New to Evernote: What to do with my existing notes and info?

[Goes_to_11 0]

I am new to Evernote and I'm wondering what is a good way to begin. I have lots of notes and info, mostly in Word docs and PDFs.

Do I somehow bring those entire documents into EN or do I need to copy the contents of those documents and paste as notes into EN?

Suggestions appreciated!

[DTLow 5,736]

16 hours ago, Goes_to_11 said:

I am new to Evernote and I'm wondering what is a good way to begin. I have lots of notes and info, mostly in Word docs and PDFs.

Evernote notes contain text content (enml/html format)
and also files of any format, like Word Docs and PDFs

>>Do I somehow bring those entire documents into EN or do I need to copy the contents of those documents and paste as notes into EN?

You bring  the entire document into EN
Drag the files into an existing note, or import folder (Win/Mac)

Most of my notes contain files like this.

[CalS 5,280]

15 hours ago, Goes_to_11 said:

I am new to Evernote and I'm wondering what is a good way to begin. I have lots of notes and info, mostly in Word docs and PDFs.

Do I somehow bring those entire documents into EN or do I need to copy the contents of those documents and paste as notes into EN?

Suggestions appreciated!

Since you are a premium member you should import the documents so that they will be searchable.  You can bulk import them if you like by creating an import folder via Tools - Import Folders.  Then you can copy/paste or move the files into that folder and a note will be created for each document.  The note title will become the name of the document, word or pdf.

Once you are comfortable the documents are in EN you can delete the originals if you like (I would).  Good luck.

[Goes_to_11 0]

I see that when I bring a Word doc (for example) into EN, it's still a Word doc (as opposed to the content as if I had copied and pasted into EN). That makes sense - the formatting is kept intact.

Q1. Are there any disadvantages of retaining the content in its Word doc form?

Q2. Can you think of any situation when it would make more sense to bring in the content only?

[jefito 5,589]

35 minutes ago, Goes_to_11 said:

Q1. Are there any disadvantages of retaining the content in its Word doc form?

No real disadvantages. You can use formatting and other formatting that Evernote doesn't offer, by editing the Word attachment in MS Word. Flip side is that you need to open the Word attachment in MS Word to read it. It all depends on what you're trying to do.

 

37 minutes ago, Goes_to_11 said:

Q2. Can you think of any situation when it would make more sense to bring in the content only?

If you don't need or care about having the content in a separate document, and you want to be able to read the content without firing up Word, and the formatting is relatively simple, then you might want to copy/paste the Word content into an Evernote. Again, it all depends...

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, Goes_to_11 said:

Are there any disadvantages of retaining the content in its Word doc form?

imho, No

Evernote provides viewers for attachments; Office/iWork, PDF, Images ... (Mac/iPad)
Evernote makes it easy to use Word to edit documents (Windows/Mac)

Some users object to using an external editor (Word) and feel Evernote should handle all their editing requirements

>>Can you think of any situation when it would make more sense to bring in the content only?

imho, No

My preference is keeping Note text separate from other content

Evernote's base format is enml/html.  It's great for basic notes, but is limited

[CalS 5,280]

On 10/8/2019 at 8:40 PM, Goes_to_11 said:

Q1. Are there any disadvantages of retaining the content in its Word doc form?

Q2. Can you think of any situation when it would make more sense to bring in the content only?

Q1.  None that I can think of, only pluses. 
 

Q2.  In Windows you can’t view Word in line.  If the Word document is static and you want to view it without opening Word you might consider printing to PDF and having the PDF and the Word doc in the same note.  There may be a case for copy/paste of the Word doc into a note, but I’ve never needed it. 
 

Net of it all, experiment a bit and see what feels good to you. Easy enough to change after you have some experience.