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The Benefit of Using Tags


JMichaelTX

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GM.

 

You are correct I could do that.  

 

However, I find it easier to have a shortcut to the tag Statement and then remember to type Wells Fargo until the tag appears.  Just don't want to have to remember multiple streams of numbers.  Plus I'm entrenched, what can I say.    :)

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GM.

 

You are correct I could do that.  

 

However, I find it easier to have a shortcut to the tag Statement and then remember to type Wells Fargo until the tag appears.  Just don't want to have to remember multiple streams of numbers.  Plus I'm entrenched, what can I say.    :)

 

No problem. Do whatever works for you! But, just to clarify, you don't have to remember anything. You don't even have to type the tags. In fact, you don't every have to do anything again. Just set up the saved search one time (copy/paste those numbers), and Evernote will do the rest. Like I said, enjoy whatever system you like. But, don't underestimate the power of saved searches.

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GM,

 

I do use saved searches but it's safe to bet I don't have nearly as many as you.  

 

End of the day I would still have to remember the name of the search, be it numbers or something else.  Frequency of use says that's something that will disappear from my short term memory in the short term.  FWIW.

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Not disagreeing with your choice, but just clarifying here for other users. You can name the saved search whatever you want, and you don't have to do anything with them. You can click on them or not. It doesn't matter, and there isn't anything to remember. 

 

Statement: Bank

Statement: Mortgage

Statement: IRA

 

And, if you decide you want tags after all, you select all of your notes in the saved search and apply the tag. It takes two seconds. So, there is nothing lost here by not committing to tags. This is what I have been trying to emphasize from the beginning of the thread. There is no danger involved in not using tags. If you use the search effectively, you probably won't even need tags or notebooks, but if you decide you want them later, the entire system is easily adapted to the new tag and/or notebook system. FWIW.

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Uncle.  My preference is the other side of the fence.  Same feeling as you, don't disagree with you choice, just not for me.  

 

It should be clear to anyone reading this topic from the beginning that there is no RIGHT way other than the one that works for you.  Fortunately the tool has the capability to support many methods.

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The rewards of using Tags from the beginning are great. The cost of not using tags may turn out to be great. There is little cost to using Tags from the beginning.

I have been using Tags since day one. And to be honest, I kinda figured it was "what I was supposed to do". It has been so engrained in me that i can not imagine not using them. I am now over 2000 notes, and about 40 SPECIFIC tags. I guess what i a saying, is if you are new to EN, may i suggest learn to use tags. Even if it is simple one word like mom, dad, work, girlfriend, family, church..etc. your use of tags will increase over time.

I also believe that set your tags either singular or plural. Not both. Books vs Book etc.

Heck, i even have a tag called scottl, because i enjoy reading his responses on the forums.

Ya'll have a nice weekend...

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As far as keyword searches go, could someone explain the difference between tag:keyword and intitle:keyword?  Other than the note title looks a little funky?  All IMHO.    :)

"tag:keyword" only searches note tags for tag names beginning with "keyword"

"intitle:keyword" only searches note titles for words beginning with "keyword"

A standard search of  "keyword" searches all of note content, note tags and note titles for words beginning with "keyword"

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Sorry Jeff, I was being facetious.  An attempt at humor, the the two are the pretty much the same to me.  One is a tag the other is a "tag" in a title.  Functionally a rose is a rose....

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Sorry Jeff, I was being facetious.  An attempt at humor, the the two are the pretty much the same to me.  One is a tag the other is a "tag" in a title.  Functionally a rose is a rose....

You asked a simple enough question that refers specifically to well-defined search terms in Evernote that do different things. Hence the specific answer. Tags are not titles in Evernote, nor are they treated the same way. Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but I don't know how it could have been answered any other way.

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Sorry Jeff, I was being facetious.  An attempt at humor, the the two are the pretty much the same to me.  One is a tag the other is a "tag" in a title.  Functionally a rose is a rose....

They are functionally very different.

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Sorry Jeff, I was being facetious.  An attempt at humor, the the two are the pretty much the same to me.  One is a tag the other is a "tag" in a title.  Functionally a rose is a rose....

You asked a simple enough question that refers specifically to well-defined search terms in Evernote that do different things. Hence the specific answer. Tags are not titles in Evernote, nor are they treated the same way. Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but I don't know how it could have been answered any other way.

 

A rhetorical question.  When one reads this thread it is obvious that there are strong opinions as to tags or not.  My point, I thought in a not so subtle way, was that for all the passion entering "keyword" into a title, or using a tag called "keyword" and then searching respectively are inherently the same abstract functionality.  Create a hook, search the hook.  So just use whichever method makes you happy.  IMHO.  I've selected tags, don't make it right.

 

I would add a smiley face here, but it didn't seem to help last time, sorry for that.  Attempts at humor inappropriate on this board, operative word attempts?

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Okay . . .. I have been sitting on the sidelines until the right moment to add my two cents worth. I figure 6 pages into the thread is about the right point for me to jump . .. .

 

Tags are awesome!

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Sorry Jeff, I was being facetious.  An attempt at humor, the the two are the pretty much the same to me.  One is a tag the other is a "tag" in a title.  Functionally a rose is a rose....

 

Cal, your point was clear to me.  Whether you put a keyword in a Tag or in the Title, the fundamental purpose is the same, although the technical use within Evernote is different.

 

You have a LOT more ease of use and flexibility when you put the keyword in the Tag.  Auto-completion of Tags and changing of the Tag name for all Notes are just two examples.

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Sorry Jeff, I was being facetious.  An attempt at humor, the the two are the pretty much the same to me.  One is a tag the other is a "tag" in a title.  Functionally a rose is a rose....

 

Cal, your point was clear to me.  Whether you put a keyword in a Tag or in the Title, the fundamental purpose is the same, although the technical use within Evernote is different.

 

You have a LOT more ease of use and flexibility when you put the keyword in the Tag.  Auto-completion of Tags and changing of the Tag name for all Notes are just two examples.

 

 

Ease of use & flexibility of tags, sometimes . I don't use tags but only keywords (with or without combined with short codes like "ap" for apartment, "dj" for daily journal, ...) in the titles & find that the intitle search works well for me. Furthermore, I use Saved Searches extensively & have not felt the lack of actual tags.

Auto-completion for tags can be useful, I admit, as can the changing the tag name of a batch of notes. But how often does one need the latter?

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A rhetorical question.  When one reads this thread it is obvious that there are strong opinions as to tags or not.  My point, I thought in a not so subtle way, was that for all the passion entering "keyword" into a title, or using a tag called "keyword" and then searching respectively are inherently the same abstract functionality.  Create a hook, search the hook.  So just use whichever method makes you happy.  IMHO.  I've selected tags, don't make it right.

There are salient differences: Evernote will help you manage tags a lot more easily than manually editing titles (via auto-completion lists), and for some clients, you can tag multiple notes at one go, which is not applicable for titles; on the other hand, most clients won't let you sort note lists by tag, but all can sort by title. All things considered, people should use what works for them, of course. But let's not pretend that  keywords in titles and tag keywords are equivalent. Similar abstract functionality, sure, but in actual practice, they're used and managed differently in Evernote.

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A rhetorical question.  When one reads this thread it is obvious that there are strong opinions as to tags or not.  My point, I thought in a not so subtle way, was that for all the passion entering "keyword" into a title, or using a tag called "keyword" and then searching respectively are inherently the same abstract functionality.  Create a hook, search the hook.  So just use whichever method makes you happy.  IMHO.  I've selected tags, don't make it right.

There are salient differences: Evernote will help you manage tags a lot more easily than manually editing titles (via auto-completion lists), and for some clients, you can tag multiple notes at one go, which is not applicable for titles; on the other hand, most clients won't let you sort note lists by tag, but all can sort by title. All things considered, people should use what works for them, of course. But let's not pretend that  keywords in titles and tag keywords are equivalent. Similar abstract functionality, sure, but in actual practice, they're used and managed differently in Evernote.

 

Agreed, never said they were equivalent, just that the act of searching was equivalent.  Hence my personal preference for tags based upon my own reasons, which include your and JMichael's reasons for sure, as well as the processes I like to use when I work within EN, which I think is more the crux of discussion here.

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What's also nice about tags (I don't recall this being mentioned in this particular thread yet, but for the sake of it being a great repository of tag information I wish to repeat it), is your tag structure sits on top of your notebook structure. So, if you have to have say, a shared notebook with your spouse where all notes both of you need sit, tags still let you organize that content with the rest of your Evernote account. If you were organizing by notebook, you might have a Finances notebook, a Movies notebook, etc. but have to keep track of what's inside these versus your shared notebook, which would have it all lumped together. Using Tags lets you sort your note content above Notebooks, so no matter where stuff is stored, you can have your own, consistent, sorting structure. A finance tag will pull up all financial information, no matter the notebook, whereas a Finances notebook shows you all finances, except those that could potentially be scattered across a plethora of shared notebooks.

 

At my workplace, we have about 10 shared notebooks we use for a variety of subjects across departments. We all sort content via tags, but do so in our own way, so we have one note in each shared notebook that the notebook creator tags with all the tags people want to use to tag content in those notes (since in Shared notebooks, you can only tag notes in that notebook with tags already in use there). That way, we can tag how each of us is comfortable, as opposed to having to stick to one specific structure. A notebook-based structure (or even a title keyword based structure, to a lesser extent) doesn't allow this flexibility.

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What's also nice about tags (I don't recall this being mentioned in this particular thread yet, but for the sake of it being a great repository of tag information I wish to repeat it), is your tag structure sits on top of your notebook structure. So, if you have to have say, a shared notebook with your spouse where all notes both of you need sit, tags still let you organize that content with the rest of your Evernote account. If you were organizing by notebook, you might have a Finances notebook, a Movies notebook, etc. but have to keep track of what's inside these versus your shared notebook, which would have it all lumped together. Using Tags lets you sort your note content above Notebooks, so no matter where stuff is stored, you can have your own, consistent, sorting structure. A finance tag will pull up all financial information, no matter the notebook, whereas a Finances notebook shows you all finances, except those that could potentially be scattered across a plethora of shared notebooks.

 

At my workplace, we have about 10 shared notebooks we use for a variety of subjects across departments. We all sort content via tags, but do so in our own way, so we have one note in each shared notebook that the notebook creator tags with all the tags people want to use to tag content in those notes (since in Shared notebooks, you can only tag notes in that notebook with tags already in use there). That way, we can tag how each of us is comfortable, as opposed to having to stick to one specific structure. A notebook-based structure (or even a title keyword based structure, to a lesser extent) doesn't allow this flexibility.

 

When you use EN privately you could do away with most notebooks because, as you rightly say above, by using tags it does not matter where (i.e. in which notebook) the searched notes sit. And a note can have multiple tags but can sit in 1 notebook at the time only.

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Am I understanding Chirmer's point: Is it true that the only tags that can be assigned to a note in a shared notebook be from within the notebook owner's account?

I have also run across this challenge in my efforts to collaborate with colleagues through a shared notebook. If someone else starts and shares a notebook with me, then I can't assign my tags to notes in this notebook. Is this correct? If the owner assigned tags that I provide to one note in the notebook, would I then be able to assign this tag to other notes in the notebook?

How does Evernote business deal with this difficulty?

Since I use tags to categorize notes in several ways (topics, projects, pending actions) I would like to be able to assign my own tags to notes that are shared with me. Since I can't do this, I can't integrate notes from notebooks shared with me by others into my knowledge base. Have others dealt this challenge?

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Am I understanding Chirmer's point: Is it true that the only tags that can be assigned to a note in a shared notebook be from within the notebook owner's account?

I have also run across this challenge in my efforts to collaborate with colleagues through a shared notebook. If someone else starts and shares a notebook with me, then I can't assign my tags to notes in this notebook. Is this correct? If the owner assigned tags that I provide to one note in the notebook, would I then be able to assign this tag to other notes in the notebook?

How does Evernote business deal with this difficulty?

Since I use tags to categorize notes in several ways (topics, projects, pending actions) I would like to be able to assign my own tags to notes that are shared with me. Since I can't do this, I can't integrate notes from notebooks shared with me by others into my knowledge base. Have others dealt this challenge?

 

I don't know what the workarounds are, but this has been a sore point with me ever since shared / joined / regular notebooks got lumped together a couple of years ago. At one point, I had joined about 80 notebooks and I was quite pleased with them, but all of the sudden my account was flooded with thousands of tags. In my opinion, the Mac interface isn't really designed to scale up very well, so I ended up just leaving all of the notebooks. What would happen if you could assign tags to the notes? What a mess -- the same note would have multiple tag systems, and if you are a heavy tag user, then i don't know a good way to navigate that.

 

This isn't a weakness with the concept of tags, really, but rather a weakness in the implementation. Now, if you could "turn off" (delete?) the original tags and assign your own, that would be great (if such a feature exists, I am unaware of it). I am not sure why we can't, to be honest, but my guess would be that the engineers would have to sort things out in the background. Hopefully, they'll get it done. In the meantime, I'd do a minimal amount of tagging if you are sharing notebooks with someone, I'd make a kind of "table of contents" of tags (a real pain to do, I am afraid), and I'd ask the other person what tags whey'd like to apply.

 

Personally, I tend to use note links when I share notebooks (see the link to my public notebook in my signature).

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.

Am I understanding Chirmer's point: Is it true that the only tags that can be assigned to a note in a shared notebook be from within the notebook owner's account?

I have also run across this challenge in my efforts to collaborate with colleagues through a shared notebook. If someone else starts and shares a notebook with me, then I can't assign my tags to notes in this notebook. Is this correct? If the owner assigned tags that I provide to one note in the notebook, would I then be able to assign this tag to other notes in the notebook?

How does Evernote business deal with this difficulty?

Since I use tags to categorize notes in several ways (topics, projects, pending actions) I would like to be able to assign my own tags to notes that are shared with me. Since I can't do this, I can't integrate notes from notebooks shared with me by others into my knowledge base. Have others dealt this challenge?

I don't know what the workarounds are, but this has been a sore point with me ever since shared / joined / regular notebooks got lumped together a couple of years ago. At one point, I had joined about 80 notebooks and I was quite pleased with them, but all of the sudden my account was flooded with thousands of tags. In my opinion, the Mac interface isn't really designed to scale up very well, so I ended up just leaving all of the notebooks. What would happen if you could assign tags to the notes? What a mess -- the same note would have multiple tag systems, and if you are a heavy tag user, then i don't know a good way to navigate that.

This isn't a weakness with the concept of tags, really, but rather a weakness in the implementation. Now, if you could "turn off" (delete?) the original tags and assign your own, that would be great (if such a feature exists, I am unaware of it). I am not sure why we can't, to be honest, but my guess would be that the engineers would have to sort things out in the background. Hopefully, they'll get it done. In the meantime, I'd do a minimal amount of tagging if you are sharing notebooks with someone, I'd make a kind of "table of contents" of tags (a real pain to do, I am afraid), and I'd ask the other person what tags whey'd like to apply.

Personally, I tend to use note links when I share notebooks (see the link to my public notebook in my signature).

I have noticed this flood of outside tags as well. Does this happen when individual notes are shared or just for shared notebooks. Can you sat more about how you use note links to integrate shared notes?

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Tags are nonsence, a good directorystructure works perfect to find what you are looking for.

 

BTW Blackberry's update gave me Evernote; I have no idea what kind of trash this is, but it seems to be some ***** like a cloud-drive to store files you need access too where-ever you are. I am using OneDrive and Google-drive fot that purpose. I don't see any added value of Evernote.

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Tags are nonsence, a good directorystructure works perfect to find what you are looking for.

 

BTW Blackberry's update gave me Evernote; I have no idea what kind of trash this is, but it seems to be some ***** like a cloud-drive to store files you need access too where-ever you are. I am using OneDrive and Google-drive fot that purpose. I don't see any added value of Evernote.

 

To make a comment like this about tags & notebooks (Evernote does not have any directories) shows that you are completely ignorant of what Evernote is all about.

Furthermore, if you are using OneDrive & Google Drive to your satisfaction, that is good for you. But there is no need to add your non-value adding comments here if you don't use Evernote anyway. You are just spamming the communication lines.

So, goodbye, over & out.

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  • 2 months later...

Tags are nonsence, a good directorystructure works perfect to find what you are looking for.

 

BTW Blackberry's update gave me Evernote; I have no idea what kind of trash this is, but it seems to be some ***** like a cloud-drive to store files you need access too where-ever you are. I am using OneDrive and Google-drive fot that purpose. I don't see any added value of Evernote.

 

 

I actually swapped from Microsoft's OneNote to Evernote recently, which meant copying loads notes over. This took a lot of time but was well worth it. I swapped for two features - sorting and tags. Originally I got Evernote and I also used OneNote, Wunderlist, and a few other similar apps or features on apps. However I overestimated OneNote and underestimated Evernote and used the former for a lot of stuff. Now I have ditched OneNote completely. I still have a few things in Wunderlist but everything new goes in Evernote. I do use Google Drive a bit, for a very few docs I need to be able to keep in there. It's quite good since they incorporated Docs into it. I mainly use it for my CV which I need to send as docx. 

 

The great thing about tagging and sorting is that you get a lot of different ways to find something, or a group of things. For instance you could tag things with a feature or attribute which cuts across the main categories of notebooks and stacks completely. 

 

If I was a student for example, I would keep all my course notes in Evernote and tag extensively. This way you can find an attribute which may fall under various main topics. 

 

For other people a tag might be a star rating, urgency/importance, or a thousand other things. 

 

This way you never need to worry about finding anything, or which notebook to put something in. For example if I look at my tag 'CV' I see two notes, but they are in different notebooks. One is in 'Interviews' and the other is in 'Skills'. Basically any note that refers to CVs can have a CV tag, no matter what it's main category (notebook/stack) is (a stack is a group of notebooks).

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At the end of the subject line of the email you can add a notebook and tags.  @ designates the notebook, # designates the tags.  For example

 

Subject of the email @notebook #tag1 #tag2 #tag3 will create a note from the email in notebook with 3 tags.

 

Buyer beware, if anything is mis-typed it will become a part of the note title.  Other than that it works great.

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At first I tried to use tags extensively. But eventually I almost cease to use them to organise notes. Why?

  • If there so many tags that separate tags search is required to find the one you need, search by tag and entering tags become quite cumbersome.
  • There is no way in general case to guarantee that notes that have to have a tag do have it. With a notebook you can't forget to assign a notebook, with a tag you surely can.

So in general case with tags you can't trust tags to find all notes you need and have to use search for that. And if you going to search why bother with tags at all?

 

I, being an organisational freak, can't give up easily and sometimes I still use tags. My tags looks like this:

  • Very few very general tags I do remember, like "iOS" and "CPP". They are useful to sort out notes in notebooks like my notebook "programming notes".
  • To mark notes with a very specific meaning like a project I work on or a theme I research (the tag "theme: implementing Oracle Streams setup" is a real example)
  • I use some home-brewed templating mechanism to creates notes sometimes. And sometimes I set a tag in the template itself to mark the fact a note was created that way. It's automatic and reliable.

In this cases tags proved to be useful and working OK.

 

Mentioned above inherent tags problems become worse with IMHO quite bad Evernote interface for tags. In particular due to this I do not use:

  • Hierarchical tags
  • Searches with two (or more :P  ) tags
  • Tags like a way to divide notes in separate groups like notebooks do
  • Tags in shared notebook

In general, over the years I grew more an more reliant on search. Why? I do not have to remember the structure I impose (or think I impose) on my notes.

For this reason I also try to keep number of notebooks to the absolute minimum, not because there is only 255 available.

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At first I tried to use tags extensively. But eventually I almost cease to use them to organise notes. Why?

  • If there so many tags that separate tags search is required to find the one you need, search by tag and entering tags become quite cumbersome.
  • There is no way in general case to guarantee that notes that have to have a tag do have it. With a notebook you can't forget to assign a notebook, with a tag you surely can.

 

 

Did you know that you can search for multiple tags at once using the Search box?

For example:  tag:iOS  tag:Update

 

Also, if you want to find all Notes without a Tag:

-tag:*

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Did you know that you can search for multiple tags at once using the Search box?

For example:  tag:iOS  tag:Update

 

Also, if you want to find all Notes without a Tag:

-tag:*

 

 

Yes, of course I know. The point is, this is so inconvenient that I don't ever use it. If so, then why bother with systems that will require me to search by two tags?

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  • Level 5

 

 

Did you know that you can search for multiple tags at once using the Search box?

For example:  tag:iOS  tag:Update

 

Also, if you want to find all Notes without a Tag:

-tag:*

 

 

Yes, of course I know. The point is, this is so inconvenient that I don't ever use it. If so, then why bother with systems that will require me to search by two tags?

 

 

Inconvenient? Not for me. Works fine.

 

Why bother with two tags? More accurate search results.

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Did you know that you can search for multiple tags at once using the Search box?

For example:  tag:iOS  tag:Update

 

Also, if you want to find all Notes without a Tag:

-tag:*

 

 

Yes, of course I know. The point is, this is so inconvenient that I don't ever use it. If so, then why bother with systems that will require me to search by two tags?

 

 

Inconvenient? Not for me. Works fine.

 

Why bother with two tags? More accurate search results.

 

Well, if it works for you, it works for you.

For me it doesn't work.

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Well, if it works for you, it works for you.

For me it doesn't work.

 

Well, I suppose there is a trade off between a MINOR inconvenience with more accurate results, and slightly less typing with many false positives.

 

That's one of the great things about Evernote is that each of us can choose what works for best for him/herself.

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Well, if it works for you, it works for you.

For me it doesn't work.

 

Well, I suppose there is a trade off between a MINOR inconvenience with more accurate results, and slightly less typing with many false positives.

 

That's one of the great things about Evernote is that each of us can choose what works for best for him/herself.

 

JM,

 

I think you are being kind with the slightly less typing and minor inconvenience.  I store all statements in EN, so <F5><Shift-Alt-T>sta<enter><first letters of comp> brings me all notes containing statements for the company.  Typically it only takes two or three letters to get to the company tag.  

 

For my use case it would be far more troublesome to do a text or keyword search.  I'm pretty sure I said this somewhere in this thread, but I'm not going back through 7 pages to be sure.  No tags.   :D

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I have a checklist note that I copy each time I use - as a template. I want to be able to preset it with tags, which currently don't duplicate when I copy the note. So, is there any way to duplicate tags when I dupliate a note? OR, is there a way to create a tag group and just enter one tag-name to add all the tags in the grouping? 

 

Just to give an idea what I use it for: it's a to-do checklist for new customers/jobs, and there's stages of what needs to get done. So I'd click on SCHEDULE tag (for example) and see who is waiting for an appointment date. I start all of these notes with about a dozen tags, and then X them off as I complete the stages - so having them on the note to start with would be great. 

 

Thanks

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I have a checklist note that I copy each time I use - as a template. I want to be able to preset it with tags, which currently don't duplicate when I copy the note. So, is there any way to duplicate tags when I dupliate a note? OR, is there a way to create a tag group and just enter one tag-name to add all the tags in the grouping? 

On the Windows client, when you copy a note, you get a dialog that gives you a choice of notebook, and also options to preserve tags and preserve created & updated dates. Tags will replicate if you click the Preserve Tags checkbox. They also seem to replicate automatically on the Android client. Can't speak for other Evernote clients.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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The below question came up in another thread.  I wanted to include it here as it is yet another real-world example of how you can easily use tags.

 

 

Besides setting up a notebook for templates and then copying them as needed - much like have a form like a fax cover letter or letter head in word and then changing the file name before using each time -  would it make sense to set up a separate notebook for all my phone call notes, and another for meeting notes etc?

 

 

You could use Notebooks for Phone Calls and Meetings, but you will probably find Tags more useful and flexible.

If it were me I'd create tags "PCall" and "Mtg" (I like brief tags, but you can spell them out if you prefer -- just don't use spaces).

To add some search flexibility you might use a prefix like "Type.".  So you would have "Type.PCall" and "Type.Mtg".  Use any prefix that makes the most sense to you.

I also create tags for people in the form of Peo.FNameLNameInitial.  So for "John Doe", it would be "Peo.JohnD"

 

So, let's examine how this would work for searches:

  • tag:peo.*                          -- returns notes about all people
  • tag:peo.johnd                  -- returns all notes about John Doe
  • tag:peo.johnd  tag:type.*  -- returns all notes for John Does with either Phone Call or Meeting
  • tag:type.pcall                   -- returns all Phone Call notes
  • etc -- this should give you an idea of what can be done

Note that when searching the Tag name is case insensitive.  So that means you can just use all lower case when assigning a tag or entering search expression.  But when I create the tag I use CamelCase to make the TagName more readable.  It's best not to use spaces in Tag Names (and Notebook names) because if you do you always have to enter the name in quotes.

 

Hope this helps.

 
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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted · Hidden by Frank.dg, November 14, 2014 - Marketing post that has nothing to do with tags in Evernote
Hidden by Frank.dg, November 14, 2014 - Marketing post that has nothing to do with tags in Evernote

With the Microsoft Tag solution, you can extend your marketing to mobile phones with just two simple tools: Tag Manager and the Tag app. As a marketer, you can use Tag Manager to create Tag barcodes, QR Codes, and NFC URLs, and run reports showing when and where they’re being used. The free Tag app is the only reader your customers need to scan the most popular 2D barcode formats in market, they don’t have to download and keep track of several readers.

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I found many uses for tags, but here is one...

 

I smoke a lot cigars and frequent many cigar lounges. Each lounge carries a different variety of cigars, some of which are only available at particular lounge. I save a note for each cigar, and then tag it with a variety of tags, such as

 

-favorite

-cuban

-lounge 1

-lounge 2

-lounge 3

-lounge 4

 

etc.

 

So, when walking into lounge number 2 I pull out my Nuxus 5, fire up Evernote, and select saved search of "tag:lounge 2" and "favorite". It will show me a previous smokes that I enjoyed that I know are available at that lounge.

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I'm not sure if this has ever come up but I know something that would make tags infinitely more useful for me.  Not that they are not already extremely useful.  I would like to put selected tags in an outline form.  Of course, they would remain linked to their associated notes.  That would be powerful.

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I'm not sure if this has ever come up but I know something that would make tags infinitely more useful for me.  Not that they are not already extremely useful.  I would like to put selected tags in an outline form.  Of course, they would remain linked to their associated notes.  That would be powerful.

More detail, please? Do you mean that you want nested tags? These exist on a number of clients (Windows and Android, for two).

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Now I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'nested tags'.  What I am looking for is a way to organise my thoughts at the level of tags.  e.g.  suppose I were planning a trip with stops in 10 cities but haven't decided the order in which I would visit them.   Notes with sites, restaurants, hotels, etc would be tagged with the relevant city.  Then, once an itinerary is set, I list the tags in the correct order and the notes follow along. (it would be particularly nice if I could click on the tag and toggle the note view).  

 

In fact my purpose is more complex but this would be a simple example.  

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

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  • 1 month later...

Tags have a lot of benefit for me...

 

I often use very simple tags.. (I dont want to type large words to find things...)

 

Say I have made tags in a notebook for

Presentation as "P"

Debate as "D"

 

If I search P I get LOTS of notes...

If I search D I get LOTS of notes

 

If I search tag:P or tag:D I only get notes that were presentations... Or notes that were Debates within the Notebook... Its awesome for organisation...

 

You can find many uses of tags... Notebooks.... And other uses for non-tagged documents...

 

There are many situations where I have no need to tag something...

There are other times it is VERY usefull...

 

Its a good feature, that you dont have to use if you dont find any benefit...

The power of everNote I believe is that you can chose which tailor made features you would like to use for your organisation... As Evernote grows on you, you find more and more uses for other features...

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  • 3 months later...

Stack:Notebook:Note ... Correct? I'm new...

 

This is correct. 

There is discussion in this exact thread about how you can make some hierarchy within tags, but that is limited too. Evernote's taxonomical scheme is generally considered to be flat, that is, largely non-hierarchical and minimally mutually-exclusive. That doesn't work for all people's workflows or all types of data, but it can work for most. In many cases it takes a lotto tim a(and a bit of persistence) to get accustomed to the flat taxonomy. 

 

You can do more with tags than just search. For example, you could use a single notebook and use the tag view to browse for content. If you have lots of tags this could be cumbersome (and may also point to careless use of tags). This is a pretty radical scheme though. 

 

You can also use tags to compliment your other organizational schemes. For example, I use a "receipt" tag. Sometimes I want to look only at personal receipts. If I were to search

 

tag:receipt

 

I'd get ALL my receipts from household, personal, and work. I want to see only personal so I search:

 

Notebook:personal tag:receipt

 

Alternatively, lets say I want to look for all of the work receipts I have submitted but have not ben reimbursed for:

stack:.Work tag:receipt tag:submitted

 

This searches my work stack (i have just a couple notebooks in there related to two different work contexts), and looks for notes I have tagged "receipt" and "submitted", which I use to indicate any expense I have submitted to have reimbursed. Lets say I was recently reibumrsed for all of those outstanding recieipts, I'd now change the tag to "receipts" and "reimbursed". 

 

 

You can also sort notes by tag in List view. You could create a set of alphabetically organized tags or tags prefixed with symbols that you could apply to notes in a specific notebook which is always sorted by tag to use that as a way of ordering notes in a notebook. 

 

But, long story short: Evernote is not intended for mutually exclusive hierarchical taxonomic schemes, it is intended for a largely flat scheme. This is either something you'll have to learn to work with and take advantage of, or it isn't the right system for you. Thankfully this community is filled with discussion about how to work most effectively with the organizational tools (stacks, notebooks, tags, titles) Evernote gives to you. 

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I use several methods to improve my search results and search accuracy.

 

For tags:

I have many tags and I prefer to keep them grouped, so I use a 2 level tag method (Parent / Child)

 

This gives me fast review and they are easy remember.

 

For instance, my tags for companies use COMPANY for the parent tag and com-xxxxx for the child tag.

COMPANY

com-Apple
com-Aubuchon
com-Blue.Cross
com-Costco
com-IBM
com-Netflix
com-TruGreen

 

None of my notes use the tag COMPANY. It is just a tag place holder to group all my company tags.

I use this method to group other tags into similar categories.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/50676-feature-suggestion-option-for-nested-tags-to-filter-by-parent-tag/#entry251605

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I agree with Jbenson about using multilevel tags. 

 

As I suggested earlier in the thread, I like using the 'parent' portion of the tag for the tag type, i.e. PR (=Project), ST (=student) , TR (=Trip), ZZ (=GeneralKnowledge), etc.  This structure means that my tags are organized by type in the left pane's tag list. I can scroll through this list quickly with a mouse gesture on my mac. 

 

Though it is reasonable to think organizing information in folders hierarchically (e.g. a folder for each project) is a good idea, the literature on personal knowledge organization points out that people often find this strategy problematic when (1) information becomes buried deep within a hierarchy or (2) information naturally belongs in more than one location, e.g. a reference document is used for more than one project.  Things get really hairy when we maintain parallel organizations in self-contained apps such as email. Search helps with this problem, but I think that  a simple mental shift from folders and notebooks to parent-child tags can also be helpful. 

 

As others have pointed out, one powerful feature of Evernote is the fact that many users can use it in ways that match what you are comfortable with. One concern programs like Evernote present however, is whether our “normal” practices remain effective as our collections of notes grows. What strategies and skills will be useful when we have twenty years worth of notes available? Are such collections useful? If so, how will we  “look back” intelligently and what affordances will we need from the application?

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Question: could I use tags for anything else besides searching? Is there a way tags could benefit stacking since Evernote seems to be limited to only 2/deep stacking

Stack:Notebook:Note ... Correct? I'm new...

My twp cents:

 

Use as few notebooks/stacks as possible and create tags that are as easy as possible for you to remember (I have 7 notebooks, 2 stacks, 300 tags and 29k notes).  The power of EN is in searching.  Notebooks/stacks and tags are ways of shrinking the universe of notes upon which the search is applied.  The benefits of that constricted search are few fewer false positives which makes it easier to find something. 

 

Scott's example of receipts is a case in point.  I use an example with statements from banks, utilizes. credit cards, insurance, etc.  I keep all of my statements in EN, mostly in local notebooks, tagged with Statement and a tag for the account, Chase for example.  I can remember Statement and Chase so it is easy to get to those notes.  50 of my tags are account tags which might help explain how I can remember most of the 300 tags without hurting myself.  ;)

 

As I said, my two cents.  I would suggest testing a few methods mentioned to see what works best for you.  Good thing it is easy enough to move things around using the mass change functions of the desktop versions.  Good luck.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 year later...
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2 hours ago, JErnestGo said:

Why use Tags when Evernote's Search Function is powetful? Isnt it Re-work?

Yes, it requires extra work.  
In addition, you lose the tag benefits when working with your data outside of Evernote.  
Some of the experienced EN user's don't use tags, and rely on the search feature.  

Instead of tags, you can use a structured approach to setting up the title.  
An example would be, using a tag Insurance, or using the word Insurance in the title.  
In effect you are using tags, you're just doing them free form. 

I use both systems, but I rely on tags for retrieving data.  
I'm not willing to give up the precise control achieved with the use of tags

I also use tag hierarchy on my Mac to ensure I have a well thought out level of organization

 

 

 

 

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57 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Yes, it requires extra work.  
In addition, you lose the tag benefits when working with your data outside of Evernote.  
Some of the experienced EN user's don't use tags, and rely on the search feature.  

Instead of tags, you can use a structured approach to setting up the title.  
An example would be, using a tag Insurance, or using the word Insurance in the title.  
In effect you are using tags, you're just doing them free form. 

I use both systems, but I rely on tags for retrieving data.  
I'm not willing to give up the precise control achieved with the use of tags

I also use tag hierarchy on my Mac to ensure I have a well thought out level of organization

 

 

 

 

Alright then perhaps it just depends on the user's preferences.

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I agree that tagging a note seems like additional work. This is especially true when using the iOS share function, where tags are chosen by scrolling through a long list. 

But I still use tags to organize my notes (see earlier note). I like that I can associate notes across several notebooks with particular projects, students, or topics. I can return to a project after a long hiatus and see an organized list of relevant notes just as if the project was still active. 

I also use the search box to browse ny notes by keyword, etc.. Very useful.

Evernote has several ways to organize and access notes of different types. I consider that is one of its enduring strengths that makes it worth paying for. 

Enjoy. 

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4 hours ago, JErnestGo said:

Why use Tags when Evernote's Search Function is powetful? Isnt it Re-work?

It is not "re-work".  Proper use of tags minimizes false positives, as noted in the original post of this topic.

Tags can also be used as Pseudo Notebooks , overcoming the major limitations of normal Notebooks.

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5 hours ago, JErnestGo said:

Why use Tags when Evernote's Search Function is powetful? Isnt it Re-work?

Yes, Evernote's search function is powerful, and you might find your search success rate acceptable. But there are ways the search will miss finding what you need. Here are a few examples I've come across in the past few years.

 

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6 hours ago, JErnestGo said:

Why use Tags when Evernote's Search Function is powetful? Isnt it Re-work?

Tags are a good way to group your notes by topics or areas.  For example if you create notes related to your device or operating system a tag like PC.Stuff is a good way to shrink the list of notes when you are looking for something.  But there are folks who don't use tags, so it is very much a personal choice.

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  • 1 month later...

I have been using EN for a number of years and have something like 500 notes but now I am trying, before it gets too late, to build more order. In looking at the discussions (many) about tags and tag hierarchy myself overwhelmed. Many of the discussions are so lengthy I can't find my way back. I noticed that for some reason I began to use colons in the creation of tags. I have a notebook called Health and a tag called Health:diet but I can't for the life of me remember why I did this or what the advantage was supposed to be. My disclaimer is that I haven't used search much, but now I am embarked on a book project. A component will feature anthropology and a part of the anthropological investigations will include "food customs" . What are the advantages to creating a Anthropology:food customs tag as opposed to separate tags, one for Anthropology and one for food customs and attaching both those tags to a note. I realize this may seem remedial but I would like to - again before it is too late - create more consistency. 

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Hi Hebephrene,

I think you used ":" to separate Topics from subtopics in your tags.  I explain how I use this approach (though I use another "-" as my separator) earlier in the thread.  Let us know how your quest for consistency progresses. Good luck. 

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1 hour ago, Hebephrene said:

What are the advantages to creating a Anthropology:food customs tag as opposed to separate tags, one for Anthropology and one for food customs and attaching both those tags to a note.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.  If it works for you, it's all good

Is "food" a specific tag which you might want to reference in other context? If it's specific to Anthropology, I would use a combined tag.  

- You can also use wildcard searches, as in tag:Anthropology*

- Sort sequence is better with all your Anthropology tags appearing together

btw You might want to avoid : as a connector.  ":" has special uses, as intile:xxx searches.  "_" (underscore) would be a safer connector.

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Good questions.  

Using the Topic+sub topic tag system links the subtopic with the topic, Using separate tags would require searching specifying both tags to see 'common' notes. DTLow points out that you can search for all notes within the topic using tag:Topic* in the search box. 

DTLow also brings up an excellent point about separators.  While I do not have experience with ":", I would ADVISE AVOIDING USING HYPHENS (-) within your tag names.  Currently, the mac version of EN does not autocomplete hyphenated tags properly.  This persistent bug will drive you crazy, so use a safer separator, e.g. PERIOD, UNDERSCORE, etc. 

 

jay

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On 4/1/2017 at 2:49 PM, Hebephrene said:

I began to use colons in the creation of tags. I have a notebook called Health and a tag called Health:diet but I can't for the life of me remember why I did this or what the advantage was supposed to be. My disclaimer is that I haven't used search much, but now I am embarked on a book project. A component will feature anthropology and a part of the anthropological investigations will include "food customs" . What are the advantages to creating a Anthropology:food customs tag as opposed to separate tags, one for Anthropology and one for food customs and attaching both those tags to a note. I realize this may seem remedial but I would like to - again before it is too late - create more consistency. 

Actually, that is a great question.  Proper tag design and naming conventions are the key to having a powerful, yet easy to use system.

I'm going to write-up a more comprehensive discussion, but for now let me say this:

  1. Keep Tag names simple, short, and one word
    1. If you must have multiple words, use the form of either MultipleWords or Multiple_Words
    2. Any other form can cause problems or be harder to use
  2. Don't use Compound Tags, like Home_Insurance, Car_Insurance, that can have multiple parent categories
    1. Use individual tags like Home, Car, Insurance
    2. This is easier to use and select, and more powerful.
  3. Use Tag Prefixes as "pick lists" to aid in tag selection in Tag Assignment and Tag Filter blocks
    1. For example, all of my home/household tags have a prefix of "Home."
    2. So I can just type "home." and see a list to pick from, like this abbreviated screenshot:
      .
      Tag-Prefix-Filter-EN-Mac-6.9.2.png.c3a5d0820dc6b4d3d4a5a98823f965a2.png
      .
    3. If I want all of my "home" stuff, I can just use this in the Search: "tag:home.*"
      .
  4. Tag Word Separator
    1. If the tag just needs multiple words to identify, like BlueCross, then I use the CamelCase notation.
    2. If the tag is a compound tag of Parent.Child, then I use the dot (or period) notation.
    3. Another option is Parent_Child, using the underscore.
    4. All of these work very well, and are time-tested for years.  I prefer the first two.
    5. Other separators may appear to work, but can cause you problems later.

More to come . . .

Meanwhile, try a few examples before committing to any one organizational approach.

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