents (Notepad, anyone? NotePad++ is a *text* editor).

 

Oh well. w00t, indeed.

Lordy, Lordy, Jeff. Now you've gone & done it. There will be posts about those nasty evangelists defending Evernote b/c it's already perfect.

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I have not seen any Evangelists who said EN is perfect. Evangelists explain, and where necessary defend, EN's workings. The defense aspect is sometimes "well developed" with Evangelists, which why they can have a reputation of calling EN perfect. But you know what? As an EN enthusiast I find I'm explaining & defending EN in the same way, it kind of grows on you. Having said that, I do keep aware of developments at EN competitors to see what's going on & if there isn't something I can pick up. For example, I use OneNote in parallel with EN for those things EN does not have or provides "less well", such as placing pictures in a note where I want or using ON's superior OCR feature.

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How hard is to see that Evernote's text editor is subpar.  There are some basic features that are not there, and there are many of those features.

 

We simply wish that Evernote would do something about it.  It seems to me and I believe to many users that text editing is at the core of Evernote, and the disregard from the company to do anything about really baffles many of us.

 

We are not here to attack anyone, less an 'EN Evangelist'; but when we see that an 'EN Evangelist' doesn't want to see those shortcomings, that person is wasting their time, it is wasting every customer's time that take their time to write in here, and speaks very badly of evernote.   They seem to simply have some people in the front lines fending off comments; rather than taking this valuable feedback into their core product.

 

My only and last comment here and I leave with a few conclusions...

- Evernote's text editor is really bad.

- Evernote is not listening to their customers; they give a *****.

 

That is what this forum tells me.

 

Too bad for Evernote, and for us, their users.

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The text editor is really bad.  No one has denied or argued that it is overdue for a makeover.  If you read the release notes of recent updates,  various features like lists and bullets have already been improved. 

 

If you know anything about software development you'll be aware that introducing changes to a product - especially one used by a lot of people - takes a long time.  You have 14 or so different platforms for which to plan,  write,  test,  bugfix and then release. 

 

Evernote does listen to its customers,  it just doesn't have a magic wand.

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I have not seen any Evangelists who said EN is perfect.

That's my point.

We are not here to attack anyone, less an 'EN Evangelist'; but when we see that an 'EN Evangelist' doesn't want to see those shortcomings, that person is wasting their time, it is wasting every customer's time that take their time to write in here, and speaks very badly of evernote.   They seem to simply have some people in the front lines fending off comments; rather than taking this valuable feedback into their core product.

If you read the posts, you will see "the evangelists" have stated repeatedly that EN is not a text editor & therefore may not have some features a text editor should have. It's also not a to do/task list manager, a password manager or a spreadsheet. Does it allow you to do some of those things? Yes. But if you want a full featured text editor, spreadsheet, password manager, etc, etc, etc, you should use one. Evernote's main focus is (and always has been, as far as I can see), collecting, organizing & retrieving information.

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A blog is not a text editor, but it certainly can handle some basic things that Evernote is incapable of doing.   And the argument it is not a text editor is invalid, then why EN is allowing you to do bullets?  The problem is that they simply don't work.

 

What a waste of time.    I am out of here...

 

We are simply trying to give feedback, because believe it or not, we love the product to the point of that, giving feedback and hoping that will help.   You guys, the 'EN Evangelist' community are doing a disservice to EN.   You are being defensive of something so blatantly obvious that removes any confidence in the forums and in evernote.  

 

Again, the impressions I am leaving with include that Evernote doesn't give a ***** about the product, and that they are happily leaving the work of defending the product to the evangelist, who are not really representing them well.

 

Off I go!

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A blog is not a text editor, but it certainly can handle some basic things that Evernote is incapable of doing.   And the argument it is not a text editor is invalid, then why EN is allowing you to do bullets?  The problem is that they simply don't work.

 

What a waste of time.    I am out of here...

 

We are simply trying to give feedback, because believe it or not, we love the product to the point of that, giving feedback and hoping that will help.   You guys, the 'EN Evangelist' community are doing a disservice to EN.   You are being defensive of something so blatantly obvious that removes any confidence in the forums and in evernote.  

 

Again, the impressions I am leaving with include that Evernote doesn't give a ***** about the product, and that they are happily leaving the work of defending the product to the evangelist, who are not really representing them well.

 

Off I go!

 

You're really hammering this point about 'defending' despite all comments and evidence to the contrary.  Still - if you're not happy with what you see,  it's definitely your right to depart...

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A blog is not a text editor, but it certainly can handle some basic things that Evernote is incapable of doing. And the argument it is not a text editor is invalid, then why EN is allowing you to do bullets? The problem is that they simply don't work.

What a waste of time. I am out of here...

We are simply trying to give feedback, because believe it or not, we love the product to the point of that, giving feedback and hoping that will help. You guys, the 'EN Evangelist' community are doing a disservice to EN. You are being defensive of something so blatantly obvious that removes any confidence in the forums and in evernote.

Again, the impressions I am leaving with include that Evernote doesn't give a ***** about the product, and that they are happily leaving the work of defending the product to the evangelist, who are not really representing them well.

Off I go!

Comparing blog software (which is really what you're referring to rather than a blog itself) to Evernote is apples & oranges, since the main purpose of blog software is very similar to a text editor/word processor (presentation).

Good luck with whatever app you find that better suits your needs.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I agree with everyone here: The text editor takes us back to the 80's. Even the editor of this forum is better!!!

I would love to take a premium account and use Evernote intensively on all my devices. But this is really the point that refrains me from doing it.

WHEN WILL IT BE FIXED?

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The text editor is really bad.  No one has denied or argued that it is overdue for a makeover.  If you read the release notes of recent updates,  various features like lists and bullets have already been improved. 

 

If you know anything about software development you'll be aware that introducing changes to a product - especially one used by a lot of people - takes a long time.  You have 14 or so different platforms for which to plan,  write,  test,  bugfix and then release. 

 

Evernote does listen to its customers,  it just doesn't have a magic wand.

We are talking of a very basic thing here... No rocket science!

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If you are a mac user then take a look at the recent 5.6 beta. Lots of editor changes and fixes.

Well, it's a little bit better but still very basic. Try and do a numbered list for instance: 1., 2. etc OK, then you indent to get what?... another 1.! What about 1 a)???

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I don't think it's ever going to be anything apart from very basic, I think that's the target. Adding consistency across the platforms is obviously part of this rewrite too.

 

I don't think it's ever going to be sophisticated in how it handles fonts or lists of formatting. 

 

I think if you need this sort of control then it's the wrong app for you, or use it in conjunction with a 'proper' word processor.

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I don't think it's ever going to be anything apart from very basic, I think that's the target. Adding consistency across the platforms is obviously part of this rewrite too.

 

I don't think it's ever going to be sophisticated in how it handles fonts or lists of formatting. 

 

I think if you need this sort of control then it's the wrong app for you, or use it in conjunction with a 'proper' word processor.

 

Well it's good to know. When you take a paid subscription, and use the SW across devices, it's because you are going to use it a lot, therefore in a professional context. 

So, you don't want to spend time reformating etc. It needs to be simple and efficient.

Again, don't think we are asking for rocket science, but everything is relative...

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It would be wonderfully convenient if Evernote could edit pictures and sound files, draw mindmaps,  manage bulk emailings and design html pages for websites.  A percentage of their huge user base would be over the moon for each enhancement,  just as you would be if it was simpler to format text content.  But just as equally,  the vast majority of users would be unhappy because it wasn't their heart's desire that had been delivered,  and the current incarnation of Evernote would disappear beneath menu screens for those different specialised editors.  I suspect that Evernote takes the view that storing and delivering the content is their prime strength;  what users want to do with it after delivery is up to that user and whatever specialised software s/he decides to employ.  I like it that way anyhow - no-one knows what Evernote thinks at this stage,  but the request has been raised - they will,  or may not,  do anything more to their own timescale...

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I don't think it's ever going to be anything apart from very basic, I think that's the target. Adding consistency across the platforms is obviously part of this rewrite too.

 

I don't think it's ever going to be sophisticated in how it handles fonts or lists of formatting. 

 

I think if you need this sort of control then it's the wrong app for you, or use it in conjunction with a 'proper' word processor.

 

Well it's good to know. When you take a paid subscription, and use the SW across devices, it's because you are going to use it a lot, therefore in a professional context. 

So, you don't want to spend time reformating etc. It needs to be simple and efficient.

Again, don't think we are asking for rocket science, but everything is relative...

 

 

Just my opinion and I don't have any great insight, but I've been a user for a while....

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That would be great...*if* it was a directly from Evernote product. Seems like the 3rd party apps are all to prone to closing down. Not all of them, but a fair amount. That's just my personal observation and I do understand it has to do with limited resources available to small start-ups.

if I was Evernote, I would add a paid plug-in for a small price that everybody would buy.

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@gazumped said:

 

 

"I suspect that Evernote takes the view that storing and delivering the content is their prime strength;"

 

 

That's fine - up to a point. But it's the full information lifecycle its users are likely to need (not want). But in fact Evernote makes lots of forays into other aspects of the information lifecycle.

 

Admittedly there probably can't be an open-ended commitment to content creation tools.

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No.  We're talking about what virtually amounts to bug fixing here...Its way beyond what Evernote IS and isn't. 

Evernote has issues with  basic editing. Period. 

Didjit, the closest answer I've gotten is from a ticket response (bout 8mo ago):  ''we're currently looking at all of editing functionality''.... From Evernote that's a revelation!  But...  no real substance...and, in 8 mo: no results. 

 

It's really very simple.  Evernote's focus is not to be a text/word processor.  It is a note collection/organizing & retrieval system that allows you to add text info to your notes.  If you need more robust text editing functions, please see post #2 above.

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@rockky The "we're currently looking at all of editing functionality" statement could well have a long lead time to turn into better clients - if that's what they're doing. Their rhetoric on the Mac client rewrite sort of supports this. But then it isn't radically different from what it replaces.

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I think the most difficult part of the baseline editor functionality is the requirement that content clipped from the web be editable.  This requires a large number of complex algorithms to handle accurate cursor placement within the clipped  content.  

 

I think if this requirement were eliminated, if Evernote only allowed adding notes in a space above the clipped content, that resources would be freed to concentrate on fixing the note editor.  

 

Poll:  How many of you actually type comments inside clipped content?

 

I do and I want to continue to do so -- but only on clipped content that is editable, such as "print friendly" pages.  There are a couple of sites I visit regularly, clip the print friendly version and insert my notes.  There are very few sites where this is practical.  

 

So rather than completely eliminate the ability to edit clipped content, provide some kind of logic and visual cue that the note being looked at can only have comments added in the comment section at the top.  If the logic detects anything other than basic HTML and inline CSS, mark the clipped content as not-editable, perhaps providing an option to convert it to PDF or JPG or PNG.

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I think the most difficult part of the baseline editor functionality is the requirement that content clipped from the web be editable.  This requires a large number of complex algorithms to handle accurate cursor placement within the clipped  content.  
 
I think if this requirement were eliminated, if Evernote only allowed adding notes in a space above the clipped content, that resources would be freed to concentrate on fixing the note editor.  
 
Poll:  How many of you actually type comments inside clipped content?
 
I do and I want to continue to do so -- but only on clipped content that is editable, such as "print friendly" pages.  There are a couple of sites I visit regularly, clip the print friendly version and insert my notes.  There are very few sites where this is practical.  
 
So rather than completely eliminate the ability to edit clipped content, provide some kind of logic and visual cue that the note being looked at can only have comments added in the comment section at the top.  If the logic detects anything other than basic HTML and inline CSS, mark the clipped content as not-editable, perhaps providing an option to convert it to PDF or JPG or PNG.

 

 

You know, I'm asking for simple things to enable taking notes in a meeting: Bulleted lists, numbered lists with more than one numbering levels, both mixed etc. 

So, to answer your question, no, I don't edit web content or, at least, this is absolutely not a priority. What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

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What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

Then you may well have the wrong software. Evernote has never really been a good option for that. You can do it but it's not really what Evernote appears to be trying to be. As Gazumped noted above, they focus has been primarily on collection, storage and retrieval. There are lots of apps that will sync notes to Evernote. Depending on what platforms you use, one of them may well be a better choice.

I'm hooked on my LiveScribe pen right now. I take the notes on paper and they get synced to Evernote (as handwritten notes). I can convert them to text if I need to. Best of both worlds for me.

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What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

Then you may well have the wrong software. Evernote has never really been a good option for that. You can do it but it's not really what Evernote appears to be trying to be. As Gazumped noted above, they focus has been primarily on collection, storage and retrieval. There are lots of apps that will sync notes to Evernote. Depending on what platforms you use, one of them may well be a better choice.

I'm hooked on my LiveScribe pen right now. I take the notes on paper and they get synced to Evernote (as handwritten notes). I can convert them to text if I need to. Best of both worlds for me.

 

 

Honestly, if I can do such sophisticated things as "collection, storage and retrieval", what's the point of preventing me from taking simple notes in the same folders? That's cruel, isn't it?

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What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

Then you may well have the wrong software. Evernote has never really been a good option for that. You can do it but it's not really what Evernote appears to be trying to be. As Gazumped noted above, they focus has been primarily on collection, storage and retrieval. There are lots of apps that will sync notes to Evernote. Depending on what platforms you use, one of them may well be a better choice.

I'm hooked on my LiveScribe pen right now. I take the notes on paper and they get synced to Evernote (as handwritten notes). I can convert them to text if I need to. Best of both worlds for me.

 

 

Honestly, if I can do such sophisticated things as "collection, storage and retrieval", what's the point of preventing me from taking simple notes in the same folders? That's cruel, isn't it?

 

 

Well, Evernote doesn't have folders.  Not sure what your point is here. You can take "simple notes".  And they can be in the same notebook. 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

 

 

 

What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

Then you may well have the wrong software. Evernote has never really been a good option for that. You can do it but it's not really what Evernote appears to be trying to be. As Gazumped noted above, they focus has been primarily on collection, storage and retrieval. There are lots of apps that will sync notes to Evernote. Depending on what platforms you use, one of them may well be a better choice.

I'm hooked on my LiveScribe pen right now. I take the notes on paper and they get synced to Evernote (as handwritten notes). I can convert them to text if I need to. Best of both worlds for me.

 

 

Honestly, if I can do such sophisticated things as "collection, storage and retrieval", what's the point of preventing me from taking simple notes in the same folders? That's cruel, isn't it?

 

 

Well, Evernote doesn't have folders.  Not sure what your point is here. You can take "simple notes".  And they can be in the same notebook. 

 

 

That is an incredibly semantic response. The notebooks are ostensibly folders. Folders are used to organize different kinds of information and so are the notebooks.

Further, if we want to have wonderfully semantic arguments, if they call them notebooks, then the word processor should be able to take notes. Asking for a simple upgrade to the outlining capabilities of the editor is not remotely changing the functionality of the client, nor is it a slap in the face to the core credo of the application. It is merely improving very minimally one of the application's utilities. It isn't asking for a feature rich mindmapping processor. It is merely asking for the ability to properly outline text used in notes which is TOTALLY one of the expected utilities of a note taking application.

Every single "power user" who has responded to this thread (I've been watching it for over a year) has responded with weird semantic, slippery slope arguments and a strange clinging to the traditional when the actual request is really simple and is not diametrically opposed to the goals of the application. Reading this thread is really friggen surreal, you guys.

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@Matsie: what is meant by all the unsatisfactory answers is that, even though a lot of people have complained about the text editor, it seems that Evernote are sticking to their guns & keeping the thing as it is. Having said that, nobody know what Evernote's development plans are so we don't know if & when they will do something about that editor.

 

Meanwhile, every user has to get on with their business so if someone needs something sophisticated editorially then a this stage there is no other alternative but to go through a workaround, i.e. using something like Word and thne copy/paste into Evernote afterwards if that's what is needed.

 

New features or upgraded ones can and actually are asked, but the best thing to bear in mind at all times is to use Evernote (or any other app for that matter) what is designed for in the context of its current design status. Trying to use it for something else will more often than not lead to frustration, which is counter-productive.

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What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

Then you may well have the wrong software. Evernote has never really been a good option for that. You can do it but it's not really what Evernote appears to be trying to be. As Gazumped noted above, they focus has been primarily on collection, storage and retrieval. There are lots of apps that will sync notes to Evernote. Depending on what platforms you use, one of them may well be a better choice.

I'm hooked on my LiveScribe pen right now. I take the notes on paper and they get synced to Evernote (as handwritten notes). I can convert them to text if I need to. Best of both worlds for me.

 

 

Honestly, if I can do such sophisticated things as "collection, storage and retrieval", what's the point of preventing me from taking simple notes in the same folders? That's cruel, isn't it?

 

 

Well, Evernote doesn't have folders.  Not sure what your point is here. You can take "simple notes".  And they can be in the same notebook. 

 

 

That is an incredibly semantic response. The notebooks are ostensibly folders. Folders are used to organize different kinds of information and so are the notebooks.

Further, if we want to have wonderfully semantic arguments, if they call them notebooks, then the word processor should be able to take notes. Asking for a simple upgrade to the outlining capabilities of the editor is not remotely changing the functionality of the client, nor is it a slap in the face to the core credo of the application. It is merely improving very minimally one of the application's utilities. It isn't asking for a feature rich mindmapping processor. It is merely asking for the ability to properly outline text used in notes which is TOTALLY one of the expected utilities of a note taking application.

Every single "power user" who has responded to this thread (I've been watching it for over a year) has responded with weird semantic, slippery slope arguments and a strange clinging to the traditional when the actual request is really simple and is not diametrically opposed to the goals of the application. Reading this thread is really friggen surreal, you guys.

 

Matsie, you are brave to keep looking at all this non-sense and I fully agree with what you say. I absolutely do not care to know whether I'm writing in notebooks or folders. What I know, is that I still cannot take decent notes in Evernotes while even this forum where I'm writing now has better (and old / proven) text editing capabilities.

Sigh...

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I totally understand what folks are saying, but it doesn't seem like Evernote is "sticking to its guns" so much as just hasn't updated the editor yet. I also think that some of the Evernote evangelists on this thread are doing an awful job because it totally *is* one of Evernote's stated utilities to be used for writing notes. 

Straight from the Evernote.com homepage: 

WRITE

From short lists to lengthy research, no matter what form your writing takes, Evernote keeps you focused on moving those ideas from inspiration to completion.

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I totally understand what folks are saying, but it doesn't seem like Evernote is "sticking to its guns" so much as just hasn't updated the editor yet. I also think that some of the Evernote evangelists on this thread are doing an awful job because it totally *is* one of Evernote's stated utilities to be used for writing notes. 

Straight from the Evernote.com homepage: 

WRITE

From short lists to lengthy research, no matter what form your writing takes, Evernote keeps you focused on moving those ideas from inspiration to completion.

 

 

Evernote does indeed try to become a 1-stop shop. They have even give the impression they want to take on MS Office, which I think is a statement misread by people, but generally speaking Evernote do give the impression that the app can do more than it can, in any case right now. And by "sticking to their guns" I mean that they do not seem to be taking requests about the editor on board. They are sticking with what there is right now.

 

Having used it for 18 months myself now & having tried to use it for various things, I have come to the conclusion that Evernote is nothing more than a very good digital filing cabinet for storage & quick retrieval of info. In my opinion "info" in this case means documents (contracts, receipts, certain web clippings, business cards, ....). If you want to use it for something else you are better off using another app, possibly in parallel.

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I mostly think that telling people who are using a tool correctly that they just don't get the philosophy of the tool is kind of a deterrent from getting more people to use that tool.

The flip side is that if you don't understand a tool as it exists, and try to do things that it's not built to do, then you're probably not going to be able to use it well.

 

That's an entirely different issue than that of requesting that the tool be improved, which is entirely reasonable. I'd love it if Evernote had a better editing experience, but what it has fits into my usage zone, so it's fine for me 99% of the time. If I need something more functional, I'm easily capable of pulling out, say, MS Word,.

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it seems that Evernote are sticking to their guns & keeping the thing as it is. Having said that, nobody know what Evernote's development plans are so we don't know if & when they will do something about that editor.

Not exactly true.  EN has (quietly) rolled out a new editor in the Mac beta.  I expect this to appear in the Windows client at some point.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

I mostly think that telling people who are using a tool correctly that they just don't get the philosophy of the tool is kind of a deterrent from getting more people to use that tool.

The flip side is that if you don't understand a tool as it exists, and try to do things that it's not built to do, then you're probably not going to be able to use it well.

 

That's an entirely different issue than that of requesting that the tool be improved, which is entirely reasonable. I'd love it if Evernote had a better editing experience, but what it has fits into my usage zone, so it's fine for me 99% of the time. If I need something more functional, I'm easily capable of pulling out, say, MS Word,.

 

I have been using Evernote now for a little over 4 years. I use it extensively on 4 platforms (Windows desktop, MacBook Pro, iPad, Andtroid phone). After these many years I can safely say Evernote is very poor at content creation/management. It does a good job at storing and indexing, even though it is lousy at maintaining syncrhonization among my 4 platforms.

 

However, when you go Evernote's website it says it does 4 things - Write, Collect, Find, Present. While "Present" is fairly new, "Write" has essentially been there since the beginning. It is also the first point Evernote consitently makes. This is why I am so concerned about the poor basic text editing in Evernote across all platforms I use. How do you create and manage notes without a simple, competent text editor? After receiving $225M in funding, should they rebrand and rename to EverDump? EverBox?

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Nobody's saying that Evernote is anywhere near, say, MS Word in terms of content creation. It's certainly possible to create simply formatted but extensive content. I do it myself, a lot -- the lists and research notes, or even rough drafts of longer writing that I need to make don't require a lot of fancy formatting. And again, nobody's saying that it couldn't be better, nor that improvements wouldn't be welcome. But to my point, if you know that it's not an A+ word processor and work within the context of that understanding, you'll probably be a lot better than trying to make it do stuff that it's just not capable of doing.

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  • Level 5

@jefito Agreed but a better set of authoring tools would be an "on ramp" to more usage. For me as a Premium die-hard it probably doesn't matter. But in Marketing terms it might cause significantly more conversions from Free to Premium.


And I suspect the competition won't - as always - stand still.

In my view the key to this is the authoring tools ecosystem - as third-party developers are bound to outpace Evernote's own development efforts. I'm not sure I like that conclusion much, especially as few of them are both free and comprehensive.

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I see inline image resizing is out for Mac. Windows will shortly follow, I'm sure - as was the case with image and PDF annotation. I've seen a trend to standardize things across all platforms, and not let one comparative platform outperform the rest, so as to have a run-away winner. It's a matter of time. I also get the feeling that if the desktop/ web clients were to implement all the changes we would want, there would be an outcry at Evernote not rolling out the same features on mobile devices. The user experience on different platforms then becomes dramatically different.

 

For now, most things seem to be in place on all platforms. I think they try to bring all clients up to speed at more or less the same time. Look at the sheer amount of features rolled out on all platforms in the space of a year. I think things are on the up and up. It's a matter of time. I think image resizing is a good omen and a sign of things to come. There's always something around the corner. If we always knew what we were in for, there'd be very little wow factor.

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Looks like the Evernote team is not listening to its customers at all. They spent time where they see it appropriate, not where the need of the customer is. As soon as a valid alternative becomes available, they risk loosing their customer base forever. It's your choice!   

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  • Level 5*

Looks like the Evernote team is not listening to its customers at all. They spent time where they see it appropriate, not where the need of the customer is. As soon as a valid alternative becomes available, they risk loosing their customer base forever. It's your choice!   

The Evernote team, like most companies that make products for others, try to gauge what customers say they want/need and try do what fits their resources and their other plans. By making choices, they do risk losing customers. Is any of this a surprise?

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Looks like the Evernote team is not listening to its customers at all. They spent time where they see it appropriate, not where the need of the customer is. As soon as a valid alternative becomes available, they risk loosing their customer base forever. It's your choice!   

The Evernote team, like most companies that make products for others, try to gauge what customers say they want/need and try do what fits their resources and their other plans. By making choices, they do risk losing customers. Is any of this a surprise?

 

Yes, making decisions is sometimes difficult. But ignoring a multitude of relatively simple bugs for more than a year, about which many are severely complaining, that's a whole other stoy, imho. This is not about new features, this is about bugs in existing features. I would call this lack of maintenance.

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  • Level 5*

 

 

Looks like the Evernote team is not listening to its customers at all. They spent time where they see it appropriate, not where the need of the customer is. As soon as a valid alternative becomes available, they risk loosing their customer base forever. It's your choice!   

The Evernote team, like most companies that make products for others, try to gauge what customers say they want/need and try do what fits their resources and their other plans. By making choices, they do risk losing customers. Is any of this a surprise?

 

Yes, making decisions is sometimes difficult. But ignoring a multitude of relatively simple bugs for more than a year, about which many are severely complaining, that's a whole other stoy, imho. This is not about new features, this is about bugs in existing features. I would call this lack of maintenance.

 

I wouldn't necessarily call making what is essentially an HTML editor, plus extras, bulletproof and working correctly in all situations "simple bugs". Of course I want it fixed, too, but there's other fixes I want more. Fact of the matter is, we don't know what other stuff is in their bug/feature database, so it's hard to say what's more important (remember, the forums aren't their only source of user input).

 

All that being said, it sounds like the Mac editor just got a pretty thorough overhaul (I can't testify as to how bug-free it is), so it's it's not a case of them not listening to their customers. As I say, it's their business to lose, as they well understand, I'm sure. 

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Still, this is not understandable. When you work on a project (call it the way you want), you do different things: You gather information, save and organize it in folders etc., go to the internet and save pages / links, AND go to meetings, take notes, write text outlines etc. What is after "AND" should be Evernote 101, and it is actually a pain in the neck. Try to take some structured notes in a meeting with Evernote: You will get so focused on the trouble Evernote gives you, you will forget the purpose of the meeting.

That is very strange. If that thing was solved, I would have taken a paid membership for long, and shared the application with my whole team. $ at stake for Evernote!

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  • Level 5*

Hah, I can't even take structured notes at meetings with a pen and paper notebook. :) I have to do my structuring afterwards. Fortunately, for me and my sanity, I don't spend a lot of time in meetings.

 

I do get the point, though; it should just work to make bulleted lists on the fly.

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I make a lot of notes on the way. Like to use bulleted lists. But EN always screws up my list if I paste a simple piece of unformatted text. 

 

Please, we should see this in perspective: It should not take them much time to correct this, as working HTML editor code examples are freely available on the internet. And we are not asking for a full-fledged HTML editor, just correcting the options they already offer, but are not working at all. I'm not talking about things that aren't working on some exotic browsers or handhelds, just plain HTML5 would do. It's really not a big deal at all. 

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I'd settle for a stable RTF text editor that works as expected on all the clients. i.e.

As in being able to count on formatting like bold, underline, italics and bullets not getting mangled when created on one device, only to later open that same note on a different client and find out your formatting is gibbled.

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  • Level 5*

The latest Mac release contains the new editor that is going to be rolled out across all the clients (at some stage) - I've found it to be pretty solid and reliable so far. NB: I'm not using to to write War & Peace.

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You know, I'm asking for simple things to enable taking notes in a meeting: Bulleted lists, numbered lists with more than one numbering levels, both mixed etc. 

So, to answer your question, no, I don't edit web content or, at least, this is absolutely not a priority. What I want, is Evernote to efficiently replace my notebook and pencil.

Cheers

 

Have you tried taking notes with Evernote's Penultimate? Evernote indexes handwriting. The OCR, IMO, is really good. By the way, if you pop a white (or otherwise) background image into a note, you can use the annotation/ Skitch markup tools to take notes any which was you want, whether handwritten or text. Keep a template note and duplicate that whenever you want to create a new note. I think these features are underrated. 

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  • 5 months later...

So it's been a few years of asking, begging, complaining and and still text editing is still "an adventure". Example, I can't delete a center justified line without it quitting and even then it won't delete without deleting one of my bullets on the next line.

 

I think it's time to realize that adding chart or some other *****/clutterware is more important to the team at EverNOTE than a reliable and predictable text editor. 

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  • Level 5*

So it's been a few years of asking, begging, complaining and and still text editing is still "an adventure". Example, I can't delete a center justified line without it quitting and even then it won't delete without deleting one of my bullets on the next line.

 

I think it's time to realize that adding chart or some other *****/clutterware is more important to the team at EverNOTE than a reliable and predictable text editor. 

Hey, but you have that copy / paste thingy down pat...

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If someone tells me how to add an image to a post in this threat, I will show you something very interesting....

 

Well... what I do is:

  1. Pop an image into my "Evernote Forum" folder in Dropbox
  2. Copy the share link
  3. Go along to this direct link generator and convert the share link
  4. Click on the image icon in the EN forum post editor toolbar
  5. Insert your direct link... and voila 

You can upload images directly to the EN forum, but you'll max out your upload limit with a few screenshots

 

Now... please show us something very interesting.

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  • Level 5*

If someone tells me how to add an image to a post in this threat, I will show you something very interesting....

Last time I acceded to that type of request, I got in big trouble at work!! :)

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If someone tells me how to add an image to a post in this threat, I will show you something very interesting....

 

François, there is a simple way to attach something:

below the "reply to this topic" box, in the right hand corner, there is a button "more reply options". Click o it & you will see how you can attach an image.

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This is a note taken in ONENOTE, Microsoft's competitor of Evernote. The interface may not be as fancy as Evernote's but it works very well and is compatible with the entire office suite. Onenote is free, works very well on Mac, iPhone, iPad. What else do you need?

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This is a note taken in ONENOTE, Microsoft's competitor of Evernote. The interface may not be as fancy as Evernote's but it works very well and is compatible with the entire office suite. Onenote is free, works very well on Mac, iPhone, iPad. What else do you need?

 

Thanks. I actually use OneNote myself, though I have not used bullet lists (yet). The original question was about a bullet list in Evernote. So how does your answer relate to that? Have you successfully copied/pasted your 1N bullet list to EN?

Or are you suggesting that people use 1N when they want to create a decent bullet list?

 

1 of the other features of 1N I use is tables, because EN's tables are close to being useless. In fact, I use EN what it was designed for (a digital filing cabinet) & if I need something else I use another app. For my daily journal I also use 1N (more formatting options, better template usage) then, 1x/month,copy/paste the entries into EN.

 

Anyway, tell us about your 1N bullet list & its link to EN.

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I created this thread and have been asking Evernote to develop a decent user-friendly text editor for I don't know how many months (years?). I have always received excuses answers that it is difficult to develop, it is not needed anyway, and if you are a smart Evernote user, you go without it. I am getting tired of this and therefore posted this alternative.

As far as I know, it is not possible to build such a list in Evernote.

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I created this thread and have been asking Evernote to develop a decent user-friendly text editor for I don't know how many months (years?). I have always received excuses answers that it is difficult to develop, it is not needed anyway, and if you are a smart Evernote user, you go without it. I am getting tired of this and therefore posted this alternative.

As far as I know, it is not possible to build such a list in Evernote.

 

OK, I understand, There is actually another thread that has been very lively, sometimes passionate, & now consists of 21 pages: "POWER USER DISCONTENT - Best Alternatives to EN ?"

1N has been suggested as an alternative to EN in that thread too.

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  • 4 months later...

This is a note taken in ONENOTE, Microsoft's competitor of Evernote. The interface may not be as fancy as Evernote's but it works very well and is compatible with the entire office suite. Onenote is free, works very well on Mac, iPhone, iPad. What else do you need?

 

I need reliable and fast sync. Onenote is great and their editor is way better than Evernote.  But syncing takes forever. And some weird things, like notes taken in the web editor sometimes simply refuse to sync to my phone for about one hour.

 

Hopefully within the next decade either Onenote will get fast or Evernote will build a decent editor.

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This is a note taken in ONENOTE, Microsoft's competitor of Evernote. The interface may not be as fancy as Evernote's but it works very well and is compatible with the entire office suite. Onenote is free, works very well on Mac, iPhone, iPad. What else do you need?

 

I need reliable and fast sync. Onenote is great and their editor is way better than Evernote.  But syncing takes forever. And some weird things, like notes taken in the web editor sometimes simply refuse to sync to my phone for about one hour.

 

Hopefully within the next decade either Onenote will get fast or Evernote will build a decent editor.

 

 

A decade in IT is eons away, so in the mean time, one has to make choices. Like everything in life, nothing is perfect, and will never be. It is always good to bear that in mind.

So one has to decide which are the most important features for one's use case, then base your choice on that. There will always be features that are nice to have but that an app does not offer.

Alternatively, one could consider using 2 or 3 apps in parallel to the extent that they are complimentary to one another. It's your call !!

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A decade in IT is eons away, so in the mean time, one has to make choices. Like everything in life, nothing is perfect, and will never be. It is always good to bear that in mind.

So one has to decide which are the most important features for one's use case, then base your choice on that. There will always be features that are nice to have but that an app does not offer.

Alternatively, one could consider using 2 or 3 apps in parallel to the extent that they are complimentary to one another. It's your call !!

 

 

I dig your zen vibe but we're talking about a text editor!

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A decade in IT is eons away, so in the mean time, one has to make choices. Like everything in life, nothing is perfect, and will never be. It is always good to bear that in mind.

So one has to decide which are the most important features for one's use case, then base your choice on that. There will always be features that are nice to have but that an app does not offer.

Alternatively, one could consider using 2 or 3 apps in parallel to the extent that they are complimentary to one another. It's your call !!

 

 

I dig your zen vibe but we're talking about a text editor!

 

 

So????? Whatever feature you are talking about, you will always have to make choices in terms of importance & priorities. You cannot get around that. So if a good text editor is absolutely important to you & Onenote's is superior to Evernote's, then go for Onenote & accept Onenote's shortcomings.

You can keep whining about EN's editor's shorcomings, but that is not going to help you right now, if you need a solution right now. If you can afford to wait that decade someone else mentioned above until EN improves theirs, then wait that "little" longer.

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So????? Whatever feature you are talking about, you will always have to make choices in terms of importance & priorities. You cannot get around that. So if a good text editor is absolutely important to you & Onenote's is superior to Evernote's, then go for Onenote & accept Onenote's shortcomings.

You can keep whining about EN's editor's shorcomings, but that is not going to help you right now, if you need a solution right now. If you can afford to wait that decade someone else mentioned above until EN improves theirs, then wait that "little" longer.

 

 

I get the "one thing well" thing, I even visit onethingwell.org from time to time. What your not getting is good text editors have been around since the 1990s, this forum has a better text editor! EN already has a text editor, just a very bad one and they don't care to update it. EN could easily grab code from a free source but they haven't. It feel like EN would rather do some things good, some things okay, some thing poorly then experiment with bloatware their free time. Sorry for whining. Actually I've move to OneNote a couple months ago and love it. Just haven't gotten around to delete my EN account. I'll fix that right now. Also making a note to never visit the Netherlands because no one there like to be good at two times at the same time.

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A decade in IT is eons away, so in the mean time, one has to make choices. Like everything in life, nothing is perfect, and will never be. It is always good to bear that in mind.

So one has to decide which are the most important features for one's use case, then base your choice on that. There will always be features that are nice to have but that an app does not offer.

Alternatively, one could consider using 2 or 3 apps in parallel to the extent that they are complimentary to one another. It's your call !!

 

 

I dig your zen vibe but we're talking about a text editor!

 

 

So????? Whatever feature you are talking about, you will always have to make choices in terms of importance & priorities. You cannot get around that. So if a good text editor is absolutely important to you & Onenote's is superior to Evernote's, then go for Onenote & accept Onenote's shortcomings.

You can keep whining about EN's editor's shorcomings, but that is not going to help you right now, if you need a solution right now. If you can afford to wait that decade someone else mentioned above until EN improves theirs, then wait that "little" longer.

 

 

I've made my choice: OneNote has awesome text editing capacity, but their sync sucks; so I'll stick with Evernote. I'll revisit that decision at the next big update.

 

I think what we're trying to do here is just bring a problem to the attention of Evernote developers. The editor is outdated, the competition is strong and they should make improvements before they go the way of Netscape Navigator.

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  • 1 year later...

I agree with the post here that says that the fundamental logic of the text editor in Evernote needs to be reviewed and there needs to be some serious work done to address the well-known issues (cursor jump, lack of basic formatting reliability etc.).

I spend a good portion of my computer time in front of one note or another in Evernote, and I refuse to accept that other things are just too important for there to be any time/effort spent on making the editor better.  At some point, if this doesn't improve I will probably notice something else out there that will do the job for me, and have a way better user interface for the part where I'm spending most of my time, and I'll move.  I hope that does not happen but if it does, it will have been preventable.

Please, Evernote, at least put this on the road map.  Rewrite the editor.

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2 hours ago, amedsker said:

Rewrite the editor.

No need for rewriting. The Google Docs editor would seem just fine to me.  

Years ago I parked a word document on my G-Drive. Today I read a short article about some new improvements on the way for G-Docs. Curious what the Google editor is actually all about I dug up this old document on the drive and nearly fell off the chair.

I kid you not, a quality editor, miles ahead of the present  EN editor. I'd invite anybody to try out the Google editor.  Behaves very much like the well-known Microsoft tool. 

I am fairly confident that most who complain about the shortcomings of the Evernote editor would be more than happy to have the Google thing incorporated into Evernote. And that should not be too expensive nor too difficult to implement. 

 

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13 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

And that should not be too expensive nor too difficult to implement

I always enjoy that sort of quote.

Evernote took some years to rewrite their originally separate and OS-specific editor code into a new 'common editor' so they could cost-effectively improve things like bullets and add stuff like 'styles' for text.  They grafted that into each client with major updates,  finishing (I think) with the (current) MacOS version 6.10

Now they're at last in a position to start adding some of the bells and whistles people have requested across all platforms - although how they choose which elements to focus on out of the various suggestions I don't know. 

If they have any sense,  they'll just surprise us with any upgrades,  because if they mention what's coming,  everyone who didn't get their wish yet will start to complain,  and everyone who did will also want assurances that their version of the request is the one that's been adopted... and after it comes out everyone will complain about how badly the update has been implemented anyway,  and that more important things have been ignored.

Meantime since Google Docs is kind've the same thing as Google Drive and there's already a GDrive integration,  I think we already have their editor on  tap whenever you want it.

How to attach Google Drive files to notes

 

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13 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

shortcomings of the Evernote editor would be more than happy to have the Google thing incorporated into Evernote

I'll check out the Google  editor, but I'm not clear on how to incorporate it into my Evernote workflow.

In the meantime, I'm comfortable with using Pages when I need word processing features, and Notability on my iPad 

>>And that should not be too expensive nor too difficult to implement

There is the proprietary file format thing.  Currently Evernote uses html (mostly)

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