For the past couple of weeks, I have been doing the unexpected: writing all of my notes…with a pen…on paper. Guess what? I’m loving it. To be fair, this is no ordinary pen—it’s a Livescribe, the electronic pen that magically digitizes your handwritten notes.
Today, we have big news. All of those Livescribe notes can now get the Evernote treatment: cross-platform sync, text recognition and search. It’s all thanks to the new Evernote-Livescribe integration, part of their latest software update. If you don’t have a Livescribe pen, you can get one now from the Evernote Trunk.
Livescribe and Evernote
Livescribe pens are popular among students, doctors, lawyers, creative professionals, and just about anyone else that takes notes as part of their everyday lives. Coincidentally, Evernote is popular with the same types of people. So we thought, wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to choose between digital and analog note taking options? Now you don’t. Simply handwrite your notes, connect your Livescribe pen to your computer and those notes are sent into Evernote as high quality images. Next, Evernote processes the handwriting making it searchable, and synchronizes the notes so they’re accessible from every computer and phone you use.
And don’t forget, Evernote’s text recognition can be configured for handwriting in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, and Russian. You can set you preferred language in the Settings section of Evernote Web.
How LiveScribe pens work
The Livescribe digital pens use a built-in camera to track and record their position on special paper. You then connect the pen to your computer and upload all of your notes. It even lets you simultaneously record audio—perfect for classes, meeting and conferences.
We love this integration not just because it’s super cool, but also because Evernote and Livescribe users have been asking (read: begging) for the two companies to partner. It’s happened, and there’s a lot more to come.
Today and into the future
The Livescribe team used the Evernote API to build this integration into the Livescribe Desktop software (both Windows and Mac). The software can now be configured to send Livescribe notes directly into Evernote. Once set up, select the desired notes and audio recordings, right click and choose Save to > Evernote. They will then be sent into your default notebook, and synchronized across your Evernote-enabled devices.
This is only the first step in our partnership. In the near future, getting your handwritten notes from Livescribe into Evernote will become an entirely seamless process. Stay tuned.
Get your Livescribe Pen
Livescribe offers a variety of pens and notebooks to meet you needs. Check out the options by visiting the Evernote Trunk.
There’s an update to the Evernote/Livescribe integration. Find out more.
