Cannot open many attachments in Evernote Android app

[Tim G 0]

Hello,

 

I have recently been unable to open certain attachments within my Android Evernote app. For example, .doc files which used to open just fine within the app no longer open. When attempting to open a .doc file within the Evernote app a box pops up saying "Unsupported file". The same files will open just fine with Polaris Office, my phone's native doc app.

 

I am using an HTC one, and the problem seems to have started after the latest Evernote app update. I have uninstalled the Evernote app and reinstalled with no difference.

 

Does anyone else have a similar issue? Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

 

[timfg 24]

Yes. It's broken. Worse, you can't open pdfs in anything but Skitch, which is not very good as a PDF viewer. At all. I am using the 2013 Nexus 7.

 

I find it very hard to believe that this was not picked up in testing. I noticed it within minutes of the upgrade. Poor, frankly. I am going to have to change my process at work tomorrow as Skitch won't cut it for what I need to do with a number of PDFs.

[Tim G 0]

Same here with the pdf files. I can no longer zoom in when I open an attached pdf file from within the Evernote android app. The latest upgrade seems to have eliminated the ability to launch other apps in order open certain attachments.

[bobloadmire 0]

Yup, confirmed on Nexus 7 2013, and my Galaxy S3. Can't open attached PDFs.

[Brian Woods 16]

Just wanted to chime in on this discussion to share what I've discovered with the new Evernote version 5 for android that you all seem to be having an issue with. I was having an issue opening secured pdf documents that I had previously been able to open just fine until the upgrade. I believe that the problem you all are having has to do with Evernote's decision to heavily integrate their Skitch app as well as the OfficeSuite integration. According to Evernote, officesuite is available on a 1 week trial for free accounts and unlimited access for premium account owners. Try installing both Skitch and Officesuite to see if you are now able to open .doc files as well as pdfs. Hope this helps. 

[timfg 24]

 I believe that the problem you all are having has to do with Evernote's decision to heavily integrate their Skitch app as well as the OfficeSuite integration. According to Evernote, officesuite is available on a 1 week trial for free accounts and unlimited access for premium account owners. Try installing both Skitch and Officesuite to see if you are now able to open .doc files as well as pdfs. Hope this helps. 

 

I don't think this is the issue - I have several apps that can open PDFs, incl OfficeSuite Pro. The problem is that there is no opportunity to select any of them, PDFs now open in Skitch.  The usual way to change the default app association, or revert to being offered a choice, is via Settings|Apps and 'Clear Defaults' for the associated app, from whereon you'll get offered the choice again. Skitch has no defaults to clear - it's greyed out.

 

This implies that Evernote is calling Skitch directly, not via the OS association.  I really hope that this is a bug and not by design, in order to promote the use of Skitch - because the latter would be a totally brainless thing to do. Skitch is useful, very occasionally, if you want to mark up a PDF - as a general PDF viewer it's hopeless.  And I don't want app developers making this kind of decision, it flies in the face of what makes Android so appealing as a mobile OS.

 

I have a lot of PDFs in Evernote - it's the repository for all my household paper and gets there as a result of a long established scanning approach.  I will NEVER want to open these PDFs - and many others - in Skitch.

 

Could we have an update on this please Evernote? This has essentially broken Evernote for me on Android, so I have had to start lugging a laptop around when I could previously rely on just the Nexus. This makes me very unhappy!

[Grant837 111]

For me its worse, the pdf are forced to open in Skitch, and then the 4 I just tried are blank. I am trying to find my booking number and frequet flyer number and confirm my flight and seats and really did not have the time to fuss with trying to find where the actual documents are stored so I can open them with another app. I called the airline instead. This kind of defeats the purpose of Evernote. I use an Asus tf700t

Indeed, very sloppy design and/or testing.

[Ulrich0 5]

I am using a first generation Nexus 7.

You can get the attached PDF to open in an external application (not the built-in skitch) by pressing on the little edit pencil to the right hand side of the red attachment box (the pencil to the right of the name of your attachment).

The problem for me now is that this only seems to be able to open the pdf with the built-in android PDF viewer which is really primitive. I can't get it to open with Adobe reader or some other better PDF viewer. Settings -> Apps -> "Clear defaults" doesn't work because the built-in Android PDF viewer doesn't show up in the list of apps, and I think Evernote may be programmed to only open the built-in android PDF reader app anyway?

Anyone got a way to make the little pencil open the PDF in Adobe Reader or some other good PDF viewer?

[Tim G 0]

Selecting the pencil icon at the right of the attachment box does not work for me. When I attempt to open a pdf attachment by selecting the pencil I get the message "No application found to open this attachment". If I try the same method to open a doc attachment, I get an "Install OfficeSuite" page. Using the paperclip icon to attempt to open a doc attachment gives me an "unsupported file" message, even though this worked fine before the latest update.

[Ulrich0 5]

I don't know what other Android tablets are like, but the first gen Nexus 7 I have came with a built in "Documents viewer". It's pretty crappy, so most people install Adobe Reader or something else for PDF viewing.

It is the PDF part of this "documents viewer" that is opening when I press the little pencil. I would guess that if you don't have the "documents viewer" on your machine then the file won't open(?)

The "documents viewer" is strange. It's not in the list of apps, but it's definitely there in my system, opening the Evernote PDFs and selectable as an option if I clear Adobe reader as the default PDF reader and then try to open a PDF from something other than Evernote.

The obvious fix to this problem is that the little pencil should open whatever app you have selected as the default for files of that type. Just as happens in Dropbox, or any other program that stores or imports document files.

This fix should happen quickly! I mean, Evernote has just GOT to do basic PDF and .doc functionality right.

[timfg 24]

Selecting the pencil icon at the right of the attachment box does not work for me. When I attempt to open a pdf attachment by selecting the pencil I get the message "No application found to open this attachment". If I try the same method to open a doc attachment, I get an "Install OfficeSuite" page. Using the paperclip icon to attempt to open a doc attachment gives me an "unsupported file" message, even though this worked fine before the latest update.

 

Doesn't work for me either. I first saw this issue reported the day after this release became available.  Since when, not a word from En on these boards. It's extremely shabby.

[Ulrich0 5]

If anyone is having problems getting PDF attachments to open with android Evernote, the simplest workaround is to email a copy of your note and attachments to yourself.

With the note open, click the 3 vertical dots at the top right hand corner of your screen. Click "email a copy", and enter your email address. Evernote will send the text of your note and all attachments to your email account, and you can then open the attachments from your email app using the viewer of your choice. Note that it can take about 30 seconds for the email to go through.

This workaround is probably obvious to advanced users, but I thought I'd post it in case it helps someone out there.

[jefito 5,589]

Doesn't work for me either. I first saw this issue reported the day after this release became available.  Since when, not a word from En on these boards. It's extremely shabby.

This is a user forum. Evernote monitors all posts here, but doesn't always answer. If you want to contact Evernote for issues or suggestions, you'll need to open a support request. See the link in my signature.

[lblampman 0]

Thank you jefito for the link in your signature block.

 

That said, it would seem more expeditious for Evernote to provide an answer to several users simultaneously through the forum, rather than have each of us open a new support request individually.  I echo the frustration with the lack of information from the Evernote team.  If they monitor the forum then it's a simple and time efficient matter to post what they know of the situation to keep the frustration level at bay.  I doubt most of us expect perfection but a little bit of explanation would go a long way.

 

Yes, this is my first post.  In all the time I've used Evernote (a couple of years now) it's the first time that I've felt compelled to visit the user forum to find answers to a glaring issue (as in they went backwards, rather than forward with this change).

 

Les

[jefito 5,589]

There are times when an appropriate answer is posted (and that's always welcome), but in general, that's not the case. There's just not enough of them to guarantee any such service, at least at this time. Sometimes moderators like me might get a heads-up behind the scenes with an answer that we can disseminate, but for now, the hope is that users will cycle back with answers that they've found.

[ZoZo 14]

I agree. This is very annoying and needs to be fixed ASAP.

It's nice to be able to annotate with Skitch, but we also need to be able to use the default selected PDF viewer!

[lblampman 0]

The biggest issue for me is that I cannot zoom the PDF in Evernote, on my Samsung S3 the PDF image is too small to read (much less annotate).

 

Thank you for your follow up jefito.

 

Les

[timfg 24]

I notice I've picked up an update to En today, which half fixes the problem: If you tap the main body of the attachment, it opens in Skitch - but if you tap the little dots at the end, it opens in (what I assume is) the preferred viewer for PDFs - in my case, Adobe's app. BUT... this does not follow the Android philosophy and is still not what I would want.  It's important enough that I will keep moaning until it's right: I need to be able to set a default viewer which opens when I tap the main body - and reserve the little dots for when I want to use something occasionally (eg Skitch).

 

I'm worried that this looks like a step to half-correct the problem, whilst still promoting Skitch (although I haven't played around with that much and might have missed something). This will only hack off your users even more: Do it correctly - we should have control, not Evernote.

[timfg 24]

PS On the earlier issue of Evernote commenting, or not: If you comment... follow it through: You can't dip in to advise you're investigating and then go radio-silent in the aftermath.

[Ulrich0 5]

Timfg is right, there has been an update.

On my first gen Nexus 7, pressing the red paperclip thing at the left gets you skitch.

Pressing the 3 dots at the right gets you a question: do you want to edit or view the attachment?

Select Edit and I get the built-in android PDF viewer (see my previous comment above about this).

Select View and I get the default PDF viewer that I have chosen, adobe reader.

So the interface is confusing but my problem has been solved, in that I can now view my PDFs with the default viewer of my choice.

So, thanks Evernote, it's not perfect, the interface is a bit confusing, but it's a working quick fix.

[lblampman 0]

I'll add my thanks as well.

 

When I press the attachment pop-up anywhere other than the three vertical dots on the far right it opens directly to the EN/Skitch page (I still can't zoom there, so it's not very useful on my Samsung S3).

 

When I press the three vertical buttons: the first time it asked me to choose an application (and presented the three that could do it on my phone) and when that was chosen it asked me "always" or "just once".  I chose Adobe Reader and "always" so now when I press the three vertical buttons the PDF opens right into Adobe.

 

For my needs this is working perfectly well.

 

So a "Thumbs Up" from me for the fix.

 

Les

[johnpinkstonii 0]

I've been having the same problem.  When the pencil first became an option for pdf attachments, I loved it because I could annotate in ezpdf and my changes would be saved to the pdf like in the desktop client.  However, in the latest update I now have three dots on the right which will let me choose to edit or view (if I don't just hit the main body of the attachment and open it in skitch) but it no longer saves the changes.  Its back to the way it has been in the past (prior to the most recent update).  Any help with this would be appreciated.  I do most of my reading on my tablet and really appreciated the new capabilities.

[AnsrewG 0]

It's been a year and a major update and I have the same problem. I can upload PDFs and Word documents to a note, but I can open some and not others within the same note. It's more recent attachments that have the problem. Does this have to do with a limit on the number of files I can have in one note?