USING EVERNOTE BETTER - Spark Productivity

The Windows/iPad/iPhone Q113 Guide To

USING EVERNOTE BETTER

Author:

Jan Wencel Spark Productivity founder Jan Wencel works with people and organizations that want to do and achieve more — and feel more fulfilled in the process. Helping them to see their inbox in a new light is often a means to that end. Reach her at 312.765.7550 or [email protected]. Jan curated these tips from the Evernote Knowledge Base. Since Evernote is continually improving the functionality of their platforms, some of the tips may no longer work as described. Rest assured, the functionality is in there somewhere…and then some!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS: Capture

4

Access

10

Find

12

Please Note: This document is written for an Evernote Windows/iPad/iPhone user who is already familiar with Evernote’s basic functionality, but would like to delve deeper. If you are newer to Evernote, we encourage you to visit these resources before proceeding:
https://evernote.com/getting_started/ (evernote overview)
https://evernote.com/evernote/guide/windows/ (windows desktop guide)
https://evernote.com/evernote/guide/web/ (web guide)
https://evernote.com/evernote/guide/ios/ (iPhone/iPad guide)

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Chapter 1

CAPTURE

Add an important email to Evernote via your desktop and Outlook. Reference the email by signing into the web platform when at a colleague’s desk. Pull the email up on your phone in a meeting. Evernote constantly updates all of your computers and devices with the latest version of your notes.

There are various ways to capture thoughts you want remembered via Evernote. You’ll find each has unique advantages. To fully engage with the tool, ensure the following platforms are activated:
Desktop platform by downloading Evernote for Windows from evernote.com/evernote
WebClipper  For the IE user, by right clicking in IE after downloading the desktop platform and choosing “Clip to Evernote” to start clipping and to add a clipping button to your toolbar  For Chrome and FireFox users, by downloading add-ons starting from evernote.com/download  “Evernote Web Clipper”  For the iPad and iPhone user, by following instructions at http://lorenzocaum.com/blog/how-to-install-evernote-webclipper-on-the-iphone-and-the-ipad/
iPhone by downloading from App Store
iPad by downloading from App Store
Web platform by logging in at evernote.com

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Using Evernote Better

Send EMAIL to Evernote. After downloading Evernote for Windows onto your PC, you’ll find Evernote integrated into Outlook for easy sending. Either access it from the inbox menu or from the message menu…

Once clicked, a screen pops up to allow you to change the title, assign tags, and designate the notebook. The best part is, the attachments go along for the ride— displaying page one of the attachment with easy access to subsequent pages…

When you’re not in the Outlook environment, you can send email via a unique email address assigned by Evernote. To retrieve the address, go to settings in the Web platform and save the email address at the bottom of the account summary tab. Use the subject line to designate information in this order: note title, notebook (use the @ symbol), tag (use the # symbol). For instance: Florence accommodations @Travel #Italy. Save the email address in your contacts for easy reuse.

Send EMAIL via Evernote. In the desktop and mobile platforms you can send notes via email. Within the sharing menu, choose email. To send multiple notes, use Ctrl+Click to deploy "Email“ among other choices. The body of the email will contain the contents of all of the notes, listed sequentially and separated by their respective titles.

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Using Evernote Better

Clip WEB content. After downloading Evernote Web Clipper onto your PC (and/or your mobile devices), you’ll find it integrated into your browser for easy clipping.

Select a page or highlight a section and then click the clipper to trigger a screen to allow you to change the title, designate the notebook, assign tags, and add comments. Choose from clip article, clip selection, clip full page, and clip URL options. The best part is, most links go along for the ride when you select clip full page. Continue browsing knowing Evernote will upload your clipped pieces in the background. Click the notes field to see all the pages you’ve clipped from the domain you’re currently visiting as well as browse your entire Evernote account.

In the options, enable your Evernote account to be simultaneously searched when you search Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The number of Evernote results are displayed as a badge and in the results.

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Using Evernote Better

Save DOCUMENTS. You can save documents into Evernote by dragging them onto the Windows or Chrome interfaces. You can also attach them using the familiar paperclip icon. Both free and Premium subscribers can attach any type of file to a note. The only limitation is that attached files cannot increase the size of a note beyond the per-note size limit: 25MB for free users and 100MB for Premium users.

UPDATE documents. You can update images, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets using Evernote's Live Update feature (only via the desktop version). Right-click on a file within a note and choose "Open With," then the application you want to use to modify the file. Once you've made the desired changes, save it using the application's "Save" option. Evernote will automatically be updated with the latest version of the file. (Please note, these steps do not update the file on your computer.)

Create AUDIO notes. You can create audio notes in the iPhone and iPad mobile applications. From the "New Note" screen, tap the microphone icon at the top of the note editor.

This will begin the recording. Once you're finished, tap the Stop button. Then you can either tap Save to add the clip to the new note, or Discard to discard without saving. If there is no other data, the audio clip can be 2 hours long for free users and 4 hours long for Premium users.

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Using Evernote Better

AUTO IMPORT documents. In the vein of DropBox cloud synchronization and storage, you can create AutoImport folders in Evernote for Windows to allow for automatic synchronization of files to Evernote, in whichever notebook you specify, in its own note.
On your PC create a new folder and call it "Add to Evernote"
In Evernote for Windows, select, “Import Folders..." from the Tools menu
Click "Add" in the resulting window


In the folder chooser dialog, browse to the "Add to Evernote" folder you just created and click "OK"
If you want Evernote to also import items within folders that live inside "Add to Evernote", change "Subfolders" to "Yes"
If you'd like to change the notebook to which your imported content will be added, click the name of the notebook and select a different notebook from the dropdown list
By default, Evernote will keep (not delete) items that it imports from Import folders; if you'd like files to be deleted from "Add to Evernote" after they're imported into Evernote, click "Keep" and choose "Delete" from the dropdown list Evernote supports the creation of multiple Import folders, so if you want certain types of files to be added to a specific notebook, you're able to create a sufficiently capable system of Import folders. ●●●

CAUTION: Some users have reported unexpected behavior (e.g., the repeated import of the same file) in Import folders on Windows computers that run automatic backup or anti-virus software. For best results, Evernote recommends your backup software and anti-virus applications be configured to ignore any Import folders you've created. ●●●

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Using Evernote Better

Save IMAGES. Things you want remembered often come by way of image. Be it a business card, wine bottle label, parking lot identifiers, or the white board after a strategic meeting, Evernote stores them all and applies magical benefits. Ways to add images:
Attach them to email messages sent to Evernote
Drag them from your desktop or the web into the body of a note
Take photos using your iPhone/iPad camera
Configure your scanner to scan directly into Evernote
Access Evernote Helper screenshot clipper from your system tray near the system time; click anywhere to capture the full screen; use the crosshairs to select a portion Their servers use optical character reading technology to index text within images and make it available for search. After your images are processed, legible text becomes searchable. (Text found in PDFs is only searchable for Premium account users.) Best practices for increasing legibility:
Carefully write with your best penmanship and save handwritten notes as jpgs
Start with a clear, readable image or PDF
Set your scanner to 300 DPI, as more is excessive and may cause performance issues, and to "black and white only" for text-only documents
Set your camera to .5-2MB, as larger images will not yield better indexing UPSIDE DOWN? To rotate an image, rightclick it and choose Open With  Windows Photo Viewer (or Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, depending on your version of Windows). Using the curved arrow buttons at the bottom of the window, rotate the image to the desired orientation. Choose "Exit" from the File menu. Your image will now appear rotated in Evernote.

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Chapter 2

ACCESS

These shortcuts yield Evernote power in a snap: Ctrl + N = create new note Ctrl + Shift + N = create new notebook Win + PrintScreen = start screen capture Esc = cancel screen capture Win + Shift + F = start a new search Ctrl + Shift + S = create a new saved search F2 = rename Ctrl + K = add hyperlink

One of the superpowers of Evernote is in its ability to constantly and seamlessly synchronize your notes across all your computers and devices and the web.

Evernote for Windows will automatically synchronize your notes with Evernote on the Web every few minutes, but you can manually sync any time by clicking the "Sync" button.

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Using Evernote Better

SHARE notes and notebooks. Evernote provides many different ways to share notes and notebooks. The share menu allows for sharing a note by email (a feature commonly used for sharing with people who don’t use Evernote), by social media outlet (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn), and by URL (allowing you to share any note virtually anywhere using a unique URL generated by Evernote).

Evernote for Windows supports sharing notebooks as well as reading and tracking notebooks that have been shared with you. Notebooks shared by Premium users have the option of being editable by the users with whom the notebook is shared. Users can link shared notebooks to their account so their local copy is updated whenever the notebook's owner adds or changes the contents. If you've shared a notebook—either publicly with the whole world or privately with a select few users—and you decide you'd like to stop sharing that notebook, the users with whom the notebook is being shared will receive a notification in their desktop applications that the notebook is no longer shared with them. The notebook itself, however, will remain in the user's Shared tab, and the user will still be able to view (as well as edit, if they were given permission to do so initially) the contents of the notebook. The notebook will not sync any changes made once it is no longer shared. A popular means of collaboration using Evernote is to attach a file (for instance, a spreadsheet) to a note in Evernote and share the notebook with a coworker or colleague so that both of you can edit the same file. Using the Live Update feature, you can open the file from within Evernote and Evernote will automatically save any changes made to the file. Note this feature is only available in the desktop version.

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Chapter 3

FIND

Everything in Evernote is searchable. The contents of notes, tags, attachments, and even typed and handwritten text inside attached images. Premium users can also search inside PDF files.

Cleverly, every note in your Evernote account can be assigned Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates. These coordinates are expressed as a set of numeric values: latitude, longitude, and altitude. Adding these values to an Evernote note will allow you to associate that note with the specified location.

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Using Evernote Better

Find via SORT. Sort often trumps search. Evernote provides several different criteria by which you're able sort a list of notes. The group of notes being viewed doesn't make a difference; you could sort the contents of a notebook, the content of a note, the results of a search—any group of notes is sorted the same way. To sort a group of notes in Evernote for Windows, click "Notes by Created.” This will give you a list of the various sorting options available. (My preference is Updated.)

Use SEARCH OPERATORS. The Internet has already developed your basic search muscle which will serve you well in most searches you need to perform in Evernote.

Here are the operators Evernote allows to get really specific about what you want to find. Type what follows the colons to search for…
Notes containing unchecked checkboxes: todo:false
Notes containing checked checkboxes: todo:true
Notes containing checkboxes: todo:*
PDF: resource:application/pdf
Excel file: resource:application/vnd.ms-excel
Word file: resource:application/msword
Zip file: resource:application/x-zip-compressed
Specific filenames: filename:xyz* (to find filenames that start with "xyz“)
Notes you shared: sharedate:*
Notes shared yesterday or today: sharedate:day-1
Notes shared within last 30 days: sharedate:day-30
Notes shared last year or this year: sharedate:year-1
Notes with images created via iPhone.: source:mobile.* resource:image/*
Notes with “special” in title: intitle:special
Notes with or without “special” tag: tag:special or -tag:special

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Using Evernote Better

Find via SAVED SEARCHES. As the amount of information you save in Evernote grows, so does the utility of Evernote's powerful search capabilities. If you find yourself frequently running the same search over and over, saved searches will save you time. The method of creating saved searches differs slightly on each platform. Saved searches are synchronized to Evernote on the Web and therefore are available on all of your Evernote-enabled devices. Once you save the search and give it a name, you'll be able to run the search by clicking the name in your Evernote client.

Find via NOTE HISTORY. For Premium users, several times each day Evernote makes a copy of any notes in your account that have changed since the last time the system checked. This note history page allows you to view and export these previous versions of your notes. Clicking on a note and clicking the Note History button will show you the content of the saved version. You can copy and paste that content, if you wish. Alternatively, click Export to download the note. Once downloaded, the note can be imported using the Import option in the File menu of Evernote for Windows.

Find via PATIENCE. Evernote has to process images and PDFs so the text can be searched. Premium account holders can expect to have their images processed within a few minutes. Free account holders, within a few hours. Once the processing on Evernote's servers is complete, it will download onto your Evernote clients the next time a sync occurs.

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FREE CONSULTATION

Spark Productivity delivers customized training solutions that help teams become more focused and joyfully productive. If you’re interested in improving how you manage your technology, request a free written assessment and phone consultation today. Call 312.765.7550 or email [email protected].