Tips & Stories

Quick Tip: Create Checklists Faster with Auto-Checkboxes

Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey on 14 Sep 2012

Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey on 14 Sep 2012

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We know a lot of Evernote users love checkboxes for to-dos, grocery lists, and more. Creating checkboxes in Evernote is easy: you can add them to notes from your desktop or mobile device. [Read the detailed post here.] A quick refresher:

  • Find the checkbox feature in Evernote on your iPad, Windows and Mac formatting bar. Tap the checkbox icon to create a new one.
  • To add checkboxes using your iPhone, tap on the note you’re working in and hit the ‘A’ icon in the lower right-hand corner to bring up formatting options. From there, tap the checkbox icon to add a new one.
  • When editing a note using your Android device, swipe the bar above the keyboard to display formatting options and select the checkbox icon.

Turn a list into a checklist in Evernote for Mac

In Evernote for Mac, you can turn a new or existing list into a checklist by simply highlighting the list, then selecting checkbox mode.

As you can see, you can create checkboxes from any version of Evernote, but on your Mac, iPhone, and Android device, you can now create checkboxes faster than ever. When you’ve selected the checkbox option, you’ll notice that when you move to the next line of text, a new checkbox will automatically be added. This feature lets you get into serious list-making mode so you can get more organized in your work and your life.

A number of platforms also support more advanced checkbox options, including indentation. Have you noticed that many versions of Evernote now let you create auto-checkboxes?

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72 Comments RSS

  • Anonymous —

    Don’t attempt to turn a list into a checklist in Evernote mobile. You’ll lose everything you selected! And of course, there is no Undo yet…..

    Reply
  • Lewis e Gilbert —

    This would be even better with a tool that would compile action items from multiple notes.

    Reply
  • Carla —

    Sure wish I didn’t have to flip through all my notes to find incomplete ‘To-Dos’. It would be really awesome if there were a function that would find them for me. Better yet, find them put them on a page that would reference back to the original location in case I don’t remember what the context might be…

    This is a really good product for a busy executive assistant with multiple execs to support. Taking the next step with development would be really great!

    Best,
    Carla

    Reply
  • Michael Coffey —

    For example purposes, could you use the iOS display? The Droid system is SO ugly and unappealing. Even Google admits that. Thanks.

    Reply
  • Richard Doughty —

    Echoing a couple of other people here, I’d love to see evernote produce a fully integrated ‘to do’ feature similar to any.do that can be installed as an app on chrome/safari/firefox as well as apps on iphone/ipad

    Reply
  • Rob Habisreitinger —

    You forgot about Android even though your picture shows an Android user interface.

    “Find the checkbox feature in Evernote on your iPad, Windows and Mac formatting bar. Tap the checkbox icon to create a new one.”

    But at least you chose a better looking OS. Forget Coffey, he must be as old as my mom.

    Reply
  • David Phillips —

    The check box feature should work the same as the bullet and numbered list feature. Currently it acts as a special character, and requires moving the hands from keyboard to mouse to click on it. Quite tedious. Much better would be to create the list, select all, then select a check box tool that would put the check box at the front of each new line.

    Reply
  • John —

    I have a collection of checklists for all occasions (things to pack for business trips, the contents of my gym bag, etc.).

    Is there a way to clear all of the checkboxes at once? That would make re-using the lists so much easier than having to go through and manually uncheck everything.

    If not, consider this a feature request. Thanks!

    Reply
  • Bob —

    Thanks for the checkbox improvements. Next I’d like to request improved appearance of the checkboxes when printed. The Mac client used to print checkboxes that looked on paper the same as on-screen, including the blue tint when checked. Some time ago this changed and now they print as a tiny B&W box. When checked, the little checkmark is even tinier inside the box.

    Reply
  • Tim Tierney —

    The ability to indent and outdent paragraphs without bullets or numbers would be extremely useful. I use bullets a lot, but having the ability to indent paragraphs is sorely needed.

    Reply