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Unified & Improved Note/Handwriting/PDF Editing Experience


amcoffin

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Please take pdf expert as template. Pdf Annotation is sensational. I regularly use it for board sessions etc. Minimum is:

- highliting text, strike out, color marker

- handwritten annotation

- insert pages in pdf (for extended notes)

Also for notetaking miltiple pages woild be helpful.

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This is definitely a let down for me.  I do a lot of sketching of designs and math notes through Notability.  Its writing interface is the best I have found.  Since the recent updates I have found the writing function of Evernote to be better but most of my notes/design take up multiple pages, which evernote doesn't allow you to do.  Yes you can insert multiple writing pictures but it would be great to have one seamless note pad for my notes.  

Also being able to change my paper background.  Basically I would like Evernote to grab Notability and insert it into Evernote.  I know I may be asking a bit much but I figure if I aim high, maybe the compromise will be good enough :-)

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. My two cents on this thread... Again.

I'm using Evernote and Onenote on both my Surface and my Galaxy Note. What I can say about both is that Onenote is wonderful when it comes to annotating any kind of document, while it literally sucks at anything else and especially at syncing to/from the cloud, since it does it through Onedrive which is an incredible bottleneck. Evernote on the contrary is light-years away with its smooth and blazing fast sync mode and its overall much more solid storage, search and retrieval routines. In my humble opinion EN should really do all that it can to get the most out of this situation since, there are lots of users which, like me, really want to love EN but are drawn towards ON given its indubitably superior annotation capabilities. If EN wants to keep being the de facto leader of the note taking software segment, it must integrate its rivals core functionality and improve them instead of lagging behind with some half-baked solution.

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This is a huge issue for me as well. The handwriting experience in Evernote is awful with the iPad Pro and pencil. Evernote hasn't been designed with annotation in mind. The fragmentation of their product line makes things very messy as well. The complaints regarding annotation have been here on the forum for months and I've complained to support myself to only be told that "it is being worked" but they were unable to give any sort of estimates. I will say that Evernote has at least acknowledged the issue but at this point there should be some real improvements. 

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Completely agree with this entire thread. I would GLADLY upgrade to Premium if this one feature were improved. I use an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil and have to do the same workaround to Notability many mention above. Would really like to be able to keep PDFs in one place, mark them up and store them in the file structure I already have in place inside Evernote. 

Please put this at the top of your development list. 

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+1 for this entire thread - Notability does a brilliant job at PDF annotations and general hand written notes in meetings - as a very long term Evernote users I am really disappointed that this thread has not got more support from Evernote - iPad Pro 9.7" + Notability is exceptional for meetings and note taking - but Evernote is just so much better as a general note storage and management tool - would love to be able to return all note taking to Evernote.

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+1. Note taking and document annotation is the crux of Evernote (it's pretty much all I use it for) and the iPad Pro is the perfect vessel for that.

I've been following this issue since June and haven't heard anything new. Can anyone from the company please comment on why this glaring issue hasn't been fixed?

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On 5/23/2016 at 0:29 PM, amcoffin said:

I use Evernote extensively on my Mac, iPad Pro, and iPhone. We use shared notebooks in my office and I have a ScanSnap Evernote Edition sitting on my desk. (I even have Evernote desk accessories sitting next to the scanner.) I'm pretty well immersed in the world of Evernote.

However, I've found myself turning to other tools, most recently OneNote, with greater frequency. The main issue, and it is a big one for me, is the fragmented and inferior support for note taking and PDF editing in Evernote. I use my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil extensively. There are some great Pencil-compatible apps for iOS, including Notability, PDF Expert, and OneNote. 

Evernote, on the other hand, is stuck with a strange and fragmented approach:

PDFs can by opened using the "Annotate" tool in Evernote, which I think is built around the remnants of Skitch. It's fine for adding arrows and icons, but terrible (unusable) for handwritten notes on PDFs. It really can't be used for anything more than simple highlighting -- certainly not detailed annotation or note taking. 

Drawings and notes can be added to an Evernote Note directly through the handwriting tool, but this simply inserts an image into the note. There's no way to use this tool to take notes over multiple pages, or to use it for annotation as far as I can tell. I've also found it to the buggy, with full pages of notes lost if you switch away from Evernote to another app before saving the image and returning to the normal notes view. I will say that that, though the tool is very limited, with very few options, the Pencil support works well and writing is fluid. This tool seems to have the most potential for future development.

Finally, there is Penultimate -- a separate app I want to love but is just too buggy, too limited, and too walled off from the rest of Evernote to be truly useful. Again, no support for importing PDFs/annotation, yet another approach to handwriting, and, though the Penultimate notes live in Evernote, nothing can be done with them in the main app. 

Why, at this stage, would Evernote have three separate, incompatible and incongruous approaches to annotation/note taking, none of which begin to match the functionality of some of the other apps named?

Attached PDFs can certainly be opened in other apps, such as PDF Expert, but there is no way to get the annotated PDFs back into an Evernote note without deleting the original attachment and reattaching the PDF. That's cumbersome, and annotation seems like pretty basic functionality that Evernote should offer. 

Evernote certainly has some broader advantages over OneNote, but really needs to explore something like the "canvas" style approach used by OneNote. The ability to "print" PDFs to a OneNote page and then markup the document itself and take notes/add text/etc. all on one page is invaluable. I've pretty much switched all note taking/PDF annotation to OneNote, with Evernote still used for project management and other organizational needs, which leaves me with my own fragmentation. 

Maybe I'm missing something in Evernote's approach, but I'm a longtime user that's completely frustrated with Evernote's inferior support for annotation and handwritten notes. 

Someone said it! About dang time and so eloquently. So true. Whats more concerning to me is how long its been like this. Its not only outdated but simply not competitively useful. 

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Hello,

I have been using Evernote since 2008.
I have long hoped for a better PDF editor in the evernote app. On the other hand, as DTLow mentions, the third-party PDF editors work very well to edit files stored in Evernote and this solution satisfies me completely in macOS. On iOS, it's a little more complicated but with the new possibilities of iOS 11, drag n drop, it works well on ipad Pro but not perfectly. I would rather have Evernote make the process of file transfers between applications more efficient at least without losing the file name when exporting outside of evernote.

It would also be very useful to have thumbnails of pdf in Evernote a little like in Pdf Expert in iOS or to be able to navigate from one pdf to another just like the image viewer in Evernote for a more efficient navigation of the notes.

Overall, Evernote is a very powerful tool and I do not want a more advanced PDF edition anymore in the application itself but just want Evernote to focus their energy on stability, etc.

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I have been asking Evernote to expand its apple pencil notation ability for years, i have no idea why they are not answering the call. In meetings people don't want to just SKETCH they want to write notes and pin them in spaces. Currently writing in Evernote via the apple pencil is a chore because there are no lined template pages to write on, the notes are not infinite and Evernote forces you to use another app. Penultimate is simple horrid dated and looks like its been left to pasture with zero focus on expanding its tool set and for all intensive purposes it looks abandoned. 

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On 3/2/2017 at 4:55 PM, DTLow said:

In my opinion Evernote shows they care about customers by fixing serious software bugs and continuing to process our data (syncing etc)

For me, caring about your customers doesn't require the implementation of feature <insert your feature>
It's sort of like a child telling his mother "If you really loved me, you'd buy me this candy"

To a certain extent I agree with you. However, when a reasonable number of customers are asking for some specific functionality, which seems to represent a broader audience, then not listening to it it feels to me as ignoring your client. Of course we do not know their priorities and what they are dealing with, but silence is in my experience never the right answer. If they are reading the forums, which I would hope they do, I would like to read soothing that lets me know they heard and gives me some sort of clarity ion this is or is not a priority. That way I can make informed choices as a customer. Stay and wait or leave...

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I agree completely with these post.  I'd love to see the PDF annotation capabilities enhanced to allow written annotations similar to Notability and other apps.  I annotate PDFs frequently, and I'm currently searching for a solution in the absence of support from Evernote.  I'm reluctant to move to another app as it means I'd probably be storing data in two different forms and systems.  I like to have all my notes together, so I'm debating a complete move to another platform with disappointment I may have to use Evernote to access legacy work.


Any recommendations from others struggling with this?

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I totally agree with previous posts. 

Since I mainly use the IPad Pro for work, since PDFs annotation is not good enough in Evernote, I like to use iAnnotate as well as PDF expert but what a mess to bring the file back in Evernote. I know there a beta plugin for google Drive integration for Chrome and Android where I guess I could leave my PDFs in google Drive, annotate those in an external app and link the file in Evernote... 

I just discovered the Airmail app as well as Spark app. Inside those, you can attach files from Dropbox, ICloud, Google Drive. How come Evernote for iOS will not allow that? Emailing a PDFs to an existing note is just too cumbersome.

It would be nice also in landscape mode to be able to open two notes side-by-side or many tab notes. I am often working on a note, having another note as reference or I often want to copy a part of a note to another note which is also cumbersome to do in iOS.

Finally, it would be super nice to copy a PDF from a note to another note of from one app to Evernote.

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Also totally agree with the previous posts. I also have an Ipad pro and use it extensively. I'm forced to PDF expert to do annotations on my PDF's. So....

+1 for better PDF annotations/mark ups within Evernote

+1 for copying PDF form note to note

Another useful feature would be to be able to select the size of the eraser like you have with the pencil and the marker

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I have relied on EN for many years now and I can see that the company has several platforms to take account of, of which iPad Pro is just one. However, it is a very big one.

There is no doubt that post Steve, Apple is moving more seriously into the digital pen and paper space and iPad Pro introduces the potential for the Apple community to adopt the tablet for all things. I loaded up OneNote and was very impressed with it. However, I really just want to use EN for note taking and the pen and annotation shortcomings are actually holding back my own productivity at this point. This will have just one consequence and I believe that if EN does not rapidly move towards the functionality offered by iPad Pro pretty fast then they will suffer just as a host of IOS app makers have been caught out by the Apple Pen.

And so I echo previous contributors and urge Evernote to get to grips with this pretty fast please.

 

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On June 9, 2016 at 0:21 PM, chaffinr05 said:

Evernote team. Any update on this? Please see notability for how pdf makeup is supposed to behave. I will be forced to abandon Evernote and my premium subscription if this is not addressed soon on the iPad Pro. 

 

 I use the Notability app.  It's good for pdf annotation, and it is a good note taking tool.  

I have no concerns with using dedicated apps when I need more than Evernote's basic features.

I often see statements in the forum of the form: I'm leaving Evernote if the don't implement xxxx.  I just continue on making use of the Evernote feature set, I consider it good value for the money.

 

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Just switched back to evernote, after trying out onenote for a couple of months. My premium subscription was expiring so I thought I'd try out the competition. Well, I decided that I preferred evernote, I renewed my subscription, and then started back to work. Made a new note (clipped from the web), picked up my pencil and tried to draw on it. Oh, wait, can't do that in evernote! In one note, you can draw on everything! A pdf, a web clipping, typed notes... guess I got used to that feature, and no I kind of regret forking out the money for evernote... 

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I second the whole thead: Evernote should change their approach to annotation since their current system allows no more than basic text highlighting and text input through a clunky and unpractical interface, which may be ok on a desktop rig with keyboard and mouse, but becomes "last century" on the current scenario of touch-enabled systems which use ink through styluses/pens. 

Onenote outshines Evernote in that aspect.

 

 

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On 25/8/2016 at 0:26 AM, rudders said:

+1 for this entire thread - Notability does a brilliant job at PDF annotations and general hand written notes in meetings - as a very long term Evernote users I am really disappointed that this thread has not got more support from Evernote - iPad Pro 9.7" + Notability is exceptional for meetings and note taking - but Evernote is just so much better as a general note storage and management tool - would love to be able to return all note taking to Evernote.

I had been using Noteshelf to get integration with EN but am not really wild about it. I think that Notability is about the right app for handwriting but its search ability is not up to EN standard. I have been using EN recently for handwriting but it is a heavy app when used extensively on desktop and laptop as I do, and it is trying to sync while you're trying to write - iPad Pro or not.

I'm not sure at how well EN background refresh performs because ideally, it should be syncing often enough in the office in the background to avoid big downloads when on the road. EN on my phone (iPhone 5s) is virtually unusable on the road for that reason, and I hasten to add that I limit the notebooks available for continuous sync. Waiting for it to sync means that i cannot just open EN and start using it, particularly where I need to reference recently updated information that hasn't reached the phone through the sync process.

I really like EN as a desktop product and clearly EN have some thinking to do around these issues. I would not dump EN at all but would say to them that I find myself increasingly using Notability and linking the exported PDF of my notes to Daylite which happens to be the biz db that we use.

SO - a BIG shout to EN - I need a Notability-esque  interface with continuous scrolling notes that syncs into EN. Penultimate is akin to Fisher Price clunky toys so please don't suggest it as an alternative.

:) right, there's my moan for this morning!

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I agree with what everyone has been saying.  The EN solution is really limited for handwriting.  I'm considering getting Notability but want to integrate it with EN.  I wish that EN had a better solution for creating and using notes like notability so that I could just use one application.  However, I need to use both now with my Apple Pencil and EN not having the cabililities.

 

Thanks for the conversation.  I guess we'll have to wait.  It also seems as though EN might start getting additional competition from Google as they seam to be moving in this direction with how they are allowing PDF mark up and then integrating this with Google Drive could spell stiff competition for EN if they don't get on the ball to improve their application.

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6 hours ago, Thomaskad said:

I agree with what everyone has been saying.  The EN solution is really limited for handwriting.  I'm considering getting Notability but want to integrate it with EN. 

For serious note taking, I use Notability

just like I use dedicated apps for word processing and spreadsheets.

I store the work-in-progress in its native format; often as an attachment in Evernote.

When finished, I convert to pdf format and store in Evernote. This makes the document available for search

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Agreed - EN premium is the best but is seriously lacking in supporting annotation of PDFs. I had to buy PDF Expert to markup my PDFs, then I upload them to EN but I'd much rather not have fragmentation like this. The iPad Pro + Apple pencil + EN with improved pdf annotation (i.e. pdf expert-level) would be unbeatable!

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It's so frustrating that we haven't heard anything on this<_<. It would be one thing if it weren't an existing technology, but come on, I can name 10 apps on the App Store that run a much smoother engine for PDF annotation- and in fact I have to frequently export my notes to those apps to mark them up, which completely defeats the purpose. PLEASE someone at least comment on this...

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1 hour ago, Kiefer said:

It's so frustrating that we haven't heard anything on this<_<. It would be one thing if it weren't an existing technology, but come on, I can name 10 apps on the App Store that run a much smoother engine for PDF annotation- and in fact I have to frequently export my notes to those apps to mark them up, which completely defeats the purpose. PLEASE someone at least comment on this...

From my point of view, pdfs are an external document to Evernote,
and my user experience is that I'm always going to an external process for annotation.
- Even with the internal pdf editor - it doesn't feel integrated like the note editing (html)

However, it serves the purpose for basic editing - for more serious work, I turn to a dedicated app
The Notability app is my choice for serious pdf review/annotation (and serious note taking)
Evernote remains my choice for filing and organization; when I'm finished my annotation, I store the output in Evernote

You said "Note taking and document annotation is the crux of Evernote"
And others have requested word processing and spreasheet features
My feeling is 
filing, organization, syncing and sharing are the crux of Evernote - the other features are just a bonus

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I completely agree. I'm amazed this hasn't been sorted by now. The in app editor (formally skitch) just isn't up to it. There are many alternative PDF editors all brilliant. If Evernote were to link with Notibilty or PDF Expert for direct PDF syncing/editing it would be such an improvement!

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 Hey all. I went and put in a ticket with Evernote support regarding this issue and someone from the team got back to me asking me to send an activity log from my iPad Pro. If anyone else is interested in getting this through the pipeline quickly, I would suggest going in putting in a ticket. I think the more of us bring it up, the more urgency they will have fixing it.

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5 minutes ago, Kiefer said:

 Hey all. I went and put in a ticket with Evernote support regarding this issue and someone from the team got back to me asking me to send an activity log from my iPad Pro. If anyone else is interested in getting this through the pipeline quickly, I would suggest going in putting in a ticket. I think the more of us bring it up, the more urgency they will have fixing it.

Can you identify specifically what "issue" your ticket covers.

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On 10/17/2016 at 3:03 AM, EN_ROCKS said:

Agreed - EN premium is the best but is seriously lacking in supporting annotation of PDFs. I had to buy PDF Expert to markup my PDFs, then I upload them to EN but I'd much rather not have fragmentation like this. The iPad Pro + Apple pencil + EN with improved pdf annotation (i.e. pdf expert-level) would be unbeatable!

Hi EN_ROCKS
 

I also use PDF Expert but it isn't fragmented. All you do is set PDF Expert as your default PDF app, then double click on the PDF within Evernote and it'll open the PDF in PDF Expert. Any changes you make to the PDF will then be saved in Evernote.

 

You can have multiple PDF's open from different parts of Evernote and be editing them simultaneously, with all changes being synced. It's perfect. 

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On 10/21/2016 at 10:14 PM, Zlightbulb80 said:

I completely agree. I'm amazed this hasn't been sorted by now. The in app editor (formally skitch) just isn't up to it. There are many alternative PDF editors all brilliant. If Evernote were to link with Notibilty or PDF Expert for direct PDF syncing/editing it would be such an improvement!

You can, read my above post. 

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On 11/17/2016 at 4:40 AM, Jonathan Michael Copeland said:

Hi EN_ROCKS
 

I also use PDF Expert but it isn't fragmented. All you do is set PDF Expert as your default PDF app, then double click on the PDF within Evernote and it'll open the PDF in PDF Expert. Any changes you make to the PDF will then be saved in Evernote.

 

You can have multiple PDF's open from different parts of Evernote and be editing them simultaneously, with all changes being synced. It's perfect. 

How do you make PDF Expert the default PDF app?

thanks!

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I'm coming to the conclusion the Evernote company just don't care about it's customers as it used to, else they'd have already implemented the changes users keep asking all the time, e.g. handwritting annotations on pdfs.

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On 10/16/2016 at 9:03 PM, EN_ROCKS said:

Agreed - EN premium is the best but is seriously lacking in supporting annotation of PDFs. I had to buy PDF Expert to markup my PDFs, then I upload them to EN but I'd much rather not have fragmentation like this. The iPad Pro + Apple pencil + EN with improved pdf annotation (i.e. pdf expert-level) would be unbeatable!

Yeah I just don't get it either 

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On 2017-03-02 at 10:44 AM, UriCai said:

I'm coming to the conclusion the Evernote company just don't care about it's customers as it used to, else they'd have already implemented the changes users keep asking all the time, e.g. handwritting annotations on pdfs.

In my opinion Evernote shows they care about customers by fixing serious software bugs and continuing to process our data (syncing etc)

For me, caring about your customers doesn't require the implementation of feature <insert your feature>
It's sort of like a child telling his mother "If you really loved me, you'd buy me this candy"

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7 hours ago, DTLow said:

In my opinion Evernote shows they care about customers by fixing serious software bugs and continuing to process our data (syncing etc)

For me, careing about your customers doesn't require the implementation of feature <insert your feature>
It's sort of like a child telling his mother "If you really loved me, you'd buy me this candy"

Ok, you're talking about Evernote doing their jobs. If they don't fix the bugs in their software or stop processing their customers data users will eventually migrate to a software that does it.

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On 5/23/2016 at 0:29 PM, amcoffin said:

I use Evernote extensively on my Mac, iPad Pro, and iPhone. We use shared notebooks in my office and I have a ScanSnap Evernote Edition sitting on my desk. (I even have Evernote desk accessories sitting next to the scanner.) I'm pretty well immersed in the world of Evernote.

However, I've found myself turning to other tools, most recently OneNote, with greater frequency. The main issue, and it is a big one for me, is the fragmented and inferior support for note taking and PDF editing in Evernote. I use my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil extensively. There are some great Pencil-compatible apps for iOS, including Notability, PDF Expert, and OneNote. 

Evernote, on the other hand, is stuck with a strange and fragmented approach:

PDFs can by opened using the "Annotate" tool in Evernote, which I think is built around the remnants of Skitch. It's fine for adding arrows and icons, but terrible (unusable) for handwritten notes on PDFs. It really can't be used for anything more than simple highlighting -- certainly not detailed annotation or note taking. 

Drawings and notes can be added to an Evernote Note directly through the handwriting tool, but this simply inserts an image into the note. There's no way to use this tool to take notes over multiple pages, or to use it for annotation as far as I can tell. I've also found it to the buggy, with full pages of notes lost if you switch away from Evernote to another app before saving the image and returning to the normal notes view. I will say that that, though the tool is very limited, with very few options, the Pencil support works well and writing is fluid. This tool seems to have the most potential for future development.

Finally, there is Penultimate -- a separate app I want to love but is just too buggy, too limited, and too walled off from the rest of Evernote to be truly useful. Again, no support for importing PDFs/annotation, yet another approach to handwriting, and, though the Penultimate notes live in Evernote, nothing can be done with them in the main app. 

Why, at this stage, would Evernote have three separate, incompatible and incongruous approaches to annotation/note taking, none of which begin to match the functionality of some of the other apps named?

Attached PDFs can certainly be opened in other apps, such as PDF Expert, but there is no way to get the annotated PDFs back into an Evernote note without deleting the original attachment and reattaching the PDF. That's cumbersome, and annotation seems like pretty basic functionality that Evernote should offer. 

Evernote certainly has some broader advantages over OneNote, but really needs to explore something like the "canvas" style approach used by OneNote. The ability to "print" PDFs to a OneNote page and then markup the document itself and take notes/add text/etc. all on one page is invaluable. I've pretty much switched all note taking/PDF annotation to OneNote, with Evernote still used for project management and other organizational needs, which leaves me with my own fragmentation. 

Maybe I'm missing something in Evernote's approach, but I'm a longtime user that's completely frustrated with Evernote's inferior support for annotation and handwritten notes. 

Very well written post! Couldn't have said it better and it really broke down the problems and potential. Definitely send this to Evernote social media / email, get it on their radar! This is one of the biggest hinderences / setbacks that if Evernote fixed would really help with customer satisfaction. Also, consider adding some ideas on what would your ideal annotation / PDF experience to be. More so what Evernote should do and look like, you know ?

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Just adding my affirmation to the original post. I'm having to use Notability for Apple Pencil note taking & annotation of pdfs. Would much prefer a single app solution in Evernote. Hoping Evernote developers will eventually take notice of this thread. 

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8 hours ago, Mark Franz said:

Just adding my affirmation to the original post. I'm having to use Notability for Apple Pencil note taking & annotation of pdfs. Would much prefer a single app solution in Evernote. Hoping Evernote developers will eventually take notice of this thread. 

I could not agree more! I only want to use Evernote, too. I hate it to use other apps for handwritings notes. Everytime i have to import and i am not able to change something, after importing. So i have to use both. Would be so much easier if Evernote will add a better writing solution. Integrating penultimte directly into Evernote would be a good start. 

IOS 11 will have a deep system wide pencil and note taking support. I really hope, Evernote will use this chance!

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10 hours ago, Mark Franz said:

I'm having to use Notability for Apple Pencil note taking & annotation of pdfs. Would much prefer a single app solution in Evernote. Hoping Evernote developers will eventually take notice of this thread. 

I'm a fan of Notability.  Also looking at Goodnotes for its OCR feature

No problem using different apps; the best tool for the job.  I view Evernote's strength is as a digital filing cabinet

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32 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I'm a fan of Notability.  Also looking at Goodnotes for its OCR feature

No problem using different apps; the best tool for the job.  I view Evernote's strength is as a digital filing cabinet

But Evernote is a great app for taking notes in every situation. Finding notes, save notes and taking notes. Look at IOS 11... Apple focus on taking handwritten notes. Evernote would be a perfect note app if annotation and taking looks like Notability or GoodNotes or Myscript Nebo. No syncing problems. I hate it, if it's only possible to sync one way. Sometime I have to change written notes, but after import to Evernote its not good as in these apps. Some apps haven't any Mac/Windows support so Evernote is the only way to have them an all devices.

Imagine all kind of possibilities and functions of GoodNotes or Notability are directly in Evernote integrated. Searchable writen notes and every time able to change or rewrite it.

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14 minutes ago, TeacherNote said:

Imagine all kind of possibilities and functions of GoodNotes or Notability are directly in Evernote integrated. Searchable writen notes and every time able to change or rewrite it.

It would also require Evernote switch to a proprietary format, which might not be a bad idea.  The current format is limiting 

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Completely agree. I just tried using Evernote for pdf annotation and the experience is just horrible. There is a noticeable lag of at least one second when I try to write anything with Apple Pencil. Highlight tool does not highlight text by adding an actual highlight. It is just like a paintbrush and you can drag the highlights which is just ridiculous. I accidentally keep dragging highlights around. The pencil tool is extremely laggy as well and does not follow the stroke. I hope Evernote fixes these issues because I like the search and tags. However at this point i am seriously considering to move to OneNote which is free and has a great content curation system. The only reason I like Evernote is that it has a great search and tagging system but editor is just horrible and there hasn’t been any improvements in that at all ever since I joined. I really hope that they fix these issues and make it worth our time and money. I am really disappointed in this “premium” feature.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Fernelius said:

I'd recommend looking at Notability, too.  It's outstanding for PDF markup.  Unfortunately, it doesn't have tags and doesn't have the same ability as Evernote for clipping webpages.  It also doesn't offer OCR.

Notability is also my prefered editor app when working on my iPad.  I save the document in Evernote.

I'm a fan of using external editors instead of being restricted to the Evernote editor

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I recently switched from GoodNotes (very good App, really) to Noteshelf 2 -  because it has syncing to Evernote (exactly as Penultimate does); make life easier, no need to export - no pain if a note has been changed again -> it‘s synced to Evernote.

 

But - I agree - annotating PDFs in Evernote needs improvement. Those arrows and checkmarks are „baby features“.

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January of 2018 and it's amazing to me that this problem is still unaddressed. Ignore everything else I wrote -- at the very least, Evernote should have useable PDF annotation. This isn't a new feature request...it's something that exists, but is completely unusable. No Apple Pencil support (meaning that any attempt to scroll the document will likely result in stray marks) and a nearly useless implementation of writing and highlighting based on the remnants of Skitch. I really should not need to export PDFs to separate apps and then re-save to Evernote for simple editing or note taking on PDFs (though I agree that both Notability and Noteshelf 2 have some compelling features and are excellent for PDF editing as standalone apps). 

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20 minutes ago, amcoffin said:

Evernote should have useable PDF annotation
....
I really should not need to export PDFs to separate apps

I see a lot of requests like this,  Evernote should have ....

I know that the Evernote editor provides basic features and even less as a PDF editor but I'm not expecting much from free software that comes with my digital filing cabinet

PDF editing isn't even Evernote's primary business

I know I'll always get extended features from dedicated editor apps; word processing, spreadsheet, and PDF editors

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On 5/23/2016 at 12:29 PM, amcoffin said:

I use Evernote extensively on my Mac, iPad Pro, and iPhone. We use shared notebooks in my office and I have a ScanSnap Evernote Edition sitting on my desk. (I even have Evernote desk accessories sitting next to the scanner.) I'm pretty well immersed in the world of Evernote.

However, I've found myself turning to other tools, most recently OneNote, with greater frequency. The main issue, and it is a big one for me, is the fragmented and inferior support for note taking and PDF editing in Evernote. I use my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil extensively. There are some great Pencil-compatible apps for iOS, including Notability, PDF Expert, and OneNote. 

Evernote, on the other hand, is stuck with a strange and fragmented approach:

PDFs can by opened using the "Annotate" tool in Evernote, which I think is built around the remnants of Skitch. It's fine for adding arrows and icons, but terrible (unusable) for handwritten notes on PDFs. It really can't be used for anything more than simple highlighting -- certainly not detailed annotation or note taking. 

Drawings and notes can be added to an Evernote Note directly through the handwriting tool, but this simply inserts an image into the note. There's no way to use this tool to take notes over multiple pages, or to use it for annotation as far as I can tell. I've also found it to the buggy, with full pages of notes lost if you switch away from Evernote to another app before saving the image and returning to the normal notes view. I will say that that, though the tool is very limited, with very few options, the Pencil support works well and writing is fluid. This tool seems to have the most potential for future development.

Finally, there is Penultimate -- a separate app I want to love but is just too buggy, too limited, and too walled off from the rest of Evernote to be truly useful. Again, no support for importing PDFs/annotation, yet another approach to handwriting, and, though the Penultimate notes live in Evernote, nothing can be done with them in the main app. 

Why, at this stage, would Evernote have three separate, incompatible and incongruous approaches to annotation/note taking, none of which begin to match the functionality of some of the other apps named?

Attached PDFs can certainly be opened in other apps, such as PDF Expert, but there is no way to get the annotated PDFs back into an Evernote note without deleting the original attachment and reattaching the PDF. That's cumbersome, and annotation seems like pretty basic functionality that Evernote should offer. 

Evernote certainly has some broader advantages over OneNote, but really needs to explore something like the "canvas" style approach used by OneNote. The ability to "print" PDFs to a OneNote page and then markup the document itself and take notes/add text/etc. all on one page is invaluable. I've pretty much switched all note taking/PDF annotation to OneNote, with Evernote still used for project management and other organizational needs, which leaves me with my own fragmentation. 

Maybe I'm missing something in Evernote's approach, but I'm a longtime user that's completely frustrated with Evernote's inferior support for annotation and handwritten notes. 

Well said. I too felt the frustration of all you mentioned. But, felt like it was ME because this has been going on for years. I thought to myself, “am I the only one that thinks this is silly?” Then I keep hearing of Evernote’s vision, AL, team collaboration, better search capabilities. But nothing on formatting, looks, & most important the fragmented annotation. I just don’t get it. For me it posses as a real problem to get stuff done. I don’t even use Evernote for pdf annotation I feel as you have mentioned to frustrating and outdated for what I need. Evernote seems content as they add new features when Apple comes out with new things but leave the core functionality outdated & broken. Doesn’t make sense. 

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On 1/29/2018 at 7:25 PM, DTLow said:

I see a lot of requests like this,  Evernote should have ....

I know that the Evernote editor provides basic features and even less as a PDF editor but I'm not expecting much from free software that comes with my digital filing cabinet

PDF editing isn't even Evernote's primary business

I know I'll always get extended features from dedicated editor apps; word processing, spreadsheet, and PDF editors

PDF annotation for sure is touted as one of Evernote’s core feature sets. It’s been a long time since penultimate made any real updates, same can be said for the pdf annotation tool. Have you tried using the handwriting tool??? Sad case 

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On 2018-02-01 at 6:06 AM, OMNIZEN said:

PDF annotation for sure is touted as one of Evernote’s core feature sets.

I don't know about core, but it's an enhanced feature for paid accounts.

I'm just not impresssed with the pdf annotation feature

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On 2/1/2018 at 8:25 PM, DTLow said:

I don't know about core, but it's a an enhanced feature for paid accounts.

I'm just not impresssed with the pdf annotation feature

Miscommunications. I’m just voicing my dissatisfaction with how pdf annotation is outdated and makes getting work done more frustrating. 

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I've been searching for some hope that there was an improvement, found this and see that even 18 months on, not a sausage.

onenotes handwriting and annotation is superb. it's notebook management sucks beyond belief. it has a nicer interface in my opinion (colour, layout etc) but that is trivial

 

poor by evernote, very poor

 

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I agree 100% with the comments made in this thread, like amcoffin who commenced this lively discussion, I too confess to being a bit of an EN fanboy.

I am also an Evernote Community Leader, and when I asked the same question in a closed Facebook Evernote Community Leader group, I eventually received a very short and sharp response to visit this forum! So much for the loyalty.

Penultimate and the Skitch remnant features in EN are not viable for any serious workflow that involves PDF annotation or harnessing the full capability of the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil.

The silence from EN is very disconcerting for those of us who seek to harness and promote the tool in the business community. 

 

 

 

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On 6/11/2016 at 4:17 PM, Drexler Mathias said:

Please take pdf expert as template. Pdf Annotation is sensational. I regularly use it for board sessions etc. Minimum is:

- highliting text, strike out, color marker

- handwritten annotation

- insert pages in pdf (for extended notes)

Also for notetaking miltiple pages woild be helpful.

If I could also add that if the PDf will not be "in-line" in iOS, can the PDF be opened and available for edit when rotating into landscape mode? This would need to be a toggle/selectable feature.

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It feels like Evernote team is not going to look into this issue anytime soon. I am also using Evernote right now for my academic work, but I have been lately thinking to switch to a different note-taking app just because of this fragmented approach to annotation and note-taking.

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11 hours ago, UtkC said:

I have been lately thinking to switch to a different note-taking app

 I find the Evernote editor fine for basic notes, but I don't feel restricted to a single editor.
I use the best editor for the job.  
Any format documents can be added to the note attachments; PDFs, images, offiche/iwork documents work well.

I use Word/Pages for word processing, and Notability/Goodnotes for handwriting on my iPad. 
 

 

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Very curious if this is an issue that EN is at least investigating.  I don't need roadmap, but as I look at how my digital work is evolving, I would like to start using Apple Pencil with my iPad within the EN ecosystem.  I truly think this is a direction EN should take more seriously to remain a leader. 

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On 9/19/2018 at 11:58 AM, chamby said:

Very curious if this is an issue that EN is at least investigating. 

There's no indication Evernote is interested in expanding this UI.

They did purchase the Penultimate app but it's languished on the sidelines.

>>within the EN ecosystem

I want my data to be stored in the EN ecosystem.  
This does not mean I'm restricted to using the EN editor to create/edit documents.

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I agree with Tinchohs. Fixing bugs in your software is table stakes. Enhancing your product is a sign of a going concern. That said, I don't expect we'll see Penultimate become revived and serve as a handwriting tool in the same league as competitors. While I'd love to see MarkDown supported, I've found two alternatives:

  • Drafts 5, for Mac (beta) and iOS allows creating MarkDown text, and through an "action" forward that in nice format into Evernote.
  • Note Shelf 2 is a handwriting/PDF markup tool that is unique in that it does sync-to-Evernote upon save of the NS2 notebook. It appears as handwritten script in Evernote, and even shows as such in the preview pane. My frustrations are that:
  1. Evernote does not seem to do OCR scanning of the NS2 note, so doing a search on the content fails.
  2. The note is saved "read only" so you cannot annotate it with Skitch tools inside Evernote, in the same way you'd do with a PDF file.

Has anyone found a workaround for this in Evernote?

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24 minutes ago, billpetro said:

 Has anyone found a workaround for this in Evernote?

I use Notability on my iPad; saving to Evernote in PDF format - it gets ocr'd by Evernote.  The note is not read-only.

I'm not a markdown user, but it's supported by Evertool

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Thanks @DTLow. I just recently learned of Evertool on this board. Not available on iOS devices yet.

I don't know why, but other notetaking apps, which save their PDFs to Evernote allow OCR search. I have not been able to do this with Note Shelf 2. They point me to Evernote to find out why. Where would I see this answer?

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5 minutes ago, billpetro said:

I don't know why, but other notetaking apps, which save their PDFs to Evernote allow OCR search. I have not been able to do this with Note Shelf 2. 

I should have mentioned format dependencies.
Handwriting is OCR'd only for image files

Documentation at https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314518-How-Evernote-makes-text-inside-images-searchable

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On 5/23/2016 at 5:29 PM, amcoffin said:

I use Evernote extensively on my Mac, iPad Pro, and iPhone. We use shared notebooks in my office and I have a ScanSnap Evernote Edition sitting on my desk. (I even have Evernote desk accessories sitting next to the scanner.) I'm pretty well immersed in the world of Evernote.

However, I've found myself turning to other tools, most recently OneNote, with greater frequency. The main issue, and it is a big one for me, is the fragmented and inferior support for note taking and PDF editing in Evernote. I use my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil extensively. There are some great Pencil-compatible apps for iOS, including Notability, PDF Expert, and OneNote. 

Evernote, on the other hand, is stuck with a strange and fragmented approach:

PDFs can by opened using the "Annotate" tool in Evernote, which I think is built around the remnants of Skitch. It's fine for adding arrows and icons, but terrible (unusable) for handwritten notes on PDFs. It really can't be used for anything more than simple highlighting -- certainly not detailed annotation or note taking. 

Drawings and notes can be added to an Evernote Note directly through the handwriting tool, but this simply inserts an image into the note. There's no way to use this tool to take notes over multiple pages, or to use it for annotation as far as I can tell. I've also found it to the buggy, with full pages of notes lost if you switch away from Evernote to another app before saving the image and returning to the normal notes view. I will say that that, though the tool is very limited, with very few options, the Pencil support works well and writing is fluid. This tool seems to have the most potential for future development.

Finally, there is Penultimate -- a separate app I want to love but is just too buggy, too limited, and too walled off from the rest of Evernote to be truly useful. Again, no support for importing PDFs/annotation, yet another approach to handwriting, and, though the Penultimate notes live in Evernote, nothing can be done with them in the main app. 

Why, at this stage, would Evernote have three separate, incompatible and incongruous approaches to annotation/note taking, none of which begin to match the functionality of some of the other apps named?

Attached PDFs can certainly be opened in other apps, such as PDF Expert, but there is no way to get the annotated PDFs back into an Evernote note without deleting the original attachment and reattaching the PDF. That's cumbersome, and annotation seems like pretty basic functionality that Evernote should offer. 

Evernote certainly has some broader advantages over OneNote, but really needs to explore something like the "canvas" style approach used by OneNote. The ability to "print" PDFs to a OneNote page and then markup the document itself and take notes/add text/etc. all on one page is invaluable. I've pretty much switched all note taking/PDF annotation to OneNote, with Evernote still used for project management and other organizational needs, which leaves me with my own fragmentation. 

Maybe I'm missing something in Evernote's approach, but I'm a longtime user that's completely frustrated with Evernote's inferior support for annotation and handwritten notes. 

2.5 years since this was posted. Still waiting.

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I totally agree with this requirement. I've largely switched to OneNote because of Evernote's lack of pen support. I much prefer to sketch and take handwritten notes in meetings, when I@m brainstorming, etc, as I find it quicker and more intuitive and flexible than having to type everything.

Evernote's lack of handwriting/sketching integation has become a bit of a show stopper for me. OneNote handles it beautifully.

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Agree it’s the thread, but amazed that it is Nov 2019 and there is no response! an open issue for over three years and nothing from Evernote. I’m a big iPad Pro convert and if this doesn’t change I’m moving to OneNote that I already have to use for work. This is the end of 8+ years of Evernote for me.

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Over 3 years and ..... ?

There is no rule that at a certain number of days there has to be a implementation. IMHO it would be outright plain stupid management to run a company by following open postings in a forum instead of developing your own strategy. The strategy of EN for the time being is clearly communicated: Consolidate the user experience over OSes and clients, unify the code platform on which the user experience is founded, at the moment no new gimmicks.

This may serve one group of users better than others. So if you feel that another solution works better for you than EN, I think you have all the arguments on your side to switch over. 

But do not blame a 3 year old thread for your today’s decision. It is your decision to take, so take it and be happy with the results.

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20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Over 3 years and ..... ?

There is no rule that at a certain number of days there has to be a implementation. IMHO it would be outright plain stupid management to run a company by following open postings in a forum instead of developing your own strategy. The strategy of EN for the time being is clearly communicated: Consolidate the user experience over OSes and clients, unify the code platform on which the user experience is founded, at the moment no new gimmicks.

This may serve one group of users better than others. So if you feel that another solution works better for you than EN, I think you have all the arguments on your side to switch over. 

But do not blame a 3 year old thread for your today’s decision. It is your decision to take, so take it and be happy with the results.

I see your point. And I also see another point of view. Although the current strategy is clear, when there is an item that clearly has significant weight and more than reasonable time as a 'popular' request. it might be good practice from the company to share their thoughts about it. As a long time user, I'd love to stay with EN. If they tell me what I need is coming in a reasonable time, then I'll stick with it. If they say nothing, it's harder to decide. And certainly, I don't see it as a good practice of customer care. 

Beyond that, I agree that we each decide what we do with the current circumstances. I've been working a lot in my iPad, taking handwritten notes and mostly relegating EN as a good storage with valuable tags of content created elsewhere. 

I'd just like EN management to spend one of their many videos providing a longer term roadmap and clarifying if they will ever deal with pencil note-taking and PDF editing. Thanks. 

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On 6/24/2017 at 12:27 AM, TeacherNote said:

Imagine all kind of possibilities and functions of GoodNotes or Notability are directly in Evernote integrated. Searchable writen notes and every time able to change or rewrite it.

Thats what I need! Please implement this! Thanks

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On 2/5/2020 at 9:19 PM, rudabaugh said:

Thats what I need! Please implement this! Thanks

just use Noteshelf, it has auto-sync to Evernote (as a JPEG snapshot per page within a note), you can tag them in EN, you can move them to different notebooks and continue to change them in the Noteshelf App. The content get's updated in EN without any manual steps and not loosing any tags etc. And, based on EN's OCR, you're able to search them by content. Please keep in mind: adding all these features into one super fat Evernote App may not be a good idea regarding performance and usability.

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1 hour ago, stocky2605 said:

auto-sync to Evernote (as a JPEG snapshot per page within a note),

I prefer to have the document saved in native format plus PDF (ocr'd)   
I use Notability; unfortunately no auto-sync - I use the share box

>>Please keep in mind: adding all these features into one super fat Evernote App may not be a good idea

Agreed.  I use various editors each with their own unique features   
Evernote is my note storage/organize tool and the editor is useful for basic text based notes

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37 minutes ago, brenter said:

Where the hell is Evernote on this? Have they responded to any of these posts asking for drawing integration?

This is a user discussion forum    
I can tell you Evernote is a text based product, using an enml based format (basically html)

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4 hours ago, DTLow said:

This is a user discussion forum    
I can tell you Evernote is a text based product, using an enml based format (basically html)

I hear you it is a User Forum. But there are not many others ways to connect with them and get insights into where they are going. So dignifying the thread with a response would have been a nice ‘detail’. I am a paying user, and have not found other better way to understand the roadmap and if these expectations are potentially in their plans or not. I would like that level of clarity from a vendor I pay every year for well over 7 years...

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Evernote is an awesome app I've used since 2011. But the notation, handwriting and PDF mark-up limitations are putting Evernote behind several others. PLEASE add/enhancement this capability. Skitch is like using crayons and cannot be used in a job setting. 

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Agree with you, swstarkey, this has been a frustration for years now.

I was an absolute EN fanboy, now, sadly, I find that I am increasingly using alternative tools. 

For handwritten notes/pdf markups - I use Goodnotes 5 or PDF Expert, for GTD/task management-I use Omnifocus and Monday.com for team collaboration. 

Evernote, has largely become a legacy app; which due to a lack of strategic leadership has lost valuable ground and allowed passionate and progressive competitors to take away it's market dominance. 

This is perhaps best represented by Penultimate and Skitch; which are lagging so far behind their competition that they have become quite jolting reminders on how far Evernote’s star has dimmed; they should be gracefully phased out.

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1 hour ago, darioangelo said:

I find that I am using alternative tools and incrementally removing evernote from my workflow.

I'm also using alternative tools like Notability on an iPad    
Evernote continues to be my digital filing cabinet and I use it for storing these documents   
edit: and continues to be a productivity tool

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I am pretty much on the same boat. Handwritten notes in GoodNotes and PDF editing in PDF Expert. I have been trying several solutions and the last few projects I've run them in Dropbox Paper. I am really loving it. The editor is powerful, has a great collapse feature for content under titles and g great markup implementation. Collaboration is really smooth with mentions, comments and has a simple yet quite effective to-do implementation across all documents in an integrated view. Pretty much anyone can have a free Dropbox account so collaborating is in practical terms very  accessible and has radically transformed the way I work. 

I as going to drop my Evernote subscription and the renewal got me in the middle of the process, so I have it for a while longer, but it's no longer my working space. As other have said it's a glorifies file cabinet for old notes. A petty but they've had way too much time to improve and have proven incapable of adequately executing. I was watching videos comparing Dropbox Paper and Evernote and the review said '... this is the year where Evernote will battle to regain it's position...' The video was from 2017... Nothing else to be said on my part. 

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I commented on this over four years ago in frustration at not being able to use Evernote effectively with my iPad handwriting features without resorting to using a separate app such as Notability or Noteshelf.  I understood then and now that Evernote has many issues to deal with and a lot of scenarios to develop solutions for.  But I ask the question: if Steve Jobs had a hand in running EN, would we be still having this discussion 4 YEARS LATER?  Maybe, possibly, but I doubt it.  That's not a dig at Ian Small because I took the time to read his synopsis of EN's position - https://evernote.com/blog/2020-update-progress-road-ahead/ - and one clearly sees the really big issues that EN are struggling with, and the progress that they are making.

The consistent message that has been recurring for 4 YEARS on forums is that EN is losing its consumer base to other solutions primarily because it is NOT SOLVING the issues that its consumers are telling them about in forums like this.  At the end of the day, you cannot continue run an app that looks and feels like a 2010 interface - large and clunky with little attempt at 2020 UI finesse - and not addressing the core issue that it is a note taking app that is not great at traditional note taking and PDF annotation.  

Synching - a strength and weakness for them in equal measure.  When I capture a document or web page and it syncs to my desktop, I DON'T WANT EN GOING BACK TO THE WEB PAGE SOURCE TO GET ANYTHING AT ALL FROM IT - I just want the copy that I captured in EN desktop, just as I captured it at the time.  My firewall warns me when app's make runs to web sites or call home to EN's servers to get content meaning that if I'm using EN with networking switched off then EN desktop has its problems - namely the desktop app keeps returning to both EN and the web page source to update content - and if you are sensitive to privacy in what you are working on at any given time - that really is a problem!!!

EN is now a file store for receipts and documents with my Scansnap and that's it really. It is hanging on by a thread because it got the OCR and document indexing facilities working early on and people with lots of documents that benefit from that indexing facility are happy to stay with them, largely for that reason.  And in there is the absolute core of their problem.  People are happy to dump their documents into EN and let them do the processing, but in that, the company must be managing humungous data storage with Google which I have to say is unsettling.  

How much access to data does Google have?  I really have no idea - they may have none :)

Anyway - getting back to the central issue - I use Notability because Noteshelf doesn't have continuous scrolling/writing which I need for the note taking that I do - and that requires that I have to export content from one app to the other like 2010.  Notability isn't Evernote in terms of storage and data processing - but the UI and page scrolling are good.

I'm guessing that other note companies are not jumping on the EN model because using OCR is par for the course is document app's - but the storage, syncing and indexing issues are far bigger headaches to solve.

EN's UI and PDF notation and handwriting needs to be less 2010 and more 2020.  Otherwise they will remain a data storage monolith with a difficult business model to solve.

For me - EN was magical when I began using it so many years ago.  It kinda still is - there is little out there that replaces it.  Load up huge data into Apple Notes or OneNote and you will get the idea of what I'm referring to -  but the syncing and 'call home' to EN and source servers is a problem that they need to solve.

Come on Ian - put a modern UI on EN and we'll happily drive the new model car while you and your team fix the underlying issues.  That's what I used to say to programming students in a former life - software is about abstracting complexity from its users!

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23 hours ago, Pat @ChildWatch said:

if Steve Jobs had a hand in running EN

For the Steve Jobs (Apple) product, see Apple Notes
It's more oriented to Note/Handwriting than Evernote

I'm staying with Evernote
"Unified & Improved Note/Handwriting/PDF Editing Experience" is not a priority for me

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10 hours ago, darioangelo said:

Thank you, I will give Dropbox Paper a try.

BTW, I forgot to mention something important. Paper for iPad has integration with Apple Notes, so within a note you can open a handwritten portion and leverage all Apple's note functionality. perhaps not the bet implementation, but works and solves the problem. In this link there is a PDF export of a Paper Note where I evaluate a lot of the features briefly to see what's possible in this platform. https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqdz8k9cu7ru0fh/Dropbox_Paper_Evaluation_Notes.pdf?dl=0

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I totally agree. PDF annotation on Evernote is horrible. It is useless!! 

I did my best to keep my annotation workflow in evernote but it is a p****! I can't believe such a basic productivity feature is so bad in Evernote. As a Windows user I switched to XODO for annotation and it works marvelous. Now I only use Evernote as a file repository...

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1 hour ago, PabloM said:

As a Windows user I switched to XODO for annotation and it works marvelous.

My most functional pdf annotation is done on an iPad with the Notability app   
Also great for handwriting

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Well, I wrote the original post in this thread back in 2016...and I have to admit I am amazed, even with the latest update to the iOS app, that most or all of the original criticisms remain true today. Evernote has receded in my daily use dramatically since then, but hangs on by a thread because it still contains a lot of data -- essentially just functioning as an occasionally accessed archive. Time to figure out the best way to extricate myself from Evernote entirely...which is disappointing. 

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3 minutes ago, amcoffin said:

Well, I wrote the original post in this thread back in 2016...and I have to admit I am amazed, even with the latest update to the iOS app, that most or all of the original criticisms remain true today. Evernote has receded in my daily use dramatically since then, but hangs on by a thread because it still contains a lot of data -- essentially just functioning as an occasionally accessed archive. Time to figure out the best way to extricate myself from Evernote entirely...which is disappointing. 

I hear you. I'm on the same boat. None of my current 5 Active work projects are on Evernote. For what it's worth I tested Notejoy, which is interesting. And I landed in Dropbox Paper, mostly because I was missing dearly the realtime collaboration features. It has no clipping, so it does not cover my needs for storing reference information. I am still using some of Evernote for this, and for new projects I'm using Bear. In a matter of months, once I complete old projects that started in Evernote, it will only serve as an archive and I will drop my paid subscription. 

Lack of update, delayed delivery and no visibility of what I need moving forward finally drove me to change. It's a petty...

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Need Handwriting recognition on the Mac.  It's 2020 and to have a premium solution like Evernote not support it on a Mac is frustrating.  Need to take handwritten notes AND optionally be able to translate them to text on a Mac.

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