Evernote Business Doesn't Allow Public Notebook Links

[War Eagle 37]

I have to confess I'm very confused as to why the new release (6.0.2) doesn't allow for creating a public link to a BUSINESS notebook?

 

I see that they had initially removed the ability to create a public link for a PERSONAL notebook and then amid a hue and cry from disgruntled users, they decided to restore that function. However, it is IMPOSSIBLE (as far as I can tell!) to create a public link to a BUSINESS notebook. This makes no sense. Why on EARTH would the ability to create a public link to a BUSINESS notebook be less important than a public link from a personal notebook?

 

Let's say I'm a business person who writes articles and I want to create a single repository for my clients and colleagues to read those articles. I'd create a public link from a BUSINESS notebook. 

 

Or perhaps I'm a teacher and I want to share information with my students and have THEM be able to share it with their fellow students or teachers. I'd create a public link from a BUSINESS notebook. 

 

Or perhaps I'm a chef and I do local cooking classes and in those classed I pass out a flyer that says, "For more recipes and images of my food, just check out my Recipes Notebook!" I'd create a public link from a BUSINESS notebook. 

 

 

As a business person, I want to share information pertaining to BUSINESS in a BUSINESS notebook. I don't want to commingle business and personal notebooks. It renders the concept of "personal" and "business" notebooks moot. If I have to commingle notebooks simply because I can only publicly share ONE type of notebook, then why even have business and personal notebooks?  

 

AGAIN I ASK, do the EN developers actually USE the product themselves or even care how their paying customers use it? 

 

[Steve Ganz 0]

I have the same basic concern - I have a series of curated articles that I want to share with my clients via a link to a specific notebook - why am I not able to do this?

 

As a possible option - what happens if I share a public link to a notepage (which happens to be the table of contents with links to all of the other pages), would people be able to click the TOC titles and go to all of the notes listed on the TOC page?

[gazumped 11,652]

If you're a business account user,  you also have a personal Premium account.  If public links don't work from that premium account,  you would be able to set up another account - premium or free - from which to share.  Right-click the notebook or note and choose 'share' and 'modify sharing' to see the public link option.  I do think the TOC option is a good way to share notes - you're circulating your subscribers with one URL rather than dozens,  and if you update that page they'll be able to see new links when you add them.  All pages you share will have to have the appropriate permissions though,  otherwise subscribers will get 'page unavailable'.

[Steve Ganz 0]

So are you saying that this is NOT available any longer in the Highest Priced Business version of Evernote and I need to move this notebook back to a premium or free account to do this?  That is a bit bizarre.

 

Also - I did try sharing just the TOC page with someone and while they could see it just fine, if the person tried to click on any of the links, it prompted them to log into their Evernote account (which he does not have).  I want to be able to share this notebook/set of articles with anyone, whether they have an Evernote account or not - will moving this Notebook to a Premium or new free account allow for this?  Is it easy to move a notebook over to my Premium or new free account?

 

Again, this just seems ridiculous if it is in fact not allowed in the Business version (which is where most people would probably want to use it).

[gazumped 11,652]

I have to confess I'm very confused as to why the new release (6.0.2) doesn't allow for creating a public link to a BUSINESS notebook?

 

I'm not saying it's not available - the OP is.  I don't know - I'm a premium user and I have full access thanks.  I am suggesting if you want and need to do this,  you should be looking at all available options - especially the free ones.

 

All pages you share will have to have the appropriate permissions though,  otherwise subscribers will get 'page unavailable'.

 

Yup.  All notes have to have the correct sharing rights.

 

If you want to be able to share these notes to view in a browser,  then a public link is the only way to go;  that comes up in a browser.

[Steve Ganz 0]

OK - so I have now moved my 53 articles to a new notebook in my Premium Account and I am able to share it - but now I have a different question.  When people open the link - https://www.evernote.com/pub/sganz/jobhuntersnotebookbyuspublishingjobs.com#st=p&n=5a5d497c-7a06-493c-b9ab-afb67f54e563- it shows all of the notes in the notebook, but I would like for the note titled * Table of Contents to be at the top and it is not for some reason.  In my Evernote desktop, I have it set to sort based alphabetically so that this page shows at the top, but it seems it is not keeping that sort order when others open it on the web (but I don't know what order it is keeping - but it seems to be based on Date Created) - is there a way to change this when it shows up in web viewing?

 

Any suggestions?

[Steve Ganz 0]

FYI - I did get *Table of Contents to the top by creating a totally new note today and copying and pasting the old TOC info to this new page - but I would like the rest of the pages to be in alpha order as well.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

FYI - I did get *Table of Contents to the top by creating a totally new note today and copying and pasting the old TOC info to this new page - but I would like the rest of the pages to be in alpha order as well.

 

Getting the order right is tricky (and shouldn't be), but there is a way. See Step #2.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=1724

[gazumped 11,652]

Chris has laid it out elegantly above - I'd only suggest that for everyday sharing you don't necessarily want your subscribers seeing the bare Evernote notebook layout;  if you created a Table of Contents,  you can list the notes in your required order in the TOC.  Put links in each note to jump bank to the home page / on to the next page,  and you have your audience locked into your presentation order.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Chris has laid it out elegantly above - I'd only suggest that for everyday sharing you don't necessarily want your subscribers seeing the bare Evernote notebook layout;  if you created a Table of Contents,  you can list the notes in your required order in the TOC.  Put links in each note to jump bank to the home page / on to the next page,  and you have your audience locked into your presentation order.

 

Exactly. As long as the first note is the TOC and you have links back to it (a kind of navigation bar at the top and/or bottom can be added) everything works beautifully. Users will go to that first note and won't have to worry about navigation at all.

[chinarut 29]

@War Eagle,  I love your use cases, amen!

 

Also - I did try sharing just the TOC page with someone and while they could see it just fine, if the person tried to click on any of the links, it prompted them to log into their Evernote account (which he does not have).  I want to be able to share this notebook/set of articles with anyone, whether they have an Evernote account or not - will moving this Notebook to a Premium or new free account allow for this?  Is it easy to move a notebook over to my Premium or new free account?

 

I feel you @Steve, you hit on pretty big pet peeves of mine - one of the nicest things about the old public notebook interface was the ability to click around notes like you were navigating through pages of a wiki.  I had my hopes up earlier this year when Postach.io said they would be open to addressing the interlinking issue by translating links to inter-post links.  Well, it's Nov 2015, they are not responding to this matter, and sad to see they haven't implemented what could possibly been a decent replacement for public notebooks (and maybe their path to being acquired by Evernote!)

 

And if you haven't figured out it out already, note links get broken as you move notes back and forth between accounts and personal and business notebooks.  I would be fine with a personal notebook workaround if it wasn't for corrupted note links when I convert the notebook into a business notebook later.  The note link issue has been discussed here.

 

At the end of the day, I agree wholeheartedly that businesses have plenty of reasons to share their notes with those outside the organization.   It shouldn't be much different from the way permissions are handled with Google Drive and there are plenty of proponents for creating a commons, a place for all our publicly shared notes - this is how we learn, as a community, from each other!   Forums can only take us so far ;-)