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REQUEST: Support for LaTeX formulas

iliyan

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iliyan

iliyan 40

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I'm a happy Evernote user, but I miss a feature many people have asked for and will greatly appreciate - support for LaTeX formulas. If may sound complicated, but integration should be actually extremely simple. Here's how it could work:

1) Similarly to URL-to-hyperlink conversion, a LaTeX formula could be automatically generated by converting text surrounded by specific characters ($ in LaTeX). For example, I can type "Today we will discuss how equations of the form $ax^2 + bx + c = 0$ can be solved"

2) Finally, the formula text can be converted to an image. Luckily, there are many online services that given the LaTeX source produce a PNG image (even with transparency and custom color by some services). So the only thing the Evernote team needs to implement is to provide the option to automatically and manyally convert a piece of text to an image by querying some well-established online service.

So adding LaTeX math support boild down to implementing a simple UI feature! Now it sounds simple, but this could be a selling point to a huge amount of people (especially in academia). I'm not aware of any good note taking tool that has seamless formula integration and synchronization.

Even in the current Evernote state the functionality can be emulated by dragging LaTeX formula images to Evernote. However, this is tedious and does not facilitate modifications. Therefore, it would be good after the image has been acquired, the source text to be saved along for future modifications.

What do you think, Evernote staff?

P.S. I just saw on your blog that you're supporting the use of Evernote in schools, etc. This makes the suggested feature even more prominent.

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Frank.dg

Frank.dg 1,385

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Not sure if anyone has heard of Gingko app. It's a tree-based word processor which supports markdown editing... Plus you can enable LaTeX formatting. It's a brilliant web-based app in its own league, set up by a PhD physics graduate, Adriano Ferrari. It is most definitely a note-taking app of note. It's kind of a hybrid between Trello and WorkFlowy, working with a parent/ child card dynamic.

Gingkoapp.com

You smart folk should have no problem finding a workflow to integrate Gingko and Evernote.

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bradh

bradh 2

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Been using the new Beta Evernote and it seems Formulas (Math and technical editing) ala Latex is not going to be a feature (or is at least not in the Beta).  So again, it looks like a 3rd party render is needed (Account with WIRIS or EATags).

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Thompcinnamon

Thompcinnamon 1

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LaTeX support would be great! If it were really good, I could take all my notes at seminars and meetings in Evernote and save them there. 

 

Overleaf (formerly WriteLaTeX) is an interesting cloud based solution, but it is obviously not built to do everything Evernote can.

 

I could easily see myself upgrading for good LaTeX support, possibly even if it's just basic math formatting, but full LaTeX integration would be amazing.

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ucb

ucb 2

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I just stumbled upon this threat because I was thinking about doing my econ PhD presentations with the help of evernote. This would be a huge timesaver for the non-business crowd here. After switching to the Evernote way of life, this would be the ultimate next step.

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Adrian_M

Adrian_M 0

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Adding all my votes for LaTeX support. I could settle for Markdown + MathJax for the moment. :)

 

It would prove immensely useful for me as a PhD student and Teaching Assistant, both in my teaching and my research. I would pay full Premium price for such a feature, no doubt!

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Anodos

Anodos 0

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YES PLEASE!!!

I hope the Evernote people realise the demand for this - Engineering and Science students the world over, as well as professionals in these fields, are completely unsatisfied with the cloud-based notetaking services currently available. Just adding equations like Wordpress does, such as:

$$latex \sum_{n = 1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}$$

would instantly convert me and a horde of others to this otherwise fantastic software project. Even if it were only a premium feature, we'd probably pay for it (though do please make it free :):):) ).

 

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skyywalk

skyywalk 1

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Hey guys, 

I am also in desperate need for formula support! I am currently writing all formulas as I would for Mathjax. In order to display the notes, I export them to html and insert the necessary mathjax script statements in the html. It works, but is not nice to work with!

Regards,

Robert

 

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agillator

agillator 1

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I've stopped using Evernote for many months now because of this deficiency. Evernote, the company, should know that in-line math symbols as well as equations proper need to be able to be entered in LaTeX code. The only reason I stay tuned to this forum is in case there is a lightning strike at Evernote and LaTeX support is made available. For now I will continue to compile my notes in TeXShop.

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rs211

rs211 0

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I tried to use eatags for a bit, but it just is not the real thing. For one, the resulting images of the formulas are not as pretty as in mathjax, say. But mainly, one can't edit formula -- so if I have some long ugly awesome formula and I discover later on that I made a typo in it, I have to retype the whole thing. It was a dealbreaker for me, may be for others it is not so bad. 

 

Obviously, the proper solution is to allow for a mathjax javascript to run on evernote posts. Tried this for a while (via Tampermonkey), but failed ... 

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Eric Bittner

Eric Bittner 2

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Being a LONG time TeX/LaTeX user (since 1987) and have writing & published >100 papers, 2 books, and a PhD Thesis, mostly all written in Latex, I don't think you're going to get an Evernote/LaTeX mix that's going to be perfect and make everyone happy.  I've experimented a lot with the various offerings and I usually simply return to using stand-alone LaTeX and sharing the resulting PDF.  

MathJaX is very nice, is used on a number of Blogs, is used by a number of Physics/Math journals for HTML versions of papers.

Some ideas for the developers to chew upon.

  • adopt a "cell" structure as in Mathematica where opening the cell reveals the Latex code.  This seems to be a good compromise allowing one to see pretty equations and go back to edit them later. 
  • develop a Mathematica plug-in...which in and of itself would be very cool by the way. 
  • develop a Latex tag for the entire Note that produces a "compiled" PDF or viewable doc viewed in parallel to the Latex source.

In my own Ludite opinion, a WYSIWYG Latex editor is rather contrary to the original philosophy of using Latex...where the formatting was secondary to the actual content of the doc. 

 

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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Until we have a generic Feedback page,  these sorts of request are best raised under your OS-of-choice Feedback thread as a votable idea.  If everyone clicks on their respective link,  Evernote have a measurable indication of the level of interest,  and (may) be more inclined to take action.

There's also a (non-votable) New Forum Feedback page where you could suggest that an all-OS Feedback page should be set up so as not to 'split' the voting for features that affect users across device divides.

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Corvus

Corvus 0

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Please enable LaTeX for fast and easy formulas input.

MathJax would be the best option (like on Mathoverflow and Math.SE): it looks nice, resizable, plain text (rendering by browser), fast loading -- in contrast to direct rendering to images (non-resizable, need OCR for search, need more time for loading).

This is the biggest thing I miss in Evernote because I have a lot of math notes with a lot of formulas. I would pay for plus/premium account for such an feature.

Currently there are several dirty hacks:

1. marxi.co, which is non-free, buggy and veeery slow and notes are read-only inside Evernote. I use this option currently and very unhappy with it, but there are no better options.

2. Rendering to images using external services and attach it to note. It's ok for single or small count of formulas, but absolutely unusable for rich math text.

3. MathJax user-scripts/extensions for browser. But currently all extension and user-scripts (like "Math Anywhere") for Chrome I tried doesn't work with Evernote for unknown reasons.

Please vote this request if you want LaTeX.

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hakan

hakan 6

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Behind the scenes Evernote notes are 'just' HTML files. With KaTeX they could add LaTeX-like math notation into Evernote without much hassle: https://github.com/Khan/KaTeX It is even under a permissive license!!

To see how reliable and easy it is, just try out the Electron-based note app 'Joplin', which uses Markdown for general formatting + KaTeX for math notes: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin

And it allows the import of Evernote notes, syncing over multiple services and has a web clipper. ;)

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Kourosh

Kourosh 1

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+1 for smooth LaTeX integration. 

This feature would extremely help me as well.  It is important to me to the extend that I am thinking to look for an alternative application for my literature review.  I hope Evernote team makes it a priority to implement this long overdue feature. 

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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On 10/30/2019 at 1:18 PM, Kourosh said:

I hope Evernote team makes it a priority to implement this long overdue feature.

I doubt this specific issue is a priority - Evernote is currently working to provide a common UI across all platforms,  and they may well be looking to improve various matters at the same time.  Other feature requests with many more votes are still unresolved though - if you truly need this option,  you should probably look around for other options.  Evernote will probably introduce it at some time,  but it's unlikely to be soon...

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DTLow

DTLow 5,736

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On 10/30/2019 at 6:18 AM, Kourosh said:

I hope Evernote team makes it a priority to implement this long overdue feature. 

You can indicate support for this request using the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion.  There are currently 80BAB6DB-A091-4B26-8E75-3D3637B16C32.jpeg.1c223f38c44c41ffbb351ba586bb99af.jpeg  votes.  It seems to be a niche thing

>>I am thinking to look for an alternative application for my literature review.

An alternative editor is my recommendation.  I use Apple Pages   
Files of any format can be attached to a note

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bradh

bradh 2

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Wow - here we are 8 years later.  I tried a couple of the work arounds mentioned earlier like MathJax (very kludgy).   We had a college intern come in and introduce my coworkers and I to overleaf. So they switched and I went with them  (at least as far as paying: paying for overleaf now and dropped evernote premium). Overleaf is fully featured but requires you to know Latex.   Still use Evernote some for taking general (meetings, tasks, logs) notes and it works for that.  I wish there was something that spanned both.  I don't think they are marketing Evernote for the "niche" (lol) technical fields (me :engineering) any longer though.

 

Wish I had a dollar for every-time I had this conversation:

Someone:  "You use evernote?  I use [Teams or some other product].  Do you like it?

Me: "It's Ok.  But there is no equation editor or ability to embed math"

Someone: "Oh really?  So about that meeting yesterday..."

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Kourosh

Kourosh 1

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@gazumped, @DTLow and @bradh thank you for your responses.  

11 hours ago, gazumped said:

I doubt this specific issue is a priority - Evernote is currently working to provide a common UI across all platforms,  and they may well be looking to improve various matters at the same time.  Other feature requests with many more votes are still unresolved though - if you truly need this option,  you should probably look around for other options.  Evernote will probably introduce it at some time,  but it's unlikely to be soon...

That is sad to hear, I am literally heart broken. 

I am giving DEVONthink a shot, although I admit it will be not trivial for me to switch from Evernote to anything else, and I will try not to go on that route if possible but being able to write equations in notes for me is crucial.  Anyway, thank you guys again for your comments. 

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tranquillity

tranquillity 2

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Any news of this idea?

I recently came aware of Notion, which has excellent  LaTeX (or MathML) support. I love working with Evernote (especially since the recent redesign) and I don't want to switch, but formulas are a big point.

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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On 3/28/2021 at 12:37 PM, tranquillity said:

Any news of this idea?

I recently came aware of Notion, which has excellent  LaTeX (or MathML) support. I love working with Evernote (especially since the recent redesign) and I don't want to switch, but formulas are a big point.

Hi.  Sorry - Evernote famously don't (usually) comment on what might be in their coming releases - and they're a tad busy at the moment getting v10 up to speed.  If you voted above (top left) you'll have to wait and see what the next release brings... or see what other options are available.  Don't forget that if you have an app that will deal with formulae correctly,  you can write a paper in that and attach the document file to a note.  PDF or image it if you need inline access.

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ehrt74

ehrt74 240

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This would need to be something evernote supports by adding to the eml specification. There's no way they'll allow embedded javascript in a note to run. That would be a huge security problem.

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JoeyK

JoeyK 1

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This was originally posted 10 years ago and people are still asking for this.

I just started using evernote in this last year, and the only reason I wouldn't absolutely recommend it to all of my colleagues is because it doesn't have LaTeX. 

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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6 hours ago, JoeyK said:

This was originally posted 10 years ago and people are still asking for this.

Software providers don't do requests - they're always interested in suggestions,  but can't necessarily deliver on some for budgetary or technical reasons.  Until 6 months ago,  I'd guess the main reason was technical: the note editor software couldn't handle graphics.  In the new version it might be feasible - but they're a bit busy completing the role-out first.

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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9 hours ago, Jayzz said:

Is there any workaround to using Latex with Evenote ? Also is there any ETA on if this feature will ever be implemented in Evernote ?

Hi.  My comments here are still valid...

 

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PinkElephant

PinkElephant 8,048

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From what I see, the new editor is at the heart of EN v10. And it does for sure not support any niche usage, like a full formula editor.

So get whatever you need, and write what you have to write. If you need it actively, you can embed the file into a note.

If you need it readable in EN, export it from the LaTex editor to a pdf. This can’t be changed, but can be annotated inside of EN.

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PinkElephant

PinkElephant 8,048

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If you get what you need, you onboard or stay. If not, you correct a bad decisions you took yourself, and leave. Building a workflow on a missing feature is never a good idea. It will not appear just because it is important for YOUR individual use cases.

Not every academic needs LaTex, and some who needs it use EN for research, and a different tool for writing. It may be you can’t use EN for your way of working, but the generalization of „EN is not for people in academics“ is obviously an unfounded conclusion. Maybe you have been taken a bit off solid ground by the insight you need to correct your own work environment.

But isn’t science all about finding new insight, even if the first victim is your own conviction ?

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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11 hours ago, flysohigh said:

I shocked “Notion” has already had this function…. 

Please update this feature

Hi.  Out of millions of users,  99 people in the forums here thought this feature might be useful...  there doesn't exactly seem to be a demand or a need for it...

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PinkElephant

PinkElephant 8,048

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Don’t expect this to appear ever. If it happens one day, you can call me names, but this is such a narrow, remote feature that I doubt this will ever emerge.

You can store all sorts of files in a note, including those from a LaTex editor. So there is not really a need to install it natively either.

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Paul A.

Paul A. 608

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On 4/4/2023 at 4:41 PM, PinkElephant said:

Don’t expect this to appear ever. If it happens one day, you can call me names, but this is such a narrow, remote feature that I doubt this will ever emerge.

You can store all sorts of files in a note, including those from a LaTex editor. So there is not really a need to install it natively either.

I think it depends whether BS wants to target the education market. OneNote supports equation handling and in my understanding is quite popular in math-heavy education. I think BS might be more focused on increasing revenue now rather than the long-term growing of the Evernote user base, but perhaps that will change in time.

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PinkElephant

PinkElephant 8,048

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If you have time to wait, wait.

If you want a solution, move.

The EN editor is build for simplicity, not for endless features. Adding group oriented features makes it difficult for all just to accommodate a few. 

If formula editing is a key feature for your use case, you should pick the right tool.

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Paul A.

Paul A. 608

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43 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If you have time to wait, wait.

If you want a solution, move.

The EN editor is build for simplicity, not for endless features. Adding group oriented features makes it difficult for all just to accommodate a few. 

If formula editing is a key feature for your use case, you should pick the right tool.

I don't disagree at all. Just sharing why I think they *might* choose to add it one day. I hope they focus on much broader features like the forever-pending sync improvements, personally...

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gazumped

gazumped 11,641

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1 hour ago, bcalmac said:

I would also like to align behind the request to add support for mathematical formulas. 

If you ticked the (top left) box,  your interest is noted.  But with 100 votes in 12 years I wouldn't think it will be a high priority...

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