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Evernote is a wonderful platform, but I have a concern and I am sure I am not alone. I want to use Evernote for managing all sorts of information related to work projects, but I want to have the ability to export them to a desktop folder to use elsewhere if I want to. As far as I can tell, Evernote supports exports in PDF and HTML, but this is not very useful to me. I would like to be able to export to .doc or .txt so I can use my data outside of Evernote if I ever choose to. 

 

Right now it seems that content is basically trapped in Evernote's ecosystem forever. Please tell me I am wrong. 

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Evernote is a wonderful platform, but I have a concern and I am sure I am not alone. I want to use Evernote for managing all sorts of information related to work projects, but I want to have the ability to export them to a desktop folder to use elsewhere if I want to. As far as I can tell, Evernote supports exports in PDF and HTML, but this is not very useful to me. I would like to be able to export to .doc or .txt so I can use my data outside of Evernote if I ever choose to.

Right now it seems that content is basically trapped in Evernote's ecosystem forever. Please tell me I am wrong.

No, content is not trapped in Evernote. Exporting to html is the best way to get information out of Evernote.

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/42066-copy-all-evernote-notes-to-google-drive/

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

The Evernote rhetoric is NOT to trap your data. I remember this being said several times in the early podcasts. Not heard it for a while - but I'm sure it's still true.

I just started using Evenote (migrated from Notational Velocity, mainly so I could sync my Evernote Mac desktop with iPads).  But I do want to export txt files as a safety measure and it is a bit beyond my skill to use the apps on github.

 

Evernote:  If you are listening, please include an Export to txt file option under Export.  Thanks.

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I just started using Evenote (migrated from Notational Velocity, mainly so I could sync my Evernote Mac desktop with iPads).  But I do want to export txt files as a safety measure and it is a bit beyond my skill to use the apps on github.

 

Evernote:  If you are listening, please include an Export to txt file option under Export.  Thanks.

Here's why Evernote exports to html...

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s137/sh/e10c37c9-be36-40f4-b7b4-3501c4bcbc61/e1f2636a2d024c13de29b10c8544b65b

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I just started using Evenote (migrated from Notational Velocity, mainly so I could sync my Evernote Mac desktop with iPads).  But I do want to export txt files as a safety measure and it is a bit beyond my skill to use the apps on github.

 

Evernote:  If you are listening, please include an Export to txt file option under Export.  Thanks.

Here's why Evernote exports to html...

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s137/sh/e10c37c9-be36-40f4-b7b4-3501c4bcbc61/e1f2636a2d024c13de29b10c8544b65b

 

So it seems like the main reason to have only html export is for the attached files to be included.  Makes sense.  Still, for folks like me who don't have any attachments, it would be nice to have the additional capability to export notes as txt.  Oh well.

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I just started using Evenote (migrated from Notational Velocity, mainly so I could sync my Evernote Mac desktop with iPads).  But I do want to export txt files as a safety measure and it is a bit beyond my skill to use the apps on github.

 

Evernote:  If you are listening, please include an Export to txt file option under Export.  Thanks.

Here's why Evernote exports to html...https://www.evernote.com/shard/s137/sh/e10c37c9-be36-40f4-b7b4-3501c4bcbc61/e1f2636a2d024c13de29b10c8544b65b

So it seems like the main reason to have only html export is for the attached files to be included.  Makes sense.  Still, for folks like me who don't have any attachments, it would be nice to have the additional capability to export notes as txt.  Oh well.

Ideally, we'd have many more export options. I think it is a minor annoyance, though. I mainly use text, and I find it quite easy to move smoothly from one app to another.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=1564

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  • 1 month later...

For those that want to export notes into txt or even MS Word docs I recommend cloudhq. This site will sync notes from evernote to another service like dropbox and vice-versa. A fault I find is that cloudhq does not export the notes directly onto the local directory but to other cloud services. You would have to then download the exported notes from that cloud service. 

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  • 1 month later...

I have been using Evernotes for 2 years (Premium Accounts), and lately have another premium account for my wife.  But I am struggling with data export.

 

Over time, I have more notebooks and some have hundreds of notes in it.  When a project is complete I would like to export the *WHOLE* Notebook to PDF (like an e-Book) but don't know how.  There is apparently also no "archive" function for notes/Notebooks.

 

Even on individual note basis, the only options I have are to export as Evernote xml or HTML format.  Both are not ideal for me.  I hate the folder think with HTML export. It will be difficult to ask to all my co-workers and associates to use Evernote just to read a piece of my work.  I know I can "print" it to PDF in OS X, but this will be a clumsy way of export for multiple notes, or a whole Notebook.

 

I am wondering if Evernote is planning more export options.  This is becoming a concern and driving my decision if I should continue using Evernote after the current subscription expires.

 

Other export options like to Word or Pages format should also be considered - so that I can do further formatting and word processing with the information captured in my Notebook.  I want to be able to compile professionally formatted documents using data in my Notebook [The formatting and word processing features of Evernote is severely lacking].  Again, copy and paste is not really a productive way.

 

Hope other members can share their thoughts and tips too.

 

F. Lo

from Hong Kong

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Evernote is tight-lipped about their development plans so whether they are working on more or not is mostly a matter of just waiting and seeing. 

 

There are some challenges with export due to the richness and variability in note content. Plain and rich text are reasonably easy to export, but web clippings and other stuff that might have some underlying HTML is a bit more of a challenge. The HTML and XML are the most straightforward because the results will almost always be predictable regardless of content. Pages is especially hard since it is a highly proprietary format and Word is not much better, and both will very likely produce highly inconsistent and likely terribly erroneous results with most things that aren't just straightforward plain text. This could be extremely frustrating from a UX standpoint, as users expect their notes to look more or less the same on export, but in the end some might look terrible! Then begins the trial and error process of figuring out how to manipulate the troublesome note so that it exports properly, and probably failing at that. 

The exception is that you could likely get HTML exported files into Word without much fuss, then from there into just about anything else, but the workflow might be a bit onerous. 

 

I think direct PDF exporting would be the most likely pursuit because PDFs can reasonably faithfully reproduce the rich content often found in notes and is almost universally readable (editability is a different matter, but it sounds like you and many others are not too concerned about editing, more about viewing/sharing/read-only archiving). Evernote is ALMOST there in this respect, since you can already print individual notes to PDF. It would be great to be able to do this in a batch and end up with a PDF containing all the selected notes. 

 

So, in the meantime, if you want to get a bunch of notes into a single PDF, here's a few workarounds that come to mind:

 

1)Merge and print

Select all the notes you want to archive, copy them to a new, temporary notebook. In this new notebook using the copies, MERGE them all into a single note. Print as a PDF this single note containing all the notes. Then delete the originals or the merged note, or both, or whatever suits your needs. 

 

Troubles: The order of notes upon merging is a bit haphazard, I believe it is dictated either by the date created or date updated. If you are merging a small number of notes, this is relatively easily manipulated by hand to dictate merge order. If you have a large number of notes, it's a real pain. 

 

2) Select all notes, print as individual PDFs, combine in external application

Select all the notes you want to bind together. On mac, you can just select print/cmd-p and it will bring up a single dialogue box no matter how many notes you have selected. Print these to a PDF and you will end up with one PDF per note, with the note title as the file name. Using an external application (such as Preview on Mac, not sure about windows. Perhaps Adobe Reader, but Acrobat sure could. PDF Expert on iPad would do this well too) combine these separate PDFs into a single PDF file. 

 

This is likely the best option as you can use note titles to sort the order of the resultant PDF, it will not manipulate your formatting (merging as in (1) adds header text for each merged note), and you can take advantage of any optimization features in your external PDF application.  

 

Hope this helps a bit!

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I'm presuming there's no way to export my notes through the web client, since I don't run MSWin or MacOS.

 

Don't believe so - unless you can use a desktop Win or Mac machine to access your account and export the notes,  then move that file somewhere else...

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  • 4 months later...

I've only ever visited these forums once, and that was when I was trying to export my data from Evernote to a format that I thought I could work with properly. All the options/suggestions that have been provided on this site and on others were third party apps/ programs and needed payment to export the amount of notes that I had (I had 250+).

 

I ended up finding an article about LibreOffice (which I already had; its FOSS); it had the ability to convert to different formats from the windows command prompt, and with some extra code, it can all be done automatically in a batch from one directory.

 

So I thought I would provide a summary of what I did here; as this was the first place I looked (it appeared first after a google search).

 

1. I exported the files as html files (notes separated, not one whole html file) from the Evernote desktop application

2. I created a .bat file (write batch code in a text file then save it with the .bat extension) (I can't attach .bat files on this forum, sorry)

    and ran the .bat file

 

The .bat file I created, converted all the html files to .rtf (rich text format) and I've stored all the different notes on my home server that I sync with Bittorrent Sync. It's easily changed to convert it to other files, but please beware that the html file may not create the play well with the format you're conveting it too and you may need to edit the end result, so that it will look the way you want. But, as for just storing the information that you have saved in Evernote, saving my files as .rtf was perfect and this way is free and can be tailored to different needs.

 

Below is the code of the .bat file I used, I had to implement a waiting period of 3 seconds, so that all the notes would be converted over in a batch automatically. I'm happy to answer any questions. HTH  :D

 

REM This displays the files being converted in the command window
@ECHO
 
REM This changes the working directory to the location of the original files
cd "<location of original files>"
 
REM You can change the 'rtf' to 'doc' 'docx' 'odf' .. whatever you like.. as long as LibreOffice can handle it
REM Make sure leave the quotes "" when you replace the pointy brackets with YOUR directories that corresponds to the description.
FOR %%f IN (*.html) DO "<location to soffice.exe>" -headless -convert-to rtf -outdir "<file output location>" "<location of original files>\%%f" & ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 > nul
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I've only ever visited these forums once, and that was when I was trying to export my data from Evernote to a format that I thought I coud work with. All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had.

Then you stumbled upon a third party app.  There is never, repeat never, a charge from Evernote to export your data out from Evernote. 

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I've only ever visited these forums once, and that was when I was trying to export my data from Evernote to a format that I thought I coud work with. All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had.

Then you stumbled upon a third party app.  There is never, repeat never, a charge from Evernote to export your data out from Evernote. 

 

I'm sorry, did I offend you? Did u miss the part when I said 'All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had'

(I blame the keyboard :P )

 

I don't think I mentioned anywhere that they were options provided by Evernote..

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I've only ever visited these forums once, and that was when I was trying to export my data from Evernote to a format that I thought I coud work with. All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had.

Then you stumbled upon a third party app. There is never, repeat never, a charge from Evernote to export your data out from Evernote.

I'm sorry, did I offend you? Did u miss the part when I said 'All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had'

(I blame the keyboard :P )

I don't think I mentioned anywhere that they were options provided by Evernote..

I can't imagine why you think you offended me and no, I did not miss any part, thankyouverymuch. I am simply clarifying your post for you. If your post had been more explicit (IE, if you *had* mentioned you were talking about a third party option), it would not have needed clarification for others who are reading this thread. I can't imagine why you would object to that.

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The question is why you'd be driven to a (paid) third-party application to export your notes, @Voryzen. Care to elaborate?

 

No, Thank you. I feel I may have helped someone else down the line, I'm content  :)

 

 

 

 

I've only ever visited these forums once, and that was when I was trying to export my data from Evernote to a format that I thought I coud work with. All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had.

Then you stumbled upon a third party app. There is never, repeat never, a charge from Evernote to export your data out from Evernote.
I'm sorry, did I offend you? Did u miss the part when I said 'All the option that have been provided needed to pay a sum of money to export the amount of notes that I had'

(I blame the keyboard :P )

I don't think I mentioned anywhere that they were options provided by Evernote..

I can't imagine why you think you offended me and no, I did not miss any part, thankyouverymuch. I am simply clarifying your post for you. If your post had been more explicit (IE, if you *had* mentioned you were talking about a third party option), it would not have needed clarification for others who are reading this thread. I can't imagine why you would object to that.

 

 

Ohhhhh, you were helping.  Shucks. Thanks Darl, you're a champ

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OK, let's back up a bit here. So you wanted to work with your Evernote files in a different format than HTML, but all of the options discussed cost money, so you were looking for a free solution. Then you found LibreOffice (a free product) could do conversions, in a command-line mode that could work with batch files. And you're presenting your .BAT file that does this. Did I get that all right? :)

 

Just one question: what's the purpose of the "ping" command at the end of the script?

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OK, let's back up a bit here. So you wanted to work with your Evernote files in a different format than HTML, but all of the options discussed cost money, so you were looking for a free solution. Then you found LibreOffice (a free product) could do conversions, in a command-line mode that could work with batch files. And you're presenting your .BAT file that does this. Did I get that all right? :)

 

Just one question: what's the purpose of the "ping" command at the end of the script?

You're spot on, Jeff. Thanks for the question, I'll answer it as best as I can

 

The ping is there so that the script will wait a couple of seconds before progressing to the next file; LibreOffice (or 'soffice.exe' while in headless mode) seems to need that pause. When it isn't in there, the batch stops at one file; and while I've had it in there, I've successfully processed 250+ html notes during one run of the script. 

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OK, got it. Nice tip.

 

If I needed to do something like this, I'd probably have mucked around with the PAUSE command, or tried something else, possibly unsuccessfully. Or tried PowerShell (I wrote a PowerShell script to do my Evernote backups).

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Yes! I tried pause first and my tinkerings were unsuccessful, 'ping' seemed to be a popular alternative and worked well in this case.

 

I chose a .bat file because I thought it would have been easier for others; I'm a big fan of Powershell but batch seems more widely used and I had planned to share whatever I could find even before I had started searching

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  • 1 month later...

Oh boy... great.

 

I have only recently came upon situations in which I needed to export to something like Word.   

 

I exported as an HTML, but the note failed to format properly.  It wasn't a horrible mess, but required fixing if I wanted to make it look reasonably readable for the recipient.   Both Google Docs and Word produced some errors in formatting the HTML.   I use a lot of bullets in my writing.  They come through, but the indents can be way off.

 

Evernote feels light and efficient in use, but don't like the idea of being trapped in this sketchy format.

 

I may have to migrate to another note-taking solution before getting too dependent upon Evernote....just don't like the idea of feeling stuck with HTML or PDF.

 

Amazing that there isn't some sort of Evernote "add on" that will allow nice, tight conversions.

 

Google Docs may be my next choice.   Imperfect, but cheap ...allows offline work... and the format is readily recognized or converted.  I'll make the decision when this year's Evernote subscription ends (and no better solutions are found).

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CloudHq looks like it might be a very clever, easy way to export Evernote Notes.

However, I have NOT used it, so I'm not sure.

 

By setting up a CloudHq sync between Evernote and Dropbox, and having DropBox installed on your Mac/PC, then you easily get an export of EN to your local drive.

 

The question I have is what format is used for the CloudHq sync?  HTML, Word, RTF, other?

I have sent CloudHq support asking them this very question.  I'll report back here when I get a response.

 

There is one con,  CloudHq requires a monthly fee after a 15-day free trial.

 

For those that want to export notes into txt or even MS Word docs I recommend cloudhq. This site will sync notes from evernote to another service like dropbox and vice-versa. A fault I find is that cloudhq does not export the notes directly onto the local directory but to other cloud services. You would have to then download the exported notes from that cloud service. 

 

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Wow!  I got a VERY quick response from CloudHq Support.  Here is their answer:

 

This looks very promising, assuming that the export formats work well.

 

 

We have a short support note explaining how we sync Evernote with Dropbox:

https://support.cloudhq.net/how-cloudhq-sync-evernote-with-dropbox-google-drive-or-other-file-system-cloud-services/?a=1

 

In short, cloudHQ can export Evernote notes into following formats when syncing with Dropbox:

  • PDF
  • HTML
  • MS Word
  • OpenOffice
  • TXT
  • ENEX format 

The note attachments are exported as they are - i.e., if note attachment is a ZIP file, then cloudHQ will create a ZIP file in Dropbox. 

 

The attachments will be also included into PDF export. For example, if you have note which have two images as attachments then your PDF will contain also these two images.

 

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  • 1 year later...

I don´t like all these workarounds. Are there other alternatives to Evernote?

I have got 3500 notes from text notes, scanned documents, pictures, links, and others accumulated in two years.

If I decide to abandon evernote (because they keep increasing the prices to an unacceptable level, last increase was 50%), how do I get all these notes out to seperate files on the windows (or maybe IOS) file system? .
 

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Hi.  As to alternatives,  here's a lengthy discussion that also includes some exporting chat.

 

... And here are some options that came up in a web search..

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-good-alternative-to-Evernote

https://opensource.com/life/16/8/open-source-alternatives-evernote

http://www.freelancerbundle.co/blog/top-five-alternatives-of-evernote/

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On 2016-11-30 at 11:19 PM, pschneiderw said:

If I decide to abandon evernote (because they keep increasing the prices to an unacceptable level, last increase was 50%),

The basic account continues to be free
- that will be my fallback if I'm unable to pay the fees

>>how do I get all these notes out to seperate files on the windows (or maybe IOS) file system? 

IOS has a file system?
I'm on a Mac, and I've been happy with the html export feature
I export to an Apple iCloud drive, so my backup notes are available on my iPad

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On 12/1/2016 at 2:19 AM, pschneiderw said:

If I decide to abandon evernote (because they keep increasing the prices to an unacceptable level, last increase was 50%), how do I get all these notes out to seperate files on the windows (or maybe IOS) file system? .

In the Windows client, Evernote supports exporting notes as Multiple Web Pages, one HTML file (and possibly one folder, for attachments) per note, plus one master index file. Notebook information is not retained, so if that's important to you, you'd want to export on a notebook by notebook basis. Tags are not exported in HTML export as well, so that's a downside.

The Evernote format (.ENEX) is a documented format (text-based); you may be able to find a program that understands it to be able to to convert it to some other desired format. 

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  • 3 years later...
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15 hours ago, JimmyGee said:

I didn't realise this, and now I'll probably be leaving Evernote when this current subscription period expires. I trusted it with some Word files and Pages files and unthinkingly uploaded them to the Evernote folders, believing those files belonged to me and would always belong to me. Apparently the files don't, only the information does.

Wrong.  You don't mention which platform.  If you are on Windows you can highlight notes with attachments, right click and select Save Attachments.  You will be asked in which folder to save the attachments.  No HTML anywhere in site.

You might have gotten a quicker response if you had added a TL;DR bit.  Also, if you are a paid subscriber you should contact EN since your avatar says you are Basic.

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15 hours ago, JimmyGee said:

I have loved many things about Evernote but I don't like programs that intervene between you and your freedom, for any reason, even if they say it's because they want to protect you from your own foolishness

Your freedom is intact.

You have the freedom to use Evernote, or not. 

You have the freedom to type long run-on paragraphs and sentences, even if you shouldn't.

I have the freedom to stop reading posts that are too long, too ranty, too vague, ill-focused, or otherwise incomprehensible.

If you have specific problems with Evernote, then sometimes the community of users can help. If you have feature requests, then there's places to post them.

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16 hours ago, JimmyGee said:

Anyway, if you sent it to Evernote in a format, you should be able to retrieve it in that format.

Files uploaded to Evernote are stored in their native format; word, jpeg, pdf etc
You are "able to retrieve it in that format"

>>What about files that already existed in other formats? You may have uploaded for storage purposes a vast amount of Word documents to Evernote and not kept copies anywhere else. Anyway, if you sent it to Evernote in a format, you should be able to retrieve it in that format

Here's an example of a note I exported on my Mac355847517_ScreenShot2020-02-19at11_49_21AM.png.3e22266d65f6d8f300ff78ff9a524d76.png
It contains
- note text; enml converted to html
- spreadsheet files
 -script files

As others mentioned, I could have used save attachments

>>Seriously, who would export documents to an HTML file?

Evernote's base format for notes is enml, which is basically html
I use the export/html feature to backup my Evernote data
As per the above example, attachment files remain in their native format

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1 hour ago, JimmyGee said:

how do you export it into Word

Hi.  Attaching a Word (or a PDF, PPT or any other) file to an Evernote note,  gives you a note with that original file connected to it. When you 'export' it,  you're simply copying the file from the database that it had become part of,  back out into the real world in its original format.  (It's slightly more complicated in Windows,  because the original .DOCX file -for example- is converted to Evernote's database format,  but it can be exported again without loss.)

Have a look at the main help site - https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us and search for some videos about basic Evernote use for more on how the basics work.  You're also welcome to ask more here.  A bit of experimentation may help too!

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2 hours ago, CalS said:

Wrong.  You don't mention which platform.  If you are on Windows you can highlight notes with attachments, right click and select Save Attachments.  You will be asked in which folder to save the attachments.  No HTML anywhere in site.

You might have gotten a quicker response if you had added a TL;DR bit.  Also, if you are a paid subscriber you should contact EN since your avatar says you are Basic.

Thanks man. I'm on a Mac. Anyway yours and DTLow's messages inspired me to experiment and yes I discovered what you already knew -- that in Evernote, the files are called 'attachments'. I'm assuming that the bit that becomes HTML is the 'note', i.e., a section that, if you were to leave it blank, is really more of an envelope. Saving attachments means pulling down your original files. I see now.

I just looked up TL; DR and thanks, that's useful. I've never posted anything online before so I'm not au fait with the protocol. I didn't know length was frowned upon. I thought to write something longer might be considered convivial. Poorly judged on my part. It's my first day, and I guess I'm Charles Bovary, getting an ink bottle thrown at the back of his head. 

Yes it's a beautiful programme. I do pay for it, but I have another, more expensive account, for which the log in is my real name. It never occurred to me to write to Evernote themselves. It wasn't a bug, after all, it was a choice they made. Or rather, that I thought they had made, wrongly, it turns out.

But the TL;DR thing is great, because it's a good discipline to be able to allow people to see your main question, especially if it's floating in a sea of dangling modifiers and modal particles. Thanks for the help. You said a lot in a very short space of time, a skill I lack. Perhaps you heard what Pascal once wrote to a friend -- 'I'm sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one'. 

Perhaps he had the same impairment that I have.

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1 hour ago, gazumped said:

You're also welcome to ask more here. 

Aren't you kind. Thank you so much. I did experiment, and I discovered exactly what you say -- so I'm less forlorn than I was about Evernote. Still, nothing's perfect -- Evernote, Devonthink, Google Keep -- none of their web clippers is flawless. Devonthink is very quirky and probably has the steepest learning curve of any consumer software -- still, it appeals to my almost-Linux personality. Keep It is nice but also flawed, and it doesn't do much. Evernote is, I suppose, the best of the bunch, in the broad view. Google starts to make suggestions which are just a little too accurate. You need to set a place for it at dinner. I feel like Microsoft and Google are best avoided, and the loyalty given to smaller developers, like the guy who makes Scrivener, which is about the greatest software I've ever used (for writing) and you can still, just about, exchange emails with the creator. Do you use anything besides Evernote for your research/storage?

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15 minutes ago, JimmyGee said:

Do you use anything besides Evernote for your research/storage?

It's difficult to give you a sensible answer on that - I'm of the old school view that getting the job of the moment done (whatever that may be) is the important thing,  so I'll use anything and everything in the way of tools and software which 1) I either know how to use,  or can get up to speed with quickly and 2) actually does what I need it to.  Evernote covers about 80% of that,  and my ~49,000 notes are all in Evernote. 

I do some layout in Workflowy, mind-mapping in Freeplane, finance, word-processing and presentation in MSOffice, emailing via Gmail and Outlook, plus photo processing in Lightroom.  Evernote contains my 'library' of information,  my archive & historical records,  and is also my index for any work I do in other software.

Along the way I'll use various tools on my mobile devices - the camera on my Android phone captures anything too lumpy or too big to go in my scanner,  and that,  plus a tablet,  is a handy lookup tool for user guides, emails and receipts that I need from time to time for reference.

I've even been known to write things down with an actual pencil if something occurs to me after I just switched off the tech for the day...  ^_^

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1 hour ago, JimmyGee said:

Thanks man.

You are welcome.

1 hour ago, JimmyGee said:

I'm assuming that the bit that becomes HTML is the 'note', i.e., a section that, if you were to leave it blank, is really more of an envelope.

Not aqware of the exact mechanics but I'm pretty sure the actual attachment is stored with the note.

1 hour ago, JimmyGee said:

 I didn't know length was frowned upon

Length isn't frowned upon, sometimes it is needed to understand the issue.  It's more the extraneous stuff that causes frustration since it makes it harder to help.  I wouldn't worry about it, just keep learning.

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15 hours ago, JimmyGee said:

Do you use anything besides Evernote for your research/storage?

I'm 99% with Evernote  for storage but wanted to point out a distinction for editors
The Evernote editor is fine for basic notes, but I use whatever editor is best for the purpose
for example Apple Pages for word processing,
                       Apple Numbers for spreadsheets,
                       Notability for note-taking on an iPad
The documents are stored in Evernote as note attachments

Regarding exceptions for storage,
I have files stored in iCloud because IOS is so poor at editing attachments   
And there's files that must live externally because of access requirements
The files are accessed via file links in Evernote notes

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1 hour ago, JimmyGee said:

Do you use anything besides Evernote for your research/storage?

I went paperless with EN some years back.  Everything other than photos and the like (stored in the cloud) is in EN with one exception.  I put most of my Excel spreadsheets in the cloud with a link to the local location in an EN note.  I did this some time back when I determined EN had issues when I opened, edited and saved spreadsheets which contained pivot tables.  This may have been fixed by now but I have kept it as is since I get an explicit backup every time I modify a spreadsheet.  And it doesn't make any difference to me if the spreadsheets were searchable in EN.  FWIW.

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14 hours ago, gazumped said:

I do some layout in Workflowy, mind-mapping in Freeplane, finance, word-processing and presentation in MSOffice, emailing via Gmail and Outlook, plus photo processing in Lightroom.  Evernote contains my 'library' of information,  my archive & historical records,  and is also my index for any work I do in other software.

This is a great list. You forgot to say shovel for digging potatoes out! I'm going to look up Freeplane. I know all the others. I liked MindManager years ago, but it became very expensive for just doing mind mapping, and it wasn't crucial to how I work. But if a mind mapping software isn't intuitive and effortless, it's not worth using (for me) OR -- and this is a big one too -- if it doesn't look good. Mind Manager looked good. There was another I used to use which had loads of functionality but it didn't look nice, so I got out of the habit of using it. This is another one of my issues, aesthetics -- if something looks too cartoony or childlike, I'm not a fan.You know, bouncy paperclips with constant cheerfulness.

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21 minutes ago, JimmyGee said:

another one of my issues, aesthetics

We grow potatoes in a bag around here (limited ground space) so we're a shovel - and paperclip - free environment. 

I partly agree with you on the 'intuitive and effortless' front though,  but I'm not precious about software being precisely aligned to my task,  or about it being totally aesthetically pleasing. 

I grew up in the DOS era when the IT mantra was often "we don't fill that field in" or "you always show zero there" - tasks had usually evolved past any original programming parameters;  sometimes before the software was even released - and it was too expensive (even then) to go back and just relabel fields or re-order calculations. 

You worked around the system,  not wholly with it.  That's still my style.

Plus - in line with my "anything to get the job done" comments previously - I'll use any available means to get to an end,  even if that is an image of a shaky whiteboard sketch in bad lighting. 

Done is always better than perfect - I'll dot I's and cross T's in the layout later.  Maybe.

I do think modern software leaves a lot to be desired though.  On another project I've been looking to build an information dump which requires a relational database structure to tie things together.  I've been through dozens of CRM systems, 'simple' databases, personal assistants,  wikis and anything else which might give me the structure I need.

In many cases I'm sure the software would do so - if I could spend the time to learn how to use the service before I apply it.  The situation (to me) is a little like my wanting to saw timber and being given a square piece of sheet steel and the instructions for making a saw.  I don't want to learn a new skill,  I want to cut wood now!!

I know Evernote could do the job for me,  and once the data gathering is complete,  it might wind up there.  But meantime I need to avoid duplications,  carry out quick searches and apply some formula-based calculations.  I'm managing with Excel (don't ask) but there really should be a better option out there.

If you're involved with spreadsheets I do commend Airtable which is a spreadsheet that thinks it's a database - but for display purposes (and my project needs a public face) some of Airtable's layouts are definitely Duplo rather than Lego.  I need the output to be informative and to look at least professional,  even if I don't particularly care for the style.

Sorry:  that got a bit ranty and well off topic!

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I don't think there's such a thing as 'off topic'. Well, there is, but the joy in life is finding connections between things that seem unrelated. You're lucky that you know what you want to do. Hunter S. Thompson says something that touches on this... 

'A man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires)... No one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company...'

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       I've cut that into an excerpt that now makes no sense at all, and it probably illustrates the very opposite of what I wanted to show. It's like with drawing -- if I draw an eye in the wrong place, I spend the rest of the drawing trying to make it look like I meant to do that. I suppose that's why it's good to know what you want to do first, and then look for the tools to do it. You are not being tool-led. Others may find a saw, so they become a carpenter. I suppose it's quite wonderful to be able to do that.

I liked Pong, and would still play it if it were here.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 

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