iPad Dropbox - PDF -> Evernote workflow

[martinf 0]

Hi everyone,

maybe some of you productivity experts can help me out. I'm working in the medical field and currently use my Macbook to check up on medical literature.
It works like this:

1.) Find medical papers (PDF) and save them in an dropbox folder ("to-review").

2.) Once a week I go through the new papers, and decide which ones to keep.

3.) The ones I want to keep get transferred to evernote with some parts copied out of them, summaries written in the note etc. Some notes on a broader topic also have more than one PDF in them (different guidelines, papers and so on).

 

This works fine on my macbook - but I'd love to do it with my iPad (much easier on the go, nicer to read through the PDFs).

My problems with this currently are:

 

- The files that are in the "Review"-Dropbox folder are not offline in the dropbox app.

- Even if that would work, how could I send the PDFs to evernote (to a new note or attach to an already existing note)?

 

 

Do you have any idea or had the same problems? Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[DTLow 5,736]

21 minutes ago, martinf said:

I'm working in the medical field and currently use my Macbook to check up on medical literature.

It works like this:

1.) Find medical papers (PDF) and save them in an dropbox folder ("to-review").

2.) Once a week I go through the new papers, and decide which ones to keep.

3.) The ones I want to keep get transferred to evernote with some parts copied out of them, summaries written in the note etc. Some notes on a broader topic also have more than one PDF in them (different guidelines, papers and so on).

 

This works fine on my macbook - but I'd love to do it with my iPad (much easier on the go, nicer to read through the PDFs).

My problems with this currently are:

 

- The files that are in the "Review"-Dropbox folder are not offline in the dropbox app.

- Even if that would work, how could I send the PDFs to evernote (to a new note or attach to an already existing note)?

Do you have any idea or had the same problems? Thanks a lot for your help!

Can you explain the benefit of having Dropbox in this workflow; I save directly to Evernote.

>>how could I send the PDFs to evernote (to a new note or attach to an already existing note)?

This is an existing feature with Evernote; I'll add a screenshot below.

Only to a new note - I have to process on my Mac to consolidate notes or move pdfs 

[martinf 0]

11 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Can you explain the benefit of having Dropbox in this workflow; I save directly to Evernote.

Thanks for your amazingly quick reply!

Basically, I get a lot of emails with new papers over the week and just drop all of the quickly in my dropbox to evaluate later (about once a week) when I have more time.

To give an example: I get a newsletter from a journal and save one or two papers in the folder. Then a colleague mails me 5 "cool" papers, I quickly drop them in the review-folder and can continue working. When I have an hour on the train I then can work through all the accumulated papers (and would love to do it on my iPad).

Also, I can consolidate papers (e.g. I have a note on the topic "acute myocardial infarction" where I write a short summary in the note on what the treatment and quick facts are, and attach 3-5 current papers to the note).

 

[briancaldwell 202]

You might want to try using the "forward email to Evernote" feature where you can just forward the email, including attached files, directly into an Evernote Notebook called "to-review".

Check https://www.evernote.com/Settings.action and look in the section titled "Email Notes to" - grab your "to" Evernote address and set it up in your device address book for easy forwarding.

When you review the articles you can edit the Note to keep or add whatever content you like, or you can delete the note if you don't want to keep it.

Also, if you ever find articles by browsing the web, you should definitely install and try the Evernote Web Clipper, available for most modern browsers. The Chrome version is here https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/evernote-web-clipper/pioclpoplcdbaefihamjohnefbikjilc

@DTLow already pointed out the mobile browser option of "share to Evernote" so you're also covered on that front. Lot's of options that avoid the unnecessary Dropbox step. 

[FizzyCherry90 0]

You can save PDFs to your computer, drag and drop the PDF into a new Note or the Note you are using to save PDFs, if you only want to keep some parts ether use Skitch to screen shot a part, save it as a JPEG then use it in a Note you created for a medical paper or just copy and paste the bit of text, it will definitely look more proffesional though screen shotting the bit of text then adding it to the Note, Skitch is meant to be used with Evernote.