Using MS Word & EN to track frequently updated data

[Wordsgood 526]

August 4, 2014 @ 1:34 AM EDIT:

PLEASE NOTE: Post such as this one, which I originally posted on August 2, 2014, whether made by me or any other forum member, are simply intended as tips that other EN users may or may not find helpful. They are based on our own user experience and workflows.

You (anyone reading this or similar posts) are free to use any or all of info contained in such posts, as well as free to alter & adapt any or all of the info to suit your needs.

By all means comment if you believe you have a better or more refined way of doing whatever is discussed in the original post, but please don't feel that anyone is trying to say in their original post, what they've described is the "best" or "only" way to accomplish your goals.

Your ideas are just as good as anyone else's and the Forum welcomes "How I XYZ Using Evernote" type posts. So please, if you have any tips, tricks or processes related to your use of Evernote, don't be afraid to post them. I'm still a novice myself compared to many, many other users on this forum, and have found that I learn more about EN from reading threads and personal blog posts - - such as those from Grumpy Monkey, a.k.a. Christopher Mayo (and others) on his blog site - than I do from anything on the Evernote Knowledge Base (KB).

Which, incidentally why I wrote a long post last week, addressed to Evernote Staff in the post Title, about the desperate need for an up-to-date, more expansive, better organized and more user-friendly KB. (Search the forum if you're interested, by typing "Wordsgood" into the Author field of the Forum Search Page.)

I also keep learning more about Evernote and get ideas about how to set up and modify my own databse and workflow by digging through *both* new and really old posts, many of them being several years old. Sure EN has put out many new versions for all the client since those posts were created, but basic concepts and functions are still the same. Some old features may now operate differently, or have been replaced with more efficient ones, or even have been discontinued altogether, but I still find that I can get a lot of inspiration and great ideas from the years old posts.

I highly recommend all new users spend a considerable amount of time thoroughly digging through the entire Forum. You could try doing what I did before learning enough to effectively use the Forum Search function:

I started on the Forum Home Page, and began reading the individual Threads, going backwards in time, in all the Boards I thought might be helpful. Which, in my case, included:

* General Dicussions. * The Lounge

* Community Announcements

* 3rd Party Apps. * Evernote

* Evernote for Lifestyles

* Evernote for Schools

I am not even a bit tech savvy or oriented, nor do "Lifestyle" mags & websites interest me, and I am not a student, yet those Forum Boards contain a lot of threads that I found extremely useful in learning about Evernote's functions & features, any the many ways they could be applied to my uses cases. Perhaps they will prove just as help for you.

[ab1kenobee 105]

Howdy!

 

I'm curious why you would choose to use Word tables vs. using Excel?

Any particular reason?

 

 

Thanks much for your detailed and innovative share.

 

Alan

[Wordsgood 526]

Hi!

As I said in my post, this method, at least for the most part, is also applicable to Excel.

However, I personally tend to lean towards Word in most cases because I like descriptive notes - ergo a lot of text - even for things I'm tracking. I'm also far more proficient with Word than I am with Excel.

Of couse if one is used tables and charts to deal with numbers based material like finances or calculus, then Excel is definitely the better option!

[DougM 0]

Why not use a google doc or spreadsheet and if you want it in EN, just have a note with a link to the google doc?

[Wordsgood 526]

I was inspired to write this post after seeing a few posts from new users asking for advice about how to log and track data that grows on a regular basis. I simply provided an example case of how I use Word and EN to accomplish such tasks. As I said to Alan, I am more comfortable and proficient in Word than in Excel. The same holds true for any other word processing and database software.

But this post was simply meant as an example I thought might be useful to other users. You are free to use any or all of ideas contained within the posted and alter & adapt them in any way you choose.

I'm sure Google docs would work just as well, as would the Libre Office Suite or any other program you know of. ☺

Why not use a google doc or spreadsheet and if you want it in EN, just have a note with a link to the google doc?