DISQUS

Dan Kaplan · 1 year ago

Evernote is on its way to great, but for it to truly be a killer app for me, I want it to extract the data on print materials I photograph and allow me to attach it to other material.

Best use case I can think of here is business cards. IBM's Penseive app looks like it may will do this if they ever get it into production: you take a picture of a business card, it recognizes it as a business card and pulls all the vitals off of it (name, phone number, address, e-mail) and lets you tag that info with a picture of the person.

Would work the same way with receipts. Extract the dollar amount and place where expense was incurred, etc. All sorts of possibilities there.

Evernote has the momentum and I think it could take Penseive head-on.

Zee · 1 year ago

Dan, no doubt - all you've mentioned would/will be awesome...I am certain all that will come but I'm still getting used to multi-platform apps combined with webapps & loving every minute of it.

bogart · 1 year ago

You could try pairing Evernote with Scanr http://www.scanr.com/ which turns images taken with your mobile phone into pdfs. If Evernote adds OCR for pdf (I'm sure they will) this could be a great solution, although it does seem that Evernote should just OCR any text it comes across, whether in a pdf or image.

I like Evernote, but do not use it that often because of no client for Symbian S60 smart phones. They have the nice-looking iPhone client, but I think it is a mistake not to have one for the Nokia nseries, eseries, and other S60 phones. This is the type of app that people with S60 smartphones could really use!

ELH · 1 year ago

I am liking Evernote [Mac + iPhone user] more every day. I've found myself using it for many of the things you outline. I would also like to see note editing on the iPhone and the ability to tag a note with a reminder of some sort [SMS/Email notification].
ELH

BlueCockatoo · 1 year ago

I finally broke down and bought the upgrade. I'm in the process of uploading 100's of mbs of PDFs and a bunch of notes I've collected in other places up. It's incredibly useful but here are some improvements I'd like to see:
Ability to search PDFs (OCR them)
Thumbnails for PDFS
The ability to change views in the Windows client so notes are small blocks like on the web
The ability to drag-select multiple notes in the web client
The ability to one-click select all notes displayed on the web client (and one-click deselect)
The ability to enter a title on a new note on the Windows client without opening the "list view" and right-clicking.
Support for other file types (specifically zip and Word as you suggest)
The option to use a markup editing system like Textile or MarkDown instead of the RichText editing (which gets in my way).
The ability to type tags in instead of having to drag and drop them... look at Del.icio.us's model for adding tags through it's browser bookmark tool.
I'm sure there are more but all of those have been on my mind tonight!

abbashaiderali · 1 year ago

Great tips!
http://blog.abbashaiderali.com/2008/08/get-more...

mrshl · 1 year ago

Evernote's incredibly well done and has tons of features. But it's still not optimized for handling basic text. Even though its Web-based version recently added rich text editing, neither the Web version or the Windows clients allows you to use simple keyboard shortcuts (e.g., ctrl-B, ctrl-I).

And there's too much friction in the editing process. Why do I have to click "edit" just to edit something? I want to click in a text field and start typing. I want to be able to click on a note and type new tags directly into the tags field.

Evernote is loaded, but it's not fast. It misses the mark on the most basic features: editing my texts and tags. I hope it gets better. But until it does I'm sticking to OneNote and Google Notebook.

QaTSeL · 1 year ago

hım yes..

Mark Stosberg · 1 year ago

If this article seems a little too over-the-top enthusiastic to you, it could be because it's written by someone from a Public Relations agency, who could have well been hired by the company whose service is being reviewed. (I'd be happy to be wrong here).

A balanced review of any service like this would take a hard look at what it means to store so much of your data in the hands of a single, remote corporation.

i48998 · 1 year ago

Evernote is too bulky for local install, too limited with free account (check the limitation of clips in your account) and too restricted for multiple text selection clipping.

Clipmarks.com wins hands down, and it has for long.

seiju · 1 year ago

and the linux version?

Gabriel · 1 year ago

I have an EEEPC from Asus, with Linux (Xandros). A pair of months ago, I wanted to test Evernote Web Clipper, but then I couldn't because there wasn't Linux version of the extension for Firefox. But a month ago they released it, and I could try the extension. Cool! It works well, and let's me stay in touch with my virtual content, which is growing fast.

google notebook user · 1 year ago

no RTL support. too bad :(

Aviva Gabriel · 1 year ago

Why not just use Scrapbook, the Firefox extension? It instantly stores URLs, web pages, whole websites, a wide range of file types (including audio, video, and graphics). Capturing online content requires only a "right-click" of the mouse, or a quick drag of the URL into one of the Scrapbook folders you've created in a sidebar. To create notes (from web content or your own content), right-click in Firefox for the source code. Cut and paste into a new Scrapbook note. Save - and then view in HTML. You can capture widgets and videos with Scrapbook notes, too. Once saved, they'll be functional. All of your Scrapbook content is stored as non-proprietary files in your Mozilla/Firefox/Profile ... or you can specify any additional or alternate locations of your choosing, anywhere on your hard drive. Unlike Onfolio (which basically died once Microsoft bought it), you can go into Scrapbook folders and retrieve the original content in its native file format. The program requires virtually no learning, is completely intuitive, works from your browser toolbar or sidebar, requires no lengthy manipulations to capture, and is super-speedy. The program is stable, and the creators are updating and improving the Scrapbook extension as often as weekly, but certainly monthly. Scrapbook has been around for many years, and is not likely to be orphaned any time in the foreseeable future. It's cared for by very attentive parents! So why fiddle around with all the clumsy idiosyncrasies of Evernote?

Gabriel · 1 year ago

Yes, I use Scrapbook and it's good. But it's no online. Evernote is about moving online! We could discuss about getting "online" with your data, but I believe computer life is moving that way.

weisen · 1 year ago

Not to pick on English, but this is such a fine post that it's a shame that the first sentence (probably due to typos) makes almost no sense at all.

Matt · 1 year ago

Seems like a solution in search of a problem. I've had the app for awhile, it's clever and well-done and easy to like, but I find it duplicative of other, simpler methods and, to be frank, an unnecessary inconvenience. I haven't found a single use for it.
Bookmarking - Foxmarks syncs my bookmarks automatically across all platforms, INCLUDING Linux. I never have to do anything, it's taken care of.

Random Picture Archive - I never need this, but my phone has plenty of these on it and I always carry my phone.

Collate all your mails - IMAP does this better than Evernote could.

PDF store - Huh? I can view PDFs on my phone or any computer, hardly ever carry them around, but already can in phone, computer or online memory. What is Evernote adding to the game here?

Serial and PINS - call me old-fashioned, but I will never store my PINS, passwords, etc. online.

Receipts - I've never needed to search through receipts...even if I had them scanned and searchable, I'd still need the actual receipt, what shop or place will be pleased to see a printout of a receipt that could have been faked? I keep important receipts in a physical file, this will never change.

Code snippet library - Huh? I'm no coder, but if I were, I doubt I'd need Evernote to pull down a snippet of code that I couldn't get another way, maybe faster.

Takeaway & Delivery menus - Are you kidding? You only ever order takeout from home/office, and you have the physical menu right there. I can't imagine using an iPhone or small screen to view snippets of a menu online is going to be faster, easier or more convenient than simply looking at the real menu.

Instant Message Store - I will never need this.

Inspiration - just use cellphone pics.

Recipes - this is silly, I can't imagine the situation where people want to cook something but don't know how, then one person whips out a device and displays a recipe onscreen to save the day. The internet, cookbooks and shopping lists have this covered.

Paper notes - I guess it might be nice for a researcher to scan in paper notes, but it's pretty hard to do with a cellphone camera, it's all blurry and you have to spread it all out etc. Probably, the person would still want to keep the paper notes, too. If you need online or searchable notes, you're better off just typing them into some other app.

Business cards - even if you do photograph business cards to have a searchable db ( you should probably do it in privacy, or people will think you're a nut), they're still not entered into your contacts, so you'll have to type them in later anyway. Do that and sync your contacts to your devices. What does a cloud app add to this?

And so on.

I want to like this app, but really, it doesn't do anything I need or make my life or actions easier, faster or better.

I'm keeping the app and always trying to find a use for it, but so far, it is just sitting there doing nothing.

svartling · 1 year ago

Great article. Too bad Evernote is to slow on the iPhone 3G. I've just changed my GTD system from Evernote to GTDInbox because of that.

Richard · 1 year ago

I agree with all the above, but BIG surprise, evernote cant transform PDF to Text ! I mean text2pdf.dll is available, so why not use it, at least locally.

sXe · 12 months ago

thanks a lot

araç sorgulama · 10 months ago

love Evernote -- App, Web and Mobile, its just a very smart implementation

bilo · 9 months ago

matt can't find a single use to need a web clipping app with some belles and whistles? It my experience, most people were having trouble finding these sorts of programs that DIDN'T rely on online.. thankfully this has both, but most have settled on scrapbook..which aside from photo text searching (which could very well be next) and having to manually sync (i.e. copy the scrapbook folder back and forth) and not being able to access this on an iphone (that i know of) I don't see the advantages. Also it doesn't have a built in voice note recorder.. so what we have to use another program and then embed the file (which is the only pain as you can only embed or link files over pre-existing text (thus making a hyperlink where you don't really need one -- then inserting a caption to point it out and remind yourself why..that could be alot neater)

Otherwise, Scrapbook can do all this stuff and it is blazing fast... too fast almost -- it's hard to make myself go back and maintain the stuff.. but when i do it's a rather enjoyable process.

billy · 6 months ago

Evernote 3 is a nice app... but it's a major downgrade from EverNote 2.2 (note the big N). And I do mean a MAJOR downgrade. I personally don't own or use a Mac, a desktop, an iPhone and so on. So I'm not the right 'target' for the new direction Evernote has taken.

I'm happy to use EverNote 2.2 which is simply brilliant and years ahead of any other app available anywhere (yes including Evernote 3, which is perfect as far as synchronization goes, otherwise it's just ok and far from brilliant).