Today, Evernote for Windows got its most significant update in months. The big news is sharing. For the first time, Windows users will be able to take selected portions of their Evernote memories and share them with friends, colleagues and classmates–all without ever leaving the application. That’s not all. We’ve also added a number of other much-requested features and improvements. Let’s take a closer look.
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Sharing your memories
We want to make it incredibly easy for you to share your thoughts and inspirations with the people that matter to you. The latest Evernote for Windows update gives you a set of sharing options to fit whatever needs you may have.
Quick note sharing
Now you can quickly share a single note with friends and family using Facebook, Twitter, email, and more. We’ve added a Share button into the menu bar. Click the button and select a sharing option.
Let’s say you want to share a note over Twitter. Select ‘Post to Twitter’ in the menu, then Evernote will quickly sync to ensure that you’re sharing the latest version of the note, and launch Twitter in a browser window. We’ll autofill a tweet based on your note title, which you can always change if you want. After that, publish and you’re done. The process is similar for Facebook.
Keep in mind that sharing a single note makes it completely public and available to anyone with access to the URL. You can stop sharing at any time via the Share menu when you right-click on the note.
Sharing notebooks
Notebook sharing is the perfect option when you’re working on a group project, planning a family trip or brainstorming with your team–anything that’s more substantial than a single note. To share a notebook, click on the new Shared tab above the notebook list. Then click on the Manage Sharing link. You’ll see a list of your notebooks. Select the one you want to share and then follow the instructions. You can choose the individuals you want to share with, password requirements and more.
Premium subscribers can allow others to edit their notes, turning Evernote into a great collaboration tool.
Viewing shared notebooks
Sharing your notes and notebook is only part of the story. The new Evernote for Windows makes it easy to access notebooks that have been shared with you. Whenever you visit a notebook that has been shared with you, that notebook becomes linked to your Evernote account. You can view all linked notebooks by clicking into the Shared tab.
Here’s a shared notebook of Asian soups that I’ve eaten recently. If you’re signed into your account, it will autolink. Otherwise, click the “Link to my Account” button.
The nice thing about linked notebooks on the desktop is that they’re stored locally on your computer, so you’ll be able to access them even when offline. Be aware that, by default, Evernote syncs linked notebooks less frequently than your own notebooks–you can change this in the settings for each notebook. If you plan on being offline, make sure to sync each linked notebook that you’ll want to access later.
Improvements for writers
A lot of people use Evernote for some heavy duty writing. This version has three new features that will help bring that great novel or term paper you’ve been working on to life.
Note, word and character count
In the View menu, there’s now a Show Note and Word Counts option. Activate it and a bar will appear along the bottom of the note panel containing word and character counts.
Find and Replace
When searching within a specific note, you now have the ability to perform a find and replace. Press CTRL+H in the note to expose this feature.
Improve indenting
We’ve enhanced our text editor to handle indentation more consistently.
And lots more
There are a number of other new features and improvements:
- Improved note syncing for Firefox web clips
- Improved default font selection based on a user’s language preference
- Lots and lots of bug fixes
We’re really excited about this update. Windows is the second Evernote platform to get social sharing. Let us know what you think. If you’re not a Windows user, don’t worry: sharing is coming to other versions of Evernote soon. Stay tuned.
