Newbie have question about Notebooks and subfolders

[Davidlw 3]

I am fairly new to Evernote and I have watched videos on HOW TO use Evernote and it have seen what appears to be subfolders/notebooks. I have tried to make a subfolder of a Notebook but Evernote just makes a new Notebook and not a sub Notebook/folder. If I want to have a main folder such as Home Repairs then have subfolders say expenses, labor, etc. How do I make one of these sub folders of the main folder?

[roschler 158]

@Davidlw,

You have to create a Notebook Stack first and then move the desired Notebook(s) into the Stack. A Notebook Stack is a grouping entity that does not hold any notes of its own. It only exists to group Notebooks. You can't turn a Notebook into a stack. In the Windows client you right-click on a Notebook that you want to stack. From the pop-up menu you select an existing stack to add the Notebook to, or choose Add New Stack to create a new Notebook Stack. If you choose Add New Stack, you will see a new Notebook Stack created with the default name for a new stack, with the Notebook you right-clicked on as it's first member. Then you can rename the new stack to whatever you choose.

-- roschler

[Davidlw 3]

OK Thanks Roschler, I will give it a try.

[jefito 5,589]

To amplify what roschler said:

[in the following, note that Evernote clients for different OS's can have different UIs. I use Evernote for WIndows, so that's the UI I will use for my examples]

• In Evernote, there are notes, notebooks, stacks, and tags. There are no folders, though notebooks and stacks have some folder-like properties. In the Windows client, stacks and notebooks are organized in the notebook panel, and tags are organized in the tag panel. Notes appear in an abbreviated form in the note list, which can be viewed as snippets, thumbnails or as a list of note attributes (snippet view, thumbnail view, and list view, respectively).
  
• A notebook is a collection of notes; a notebook may not contain other notebooks or stacks.
  
• A stack is a collection of notebooks; a stack may not contain notes or other stacks. A notebook belongs to at most one stack. If a notebook belongs to a stack, that is usually reflected in the UI; for example, in the Windows client, the notebook will be nested under the stack in the notebook panel.
  
• A note contains text, images or other attachments, and may have a number of tags. A note may contain links to other notes in your database. A note belongs to exactly one notebook.
  
• 
  A tag is a label that you can apply to a note; you cannot apply it to a notebook or a stack. Tags are organized into trees for UI purposes, in the tag panel.
  

So in terms of organization, and finding notes, you can make search queries against your total note database. We call this filtering because a search query filters notes that you don't want to see from of the note list.

• Each note belongs to exactly one notebook. You can search inside a single notebook using the notebook:<notebook name> search context specifier. You can use at most one of these in a search query.
  
• A note may belong to at most one stack. You can search inside a stack using the stack:<stack name> search context specifier. This allows you to search multiple notebooks at a time; however, you can use at most one of these in a search query.
  
• A note may have multiple tags. To find the notes that have a particular tag, use the tag:<tag name> search term. You can also find the notes that do not have a particular tag, by using the -tag:<tag name> search term You can use multiple tag terms in a search query.
  

[Davidlw 3]

OK Jefito, I tried it and it makes sense now. This program is awesome. Thanks for the help.

[valerie272 0]

Hi Jefito & Roshler!

 

I have a similar question. I know it seems straight forward...and you spelled it out quite clearly...but believe it or not I'm still (embarrassingly) confused about the structure of note organization. 

 

From what you spelled out, I take it that the organizational heirchy runs as follows:

Note Stacks (comprised of)-> Notebooks(comprised of)-> Notes 

 

However, there are several websites, video tutorials, etc ....that give the appearance that NOTES can be organized into STACKS within Notebooks. Either misrepresentation....or my misunderstanding (probably)...but could you clarify?

 

It's intuitive to me to group notes within a notebook together in some form (i.e. like having dividers in a binder). If there are no "note stacks" is there any way (or what would be the best method) to group or subcategorize notes within a notebook? Using tags? Linking Notes? 

And what is it I'm seeing in video tutorials where users are opening a notebook and the notes are organized in what looks to me to be piles?

 

To me this is really appealing because I can see visually how my notes are organized within a certain project. As far as I know...tags don't let you do that.

 

Thanks so much!!

-V

[jefito 5,589]

From what you spelled out, I take it that the organizational heirchy runs as follows:

Note Stacks (comprised of)-> Notebooks(comprised of)-> Notes 

Correct.

 

However, there are several websites, video tutorials, etc ....that give the appearance that NOTES can be organized into STACKS within Notebooks. Either misrepresentation....or my misunderstanding (probably)...but could you clarify?

Notes cannot be organized into stacks. Period. What are the websites that you reference?

 

It's intuitive to me to group notes within a notebook together in some form (i.e. like having dividers in a binder). If there are no "note stacks" is there any way (or what would be the best method) to group or subcategorize notes within a notebook? Using tags? Linking Notes?

Tags can be used to partition note sets (within notebooks or across notebooks), but you are not limited to that; you can cross-categorize notes, and they may not fit naturally into a single (or any) hierarchy. Note links just let you link to other notes from a separate note, which is useful.

 

And what is it I'm seeing in video tutorials where users are opening a notebook and the notes are organized in what looks to me to be piles?

Again, reference? Are you talking about the note lists that are the result of search filtering?

 

To me this is really appealing because I can see visually how my notes are organized within a certain project. As far as I know...tags don't let you do that.

I'm not quite sure what you're expressing/expecting here.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

I think the only way to group specific notes together within a Notebook (other then tinkering with the titles... and sorting by title), would be to assign a certain tag to each note therein, and then sort by tag from the sorting options menu (only on desktop).

One could also create a table of contents for sets of notes and then merge those table of content notes into one note. This would be a lot of work to maintain when adding new notes to that notebook, though.

I haven't tried this yet… But it would be interesting to create a table of contents note (for all notes within a notebook) while the notes are sorted by tag. This would give you a categorized table of contents, that is, if all notes had previously been tagged according to specific categories.