I love Evernote’s Web Clipper. There, I’ve said it. In fact, web clipping represents about 75% of my Evernote use. I clip articles, recipes, music reviews, stuff I want, places to eat, and gift ideas. In other words, tons and tons of clips. That’s why today’s announcement makes me a little giddy: the Web Clipper just got a jillion times better.
Besides looking snazzier, we’ve added a new feature called Quicknote, which lets you create a quick text note right from the browser without launching Evernote.
How the new clipper works
- Clipping: Highlight a portion of the page, then click the Web Clipper. Evernote will clip any text, links, and image into your account complete with the source URL. If you want to clip the entire page, select all (CTRL+A, CMD+A) then click.
- Quicknote: If you click WITHOUT selecting anything, the Quicknote appears, letting you to create a new text note right inside the Web Clipper popup. You can even grab the URL of the page you’re viewing for future reference.
Being able to clip what I need and create notes without switching to Evernote is a huge time saver, especially for those of us who spend a large portion of their day in the browser. Sweet!
Get it
The Web Clipper bookmarklet works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. There is also a Firefox extension. Get the Web Clipper on the Evernote downloads page.
Please note: If you already have the FF extension installed, you will need to restart your browser to get the updated extension. Or, go to the Mozilla site to download the latest version.
79 Comments
Unimpressed
Clicking with no text selected used to capture an entire page — to me this new behavior is not a “jillion times better” but a significant feature loss.
Witti
Great, thanks alot.
Jude
This makes much more sense as I can enter a title and tags rather than having to switch over to Evernote.
Although the Firefox extensions doesn’t seem to work as advertised. Is it not yet updated?
Andrew Sinkov
@Jude You may need to restart Firefox in order to download the updated extension. If that doesn’t help, go into the Add-ons menu and check for updates.
John Clark
I initially misunderstood Quicknote as a bug (http://an.alogo.us/2009/02/26/evernote-web-clipper-strangeness/).
Apparently it’s a feature.
I suspect I’ll grow to like it…
Mark Dixon
I installed the clipper Firefox extension 3.0.0.127, but it doesn’t allow me to type in a note. I get an error message: “No text is selected. Do you want to add an entire page to Evernote.”
Is that what should happen?
Thanks,
Mark
Matt Duda
I like the fact that I can now select the correct notebook, tags, and add comments, *but* is “unimpressed” (see above) correct? We now cannot clip an entire webpage unless we highlight the entire page?
Andrew Sinkov
@Matt Yes, that is correct. Although, all you need to do is select all (CTRL+A or CMD+A) and then click the Clipper to get the same result as before.
Ken Green
Firefox restarted. Still no Quicknote feature.
Timothy Moenk
While this is more like the behavior I expected when I first started using the bookmarklet/ffextension, I have to agree that this is a loss of valuable functionality. Especially with a web that is constantly changing, it was extremely valuable to take a snapshot in time of a webpage for future reference almost like a printout. Great for keeping financial records, academic work(!), and just keeping offline copies of these web pages in general.
That (somewhat major imho) complaint aside, it’s a much better user experience and the quicknote feature is way better than creating a new note using the desktop client! Any chance there’s a keyboard shortcut for it?
Nicole Marie
I’m encountering a strange issue here… both the FF extension and the bookmarklet clipper will only work if I’m clipping from a page on the evernote.com domain!! On every other site I’m trying, the clipper box appears with the logo and close button, but the rest is blank…
joe houghtaling
Been having problems with the clipping extension. Have downloaded and installed the new version.
Mac OS 10.5.6, Firefox 3.0.6
The floating dialog only draws the elephant graphic and the close box. The rest is blank. A check of the error console in Firefox shows a number of warnings:
Warning: Unknown property ‘marginheight’. Declaration dropped.
Source File: http://www.evernote.com/html/css/master.css?44174
Line: 492
There are 10 of them, all “unknown property” warnings.
I’ve tried restarting Firefox in Safe Mode and the problem remains. Oddly enough, the clipper works fine in Safari.
Hope I can get some help with this. Thanks!
Phil Constantinou
@Ken If your Firefox extension doesn’t immediately update to the latest version you can uninstall the old version and install this add on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8381
joe houghtaling
One more thing: the clipper works correctly only on the Evernote site.
Jude
@Andrew Sorry Andrew, this function does not work. The entire page gets clipped as before. No additional dialog box appears to input tags, etc.
pop0121
Hi, I’m a Ubuntu user. Can I put a query as when will you release a linux version?
Dustin
I too preferred the ‘old’ web clipper – (which I seem to remember had most of these ‘new’ features, like the the ability to set a different title, add or designate tags and then select the destination notebook for the clipping). The only reason I’m here writing a comment is because my workflow was interrupted when I discovered that I now have a bunch of nearly-blank notes in Evernote instead of the pages I thought I was clipping, and I needed to figure out what went wrong and why that was happening.
The ability to capture the text and graphics of a web page (with most of the formatting intact) in just one click (and a return to accept the clippers parameters) was, IMHO, Evernote’s killer feature, and something I used daily. Sure, having a quick and easy way to add a basic text note to Evernote is nice, but I can’t imagine using it. I know others will, but I’m trying to figure out why you’d swap out the prime placement of a very simple yet powerful tool and give it to basic tool that’s more complex. (i.e. typing a quick note requires me to handle the overhead and do the hard work of writing; I’m left with my note and a link… clipping a page gives me an entire page of visual information that’s searchable and includes quite a bit of contextual data… and no mental overhead slowing me down)
Anyway, now I’ve gotta go back and recapture the 8-10 pages of my research that I had attempted to clip this morning… I guess intead of doing my usual reviewing/linking/digesting of this data all together in Evernote with the rest of this project I’ll be out and about on the web…
Phil
I’m seriously bummed out about having to perform extra operations like Command-A to copy the website. That was the beauty of Evernote – click Clip and there you have it. Is it a big problem to return that ease of use?
Olin
Two things:
1. As others have said, this feature removed the hold page feature. Can that be included somewhere else?
2. Can you please add autofill tags to the desktop client in all locations like it works in the bookmarklet? It’s an essential feature and should be everywhere I think.
Andrew
I like the new clipper, but it only works in the bookmarklet for me. The Firefox extention doesn’t work correctly. When I click the Evernote button, no panel appears; instead, the small window in the bottom right corner of my screen appears, telling me I’ve created a new note: this is the same functionality that occurs when I clip text/screenshot from my computer. I had this behaviour before today’s update, and my dad has had this happening for a few weeks now. For the record, I uninstalled and reinstalled the Firefox extention to no avail.
Anyone else having this issue? Any idea what could be going on?
Jackson Fox
This is pretty annoying. I used to use this feature a ton to save entire pages, now I can’t do that. I like the idea of quick notes, but I think the trigger is exactly backwards.
* Selecting text should trigger Quick Note
* *NOT* selecting text should trigger Web Clipping
Long time user
I have to agree with Unimpressed. Loss of the ability to capture a page with a single click is a major step backward in benefit and in ease of use for me.
This is the first “feature” of version 3 that I’ve found objectionable. I hope you reconsider bringing back the old functionality, and soon.
tivoboy
I’m having some problems with the new URL clipper. Using it on Firefox for MAC, and it no LONGER captures the PAGE that I am trying to save.
Does one now have to COPY the page, as in actually HIGHLIGHT the text and all?
That is a bit cumbersome.
iayork
I completely agree with Jackson Fox: This is backward. Highlighting text should invoke QuickNote with the selected text — no highlighted text should clip the whole page, the way it used to work. As it is it makes no sense at all, adds an extra and annoying step to a simple and common procedure, and will lead to tons of empty notes. Please reverse the triggers!
stratus19rt
Why not just add another checkbox on the Quick Note that says “Clip Entire Page” or something like that. I agree with everyone who has pointed it out, the ability to clip an entire page was great and is a bummer to be missing now.
nk
same problem with nicole marie and joe houghtaling above. i’m using firefox 3.0.6 on OS 10.4.11 and when i try to clip, the pop-up remains blank apart from the logo and the close button. works fine on safari. has anyone managed to solve this issue?
Frode
Any chance of the FF extension getting similar functionality (preferably with options, to cater for the concerns of those that prefer the old system)?
The extension seems a bit superfluous compared to the web clipper now.
missdipsy
stratus19rt’s suggestion seems like a good idea:
“Why not just add another checkbox on the Quick Note that says “Clip Entire Page” or something like that.”
I’d be happy with that as a compromise for the time being.
luckman212
installed on FF 3.1b2 (win) firefox extension 3.0.0.128
not seeing any new functionality, extension is still using the ‘old’ behavior. I guess only the web clipper was updated? I don’t get it.
tivoboy
I think part of the problem, MAYBE was the fact that the evernote clipper wasn’t doing the actualy copy and paste, but actually GOING to the URL and PULLING the info, and then PUTTING it in the body field? Is that correct? Or was it drawing from my cache, and then copy pasting?
Second QUESTION: Does anyone have a problem with the text at BARRONS? I can NEVER get the text to copy over to the body field. I have tried the old clipper way, and actually COPY and PASTE, there is just nothing there.
jbrader
The new clipper is completely broken. Not only does it not clip the entire page like it used to but it doesn’t send my clippings to my default notebook. So now instead of having clipped a whole bunch of really great sites to one notebook I have clipped a whole bunch of nothing to the wrong one.
Clipping sites is about 95% of what I use evernote for so now a great service that I’ve been using and telling everyone about is all useless to me.
Jason Daniel Batt
Thank you for continuing to develop this product daily! I cannot recommend this enough!!!!!! I love evernote and believe you have one of the most dedicated team of developers on any product!
jbrader
@stratus19rt: Not a bad idea, but I think the default behavior should be to clip the entire page and there should be a button or check box to change to a quick note if that’s what the user intends to do. And, like I said above, the clipper should send notes to my default notebook rather that the first one in an alphabetical list. I really like evernote but perhaps they should have run an open beta before they dropped this on us.
Jorge
Same problem here, I have firefox extension 3.0.0.128 installed and no new functionality.
Judging from others comments I think most if us evernote users use the clipper to clip full websites, I too have told friends and colleagues about evernote and the clipper function and most have adopted evernote for this functionality.
I agree with @jbrader and @stratus19rt, hopefully this is an experimental release to get some feedback from users.
debu
Can I use it WITHOUT the desk top client installed? If not, can I use it with a portable version of Evernote on my computer? thanks
Andrew Sinkov
@debu Yes, you can use the bookmarklet or Firefox extension without having Evernote installed on your computer. They do require an internet connection.
Randall Stevens
Totally agree with almost all of the above. Entire page clipping was my FAVORITE feature of the best, most productivity enhanced application in 10 yrs on the web. The new clipper is horrid. Doesn’t default capture the page, just the url. Doesn’t place it in my default notebook. ICK, in general.
Russell
Bad move guys on the NEW “Clip to Evernote” Please change back to the old way!!
Bill
While I am sure the Quicknote feature will be useful to many, can you at least provide an option for those of us who prefer the old behavior to change it?
Uli
Only fine with me if you revert the default setting, as suggested: Quick note only when some content is selected – if not, clip the entire page.
I, too, was pretty confused and have to recapture quite some clippings. And I don’t like the additional necessary step in my workflow, as most of the others here.
Apart from that: Evernote rocks, and it became absolutely essential for my workflow in no time.
Jackson Fox
For anyone on Mac, there’s a kinda-sorta workaround. Turns out if you drag a URL onto the Evernote icon in the dock it will make a webclip of the page in the default notebook.
WC18
I agree with everyone who thinks the new clipper is a step backwards rather than forward. The old clipper allowed me to copy/capture the entire website on my iPod Touch – a mobile device that (unfortunately) lacks cut & paste functionality! (I posted a comment about this in the user forum.)
I suspect that you guys at Evernote didn’t realize how many of us iPod Touch & iPhone users were using the old clipper. I use Instapaper constantly for text … Evernote allowed me to capture the text AND the images. Not anymore!
Please let us use the old clipper … Or quickly adapt the new one to give the option of copying the entire page!!
Thanks.
z
I agree with everyone. I’ve been trying to figure out what was going on all morning. The reason I’ve been using Evernote was the ability to clip the whole webpage so effortlessly. Please make that a setting! The old way was way better. I can see the point in just taking notes but please, please make that an option not the only way to do this.
jim jay
Not impressed! The new version is glitchy at best, displays incorrectly in FF 3.06 on Mac 10.5.5. The new clipping behavior is annoying, but what bothers me most is that the previous versions of the add-on are non-downloadable (invalid file hash on all previous versions) on mozilla’s add-on page–so I can’t “downgrade” to the clipper that works for me.
I can’t exactly say why, but I think Evernote is losing touch with what users want. I was about to go premium but I think I will move on to another product.
I’ve been an evernote user for several years, bought numerous desktop versions and was very pleased.
But, you guys can’t see the forest for the trees, and seem to have become enamored of “features for feature’s sake” rather than just a working product.
L F
Another user greatly disappointed with the new clipper. Please bring entire page clipping back as the *default* behavior (no extra clicks or selection).
Geoff H
I miss the option of the entire page being clipped when no text is selected because on iPhone you can’t select text. A URL is ok but a copy is better for research purposes.
Doug Farnes
I mentioned the following on an unrelated Friendfeed thread re: Evernote/[competing product], but think it would apply here (I’ve removed the other product’s name):
I would love to be able to drag the favicon to Evernote and have it save the web page *as it actually appears in the browser* into a new note, just as [competing product] does.
Whenever I “Clip to Evernote” in Firefox it ends up as an unformatted text note. Ugly. If I want to save a web page as it appears, I have to do a full-page capture and then paste the image into a note.
After Evernote works its OCR magic it becomes searchable, but unwieldy. I can’t perform any kind of copy and paste, for example.
Just my .02
Russell
The Control A does a good job, not sure if it’s the same as the old way.
ArcAngel
I’m looking forward to using the clipper again when it gets added to Google Chrome!
shultquist
I agree with Unimpressed. I would really like the clipper to copy the entire page (at least the text like Instapaper does) if I don’t highlight anything… or at least provide an option to do so. Right now, it’s broken, and I don’t have what I need in Evernote; I have to use a browser to reload it (if it’s still at the same URL, etc.).
Please restore the function to clip the entire page without having to highlight it?
Thanks.
ryanpmack
Along with most of the responses on this post, I much preferred the old web clipping method, where the default was to clip the entire page.
Web clipping is my most used Evernote feature, something I do MANY times a day.
I’m now unable to do web clipping from my iPhone since there is no Command-A equivalent on that device.
A choice between the two methods would be nice, but a single check box to clip entire page would be a functional workaround for now.
iayork
Please, please, at the very least make the old version of the clipper available. The more I use the new version of the clipper the more I dislike it. I really want to revert back to the old behavior.
Randall Stevens
Has there been any internal discussion/decisions re: comments from users on this thread?