(Archived) Importing formatted notes

[maddaze 1]

I have a large database on my PC with  a great deal of information about places of worship in the département of the Gironde (France).  I used to keep a copy of selected bits of the info in a Palm (via its Desktop app)  for easy reference when I was out photographing these heritage sites.  Now I've moved to an iPad.  Rather than extract the data to files I could transfer to the iPad via DropBox, I'm wondering if I could import the data into Evernote.

 

The Tools->Import Folders... function seems to have what I need, but I have little experience with it.  I'd love to include formatting, tags, and photos in the imported files and have Evernote format the resulting notes correctly, including the tags and photos.  Is it possible?

 

Harvey (in rainy, chilly Bordeaux)

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I have a large database on my PC with  a great deal of information about places of worship in the département of the Gironde (France).  I used to keep a copy of selected bits of the info in a Palm (via its Desktop app)  for easy reference when I was out photographing these heritage sites.  Now I've moved to an iPad.  Rather than extract the data to files I could transfer to the iPad via DropBox, I'm wondering if I could import the data into Evernote.

 

The Tools->Import Folders... function seems to have what I need, but I have little experience with it.  I'd love to include formatting, tags, and photos in the imported files and have Evernote format the resulting notes correctly, including the tags and photos.  Is it possible?

 

Harvey (in rainy, chilly Bordeaux)

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/53219-import-format/

BNF (in a sunny, warm place)

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I would also suggest you search the board on Palm. There is not an official way to get Palm data into EN, but there have been a few people posting on what worked for them.

[maddaze 1]

BNF,

 

Your first response is right on the money, namely, play around with the import functions till I find what I want -- the pointers in the referenced post are gold!  The second respone=se missed the mark, because I didn't make sufficiently clear that I'm not moving data from the Palm, but from the database on the PC (MySQL for what it's worth).

 

Thanks for the snappy responses,

Harvey (where it's still cold and damp <sign>)

[maddaze 1]

OK, I've started examining the enex file and as has been pointed out, the notebook name is not there.  When I re-imported a note, it went into the default notebook.  That's a nuisance.  I have 542 notes to import (one for each commune) and would like to subdivide them into different notebooks.  I suppose I could use tags to achieve that, but that seems awkward.  Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Harvey

[JMichaelTX 4,119]

OK, I've started examining the enex file and as has been pointed out, the notebook name is not there.  When I re-imported a note, it went into the default notebook.  That's a nuisance.  I have 542 notes to import (one for each commune) and would like to subdivide them into different notebooks.  I suppose I could use tags to achieve that, but that seems awkward.  Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Harvey

 

One approach is to separate your files to be imported into separate folders on your PC, and create the corresponding Notebooks in Evernote.

Then, for each folder, set the Evernote default Notebook to the desired Notebook and the corresponding Evernote Import folder location.

This should result in the files in each folder being imported into the correct Notebook.

 

I would run a test with just a few files first.

[maddaze 1]

JMichael,

 

Seems like that would work for a one-off transfer.  Unfortunately, it doesn't lend itself to automating the process of importing the data.  The data that I'm trying to move into EverNotes evolves over time, as I update the database with new information.  What will be in EverNote is a snapshot that I would like to update easily from time to time.

 

Harvey

[JMichaelTX 4,119]

Harvey, I you want to automate a sync process between Evernote and an external system/DB, then you might want to consider using a Mac.  I'm pretty sure you could write an Applescript to automate the import process.

[maddaze 1]

<chuckle>  Interesting suggestion, but it's not about to happen.  For a couple of reasons: 1) the database, my photos and all the tools I use to maintain, update, and integrate them are on a PC, 2) my interest is in researching and photographing places of worship around here, not in becoming a Mac guru.  I'm already spending far too much time on the foutu process of moving photos and data to the iPad.  But you couldn't know all that, so let me say thanks for trying to help.

 

Harvey

[maddaze 1]

Thanks for the great suggestions!

 

Here's what I've done: went into Evernote, created some notes formatted I wanted the imported notes to appear, exported them in the enex format, found the xml format, and have started the PHP program that will create the notes, formatted appropriately.  Still haven't figured how to automatically create the notebooks I want, so will make do with three and switch the default folder during the import.

 

New question: any way to import one or more photos with each note?

 

Harvey