Evernote - NOT truly a cross platform app.

[why? 37]

I've been using evernote for a while. Recently I moved from iOS to android.

Here's my problem. I created a note on Evernote on my iPad, text with bold and italics. The text was bulleted with some bullets further indented. Essentially this was a simple outline using bullets and some text was bold and italics.

Imagine my amazement when opening this note on my android to see a warning, "This note contain some unsupported formatting". Why?! This note was created using evernote? It makes me realise that evernote is not truly a cross platform app. It obviously renders formatting differently on different platforms and this formatting is not compatible. I now have to edit each individual part seperately and this makes it messy and awkward.

This feels far more like evernote imports it's own notes created on a different platform!

[jefito 5,589]

This is known. Editing all formatting allowed in the Evernote formatting is a work in progress on most of the mobile clients. Besides that, the fact that Evernote uses an HTML subset (essentially) as their note format basis means that -- similar to web pages -- notes may look different on different clients.Evernote *is* cross platform in some sense of the word (it doesn't use the same code base for all platforms), but not all of the capabilities are identical on all Evernote clients.

[why? 37]

The effect is that they do not seem to be fully compatible apps. I did some fairly simple formatting, nothing complex whatsoever, but evernote clearly had a difficulty with something it had created on another platform.

Editing notes in evernote is complex enough without evernote having difficulties with its own formatting!

I mainly create text notes on evernote, but am becoming increasingly dissatisfied with evernote capability. The fact that simple things such as incresing font size are not supported and now I find creating a simple outline becomes a major editing headache when opening the note on evernote on another platform. Perhaps evernote should cease with spreading itself too thinly and focus on getting all it's software on different platforms to at least seamlessly open and edit its own notes?

It is increasingly likely that I will not be renewing my subscription.

I really do wish that someone would create a rich text note app that works on all platforms, without having to faff about.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

The effect is that they do not seem to be fully compatible apps. I did some fairly simple formatting, nothing complex whatsoever, but evernote clearly had a difficulty with something it had created on another platform.

Editing notes in evernote is complex enough without evernote having difficulties with its own formatting!

I mainly create text notes on evernote, but am becoming increasingly dissatisfied with evernote capability. The fact that simple things such as incresing font size are not supported and now I find creating a simple outline becomes a major editing headache when opening the note on evernote on another platform. Perhaps evernote should cease with spreading itself too thinly and focus on getting all it's software on different platforms to at least seamlessly open and edit its own notes?

It is increasingly likely that I will not be renewing my subscription.

I really do wish that someone would create a rich text note app that works on all platforms, without having to faff about.

Hi. It takes a while for these things to get put into the mobile applications. The reason there is so little of it, despite the demand, is because it is difficult to make everything work properly across radically different operating systems. iOS eventually got rich text editing, so I am sure that Android will get it as well.

In the meantime, my advice would be to design your workflow around the client you use the most, or the one with the fewest features. In my case, because I use Android, plain text is definitely the best option.

[why? 37]

Many thanks for your response.

My requirements are quite simple: Rich text. by that I mean that I need bold, italic and underline and font size. I teach so need notes that can have emphasis. I teach from my iPad so it saves me printing notes. I use a mac, ipad (3) and galaxy note 2.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Many thanks for your response.

My requirements are quite simple: Rich text. by that I mean that I need bold, italic and underline and font size. I teach so need notes that can have emphasis. I teach from my iPad so it saves me printing notes. I use a mac, ipad (3) and galaxy note 2.

Hi. Well, if you use an iPad, then you will have no problem with bold, italic, and underlining. You can change the font size by running text though Pages or some other app at the moment. Hopefully, we will gain control over font family and text size in the future. As for the Galaxy Note 2, you can still view your notes properly. You just cannot edit them, right?

[why? 37]

Many thanks for your response.

Although I have an iPad I am increasingly moving towards my Note 2 (superb device). Even on the iPad the editing is often cumbersome as text sometimes cannot be edited properly. To be honest, I have now come up with a solution and evernote is not a part of this.

I would suggest that telling people to run their text through Pages isn't really going to gain many followers. If I have to open a number of apps on an iOS device (a complete pain), I am unlikely to use this system as my workhorse. Evernote was my workhorse, but it's compatibility issues cross platform have cause me to move away.

I'm still baffled why mammoths like evernote are so slow to jump on the markdown bandwagon. If rich text were stored as markdown rendering across all platforms would be simple, as would be editing. I appreciate that evernote saves other items, but these could be stored in conjunction with markdown.

For plain text (or markup text) evernote really isn't suited, it's like using a bazooka to swat a fly. In the end I've moved to plain text files synchronised via dropbox using markdown as the markup language. I use nvAlt on my mac, just about any text editor on my ipad and epistle on my android. So far this works superbly. I need to repeat though, that this is a text only setup. This gives me all my current data at my fingertips. Everything else can wait till I'm in the office or on my iPad with Devonthink Pro. The beauty is that my text is formatted on all devices and editable.

Funnily enough I moved to Evernote for this very purpose, believing it to be truly cross platform. Sadly, it has failed miserably in practice.

[Rimbo 0]

May I ask where I might find a Changelog or other list of the formatting currently supported by Evernote on Android? It would be nice for me to be able to reference what I can and cannot do, and check for changes and updates as they occur.

[madplanet 0]

Following on from the last comment, I would also like to see what formatting options are available on the Android version. Also, it would be good to know when these basic features are likely to be implemented. I might have to rethink using Google Drive for now until the formatting features on Android match the other patforms.

Thanks

Nic

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Also, it would be good to know when these basic features are likely to be implemented.

EN does not publish their roadmap or ETAs.

[Chi 0]

Pretty incredible this is still an issue. How disappointing

[Metaphysician 0]

I make my notes mostly on my Windows 7 computer for convenience, and the rest of the time on my iPhone. They seem to coexist quite fine, with only a few minor problems. However, when I open them on my Android tablet, the results are often appalling. If I edit anything on the tablet, it looks like a trainwreck when I open it on the other platforms, adding extra carriage returns willy-nilly, along with other format carnage. My formatting is generally even simpler then the original poster on this thread, but it still falls within the parameters of rich text. That the Android version is so primitive is a major disappointment.

[ObviousBob 140]

I agree with all the complaints about how Evernote handles text on Android - this was my biggest disappointment when I moved over from IOS. 

 

I use two workarounds - first, I simply don't use any of the formatting, other than using bold sometimes. So if I want to create a checklist, I do not use the Evernote checkboxes, I just use a dash. The other thing I find myself doing is using Google Keep for new, active notes, then when I am no longer changing them, I copy them over to Evernote. So Evernote becomes more of an archive than a note taking app.

 

But this doesn't help the OP, who wants to use the formatting. My advice for him is find another solution. Evernote is great for capturing web clips and storing documents. But at least on Android, there are many better note takers and text editors.

 

What I really don't understand is why the Android editor doesn't get more attention - it has never worked very well, yet the developers choose to keep adding new features instead of fixing the core functionality.