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Please Add Rich Text Editing


bmwgeek

Idea

Please add Rich Text capability to Evernote. I use the Mac version but I'm sure that others would appreciate it as well.

I don't really need any of the premium features but I'll give you a little hint: if Premium inlcuded rich text editing, I'd be more interested in becoming a Premium member.

Or give it away free -- that would be cool too.

 

Ironically, this forum allows me to post my request for Evernote rich text capability while using rich text.

 

Thanks for a great tool!

Dave

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6 replies to this idea

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I agree that Rich Text Editing is extremely helpful.

Um, no. The editor is not near rich enough.

Hi thicks. Welcome to the forums!

Dave compared it to this forum and suggested that the forum had better capabilities, but I am not sure what he meant. It can do blue (and other colors), bold, underline, different fonts, etc.

What functionality, in particular, do you think is lacking?

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Hi Everyone,

 

I posted this a while ago when I was a new user and didn't come back to explain my request because of things.

 

When I refer to rich text, I am looking for better text editing capabilities rather than perhaps a strict definition a programmer or product manager might think of in relation to the term "rich text.".   

 

I write a LOT in my job and personal life. I use apps that enable me to not only get ideas down but help me present it in a readable, visually appealing manner. But when I come to Evernote, I have to downgrade my expectations for how I can format my text. This leads me to not want to write much in Evernote. Which means I'm not as dependent on it as I could be. This may sound funny but I don't mind being dependent on a great tool.

 

Text editing can be improved in the following ways:

 

  1. Enable drag and drop editing. This is a fundamental editing capability that should be present in any decent text editor.
     
  2. Better table formatting. Tables are kludgy to work with in Evernote. They cannot be adjusted after creation. They have strange behavior when adding text to cells in a new table. I can't select a column or row to insert new, delete or change the size of existing columns or rows. There is no grid line formatting where line weights, types and colors can be modified. 
     
  3. Some flexibility with paragraph formatting would be nice. I'd like to define line spacing (single, double) and space between paragraphs. Two or three customizable style formats would be nice, similar to Word's Normal, Heading and Quote paragraph formats.
     
  4. Ability to resize/crop images in notes without having to edit in Skitch.
     
  5. The lack of indent/unindent buttons is frustrating.
     
  6. The lack of a useful color palette is frustrating. I would prefer a palette that presents complementary color groupings because the OS X color tool is pretty weak because I have to custom select colors rather than choose from pre-existing color groupings.  Microsoft Office handles groups of colors pretty well.  Office's color palettes are grouped by themes and are easily selected. I'm not saying I expect a huge gallery of colors. I would like, however, a gallery that offers more than the basic colors.

 

I've mentioned Word as an example of the features I'd like to see. I don't intend to communicate that I expect Evernote to be a full-featured word processor. Office does text editing right and the newly-released version of OneNote for OS X handles text and layout pretty well. OneNote's table tool is worthy of emulation and to be frank, makes Evernote's table tool look amateurish.

 

The presentation capability in Evernote is cool but because the text editing and layout capabilities in Evernote are slim, I'm not inclined to use it because I expect anything I'm showing to people to look appealing.

 

Evernote's text editing functionality needs to be improved because it is a weak capability in an otherwise fantastic application. 

 

I would like Evernote to be not just about notes but about developing ideas. More capability in text editing would help a lot with my ability to build ideas.

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I definitely agree! The rich text editor in this forum software is better than the RTE, aka WYSIWYG editor used in Evernote. There are a lot of great editors, my favorite is ckeditor. Most important think to me is being able to select headings or paragraphs etc. 

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{…}

 

When I refer to rich text, I am looking for better text editing capabilities rather than perhaps a strict definition a programmer or product manager might think of in relation to the term "rich text.".   

 

{…}

 

Text editing can be improved in the following ways:

 

  1. Enable drag and drop editing. This is a fundamental editing capability that should be present in any decent text editor.

     

  2. Better table formatting. Tables are kludgy to work with in Evernote. They cannot be adjusted after creation. They have strange behavior when adding text to cells in a new table. I can't select a column or row to insert new, delete or change the size of existing columns or rows. There is no grid line formatting where line weights, types and colors can be modified. 

     

  3. Some flexibility with paragraph formatting would be nice. I'd like to define line spacing (single, double) and space between paragraphs. Two or three customizable style formats would be nice, similar to Word's Normal, Heading and Quote paragraph formats.

     

  4. Ability to resize/crop images in notes without having to edit in Skitch.

     

  5. The lack of indent/unindent buttons is frustrating.

     

  6. The lack of a useful color palette is frustrating. I would prefer a palette that presents complementary color groupings because the OS X color tool is pretty weak because I have to custom select colors rather than choose from pre-existing color groupings.  Microsoft Office handles groups of colors pretty well.  Office's color palettes are grouped by themes and are easily selected. I'm not saying I expect a huge gallery of colors. I would like, however, a gallery that offers more than the basic colors.

 

When you consider the thin straw through which we blow strings of letters to each other, it is somewhat remarkable that any communication happens.  That is does, however, testifies to our skill.  A significant component of that skill is using words correctly.  "Rich Text", in this context, has a specific, shared, meaning, widely used and "known" in a practical sense.  (Note that our understanding of "rich text" is not the even more specific one used by technicians.)  In short, you used a word which misled your readers.  The fault is not theirs.

 

I couldn't agree more with your general complaint: text editing in Evernote's desktop clients is sub-par.  Improvements would be most welcome, as they would allow us to produce usable text more readily.

 

Responding to your numbered list:

 

1.  This is present for me.  Evernote 5.5.1 on OS 10.8.5.

2.  This is not an easy problem to solve, due to the underlaying page layout programming Evernote uses (afaik — I am not an engineer).  While I agree it needs much improvement, I don't think we will ever see it.

3.  Agree 100%.  I spend dozens of minutes a day deleting and adding different kinds of line-endings to try to get my line spacing the way I want.  The current behavior is unacceptable, even in a beginner's programming project.

4.  Good idea.

5.  Agree 100%

6.  The OS X color picker gives you quick access to all the colors your computer can handle, and presents them in more ways than I care to list.  The color picker is one click away for selecting the color of your text, and two clicks away for selecting the color of your annotations (as Evernote calls them).  The color picker allows you to save ad-hoc colors, and to assign them to a palette of your creation or choosing.  Here is an excellent article on how to use the OS X Color Picker.

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