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Editing in iOS has some real problems - even basic selecting text doesn't work well

douglerner

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douglerner

douglerner 17

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I had written up a draft for a forums post in Evernote on my Mac. I thought I would work on it on the train today on my iPhone. It turned out to be unbearable to do in iOS!

It was taking forever simply to correctly select the text I wanted, or to move the insert point around.

After about 20 minutes I gave up, selected all the text, copied it and pasted it into the default iOS 9 Notes app.

In Notes, all the selecting and editing problems went away. It works fine there! So I know it must be possible.

I realized then that Evernote is simply awful for note taking and editing in iOS. I can't believe how cumbersome it is, and how badly basic editing features work in iOS.

My hope is that Evernote takes a look at this problem.

 

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bounce 74

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I've gotten to the point working around various limitations of the ipad to where my workflow is pretty good. However, tapping the screen in Evernote, hoping one of the next 20 taps will select text and not make the cursor jump to some random position in the note are a regular occurrence. Additionally, bold, italic, copy/paste, or moving text around an already existing note has to be one of the most frustrating computer experiences in current day. I rely on and champion Evernote a lot, but this has to be fixed.

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Stuartboldt

Stuartboldt 0

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Hello.

Has there been any official response from evernote on this? i have struggled for years with the ios version's text editor - mostly a typing lag so bad as to make it unusable - up to several seconds to register that a key has been pressed.

it seems to me that with so many people experiencing issues in a very specific area of the ios app, there should be some evernote support response. what is the community advice here? is there something i can read that will explain what the issue is and how to mitigate / workaround? or should i raise a new support ticket myself and post the responses here?

periodically i look into upgrading my ipad, thinking that might be the cause but who am i kidding? this is text we're talking about, i am typing it now at high speed with no lag in another app. i have just selected some text from the middle of this, copied it, and pasted it with no problem. selected this to be bold, this to be italic. again, no problem.

text editors are easy - they might get diffifcult if, every time you type something, you go off and try and reference what is being typed to an ever expanding database - if that was what was happening, maybe that function should be switchable in preferences. just a thought.

please community, respond, and i will do what i can, and post it here. that's what this is for. and if we don't get any joy, escalate. and repeat until we do. hopefully evernote support gets worn down before i do.

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dantek

dantek 25

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On 06/03/2017 at 9:44 AM, dantek said:

Evernote is terrible in selecting text - especially in large notes.

Recently I've had a new problem where I hold down on some text to start selecting it - and it randomly jumps up about 3 pages and selects some other text instead! Maddening! I have to move around the note trying to find somewhere where it will select properly - and then drag the selection points to the bit I actually want to select.

I seem to have found a workaround for this which works most of the time.

If you tap on the text first - ie. to place the cursor, then the keyboard pops up. If you then press and hold to start selecting text, it seems to stay in the right place.

If you press and hold while the keyboard isn't up - it jumps around to some other part of the text.

Any updates...or even a response/comment Evernote?

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bounce

bounce 74

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Please give the editor some more attention. When in editing mode, I get freezes (sometimes crashes ) for up to 30seconds at a time where Evernote becomes unresponsive and I can’t bold or highlight.. This is on any ios device I use: 2015 ipad pro, 2017 10.5 ipad, iphone 7 plus. Also, most of my notes are text only and it happens whether they are medium size, or 25 page notes.

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dantek

dantek 25

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Evernote? Anybody looking at this? Reported in Feb 2016 - and still the same!

Can someone look at this please? Is this the same for everyone on iOS? Anyone else getting this - please vote it up / comment so we can see if we can attract Evernote's attention to get this fixed!

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For me, selecting text and formatting in ios (latest ipad pro/ios 11 beta) is getting a lot better. That said, the editing is one area of Evernote that still needs a lot of work compared to peoples’ expectations. I’ve no doubt more and more people are going to be using the ipad as a laptop replacement once ios 11 drops and they will expect to be able to do painless basic editing. Please put some extra love here. Thanks

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WRZim

WRZim 35

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Just tossing in my 2¢, I have the same issues and find myself using other apps for typing and note taking and then trying to bring it in to Evernote later for the organizational aspect. 

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dantek

dantek 25

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Agreed too!

Evernote is terrible in selecting text - especially in large notes.

Recently I've had a new problem where I hold down on some text to start selecting it - and it randomly jumps up about 3 pages and selects some other text instead! Maddening! I have to move around the note trying to find somewhere where it will select properly - and then drag the selection points to the bit I actually want to select. This is going to drive me away from Evernote - such basic text editing should just work!

This particular problem only started a couple of weeks ago I think so may be a recent update issue, or could be just my large notes I guess. I have large notes with indented text - and seems to be when I try to select any of the text that is indented.

iPhone 5s - latest iOS and Evernote versions. No problem with other iOS apps like OneNote....

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Raine

Raine 1

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I agree with Windows/Mac platform. I have used Evernote in both although I'm a Linux/Mac user. No problems on a Mac platform, but reading the format or editing from IOS is just plain ludicrous, Evernote don't tell me its IOS/Mac/other platform issue. Just read the myriad of frustrating posts from your users using all types. You'd think they want to keep a loyal customer base? It doesn't matter, I started using OneNote and find it highly useful. Even though I'm not big on Microsoft. I'm done with the elephant. 

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DTLow

DTLow 5,736

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2 hours ago, Raine said:

I have been GIVEN a years worth of free premium membership but formatting and editing in Evernote is extremely frustrating in IOS.

My experience is that getting the full value of membership requires using the Windows/Mac platforms

Even the web platform has limited functionality

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JMichaelTX

JMichaelTX 4,117

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13 hours ago, CreativeLogics said:

Well Apple want the iPad to replace macs, but with crappy apps like Evernote it's not gonna happen any time soon. 

IMO, Apple wants you to buy BOTH an iPad and a Mac, which I have done. :o

The poor design of Evernote on the iPad is solely due to Evernote's abilities.  There are lots of other great apps on the iPad.

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DTLow

DTLow 5,736

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12 hours ago, CreativeLogics said:

Well Apple want the iPad to replace macs, but with crappy apps like Evernote it's not gonna happen any time soon. 

I think Apple wants you to use the Apple Notes app

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Charlie1122

Charlie1122 1

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I found this post after googling the issue that I have with Evernote on iPad. My manager suggested that I download Evernote so that when I'm in the field, I can create a simple report by snapping some photos and adding explanatory text underneath each photo.

 

This was a nightmare to deal with. I have a simple naming convention for my photos, which requires that I alter the text slightly each time: "Project_Location", where "Location" is different for each photo. I eventually got the cursor to select the text I desired, and pasted my text block 10 times. I then went to edit the Location in each text string, and was unable to select text in the middle of the name. The cursor was unresponsive, jumped around, and was overall extremely frustrating. Eventually I found that I could select this text my tapping around the screen until the cursor became responsive, then hold down my finger until the magnifying glass pops up, after which I could select and delete the text, one character at a time.

 

Finally, the cursor jumped to a random place right before I took a photo, which placed my new photograph in the middle of a sentence. After a couple minutes of standing in the heat and playing around with selecting the picture I was able to cut and paste it in the correct location.

 

I cannot believe this product continues to be downloaded and used. It was one of the most frustrating experiences I have had with any kind of iPad software. Apple should seriously reconsider having this app be available for download; it was such a frustrating experience that it made me like my iPad a little less.

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OMNIZEN

OMNIZEN 86

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On February 22, 2016 at 1:48 AM, douglerner said:

I had written up a draft for a forums post in Evernote on my Mac. I thought I would work on it on the train today on my iPhone. It turned out to be unbearable to do in iOS!

It was taking forever simply to correctly select the text I wanted, or to move the insert point around.

After about 20 minutes I gave up, selected all the text, copied it and pasted it into the default iOS 9 Notes app.

In Notes, all the selecting and editing problems went away. It works fine there! So I know it must be possible.

I realized then that Evernote is simply awful for note taking and editing in iOS. I can't believe how cumbersome it is, and how badly basic editing features work in iOS.

My hope is that Evernote takes a look at this problem.

 

Yep. There it is.

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douglerner

douglerner 17

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My experience was different here in two regards:

1. I was using portrait mode the whole time.

2. The problem seemed to be limited just to Evernote app editing. When I copied the text and pasted it into default Notes then editing there was just fine.

I was on an iPhone though. Not sure if that matters.

 

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dsattler

dsattler 0

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I had the same problem with selecting text on my iPad, not only in evernote but in several other apps as well.
I've finally found out that there is a bug - probably in iOS itself - in selecting text if you use the iPad in landscape mode. If you switch it to portrait mode this annoying bug vanishes immediately and you are able to select text again!

I hope that helps a bit but I will upvote this anyway, cheers.

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DTLow

DTLow 5,736

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On February 22, 2016 at 1:48 AM, douglerner said:

Evernote is simply awful for note taking and editing in iOS.

 

23 minutes ago, CreativeLogics said:

It's like they just don't care about it. 

If you post a specific feature request under a separate topic, it can be voted on and perhaps get more attention.

They have shown some IOS improvement.
There's just been a new release - see https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/94487-evernote-for-ios-711-7111-released/?do=findComment&comment=398564 
It even has additional keyboard shortcuts ( sore point for those of us without external keyboards)

I'm trying to be patient for the editor to get better.

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