Syncing with Penultimate

[Mrs1470 1]

I had really hoped that the syncing between EN and Penultimate would become smoother and smoother as the partnership grew, but am finding it difficult to manage my workflow as I'd hoped with these two. 

 

What I WANT to do is: create a note in my EN on my desktop app and then be able to annotate it in Penultimate. Right now, I'm finding that if the file was created outside of Penultimate it's not synced, even if I put it in the Penultimate notebook on EN. 

 

In the ideal world, I would also love to annotate attached/embedded documents in Penultimate or EN so that when I have documents to review I can do it all in one app. 

 

To the EN team - is there a place where I can make feature requests like this? 

Is there a way for me to set a flag somewhere so that I can sync new files created in the EN desktop with Penultimate, or do I always have to start the note from Penultimate for it to sync? 

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

This is definitely one place for such requests. Evernote staff do read these boards! 

 

Indeed penultimate is really more of a "one-way" sync. An analogy would be like a paper notebook that you write in and scan into Evernote. You can't turn around and start putting Evernote stuff back into that paper notebook. 

 

That being said, I agree, there is lots of room for penultimate to grow. The ability ability annotate note content and PDFs in Penultimate (or in Evernote for iOS itself, as is the case with the Mac version) would be a great improvement. 

[megsaint 441]

"What I WANT to do is: create a note in my EN on my desktop app and then be able to annotate it in Penultimate. Right now, I'm finding that if the file was created outside of Penultimate it's not synced, even if I put it in the Penultimate notebook on EN."

Have you tried Skitch?

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Skitch was the first thing that came to my mind to Megsaint.

However, unless I am missing something (I could very well be....) on the iPad, (and unlike the desktop) there is no easy way to get your note into Skitch. You can annotate PDFs, but not a specific note.

[Mrs1470 1]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Regarding Skitch, I haven't found it to be helpful with the workflow I need. As I work as a PM, most of the docs I get are either Word or Excel. I currently save them in EN based on the project and with the appropriate tags. i guess I could save as PDF until this feature becomes available, that that adds an extra copy of every document to my storage which is less than desirable. After doing some tests, I was able to annotate a PDF in skitch, but when syncing back (which only worked intermittently), it syncs into a different directory than it came from, looses its tags, and saves as a new copy of the PDF. Hopefully this can be fixed soon. 

 

What I would like to do is be able to annotate these docs without needing to go to an external tool, or if there is an external tool that's needed that I can seamlessly do the annotation. This way, when I'm back at my laptop at the office, I can open up EN, see all of the annotations and notes I made on my ipad and action them appropriately. 

 

Regarding the comment about Penultimate being like a paper notebook that is scanned in, I totally get that concept. Except for the fact that it's not a paper notebook and is supposed to sync with EN. When I create a new note in Penultimate today that's handwritten, I see it in EN but am not able to edit it!! (This note was created in another application. To edit this note, open it in the app where it was created) 

 

Since I'm trying to use EN for all of my notes/ideas - but also want to use the handwriting with my new Adonit stylus, I'm hoping that some of these features can be included in either the main EN app or into Penultimate. 

 

 

 

 

[megsaint 441]

For PDFs, you could use PDF Expert to get you at least part way there. You can open PDFs from Evernote into PDF Expert, annotate them then open them back into Evernote. It will, however, create a copy, not sync with the original.

I'm not sure how you'd write on a Word or Excel doc without converting it to pdf first. Nothing I have on my iPad wants to do that.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

I second PDF Expert. That's the most used application on my iPad by a long shot (well... perhaps tied with Evernote). 

[megsaint 441]

I second PDF Expert. That's the most used application on my iPad by a long shot (well... perhaps tied with Evernote).

That must mean you don't have Drafts! ;-)

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Hmmmmm I've been humming and hawing over Drafts but I almost never use markdown (except for my website), and whenever I word process I MUST (self imposed) use a reference manager...

 

However, I'd love to know how you use drafts! You might be able to sell me on it.

[megsaint 441]

I don't use Markdown, either. I just find it to be a great text editor. Text editing is not, in my opinion, one of Evernote's strong suits. Drafts allows you to enter text and, with a couple of taps send it to lots of other apps (Twitter, FB, DayOne, App.net, Evernote are the ones I use but there are lots more). You can even do some nifty custom things (send some text to a specific Evernote note). And, as I have it on both my iPad and my iPhone, and it syncs, I can access everything on both phones. It also supports TextExpander (unlike Evernote). Would have been worth twice what I paid for it. 

[Mrs1470 1]

Thanks for the replies! I downloaded PDF expert last night. I know this might not be the right place for questions on that app, since this is  a penultimate forum, but you all seem like you know these things much more than I do. 

 

I went into EN, clicked on a PDF and selected to open in PDF expert. A new copy was created, but it wasn't editable!! Is there a setting somewhere I need to set? I tried a few PDFs and had the same result for all. 

 

When I am able to edit the PDF, how do I sync it back to EN? I saw all kinds of cloud services, but no Evernote. 

 

I'm usually more tech-savvy than I appear right now!!! Once pointed in the right direction I will try to optimize my workflow. 

 

Much appreciated - all of the people who replied so far have been a great help! 

 

 

-m. 

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

perhaps the videos on the PDF Expert website will help you figure out how to use PDF Expert. One of the things about PDF Expert that I like is that it can annotate even files where the text is not selectable. 

Check out the videos here:

http://readdle.com/products/pdfexpert5/

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

That's the most used application on my iPad by a long shot 

Yup, same with me. A real winner for file management and ANYTHING pdf related!

[neywen 0]

Instead of opening a new thread, I'll just jump into this one.

So, I just got Penultimate for ipad this morning, 'cause it seemed to be the app I needed, to :

- take notes and sketches for my projects

- synchronize the contents with Evernote

 

But I have to say my first experience is quite confusing :

- when I added a note into the default notebook, on iPad, I saw it synchronized into Evernote on my mac

- when I create a new notebook on Evernote, it's not synchronized on PenUltimate

- when I create a new notebook on PenUltimate, it's not synchronized on Evernote

- when I change the name of the default notebook on iPad, I don't see any synchronized change on my mac

(all that, even after several hours of waiting.)

 

Just to be clear : is that a bug ? Or is this a limitation in the synchronization functionality ? 

The PenUltimate demo video and website let us think that the synchronization should be working.

 

also, when I go to the "My Evernote account", the "Create new notebook" button label and the information label don't make any sens in French (I'm using the french version...). It could be more clear and explicite.

 

Thanks for your help,

regards,

n.

[neywen 0]

Ok, I just began to understand : 

- a notebook in PenUltimate in a note in Evernote

- you can't edit a PenUltimate notebook in Evernote

- you can;t create a note in Evernote and synchronize it to PenUltimate

 

it's a bit complex, and most of all, it's not clearly explained in the PenUltimate presentation. 

cheers,

n.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

It isn't so much complex as perhaps a bit vexing if you anticipated some kind of two-way communication. As you have discovered the communication is really only one way: penultimate->Evernote.

[neywen 0]

Thank you for your answer, Scott !

The complexity I was talking about is more a question of ergonomy. This one-way communication could be more clearly exposed. 

I'll continue to test PenUltimate, and see how the things are going in the future.

Thanks!

l.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

That's a good way of putting it, I think! Good luck with your testing!