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Presentation mode but no decent text editor?


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Hi Evernote,

 

Please help me understand - we now have a presentation mode in Evernote but still have the crappy editor. Can you explain this? We have ask for years for a decent text editor in Evernote. Heck - even the one in this forum is better than what we have to deal with in Evernote. There are many rich text editor controls available on the market for developers to integrate into Evernote. Yet we have been told essentially that "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." So if Evernote's focus is a note collecting and organization software then why do we need a presentation mode? I thought that was what Powerpoint was for!! While the presentation mode is nice it really does add value to our use of Evernote. Giving us the ability to fully format our notes - now that does give us real value in Evernote. There are pages of forum post discussing the lack of a decent editor and hacks to make the ***** we have work better. Yet what you hear is that we needed a presentation mode? Really? 

 

Could you please consider listening to your customers and adding a feature that we really could use and even need? A real text editor that allows us to do formatting of text faster, with more detail, and with a decent user interface.

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I can't explain Evernote's decisions. However I can tell you that Evernote staff have posted here to say that they are working very hard on a revamp of the text editor. 

I guess it is important to remember that a lot of work is done in parallel and by separate teams, and that some parallel tasks are completed sooner than others and some are straight up easier than others, and some are hugely challenging. Sometimes companies might also be slow to realize what needs attention, which is crappy for users, but that's just the way things roll, and Evernote has demonstrated on many occasions a relatively high degree of responsiveness to customers wishes (though they have also demonstrated a high degree of stubbornness about how they see their application evolving which is fine too). 

 

I should note that what you find to be important may differ from what others find to be important. For me, I have no qualms with the current formatting capabilities of the note editor (though I'd welcome refinements! I know many people here really are itching for it, understandably), but nothing that really impedes my workflow). Meanwhile I make presentations all the time, and I personally can see the value in presentation mode. I keep most of my work in Evernote already, to be able to just quickly compile a set of notes and images to a presentation all in one app is pretty cool. 

 

All this to say, note editor upgrades are definitely a priority for Evernote based on posts made by staff. We shouldn't assume that making presentation mode took resources away from, or slowed progress on, reworking the note editor.

 

While we wait for the note editor updates, are there particular formatting things you are looking for that you aren't able to accomplish? Perhaps some folks here can help you out. 

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Hi Scott,

 

I appreciate your support of the efforts of the Evernote staff. My issue is that they have focused any attention to a feature that we do not need and not fixed a feature that we do need. I am not interested in posting specific needs so you can show me more workarounds and hacks. That does not solve the years old problem of a poor editor. 

 

One could argue that email for example is not a word processor yet even basic email programs have better text editors than Evernote. This logic carries over to many applications that are not word processors. The communities frustration lies in the fact that we need a truly rich editor for notes - which is the core function of Evernote. 

 

Instead of making progress fixing a feature that is essential to taking rich notes Evernote focuses on "nice to have" stuff that does not add value to note taking.

 

What we are seeing yet again (like we did with the scanner design) is Evernote going off in a direction that does not provide benefits to the customer and they do not seem interested in a responsive resolution. I know eventually they will get it right. However, at the pace it is going Evernote will get it right after they finish stuff that does not really matter - like presentation mode.

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No single user can really claim that something is "a feature we do not need". To do so assumes that all 10 million Evernote users have the same needs as you, which is wrong. This doesn't trivialize how you should feel, but it is important to realize that there are a lot of different use cases and sets of needs that require attention.

 

Nobody outside of Evernote has enough information to make any claims about how many resources were diverted from the text editor to presentation mode, or how much or how little attention has been paid to the text editor. We can make all sorts of speculations, but they remain speculations. 

 

Nevertheless, Evernote has explicitly stated on these forums that they are actively working on re-writing their text editor. Hopefully this will resolve some of your issues whenever it is released. 

 

Obviously you aren't looking for help from your fellow users, but is there some other goal you were hoping to accomplish with your post and which maybe your fellow users here can assist with? Or did you just need to vent? (which is perfectly permissible too!)

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Scott, the point of the post was not to solicit help for fellow users. I am hoping that my voice can be added to the hundreds of others who have ask for a decent editor and so far have not seen any significant changes.  I am able to browse through the forums and gleen the tips and hacks. 

 

My point is the mixed priorities of Evernote and the features they are focusing on. You apparently seem to think that someone must have really needed presentations - and quite possibly more than a decent editor. That is fine. 

 

It truly does not take years to implement a decent editor. Evernote's inability to do so has indicated to the community that they do not see it as a priority. The point of my initial post was to question why a presentation mode - which adds no value to note taking was considered more important than developing a decent editor. 

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While your opinion is perfectly valid concerning the value of presentation mode, it remains, just as mine does, an opinion. 

 

 

Scott, the point of the post was not to solicit help for fellow users. I am hoping that my voice can be added to the hundreds of others who have ask for a decent editor and so far have not seen any significant changes.  I am able to browse through the forums and gleen the tips and hacks. 

 

Evernote has already given you part of what you want by confirming that they are already working on improvements to the text editor. Aside from actually delivering on that promise —which they inevitably will, at some time they have not disclosed— what more are you wanting? Do you want it released tomorrow instead of in a week, a month, 6 months? Do you want them to promise on a release date so you can decide whether or not to hang in there? Evernote is (in)famously tight-lipped on their development schedule, so a promise of a release date is wishful thinking! Perhaps you'd like them to go back in time and abandon presentation mode to get their text editor fixed up a bit faster instead?

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Scott - the request has been made for many years from many users. Yet they keep releasing features like presentation mode that few if any have ask for. You obviously do not see the issue and that is fine. Obviously you do enjoy running interference for Evernote from other customers who have legitimate issues with the way Evernote has chose to prioritize features and enhancements. Good for you!

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Decent text editors are a dime a dozen on every platform I use (and on the ones I don't, as well). Many of them have practically one touch export to Evernote. On iOS devices, I use Drafts. Personally, I'm not especially happy that Evernote is expending any resources on the text editor. It is, in my opinion, a minor feature, hardly central to what Evernote says they're trying to accomplish.

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Perhaps one of you evangelist can explain the need and use for the presentation mode then. Why is it needed? How does it benefit the core function of note taking? Basically - take all of your arguments on why the existing editor is ok and replace that with presentation mode. 

 

I use Evernote to track notes. I do not use it for presentations. So I am trying to understand why you think presentation mode is such a benefit and a decent text editor is not. Why is it ok to have to use hacks, workarounds, and other programs to format text in a note package. 

 

I truly would like to understand your point of view. So far I am not getting it.

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I don't believe I made any comments about Presentation Mode at all. Though I don't have much call to use it, it does make more sense to me than worrying about a text editor. Evernote says they're about storing information and finding it (they don't say they are a note taking program, by the way). It seems only a minor extension on that to then present the information. And, as what I keep asking for is more ways to export information out of Evernote, I see it as possible step in that direction. Could I have done without it? Sure. Would I have preferred a really nice way to export notes as PDFs or improvements to merging notes? You bet.

I use Evernote to track notes, too, lots of them. The lack of a text editor hasn't interfered with that any more than the fact Evernote isn't a particularly good PDF generator has hurt the fact that I use it to track PDFs.

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Presentation mode, business card scanning, a document camera, post-it notes, a moleskine notebook that ties into Evernote, all of these things could be argued as extraneous and should be abandoned/never have been developed.

 

My question for you, then, CharlesK, is why such disdain for presentation mode in particular, and not any other of the arguably vestigial features?

 

 

I could choose a feature I never use.... lets say, post-it note scanning. To me, that is useless. Who needs it? How does it expand on or increase the value of core Evernote features? If only they had chosen to direct that energy towards improving something I actually do use. 

 

My point is, presentation mode is not the only seemingly extraneous feature out there, there are plenty of them. These are things that contribute to the richness of what can be done with Evernote. Not everyone uses all those features, and yes, those features do require resources, but that does not mean other areas are being neglected simply because there are other features being developed too, or more importantly bugs being fixed. It is unreasonable, in my opinion, to ask ANY company to simply drop everything and focus all their attention onto one single component of their product. A text edit revision is long overdue, YES I AGREE, but I hardly see blaming presentation mode, or any other arguably extraneous feature, as productive.

 

In fact, you haven't even stated what problems, specifically, you are having, and what you'd like to see fixed. What happens if Evernote's ideas of fixing their text editor differ from yours? Expressing specific concerns that refer to specific elements of the text editor you see as deficient would actually be meaningful and could actually be useful to Evernote and to your fellow users. 

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Scott I have no disdain for presentation mode. It just does not seem to have usefulness in a program that I and many users use for notes, note taking, note sync, etc. One big functionality area of Evernote is the editor. Can we at least agree on that? The current editor is limited in ability. Even the editor in this forum has more functionality. As far as list of specific elements - mine are no different than many other users who have ask for the same thing in many many other forum post. There is not a need to reiterate those just to be ignored again. And there has still not been a good argument as to why presentation mode is such a critical feature that I should be so happy for and forget my interest in a feature that allows me to put data into Evernote better. 

 

I do appreciate each of your responses. You see the concern I raise as not important to you and that is wonderful. To me and to many others that I have found when looking in the forums over the many years I have used Evernote it is a big issue. 

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Thank You!!

 

Now what I love about Evernote - 

 

A centralized place to keep lots of notes and keep them more or less organized

Available on multiple PC's and mobile devices

Integration with great services like https://filethis.com/ - Really like this

Evernote Web Clipper - used many times throughout the day.

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Haha well we can both agree that there are plenty of things to love about Evernote, and a few things— some big, some small—to be frustrated by! What those things are, however, will be different by user! 

 

Anyway, it's a shame that things got heavy in this thread.

 

In the end I guess we're all here to learn and to help make Evernote a bit better! 

 

Cheers.

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  • Level 5*

@Charles: None of us here can explain why Evernote chooses to implement one feature or another -- we're all on the outside. The Evernote folks tend not to, either, possibly by company policy. At a guess, it's the common mix of motivations: problems that users report, and internal features that they want to build. Note that the forums here are not the only conduits for users to feed back into Evernote.

Here's a guess on this particular feature, though: Phil Libin, the CEO, does a fair number of presentations, probably to a lot of folks who also do a lot of presentations. And he loves him some Evernote. :)

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I could choose a feature I never use.... lets say, post-it note scanning. To me, that is useless. Who needs it? How does it expand on or increase the value of core Evernote features? If only they had chosen to direct that energy towards improving something I actually do use. 

 

I LOVE that feature! To me, this is in fact a great example of another way to get information into Evernote so I can find it and use it, which I consider the core feature. I can still write a quick note, jot down a name and phone number faster than I can type it. I'm always writing notes on post-its when I'm not at my desk and have to answer the phone or take down some customer information. Then, I promptly lose them.  The post-it camera, even on regular post it notes, makes my notes searchable and un-loseable. 

 

Just goes to show, each of us has their own idea of what's important, which was my original point. I get grumpy when I think of Evernote expending resources on something so utterly useless as a better text editor. Other people think it's a key feature. But, as Scott has noted, Evernote will do what Evernote wants to do. So, far, it works for me, overall. My sense is that Evernote keeps quite a close eye on what people say, though. 

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Hi,

Im with Chalesk in this one. Ive been using Evernote for only for 2 months now, attracted by the wonders everyone was talking about. Soon i was socked by the fact that the text editor was soooo poor. How can an application so popular, and so used, that is focused on note taking, doesnt have a proper text editor?

For me, an this is arguable, there are 3 types on features in a note taking applicacion:

- Core features - Organization and operation with notes

- Standar features - This comes from actual market standars, levels you have to meet. For example, a good looking and easy interface, and of course a minimum quality text editor that is on par with the market stardards. Im sorry but i think Evernote fails in this point.

- Extra features - features that add extra functionality and differenciate this application from the rest.

i hope and believe we will see soon a proper text editor that its on par with the other note taking apps on the market.

Salu2

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No single user can really claim that something is "a feature we do not need". To do so assumes that all 10 million Evernote users have the same needs as you, which is wrong.

You left out a zero (and 90 million users!) since EN is now up to 100 million users.  :)

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Hi,

Im with Chalesk in this one. Ive been using Evernote for only for 2 months now, attracted by the wonders everyone was talking about. Soon i was socked by the fact that the text editor was soooo poor. How can an application so popular, and so used, that is focused on note taking, doesnt have a proper text editor?

Because Evernote's primary focus is not note taking. It's storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources. It can be used as a note taking application but, if that's all you want, it may not be your best option. I certainly rarely use Evernote for taking notes but I use Evernote all day, every day. 

 

As noted, Evernote has said they are rewriting the text editor. I doubt, however, that they're shifting the entire focus of Evernote to be a note taking program. We also don't know how long it will be until they finish that project. If what you want it a good text editor, you may want to look around for one that better meets your needs and, if you need Evernote's core features, look for one that syncs nicely with Evernote. 

 

Best of luck. 

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Because Evernote's primary focus is not note taking. It's storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources. It can be used as a note taking application but, if that's all you want, it may not be your best option. I certainly rarely use Evernote for taking notes but I use Evernote all day, every day.

 

Wonder why they called it Evernote and not Eversync, Everstore, Evershare, Evermind, etc? Even their website indicates the product is for notes among other things. "With Evernote, all of your notes, web clips, files and images are made available on every device and computer you use."

 

I can use Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and many other applications to "storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources" - and I do.

 

The issue that a large number of users have is the one aspect of Evernote  (the part that you continually try to downplay to dismiss the issue of a poor text editor) is that the note taking aspect of Evernote is lacking.

 

Evernote at it's core is a note taking software. It does not accept notes from just it's very poor editor but from many sources and in many formats. It syncs. It shares. But at it's core it is a place to collect information for future recall. The text I enter in the editor is one of the key methods of getting data into Evernote.

 

 

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One major difference between Everenote, and say, Dropbox/drive/box/sugarsync (I also use several of these services) is how files can be organized. Evernote's ability to use tags to make links between notes in any number of notebooks, the capacity to recognize text in images, and the reasonably sophisticated search are not found in the cloud services you mention.

There are workarounds, like using openmeta tagging, spotlight search, and using a (typically expensive) PDF OCR application to convo scans or images of text.

To me, and for my needs, Evernote works every well for many tasks.

Some people LOVE plain text notes, using openmeta tags, stored in Dropbox, that's cool, but that's not what I need.

If Evernote isn't useful for you Chareles, don't force it! Just use what works for you.

Maybe we will see a comeback of the "note" when they release their revamped text editor :)

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Wonder why they called it Evernote and not Eversync, Everstore, Evershare, Evermind, etc? Even their website indicates the product is for notes among other things. "With Evernote, all of your notes

, web clips, files and images are made available on every device and computer you use."

 

I can use Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and many other applications to "storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources" - and I do.

 

The issue that a large number of users have is the one aspect of Evernote  (the part that you continually try to downplay to dismiss the issue of a poor text editor) is that the note taking aspect of Evernote is lacking.

 

Evernote at it's core is a note taking software. It does not accept notes from just it's very poor editor but from many sources and in many formats. It syncs. It shares. But at it's core it is a place to collect information for future recall. The text I enter in the editor is one of the key methods of getting data into Evernote.

 

Maybe they called it Evernote b/c it is for, well, notes.  Just like Windows' Notepad is for taking notes...but is very limited in how one can format those notes.  Or the Notes app on iOS.  I take notes in Evernote each & every day just fine.  But EN not a word processor.  If it were, they may have called it Everword.

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Because Evernote's primary focus is not note taking. It's storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources. It can be used as a note taking application but, if that's all you want, it may not be your best option. I certainly rarely use Evernote for taking notes but I use Evernote all day, every day.

 

Wonder why they called it Evernote and not Eversync, Everstore, Evershare, Evermind, etc? Even their website indicates the product is for notes among other things. "With Evernote, all of your notes, web clips, files and images are made available on every device and computer you use."

 

I can use Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and many other applications to "storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources" - and I do.

 

The issue that a large number of users have is the one aspect of Evernote  (the part that you continually try to downplay to dismiss the issue of a poor text editor) is that the note taking aspect of Evernote is lacking.

 

Evernote at it's core is a note taking software. It does not accept notes from just it's very poor editor but from many sources and in many formats. It syncs. It shares. But at it's core it is a place to collect information for future recall. The text I enter in the editor is one of the key methods of getting data into Evernote.

 

If you take care of the semantic point of vue, a note is...just a note.

If I want to produce a document I use a tool for that. It could be Word for you, or a software like that.

For me it's InDesign.

 

Our needs depend of our personnal level of requierements.

 

However I agree, the user experience to produce something presentable is frustrating and the editor could be better.

This discussion  should focus of what could be the minimum feature to enhance usability.

 

Personnaly I'd be glad to have a native markdown editor or a wiki-like syntax... something to avoid clicking (or remembering shortcuts)

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  • Level 5*

Wonder why they called it Evernote and not Eversync, Everstore, Evershare, Evermind, etc? Even their website indicates the product is for notes among other things. "With Evernote, all of your notes

, web clips, files and images are made available on every device and computer you use."

I wouldn't try to make such a big deal out of the name -- they don't call it EverEdit, either. EverNote can just as easily apply to note storage, sync, clipping, etc. as to editing. Evernote does all of those things, at least to some degree, and what you quoted just validates this (note that the word "edit" is actually not used). Besides, what's in a name anyways (ref. Shakespeare)? And compare to Windows Notepad. The thing is, you now know where their priorities lie, and you have enough information to make an informed decision. So sure, I would like a better editor (and yes, I make suggestions, too), but fortunately what's there now suits my needs most of the time, and I've certainly seen the it improve over time. Even so, I tend to do more note capture (web clips, scans, document storage) than I do note editing. I understand that the editor's current state may not be good enough for other folks or that they have a different focus, whatever the name is.

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Because Evernote's primary focus is not note taking. It's storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources. It can be used as a note taking application but, if that's all you want, it may not be your best option. I certainly rarely use Evernote for taking notes but I use Evernote all day, every day.

 

Wonder why they called it Evernote and not Eversync, Everstore, Evershare, Evermind, etc? Even their website indicates the product is for notes among other things. "With Evernote, all of your notes, web clips, files and images are made available on every device and computer you use."

 

I can use Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, and many other applications to "storing and retrieving information that can come from a wide variety of sources" - and I do.

 

The issue that a large number of users have is the one aspect of Evernote  (the part that you continually try to downplay to dismiss the issue of a poor text editor) is that the note taking aspect of Evernote is lacking.

 

Evernote at it's core is a note taking software. It does not accept notes from just it's very poor editor but from many sources and in many formats. It syncs. It shares. But at it's core it is a place to collect information for future recall. The text I enter in the editor is one of the key methods of getting data into Evernote.

 

 

Really, it's not "at it's core a note taking software". Even in the bit you quoted, it doesn't say that it is about creating notes any more than it's about creating images. 

 

I'm not trying to downplay an issue because I don't think it is an issue. I understand you disagree. 

 

Regardless of what we do not agree or disagree on, the bottom line is that Evernote doesn't have the type of text editor you want or need. Maybe they'll change that in the near future, maybe it will take them a while, maybe they'll change their minds and remove it altogether. So, unless and until changes are made, you probably want to find a text editor that meets your needs. As noted above, for iOS devices, I think Drafts is fantastic and it supports Mark Down. I use SimpleNote or TextEdit or Pages or whatever is handy on my Mac. These days, though, I do more writing on my iPad than on my Mac. 

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