Sorry, that headline is a bit of a geek joke. Let’s start again.
Something that many people have been asking for is better text editing, clipping and cut-and-paste support in Evernote. One of the issues was the way notes were stored in Evernote; basically we converted the note structure into something very similar to HTML 1.0. This guaranteed consistent performance across multiple devices but at the cost of making everything look like a web page from 1997. Last week, we fixed that through a coordinated upgrade to our back-end servers as well as our Windows, Web and Mac versions.
You’ll see the difference in the latest Windows (v3.5.3) and Mac (v1.8.1) versions. Editing notes feels more natural and you have better control over fonts, colors and alignment. Cutting and pasting from another program to Evernote works better and, in most cases, clipped pages keep more of their formatting: they retain their fonts, columns, and more precise page layout.
Sometimes this isn’t exactly what you want, so we’ve also added a “Simplify formatting” option under the Format menu in our desktop versions, which removes all that new-fangled web stuff and leaves you with a simplified document that may be easier to edit in more places, including on mobile devices. Here are a couple of examples showing the new looks.
Copy and paste with styles
As you can see, Evernote did a pretty good job of getting the fonts and colors. If you look extra close, you’ll notice that a couple of the fonts didn’t make it over. This can happen. Things aren’t perfect yet, but we’re getting there.
Before and after: Web clipping
Here, the clip went from unstructured text, to multiple columns with images, fonts and styles almost identical to the original webpage. Here’s a link to the original for comparison.
A few notes on web clipping
Web clipping results may vary depending on a number of things, including the site you’re clipping from, your browser, operating system, and other factors. The Evernote Web Clipper you use also plays a role in determining the quality of the clip. For the time being, the Firefox add-on and the Clip to Evernote bookmarklet are the only clipping options that do not benefit from all the new features. If you use either of these methods, then your clips will look slightly better than they did before. Those using the recently updated Chrome Extension, will see improved results.
Evernote does not store everything that you see on a web page in your note. For example, we still strip out Javascript because it would be a pretty bad idea to let web pages stick random executable code into your permanent memory. We also don’t capture videos, flash and framed content.
As a rule of thumb, to get the best clipping performance you should select just the section of a web page that you care about before you clip. This avoids having to deal with the margins, ads, navigation, and other stuff that clutters up your clip. If, on the other had, you want to capture exactly what a web page looks like, try clipping the page as a PDF (on Mac, Shift+Click on the Safari Clipper button or “Print to Evernote” in any Mac browser) or a screen shot (Mac or Windows). Remember that both options be searchable thanks to our image recognition technology.
How will this look on mobile devices?
Mobile devices are covered, as well; all existing mobile versions of Evernote are able to display the new note formats (to the best of their hardware’s abilities, of course). We snuck that in a while ago in preparation for this release.
More to come
As exciting as this upgrade is, its only the first step. Today, you’ll find that it’s easier to create nice looking notes whether you write them yourself or grab them from the web, email, paste them from other applications. Now that we’ve fundamentally improved Evernote’s underlying note structure, we’ll be able to add a host of new features like highlighting, annotation, templates, better tables and lists, and more formatting options. We’ll be busy for a while…
90 Comments
Bill
I also really want highlighting– Im coming from OneNote and this is essential for me.
Kora
I love the changes! I’m a recent convert – syncing OneNote was just too much work, as I tend to work as a consultant in a lot of different environments on different systems, plus my personal devices are numerous as I’m a gadget person. Syncing my devices in the background without ever having to give it a thought is fantastic.
The only thing I really still miss about OneNote was the highlighting, as it’s one of my favourite ways to stay organized and draw my eye to the right places on the page. I really hope that is the next thing to come!
Ted McKie
I also would REALLY like highlighting. I am slowly converting to Evernote from OneNote because of the ease in synchronizing across devices.
We are running 40+ projects and every day I highlight the things that need to get done. Each project has a header which is bolded. Critical items are highlighted. I depend on leaving the bolding intact, and being able to remove the highlighting as we get things done and priorities change.
We use red for highlighting critical path issues.
Thanks,
Ted
Mark
I’m a teacher. Highlighting and annotating would be wonderful (and would completely erase any interest in using Diigo). I’m happy that this might be a possibility.
Daniel
I’ve been waiting for highlighting in Evernote for, like, forever. Thanks for pointing out Diigo!
Ray Satiro
+1 for highlighting
John Lee
Add my vote for highlighting. It will be a great feature. Even better would be highlighting and option to automatically display the highlighted text as annotation before the main document. That way you don’t have to read an entire PDF or Word (or other document) to get the critical summary that interests you. All you have to do is look at your own annotation from your highlights.
Jon Payne
Premium user here. . . in this blog over a year ago you mentioned templates. Is this feature available yet? I’d love to use templates to build something like a contact manager using Evernote.
“we’ll be able to add a host of new features like highlighting, annotation, templates, better tables and lists, and more formatting options. We’ll be busy for a while…”
Andrew Sinkov
Jon, We don’t officially have templates at this point. We recently added the ability to make copies of notes, which means that if you created a template note, you could copy that template and reuse it. For the time being, I suggest trying that approach.
James
Hey,
How far have you got with the ability to highlight text? That would be very handy…
moebla
Would love highlighting and document templates. So many activities in project management require prioritization/reminders (outside of to do lists) and repeatable information gathering/reporting (templates).
Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Kjpruhs
PLEASE – Highlighting with multiple colors and templates! Highlighting is a MUST – this is the only reason I do not solely use Evernote.
++++++1 for highlighting
rose
Premium user also. I vote for document templates! Thank you.
Jon
Any update on support for highlighting text? I was at the Evernote Developer Conference, and saw some yellow highlighting in Phil’s slides on new features, but perhaps that was just the highlighting of search results?
Brad McGilligan
Premium User – would like to be able to highlight. LOVE Evernote though.
Muriel C.
What about a generic Excel style template, it could be use as a reminder of expenses, or for data to transfer later in a database…
Thanks in advance for your reply
Lee
Add highlighting. Would make Evernote nearly perfect.
Catherine
+1 for highlighting
I’m a college student and doing a test right now to see if I can use Evernote exclusively and go paperless next semester, but highlighting and adding notes is a MUST!!!!
Andrew S
Jam your gee whiz bang styles somewhere else until you can get consistant formatting happening on a basic level with all platforms.
Hey, here is an idea. A plain text option!
JimS
Would someone please respond about a highlighting time frame? It’s been 1.5+ yrs. since the article above mentioned it and people obviously want it bad!
Henri Van Der Merwe
Premium member: It is actually pretty ridiculous that something that is as common as Highlighting is not yet supported. It is the most common way of annotating texts, and totally pervasive!!
Please Evernote!
Mansoor Qureshi
I have been using evernote for a while now. Not having the ability to highlight is way too important for me. I think I am going to have to find another solution. Maybe go back to evernote or just use google docs. Sucks …
Daniel
+1000 for Highlighting.
andrea
please add hightlighting!
Ken
Just downloaded a new update. STILL no highlighting. This has been practically BEGGED for, for months now. Is anybody at Evernote listening?
Andrew Sinkov
Thanks for the idea.