Still no way to add spacing between paragraphs—REALLY?

[Chris Burbridge 11]

I have been using word processors since 1983. I figured out (somewhere in 1983) that it was not like a typewriter—you could just tell the program that you wanted it to add a little spacing between paragraphs.

 

Since then, I have considered it a "baby" thing to have to add an extra paragraph break between lines to indicate a break. I mean, come on.

 

Google Docs makes this easy—without cluttering up its interface with a gazillion stupid functions—so don't give me that argument.

 

Can't you just fix this one thing? 

 

I love Evernote, but I just can't understand why you have had such a little care for such a (to me) obvious thing, over all these years that I have been a member.

 

And note—I have currently been a paid member for over a year—even though I have no need of the paid service, but because it only seems fair to throw a little cash your way.

[EarthSunSkySea 2]

Styles would be greatly appreciated, and would exponentially increase the value of EverNote to me, both for writing and note taking purposes. Thank you.

[jimbodunky 3]

I agree that it's not a word processor. However, if there are options for formatting paragraphs, adding indents and making bulleted and numbered lists, they need to have the options needed for taking good notes that should be present within them.

 

Since this example works across multiple platforms, I can illustrate the poorly implemented numbered lists function.

 

Example: 

 

How to Bake a Cake

1. Go to grocery store
   1. Buy ingredients:
      1. Butter
      2. Eggs

Item 1, subitem 1 and so on. How does that equate to an end-user asking for too much?

 

If anything, it exposes the product's omission of simple organization capabilities that should have been fixed by now…in an app meant to help those stay organized. 

 

Quick app history lesson: I remember when QuarkXPress thought they were the only tool on the block for graphic designers. We suggested new features, then we begged, then we pleaded, then we screamed. Then InDesign came out and we all ditched Quark. 

 

If a growing number of end users want Evernote to have features that are in a word processor behave the same way they do in a word processor, Evernote should listen. 

[Jeff_NW 0]

I'll just add my vote for styles or customizable paragraph spacing in some form. I'd even be fine with editable HTML/CSS if needed. Like many users I find I don't need paragraph spacing for some notes, but definitely need it for others.  I use bulleted lists a lot and it makes for less efficient work when I have to improvise spacing by making 1-item bulleted "lists" and adding space between them. 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

And the internet is generally not a nice place, because in the main people are pretty nasty especially when they are to all intensive purposes anonymous.

 

Good forum etiquette is no different here from every other forum I've visited (actually this one is pretty well managed).

 

Be polite, search for an answer to your question before you start posting, don't assume that the thing you need is the most important thing in the world, don't assume that anything is easy. And respect the regulars, they are the ones that make the forum useful and keep it alive.

 

I didn't notice this post until today...  Wise words, Metrodon.  Evernoted for future reference!

[eguiartedg 0]

DOUBLE LINE BREAKS DON'T WORK BECAUSE OF PRESENTATION MODE

 

Hi, y'all

 

Please, add the feature of spacing between paragraphs as an option in normal mode.

Or add the feature of first line indent in normal mode, please

 

The suggestion of adding double line breaks doesn't work because in presentation mode EN adds spaces between paragraphs automatically.

This means that if you add double line breaks you would end up with a superextrabig space between paragraphs in presentation mode.

 

(If the space between paragraphs shows in presentation mode, I guess it wouldn't be difficult to add that to the normal view.)

 

 

 

[Metrodon 2,184]

And the internet is generally not a nice place, because in the main people are pretty nasty especially when they are to all intensive purposes anonymous.

 

Good forum etiquette is no different here from every other forum I've visited (actually this one is pretty well managed).

 

Be polite, search for an answer to your question before you start posting, don't assume that the thing you need is the most important thing in the world, don't assume that anything is easy. And respect the regulars, they are the ones that make the forum useful and keep it alive.

[pgdahl 133]

 As an example, I just pasted some text from a long article I found online and lost its legibility. I don't want to have to go in and add spaces to every paragraph. But I do want to be able to read it easily.

 

It's fairly simple to achieve this by using either the Clearly browser extension or the Evernote clipper to clip texts from the internet. Clearly formats the texts neatly and easily readable, whereas the Evernote also gives the option to maintain the original layout.

 

And the lack of understanding and empathy on these forums (and across the Internet) simply amazes me. I don't think the Evernote development team looks at their users that way. So how about if users posting here cut each other some slack? Jeez.

 

If you can't accept that your opinion are being countered, then don't post. Because it will inevitably happen in these user forums. The responses have been fairly constructive.

[joshfree 8]

As a designer, writer and Premium user, I agree with Chris. It would be a nice, simple thing to implement extra space between paragraphs to enhance readability. As an example, I just pasted some text from a long article I found online and lost its legibility. I don't want to have to go in and add spaces to every paragraph. But I do want to be able to read it easily. Something like the Wordpress interface seems reasonable to me,

 

It all has to do with how you use Evernote. 

 

And the lack of understanding and empathy on these forums (and across the Internet) simply amazes me. I don't think the Evernote development team looks at their users that way. So how about if users posting here cut each other some slack? Jeez.

[Chris Burbridge 11]

I can tell by the OP's tone that he's extremely frustrated over the lack of this "feature"... but I just don't understand the fuss about it. Double-tap the enter/return key. Boom. Done. As someone who develops with WordPress, let me tell you that personally, I LOATHE automatic spacing after paragraphs. I want control over my spacing. I want to be able to have lines directly follow each other, and I want to be able to have a space between lines. Most importantly, I want it to be easy — and it doesn't get any easier than enter for no space, double-tap enter for space. It seems fairly pointless to integrate an option for it when it's SUCH a simple thing to do. 

 

 

 

I didn't say anything about Evernote being broken, I was just frustrated. 

 

I also develop for WordPress.

 

There is no "winning" — whatsoever here — about whether it makes more sense to "just tap two returns, because that's so easy," or "that's what computers are for, to make constantly repeated patterns simpler by automating steps" (such as having to type two returns instead of one, over and over and over again).

 

Partly, it will come down to how much of different types of writing one does. Lots of longer paragraph-length writing will tend one towards wanting the extra vertical space.

 

Lots of say, code snippets, will tend one towards wanting no space.

 

If you have to choose between the two, you obviously need the have no extra space.

 

I frequently use Textmate to take small notes.

 

I have a typographic, design background as well. I am concerned about readability. Some of the folks' points about the importance of readability of long blocks of text are very pertinent to me.

 

Again, not sure why this is even a big issue. My point wasn't that Evernote is a word processor. My point was that even back in 1983 you had this level of options. Even MacWrite in 1990 had this (I am pretty sure). "Ahh! But vi didn't !" I don't care.

 

Evernote has a very extensive ability to format text options at the character level. Just give it a basic, primitive ability to format it at the paragraph level. Duh. Give me a break. This is not complicated. This has nothing to do with making the product "too darn complicated, with a lot of bells and whistles." Puh-lease.

 

I realize that some folks do not see these options as important. Can you, perhaps, honor that some do, without thinking they're "idiots! idiots! fools who want the world!" No. I want primitive paragraph-level formatting to go along with the primitive character-level formatting.

[GarethR 1]

To those who say 'why not two returns,' I say 'bulleted lists.' The extra line means a hanging bullet or number.

 

The desire for extra space is intensified by the fact that an Evernote note can be pretty wide on anything bigger than a netbook. As lines get longer, paragraphs become short and hard to distinguish from each other, even with tabs at the beginning. This is one reason why newspapers have lots of narrow columns. So it is typographic convention to add space between paragraphs in wide-formatted text. So even if Evernote wants to have just one format, to keeps things simple, I think it should be the option with spacing.

 

And yes, I can make the note window narrower, but it's nice to use the screen real estate. Paragraph spacing would make that easier.

 

[chirmer 567]

I have been using word processors since 1983. I figured out (somewhere in 1983) that it was not like a typewriter—you could just tell the program that you wanted it to add a little spacing between paragraphs.

 

Google Docs makes this easy...

 

Can't you just fix this one thing? 

 

It's not a word processor, it's a note-taking application. TextEdit > Microsoft Word.

 

Google Docs is a poor comparison, as it's a word processor.

 

It's not broken.

 

I can tell by the OP's tone that he's extremely frustrated over the lack of this "feature"... but I just don't understand the fuss about it. Double-tap the enter/return key. Boom. Done. As someone who develops with WordPress, let me tell you that personally, I LOATHE automatic spacing after paragraphs. I want control over my spacing. I want to be able to have lines directly follow each other, and I want to be able to have a space between lines. Most importantly, I want it to be easy — and it doesn't get any easier than enter for no space, double-tap enter for space. It seems fairly pointless to integrate an option for it when it's SUCH a simple thing to do. 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

I have been using word processors since 1983. I figured out (somewhere in 1983) that it was not like a typewriter—you could just tell the program that you wanted it to add a little spacing between paragraphs.

 

Since then, I have considered it a "baby" thing to have to add an extra paragraph break between lines to indicate a break. I mean, come on.

 

Google Docs makes this easy—without cluttering up its interface with a gazillion stupid functions—so don't give me that argument.

 

Can't you just fix this one thing? 

 

I love Evernote, but I just can't understand why you have had such a little care for such a (to me) obvious thing, over all these years that I have been a member.

 

And note—I have currently been a paid member for over a year—even though I have no need of the paid service, but because it only seems fair to throw a little cash your way.

 

Hi. Welcome to the forums! I don't see anything broken, so there is nothing to fix! A double tap on the return key gives you that space in-between paragraphs, right? In a Word processor, there are paragraph level elements that might benefit from the distinction, but not in Evernote. 

 

Still, more broadly speaking, I think many of us would benefit from some control over the styles used to markup text, and if we could have access to a CSS-type stylesheet, then we could set the paragraph features, fonts, etc. that we would like to have. Maybe that wil come some day.

 

By the way, we used to have that extra line added after paragraphs back in 2011. Oh, how we raged against that feature! I don't know if we have any forum posts left from back then, but it was almost universally loathed as I recall. In fact, my usage of Evernote plummeted back then, because I couldn't work on the iPad without mangling my text with a bunch of extra line breaks. We still get those ghost line breaks when we copy/paste out of Evernote on the Mac into text editors, so I suspect they are still lurking around somewhere

 

I was a very early adopter of Evernote.  I have used it for writing novels off and on since its inception.  I have always ditched it because of its text editing inconsistencies and bad UI.  Finally, just in the last month, I have come back to try again and have at least found that Evernote has a decent UI.  Some of the inconsistencies are fixed.  But those line breaks spaces are STILL not there.  I don't know anything about having this feature in 2011, if I had known it was there, I probably would have come back then.  It sure as hell wasn't there at any time I used the product. 

 

I'm sorry, your tone is very friendly, but I find it very frustrating that when the original poster asks for a feature to be implemented (that really is about the only commonly used formatting option missing) and you simply tell him how "wrong" he is.  He's expressing a preference!  There is no "wrong" here!  

 

Its pointless on forums to argue with OPs who are asking for a feature to be added to software.  Why?  Because software developers (I know this, I work for one) can add things as options!  There is a way to add this feature and allow both you and the OP to have what you want.

 

I can sit here and tell you about the millions of people I know who are used to that spacing after paragraph because they are used to it from MS Word and other applications.  Because they are business persons or novelists who work with large amounts of text and it is NOT acceptable to them to double tap enter after every paragraph or line of dialogue (boy is that where the lack of this feature gets annoying).  

 

I'm sure you can site millions who hate after paragraph spacing for various reasons.  In addition to being a businessman and novelist, I'm also a dba and I use evernote to store sql code snippets that i commonly use.  I too would want an option to have that space turned off in some places.  So, I get it.  

 

All of these arguments are RUBBISH.  What matter is that its a very small feature that could be implemented as an OPTION.  Leave all formatting the way it is and give some of us an option to increase spacing after paragraph.  

 

Hi. Thanks for pointing out the reasons why some people might like to see this feature, and taking me to task for my response to the OP's feature request. I took issue with the "broken" claim made by the OP. I maintain that there is nothing "broken" about the app in this regard.

 

I was not arguing against the feature request, though it may have come across that way. In fact, I am often writing on these forums that we need to have more customizability and options, and that is why this sentence was in my response: "Still, more broadly speaking, I think many of us would benefit from some control over the styles used to markup text, and if we could have access to a CSS-type stylesheet, then we could set the paragraph features, fonts, etc. that we would like to have. Maybe that wil come some day."

 

The problem is that we usually do not have options. Evernote developers prefer to designate one behavior for a feature (I suppose that is why we got extra line breaks back in 2011), rather than supplying a list of options, and so it is possible that if this were implemented, then we would all get this extra spacing. I was expressing my extreme resistance to this -- not necessarily the OP's request, but the possible way that it might be implemented. As you can probably gather from this post (and others I have made on the forums), I do not agree with the developers about taking away customizability. In their defense, the Evernote app is apparently a bewildering app to use (for some people), and they are fighting to make it more user-friendly, especially for new users, and customizability / options probably get in the way of that goal. 

[Akyi 1]

I have been using word processors since 1983. I figured out (somewhere in 1983) that it was not like a typewriter—you could just tell the program that you wanted it to add a little spacing between paragraphs.

 

Since then, I have considered it a "baby" thing to have to add an extra paragraph break between lines to indicate a break. I mean, come on.

 

Google Docs makes this easy—without cluttering up its interface with a gazillion stupid functions—so don't give me that argument.

 

Can't you just fix this one thing? 

 

I love Evernote, but I just can't understand why you have had such a little care for such a (to me) obvious thing, over all these years that I have been a member.

 

And note—I have currently been a paid member for over a year—even though I have no need of the paid service, but because it only seems fair to throw a little cash your way.

 

Hi. Welcome to the forums! I don't see anything broken, so there is nothing to fix! A double tap on the return key gives you that space in-between paragraphs, right? In a Word processor, there are paragraph level elements that might benefit from the distinction, but not in Evernote. 

 

Still, more broadly speaking, I think many of us would benefit from some control over the styles used to markup text, and if we could have access to a CSS-type stylesheet, then we could set the paragraph features, fonts, etc. that we would like to have. Maybe that wil come some day.

 

By the way, we used to have that extra line added after paragraphs back in 2011. Oh, how we raged against that feature! I don't know if we have any forum posts left from back then, but it was almost universally loathed as I recall. In fact, my usage of Evernote plummeted back then, because I couldn't work on the iPad without mangling my text with a bunch of extra line breaks. We still get those ghost line breaks when we copy/paste out of Evernote on the Mac into text editors, so I suspect they are still lurking around somewhere

 

I was a very early adopter of Evernote.  I have used it for writing novels off and on since its inception.  I have always ditched it because of its text editing inconsistencies and bad UI.  Finally, just in the last month, I have come back to try again and have at least found that Evernote has a decent UI.  Some of the inconsistencies are fixed.  But those line breaks spaces are STILL not there.  I don't know anything about having this feature in 2011, if I had known it was there, I probably would have come back then.  It sure as hell wasn't there at any time I used the product. 

 

I'm sorry, your tone is very friendly, but I find it very frustrating that when the original poster asks for a feature to be implemented (that really is about the only commonly used formatting option missing) and you simply tell him how "wrong" he is.  He's expressing a preference!  There is no "wrong" here!  

 

Its pointless on forums to argue with OPs who are asking for a feature to be added to software.  Why?  Because software developers (I know this, I work for one) can add things as options!  There is a way to add this feature and allow both you and the OP to have what you want.

 

I can sit here and tell you about the millions of people I know who are used to that spacing after paragraph because they are used to it from MS Word and other applications.  Because they are business persons or novelists who work with large amounts of text and it is NOT acceptable to them to double tap enter after every paragraph or line of dialogue (boy is that where the lack of this feature gets annoying).  

 

I'm sure you can site millions who hate after paragraph spacing for various reasons.  In addition to being a businessman and novelist, I'm also a dba and I use evernote to store sql code snippets that i commonly use.  I too would want an option to have that space turned off in some places.  So, I get it.  

 

All of these arguments are RUBBISH.  What matter is that its a very small feature that could be implemented as an OPTION.  Leave all formatting the way it is and give some of us an option to increase spacing after paragraph.  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I have been using word processors since 1983. I figured out (somewhere in 1983) that it was not like a typewriter—you could just tell the program that you wanted it to add a little spacing between paragraphs.

 

Since then, I have considered it a "baby" thing to have to add an extra paragraph break between lines to indicate a break. I mean, come on.

 

Google Docs makes this easy—without cluttering up its interface with a gazillion stupid functions—so don't give me that argument.

 

Can't you just fix this one thing? 

 

I love Evernote, but I just can't understand why you have had such a little care for such a (to me) obvious thing, over all these years that I have been a member.

 

And note—I have currently been a paid member for over a year—even though I have no need of the paid service, but because it only seems fair to throw a little cash your way.

 

Hi. Welcome to the forums! I don't see anything broken, so there is nothing to fix! A double tap on the return key gives you that space in-between paragraphs, right? In a Word processor, there are paragraph level elements that might benefit from the distinction, but not in Evernote. 

 

Still, more broadly speaking, I think many of us would benefit from some control over the styles used to markup text, and if we could have access to a CSS-type stylesheet, then we could set the paragraph features, fonts, etc. that we would like to have. Maybe that wil come some day.

 

By the way, we used to have that extra line added after paragraphs back in 2011. Oh, how we raged against that feature! I don't know if we have any forum posts left from back then, but it was almost universally loathed as I recall. In fact, my usage of Evernote plummeted back then, because I couldn't work on the iPad without mangling my text with a bunch of extra line breaks. We still get those ghost line breaks when we copy/paste out of Evernote on the Mac into text editors, so I suspect they are still lurking around somewhere

[pgdahl 133]

I have been using word processors since 1983. I figured out (somewhere in 1983) that it was not like a typewriter—you could just tell the program that you wanted it to add a little spacing between paragraphs.

Evernote is not a word processor.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Fairly important to you, completely pointless to me. That's the joy of developing software that can be used by may types of people for many different tasks.