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'magic tool' web clipper request (feedback)


adt

Idea

Posted

Web clipper works great for most of the sites I frequent and clip from, but some media doesn't get it. They put author names or article dates in vertical columns on the left or in other weird places. In other instances, the boxes simply aren't perfectly square or rectangular, with headers or footers or parts of the body being more elongated than other parts, etc.

 

I realize this could probably never be an exact science, but can web clipper not have another option added that would be like the magic wand tool in photoshop so that you could actually try to select exactly the parts you need or want? This could perhaps even be applied to pages where you want separate pieces of a single page/article/etc. For instance, maybe you want to jump over a huge unrelated advertisement that's been thrown into the middle of the report. Or you only need two tables out of four displayed, etc.

 

Right now I typically just default to 'simplified article' but again, it doesn't solve my problem as sometimes what gets simplified out is often critical pieces of information like the news source, the author's name, the date, etc. So I have to manually type in that information or I have to do a hybrid screen shot + text capture. It's a nuisance and not at all the best or preferable option.

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Posted

 can web clipper not have another option added that would be like the magic wand tool in photoshop so that you could actually try to select exactly the parts you need or want?

I agree, this would be very helpful.

Perhaps the devs could provide some type of multi-select tool, allowing the user to paint/select the areas to be captured.

 

Right now I typically just default to 'simplified article' but again, it doesn't solve my problem as sometimes what gets simplified out is often critical pieces of information like the news source, the author's name, the date, etc. So I have to manually type in that information or I have to do a hybrid screen shot + text capture. It's a nuisance and not at all the best or preferable option.

 

I almost always want both the article author and publication date included in my web clip.

 

Posted

Evernote 3.1 (Windows, Chrome) has an excellent 'Universal Clipper' - and it works for any program/webpage/database/spreadsheet/image you happen to have on your screen. I use it all the time to clip old (1800s etc) newspapers online for my research. That Universal Clipper copies your chosen rectangle as a png which is pasted into your Evernote note. In the case of your example newspaper clipping above, it would obviously require three rectangles to be copied and pasted into that one note, but the whole process (three rectangles) would take less than 20 seconds.


 


You can paste subsequent clips of an article below/above/alongside previous clips, so you don't end up with your article spread across many notes. Even better, when you find closely related material months later (database info, more articles, maps, pictures) , you can simply paste the new clips into the original note - even insert them into the middle of the original collection of clippings.


 


The Universal Clipper is what originally made Evernote a real stand-out against its rivals.


 


An example of one of my composite notes:


Arthur Dewdney biographical clippings


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