Kirby Krieger

I think we might be starting to conflate actions that are best, imho, considered separately. The thread is about (afaict) using highlighting and underlining and other _text markup_ tools. (The thread is titled "Text Selection".) It is not about what might be differentiated as _document_ or _page markup_ tools. Skitch (and whatever the built-in tools in Evernote are called) is, IME, excellent for document mark-up, and, in it's current form, useless for text mark-up. Preview, by way of example, does text markup quite well. Aside: the old beloved Skitch — prior to being swallowed by Evernote — was one of the best-designed utilities ever. It was common to see "Skitched" screen-grabs all over the Web — a stretch of growth that accelerated weekly until Evernote's unhelpful changes.

An excellent idea. I do think in the next five years we will have the kind of "academic" mark-up tools you mention readily available and easily integrated. (May be already available in some software.) You might search the Web for articles on academic workflows. There are whole blogs devoted to the topic. Of particular interest, take a look at that robust ugly duckling, DevonThink Pro. As an aside, having multiple versions of a base file, and saving only the instructions on how to mark-up the file (rather than copying the whole file) is how all current photographer's RAW workflow tools work. It's brilliant, efficient, and empoweringly useful. In the meantime, Scott's advice is, IME, spot-on: use Preview. It works well, at the cost of not being "in" Evernote. Note that you have a choice among five highlighter colors, and an underline. I think the underline looks best, but it _is not_ included in the summary in the Sidebar (neither are callouts). I color code my highlighting by use (e.g.: yellow — notes on the text; red — notes to the author; purple — notes to me). Unfortunately, there is as yet no way to show/hide by color, and the colors are not shown in the Sidebar summary (on OS 10.8.5, afaict). There is also no way to search just one's highlights, but the Sidebar contents are searched at the same time as the document (e.g.: search for "octopus" and the Sidebar will show only highlights and notes containing "octopus". If that kind of work-around doesn't meet your needs, I suggest finding another base application (not Evernote) for document and information storage and retrieval. HTH.

Yes, but that feature is not part of Evernote. I found the whole handling of editing PDF's inside Notes awkward at first, but "round-tripping" through Preview is easy, and the annotating tools are good. Preview maintains an excellent "Highlights & Notes" list that can be shown in the Preview Sidebar.

+1. It makes Evernote untrustworthy. It's not just line-breaks. Clip (afaict _anything_) from the Web, and play around with deleting line-returns (if that's what they are) by forward-deleting with the cursor at the end of the line, and deleting with the cursor at the start of a line. Mayhem. I also like when I paste with the cursor at the end of the Note and the clipboard contents are inserted at the beginning of the Note. Evernote.mac 5.5.1 on OS X 10.8.5.

Can't wait to see, and use. :-) A functional, up-to-date, fully-rationalized* Note Editor would be a huge step forward for Evernote. *Despite hours of investigation, I still have no idea how to control fonts, point size, styles (heading styles seem to be arbitrarily applied), line heights, or columns of content pasted into a Note.

Since Evernote did not, does not, and shows no sign of ever meeting you needs, it seems smart to use a program which does. It seems you are looking for a facile, cross-platform To-Do list manager. There are hundreds of these currently on the market, from the simple to the complex (OmniFocus). Having use Things, The Hit List, TaskPaper, and OmniFocus, I find Evernote's To-Do list management rudimentary in implementation and frustrating in use. YMMV. If it meets your needs, use it. If it doesn't, look elsewhere.

+1. In the meantime, on Evernote.mac, I use DevonThink's free WordService, which includes: - Sort Lines Ascending- Sort Lines Descendingamong many useful small text editing utilities. These small programs will strip links and checkboxes, however. The checkboxes are easily replaced, but their status is lost. I don't use Evernote for task management. I do need to sort lines, however. WordService makes an excellent addition to my basic text tools.

+1. On my big and getting rotund list of seemingly obvious basic features that are missing.

Vic, No need to guess. You told me I haven't helped you. I did answer your question. Whether that helps you is out of my hands. What part of "Backing up your Evernote database is no different than backing up other computer files" confuses you? Appreciate the kind wishes. Likewise. Kirby.

Hi Vic, I have already answered your question. Forcing horses to drink in not something I do for pay, let alone voluntarily. Very kindly and with earnest wishes for your continued learning, Kirby.

Does it help to apply the "Simplify Formatting" command on "jumbled" Notes? Open a Note, tap the ellipsis icon, and select "Simplify Formatting". I don't know a way to change the font size on the iPad. You can try the "out-pinch" gesture to make the current page/frame larger.

You can open any PDF in a Note on your iPad, tap the Annotate icon, and draw on the PDF to your heart's content, as well as use the other annotation tools (Stickers, Shapes, Arrows, Text). Does that not provide the functionality you seek?

That is a remarkably aggressive post, in spite of the friendly airs and symbols. I don't do "brainless". You don't have to read further. You are asking two separate and dissimilar things: back up of your Evernote database, and conversion of your Evernote database contents to a form readable without using Evernote. Backing up your Evernote database is no different than backing up other computer files. This is not the forum for covering basics of computer use. Converting your Evernote database contents to a form readable without using Evernote is done via "Evernote ▹ Export Note(s)". Select HTML. That is the only option currently available.

In the Evernote Mac Preferences dialog there is a checkbox to start the Evernote Helper on log-in, but there is not one (afaict) for Evernote itself. On my machine (Evernote 5.5.1 on OS 10.8.5) syncing never causes Evernote to become the active app.

And they have a revenue stream any business would envy . Afaict.