Do you use Evernote to save book highlights?

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

I pretty much can't read a book without Evernote these days.  My workflow is as follows:

 

1. Create a tag for the book title/author
2. I select that tag from a tag search so that any new note I create in that window is automatically tagged.
3. Start reading my book.
4. If it is an ebook, I make highlights and then take a screenshot of the page(s) I wish to use in creating my note.  I may highlight two or three things on a page(2) and I like to read the highlight in context of what's around it so that is largely why I use screenshots.
5. I go to EN and create a new note.  I select the photo(s) of the screen(s) I just took.
6. Title the note in the form of a question (a question that is answered by the highlight(s)).

 

Once I set things up with steps 1-2, I only need to repeat steps 4-6 each time.  As long as I don't spend too much time writing the note title, it generally takes me about 30 seconds to create a note from these screenshots. I used to create separation notebooks for each book, but I will eventually hit the limit on notebooks so I stopped that and switched to tags.

 

The really cool part in my system (I think) is the use of screen shots and stating my titles in the form of a question.  While I don't usually pick up books and thumb through all the highlights I make, I do look at these EN notes and the questions I write often provoke me into revisiting these highlights.

 

Do you use EN for saving book highlights?  I'd like to hear!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Yes I do, but almost all of my reading is via Amazon Kindle, using the Mac and iPad Kindle apps.

Kindle allows you to make both highlights and notes, and these are automatically uploaded to the Amazon Kindle web site.

From there I can use the Chrome EN web clipper, or copy/paste, to get these into Evernote.

[Analyst444 182]

I read a fair amount of non-fiction. When I do, I typically takes notes. To be clear, I almost always put all of my notes into 1 EN Note. The title of the EN Note is the title of the book and the author. I also get a copy of the cover of the book and paste that at the start of the EN Note. The notes I type into EN are largely free-form. I precede each by the page number (or Kindle location #), in case I want to go back to that page for more context or refer someone to a specific page in the book. When there are images in the book that I want in my notes, I copy them with whatever process is most convenient, which is typically dependent on the source. I haven't used EN Tags for this application and, so far, EN's search function has always found what I was looking for.

 

I like your idea of highlighting text in an ebook and screen-shotting that into EN. I've logged that one away for future use.

[semobill 16]

Yes I do, but almost all of my reading is via Amazon Kindle, using the Mac and iPad Kindle apps.

Kindle allows you to make both highlights and notes, and these are automatically uploaded to the Amazon Kindle web site.

From there I can use the Chrome EN web clipper, or copy/paste, to get these into Evernote.

That's why I enjoy this forum!!!  I have been reading books on a Kindle almost since they came out.  I often highlight passages or lines.  I had no idea they were saved on the Kindle site.  I just logged on and, sure enough, they were right there.  Another new use for Evernote.

Thanks, JMichael!!!

[Wordsgood 526]

Rocket J. Squirrel...love the username!

[chirmer 567]

I used to take digital notes when reading books, but now that I almost exclusively read e-books, it's inconvenient to flip back and forth from the book to Evernote. Now I've gone a bit old-school and hand-write all of my book notes. I use my Midori Traveler's Notebook and have an insert for my commonplace book, and all book notes go in there. Once I fill the insert (they're 64 pages each) I scan it into Evernote, which then does its OCR magic. I scan the whole book as one document, starting with the Index. That way, when I open the note, I know exactly which page I need to go to to find the notes. If it's a book series, or a book I particularly loved, I'll create a tag for it so I can pull together all materials I save regarding the book(s), besides just my notes and quotes. I've found the research stating it's easier to remember things you hand-write completely true, even with my love of Evernote and doing things digitally. So my rule of thumb has shifted from "Use Evernote for everything" to "Use Evernote to store and retrieve, but hand-write anything with which I want to interact."

[Frank.dg 1,385]

For quite some time I've been annotating PDF ebooks as I read, directly in Evernote - especially books on productivity.

 

Evernote creates PDF summaries for you at the beginning of the PDF, where you can tap/ click on individual annotations and go to that exact annotation in the PDF. 

 

Some books I've bought are not available in PDF format... so if I want to convert MOBI or EBUP documents to PDF, I use an online converter and then pop the resulting PDFs into Evernote. I'm not sure whether this contravenes copyright law, but in many cases I feel I would be missing out on having the content of those books searchable within Evernote itself.  

 

Highlighting "technical" books in iBooks seems kind of flat to me now. I prefer iBooks on iOS for novels.

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

Wow.  A lot of interesting responses.  I started writing a blog on reading with Evernote (www.readingwithevernote.com) a couple years ago, but then I got tied up with an Evernote app I'm writing.  Here is a post I wrote on why I like to save screen shots of my highlights and save those into EN.  The switching back and forth and creating the whole note takes less than 30 seconds, all in.  Anyway, here is the post:

 

http://www.readingwithevernote.com/reading-with-evernote-blog/2013/11/10/the-great-kindle-highlighting-work-around

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@Rocket:

 

Thanks for sharing.  I see your point, and the benefit of using screenshots of highlighted pages.

 

But I also like having all my Kindle highlights/notes together in one place.  I guess it depends on how one uses highlights, but for me the highlights are like a summary of the key points from the book.  So when I make a highlight I try to make sure I include enough text to put it in context.  Of course, sometimes this is not possible, so after the main highlight, I backup in the book for enough to highlight the context.  Not perfect, but it generally works.

 

Also, one really cool feature of getting the highlights from the Kindle web site is that it includes a link to the page in the Kindle book where the highlight is located.  One click and it opens up Kindle app on my Mac, loads the book, and goes to that page.

 

So, I can see a use for both approaches:

In my Evernote Note for the book, I can store:

1. At the top all of the highlights/notes from the Kindle web site
2. Below that, screen captures of individual pages I think are important

Of course, I am collecting #2 in EN as I read.  Then, when finished, pull #1 and put at the top.

 

Great discussion all!  I'm learning a lot here.  Thanks.

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

I used to take digital notes when reading books, but now that I almost exclusively read e-books, it's inconvenient to flip back and forth from the book to Evernote. Now I've gone a bit old-school and hand-write all of my book notes. I use my Midori Traveler's Notebook and have an insert for my commonplace book, and all book notes go in there. Once I fill the insert (they're 64 pages each) I scan it into Evernote, which then does its OCR magic. I scan the whole book as one document, starting with the Index. That way, when I open the note, I know exactly which page I need to go to to find the notes. If it's a book series, or a book I particularly loved, I'll create a tag for it so I can pull together all materials I save regarding the book(s), besides just my notes and quotes. I've found the research stating it's easier to remember things you hand-write completely true, even with my love of Evernote and doing things digitally. So my rule of thumb has shifted from "Use Evernote for everything" to "Use Evernote to store and retrieve, but hand-write anything with which I want to interact."

We are practically the same person, except I used the Nanami Seven Seas Writer journal with Tomoe River paper:  

http://www.nanamipaper.com/products/seven-seas-writer-a5-journal-notebook-tomoe-river-2nd-edition.html

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

Wanna see something cool?  Check this out:

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1569318899998578&set=a.1569318896665245.1073741832.100007614491008&type=3&theater

 

What you are looking at is three of my Evernote notes.  The larger note on the left is linked to the other two notes on the right (actually, if you swiped the screen it would show you a bunch of other notes that are connected to the note on the left).

 

What this all about?  When I highlight something, it's because I'm making a connection between what I'm reading and something else (something else that just popped into my head).  Anyway, I wanted a quick and easy to save connections like that and then retrieve those connected notes when I want to see them.

 

It's a work in progress, but it's pretty cool.

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

Here is one more thing that might be of interest:

 

http://www.readingwithevernote.com/reading-with-evernote-blog/2014/2/26/highlights-and-questions

 

I used to save all my highlights into evernote with the title of the note being the highlight's location in the book.  That method has its uses.  But then I started titling my notes with provocative questions to myself that the highlight answers.  I tag all the notes with the Book title & author's name.  And then I use Evernote's feature to create a table of contents from all those notes.  What I'm left with is one note with a lot of very provocative questions I wrote to myself.  And every time I see one of those questions I think, "Wow, I have an answer to that?"  And then I tap on that question and voila!  There's the answer.  Not sure if I've described that well enough here, but read the blog post and it should make better sense.

[Wordsgood 526]

Now that is a truly outstanding idea! I've been using EN in a sort of related way to help with memory issues for important things I can't afford to forget, but it never occured to to use it quite that way in regards to my reading notes. Thank you!

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

Now that is a truly outstanding idea! I've been using EN in a sort of related way to help with memory issues for important things I can't afford to forget, but it never occured to to use it quite that way in regards to my reading notes. Thank you! You just made another bibliophile a very happy girl!

Is that your blog?

Yes, that is my blog.  I'm afraid I had to discontinue postings to work on another Evernote project, but I promise you, when that project is complete you will be able to have your favorite authors talking to one another!

[Wordsgood 526]

Glad to hear that! And I've Evernoted it so I don't forget.

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

@Wordsgood,

 

If you have more stuff saved on Evernote than you can possibly remember (more than 500 notes) and if you regularly use Evernote to store book highlights (as you obviously do), you'd be a great candidate for a beta use, if you are interested.  For my first ten users I need folks that I can talk to for 20 minutes at a time after they have used the program a good bit and can tell me what they like or don't like.  Look at it as your opportunity to get the program you want.

 

I will ship out Crusoe to beta users in the next month or so.  If you are interested, let me know.

 

Doug

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

I read a fair amount of non-fiction. When I do, I typically takes notes. To be clear, I almost always put all of my notes into 1 EN Note. The title of the EN Note is the title of the book and the author. I also get a copy of the cover of the book and paste that at the start of the EN Note. The notes I type into EN are largely free-form. I precede each by the page number (or Kindle location #), in case I want to go back to that page for more context or refer someone to a specific page in the book. When there are images in the book that I want in my notes, I copy them with whatever process is most convenient, which is typically dependent on the source. I haven't used EN Tags for this application and, so far, EN's search function has always found what I was looking for.

 

I like your idea of highlighting text in an ebook and screen-shotting that into EN. I've logged that one away for future use.

I used to use the same method as you do, but I stopped.  I stopped because I ended up with these long notes that I had to read through each time.  And each time I read through them a quote that I might have thought was great six months ago doesn't mean much to me today.  But why the change?  When I first underline something I do it because it connects to something else i know.  Maybe the thing I underlined confirms a suspicion of mind, or maybe it's a great example of something else another writer wrote about.  

 

So then I started making each highlight a separate note.  At first I put book locations in the titles so they would present themselves in an ordered way; the way they would if I were to thumb through the book.  

 

But then I started titling the notes with questions the highlight answers.  See here.  Then I would select all those notes with questions as titles and form a very engaging table-of-contents-note.

 

But now I'm taking it to a whole other level.  Now, if I read a line in Grapes of Wrath, for instance, that connects directly with a passage from the book of Daniel, I simply link the two passages.  Now I don't see one passage without seeing the other.  You can kind of do that with EN notelinks, but it's a lot of work and just takes too much time.  I use Crusoe to do that, and I can do it in seconds.  It has totally changed the way I read and remember books.  It's like perfect recall.

 

I'll have it ready for beta testing in a few weeks.  Let me know if you have any interest in being a beta user.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Quick question: does Crusoe interact only with iBook/ kindle highlights... or are we taking about your app integrating with Evernote as a 3rd-party app, mining your book highlights in Evernote?

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

Quick question: does Crusoe interact only with iBook/ kindle highlights... or are we taking about your app integrating with Evernote as a 3rd-party app, mining your book highlights in Evernote?

It integrates with Evernote as a 3rd party app.  Technically, ebook highlights have nothing in particular to do with it.  That just happens to be how I use the program (and it was a big part of my impetus to develop it).

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Thanks @Rocket

 

Very quickly, what do you make of Mohiomap: https://www.moh.io/mohiomap/welcome.php

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

I used Mohiomap for a bit, but even though it seems the same it's quite a bit different. 

 

At one point in time we knocked out a similar bird's-eye mindmapping representation of links.  Here I was, the designer of this thing, holding it in my hands, and I said "oh man, I would never use this." 

 

I have never liked mind maps. There is so little information conveyed about each note on the screen, all I can really say about what I am seeing is, "Okay, there's a note, and there are all all the notes I have connected to it."  And then I have to start opening each note to see what it is and figure out why I connected them.  You really have to do it this way because there isn't enough real estate on a screen to show you what each of these notes are.  In Crusoe, you see so much of each note that you can quickly identify them, and make a decision about which direction you want to go without having to open them. 

 

A Mohiomap is a map of your forest of notes.  Crusoe puts you in the forest where you see pathways of connected notes.  The experience of looking at a map of a forest is completely different from the experience of walking through a forest.  After testing both I went with the experience of being in the actual forest and walking through it.

 

All that said, I think Mohiomap is very cool.  If Crusoe takes off I can see making both experiences available to users in the future.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

A Mohiomap is a map of your forest of notes.  Crusoe puts you in the forest where you see pathways of connected notes.  The experience of looking at a map of a forest is completely different from the experience of walking through a forest.  After testing both I went with the experience of being in the actual forest and walking through it.

 

Love the analogy! You'll have to put it on your promotional page somehow... without bashing Mohiomap, that is    

[Wordsgood 526]

Hi. I just responded to you in a private message. ☺

@Wordsgood,

If you have more stuff saved on Evernote than you can possibly remember (more than 500 notes) and if you regularly use Evernote to store book highlights (as you obviously do), you'd be a great candidate for a beta use, if you are interested. For my first ten users I need folks that I can talk to for 20 minutes at a time after they have used the program a good bit and can tell me what they like or don't like. Look at it as your opportunity to get the program you want.

I will ship out Crusoe to beta users in the next month or so. If you are interested, let me know.

Doug

[DutchPete 247]

When Crusoe is out of beta & ready for the public @ large, will you put a post out about it on the EN 3rd party app discussions forum?

 

@Wordsgood,

 

If you have more stuff saved on Evernote than you can possibly remember (more than 500 notes) and if you regularly use Evernote to store book highlights (as you obviously do), you'd be a great candidate for a beta use, if you are interested.  For my first ten users I need folks that I can talk to for 20 minutes at a time after they have used the program a good bit and can tell me what they like or don't like.  Look at it as your opportunity to get the program you want.

 

I will ship out Crusoe to beta users in the next month or so.  If you are interested, let me know.

 

Doug

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

 

When Crusoe is out of beta & ready for the public @ large, will you put a post out about it on the EN 3rd party app discussions forum?

My plan is to post something on 3rd Party app discussions very soon as I search for my first 10 beta users.  And then, of course I'll post again when it is out of beta stage.  I'm looking for people who have, say, 500+ notes in a variety of fields: general readers, students, lawyers, and especially some people who use EN to manage large volumes of images or anything not text-based.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

I'm looking for people who have, say, 500+ notes in a variety of fields: general readers, students, lawyers, and especially some people who use EN to manage large volumes of images or anything not text-based.

 

 

I have a comic strip database comprising 25,000+ notes , the search for which depends on Evernote's OCR.

[Rocket J. Squirrel 43]

 

 

Frank, I assume I can get in touch with you through a web address on your website?  Or of course through private message here.  Anyway, I will be in touch.  Look forward to signing you up!

[Frank.dg 1,385]

@Rocket,

 

I sent you a PM 2 days ago with my details :-)

[DPGOodall 0]

There is another way!  

 

I just found this Chrome Extension that links your Kindle Notes / Highlights with your Evernote account - and will sync your notes so you dont have to do the copy/paste thing anymore!

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kindle-to-evernote/pladggfjokblfifapjnjgbjaknfmmpga?hl=en-US

 

 

[DPGOodall 0]

There is another way!  

 

I just found this Chrome Extension that links your Kindle Notes / Highlights with your Evernote account - and will sync your notes so you dont have to do the copy/paste thing anymore!

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kindle-to-evernote/pladggfjokblfifapjnjgbjaknfmmpga?hl=en-US