As you create and save items into your Evernote account, we automatically build contextual relationships among them using things like titles, locations, and time.

Here’s an example: let’s say you attended a conference and took notes in Evernote, then used Evernote Hello to remember all the people you met. In the evening, you decided to go to a restaurant that you’d heard about (and clipped into Evernote) with a few of the folks from the conference. At the restaurant, you snapped some photos of your meal using Evernote Food and took a few notes about the experience.

The Power of Related Notes

Now, check out those experiences in Evernote Food and Evernote Hello. Look at your new contacts in Evernote Hello and you’ll be reminded of the meal you shared and all the notes you took at the conference. Look at the meal in Evernote Food and you’ll see everyone’s face and the clipped reviews about the restaurant.

If Evernote is an extension of your memory, Related Notes are the strings that tie your memories together.

The Evernote View

And don’t forget, you can also view everything in your Evernote account, organized and sorted however you like.

Related Notes are currently available in Evernote Food and Evernote Hello. We’re also improving our algorithms to make this feature even more useful.

• Get Evernote Hello »
• Get Evernote Food »
• Get Evernote »

Creating a Note Link

You can create Note Links on any desktop version of Evernote and access Note Links from Evernote anywhere (including mobile versions). Creating a Note Link is easy: right click on a note and choose the Copy Note Link option, or choose it from the Note Menu. The link will be placed into your clipboard. From there, you can paste the link anywhere — a calendar event, a Post It on your desktop, another note, another application that you use, etc. Note Links are meant for you to access your own notes more quickly. Clicking on the Note Link in any location will pop up the note associated with that link.

Note Links are a super powerful way to bring organization, structure, and connectivity to all of your notes in Evernote.

Create Note Links on Your Desktop, Access them Everywhere

Once you start using Note Links, you probably won’t go back. Here are some great reasons to give them a try:

1. Create a table of contents for a selection of notes. Whether you’re working on a study guide or planning your wedding, you can use Note Links to get ahead of the game. Create a new note and add Note Links for things like Notes: October, Notes: December, etc. or “Guest List,” “Flowers,” “Vendor Numbers.” Do this for a Shared Notebook to help collaborators see your organization structure at first glance.
2. Add more context to your calendar.* Have a meeting scheduled and want to remember all of the goals you jotted down in Evernote? Place a Note Link associated with your Goals note straight into the calendar invite by pasting the link into the notes section of your calendar. Pull up your note straight from your calendar by clicking on the link.
3. Associate notes with a big presentation. Keep the research you’ve saved in Evernote handy right inside a working presentation: drop Note Links into slides or comments for quick reference.
4. Access your frequently-used notes, fast. Have a handful of notes that you’re always referring to (a piece of code for your blog, instructions for cleaning your pool, or important numbers related to your kids activities), link them all to a ‘Most Used Notes.’ You’ll barely have to search again.
5. Create a calendar reminder.* Wish your notes could remind you of to-dos? They can. Create a checklist or to-do list in your Evernote account. Paste a Note Link into notes section of your calendar event like ‘To-do’ deadlines and use your calendar with Evernote to stay on top of whatever you have to get done. When you click a Note Link from the Web, or your calendar, it opens Evernote on your desktop (if you have it installed) and highlights the note.
6. Add Note Links to Shared Notebooks. If you put Note Links into a note and drop that note into a Shared Notebook, the people you’ve shared that notebook with will be able to use them, too. This particular use case is super helpful if you’re working on a project that might require a table of contents, for example, to give added structure to a Shared Notebook.

*If supported by your program, Note Links open Evernote when clicked. In some cases (for example, when using Google Calendar) you may need to add HTML code to make the Note Link clickable. In all cases,  notes you link are only visible to you and will not work if you do not have Evernote installed on your desktop or mobile device.

These are just a few ideas for how you can use Note Links. How are you using Note Links?

Get Skitch now! Available for free for Android and Mac »

A simpler way to get your point across

We fell in love with Skitch because it’s the easiest way to communicate everything from a simple action to a complex idea using quick annotations, screenshots and basic shapes. The best part is that using Skitch is really fun and in the process you’re getting your point across with fewer words, emails and meetings.

Skitch on your Mac

Draw Attention: Say you’re working on a new website with your team. Your designer sent you a mockup and you have some comments and suggestions. With Skitch, you can circle the part that needs to be changed and point an arrow to the area where you’d like the element moved. Add some instructional text before dragging the file into an email or into a shared notebook in Evernote. No need for a bunch of back and forth, figuring out how to save your file or hold painful conference calls where you’re all staring at four different screenshots and trying to figure out what’s going on where. Same applies for that mailbox you’re building.

Teach someone something: Explaining a new concept to someone takes a lot longer than just showing them. In the past, there was the issue of figuring out how to actually demonstrate it, how to save it, send it, and then wait for the other person to go through the same steps. With Skitch, you can walk someone through a process — a home repair, table arrangement at a wedding, or a knitting join — in the most direct way possible. For example, to show someone how to arrange a table setting, take a photo of it and annotate with text (“fork goes on the left, knife on the right’”). Keep your tutorials handy by also saving them into your Evernote account.

Key Features, at a Glance

• Screenshot anything: Click the Snap button to capture a shot of a document, a webpage, something that inspires you, or just about anything else.
• Drag files into other apps: Hold down the Drag Me tab and pull the file into Evernote, email, a presentation, document, your desktop, a folder in Finder, or any ‘Choose your file’ window that pops up.
• Save files in different formats: Select your preferred file format from a pull-down menu next to the Drag Me tab.
• Resize an image: Find the edge of the image and pull it inward or outward. Or, click on ‘Resize’ in the lower left-hand corner and enter in your preferred dimensions.
  
• Share: There are a few ways to share your creations. You can drag the annotated image into email or shared Evernote notebooks. Or, you can sign into Skitch with your Evernote ID and share via the Skitch site.

Skitch on your Android phone and tablet

Remember something you like: See a piece of furniture you like and want to remember the type of wood it’s made of? Snap a photo of it with Skitch on Android and type or use your finger to write on the image. Save it to your Evernote account by tapping the elephant icon in the app. You’ll never have that, ‘What is this?’ moment again.

Eliminate words and get things done faster: Skitch lets you make a statement without using words. Snap a photo of an empty dog bowl and send it to your dog sitter to remind him to feed the dog. Need to mark something up on the go? Quickly annotate an existing image in your Evernote account using Skitch (just tap twice on the image in Evernote to open it in Skitch).

Key features, at a glance

• Annotate images on the go: Snap a new image by tapping the camera icon once you launch Skitch, or choose an existing image to edit by tapping the photo image on the home screen or in Evernote. From there, you can resize images by pinching in and out.
• Add Context: Tap on menu items like the pencil, arrow, finger and text icons. Select your color by tapping the color circle in the lower left-hand corner of the app. You can also draw a fresh sketch on a clean white canvas.
• Crop: The latest update to Skitch for Android lets you quickly crop an image you have saved in Evernote by tapping on it, opening it in Skitch and cropping away.

This is only a starting point. Play around with Skitch and you’ll discover many exciting ways to use it. And stay tuned, Skitch is coming to more platforms and devices soon. Get Skitch now! Available for free for Android and Mac »

Have you been using Skitch and Evernote together? We want to hear how. Tell us in the comments!

Did you know that you can access your notes without an Internet connection in a number of places, including your desktop? All of your notes are available to you anytime on all desktop versions of Evernote, so if you have installed Evernote for Mac or Windows on your laptop, you can access existing notes and create new ones without a connection. You’ll see new notes everywhere the next time sync with the Evernote service.

Creating offline notebooks on your mobile devices

If you use Evernote like I do, you might defer to using a mobile device when you’re on the move. You might have hundreds, if not thousands of notes, but on the road, you likely only need access to a handful. Any new note you create on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or Windows Phone 7 will automatically be available to you when you’re offline. Premium subscribers can take advantage of Offline Notebooks, a feature that allows you to make any existing notebook and its contents available to you without an Internet connection. Offline notebooks are available on the following mobile versions: iPhone, iPad, iPod, Android, and Windows Phone 7.

When offline notebooks come in handy

There are a myriad of different reasons why you may want to or need to access your notes when you don’t have an Internet connection, but here are a few ideas:

• When you’re abroad: Planning a trip abroad often involves gathering a lot of information like flight and hotel itineraries, articles, emails, passport copies, vaccination copies, etc. Make sure you can access all of this valuable information, even if you don’t have Wi-Fi.
• When you’re on an airplane: Want to enjoy a productive flight? Be sure to add articles, newsletters you’ve been collecting, web clips, and PDF documents in an offline Evernote notebook that you can browse on your tablet.
• When you’re at a conference, festival, or in the outdoors: These places are notorious for having bad to non-existent network connections. Having access to information like phone numbers, conference rooms, itineraries, hiking trail maps, and schedules is invaluable.
• When you live abroad: If you find yourself visiting Internet cafes where you might have to pay for an Internet connection, or have a data plan at home, you can reduce the costs associated with getting your work done.

How to create an offline notebook

Creating an offline notebook is simple. First, decide if you want to convert an existing notebook to an offline notebook, or create a new one. If you have created a new notebook, you can select and paste notes from other notebooks you’d like to save and drop them into this new notebook. Make sure that you save everything you’d like to have access to on your trip into this notebook.

On iPhone/iPod Touch
Select Offline Notebooks from your phone Settings. If you’re a Free user and you Favorite a note on your iPhone, you’ll be able to view that note without a connection. Premium users can select whole notebooks to be available offline.

On an Android
From the menu, tap ‘Select Offline Notebooks.’ Back in the Settings, be sure to select ‘WiFi Sync Only’ to bypass any potential roaming charges from your data plan provider. Notes that you create using Evernote for Android can still be viewed, even if they are not in a selected offline notebook.

On an iPad
Hit the satellite button in the lower right-hand corner of your iPad. Next, click on ‘Offline Notebooks.’ Move the slider from ‘Off’ to ‘On’ next to the notebook (s) you’d like to make offline. To make sure you don’t get charged for roaming, be sure to select ‘Sync on WiFi only’ in the Settings.

On a Windows Phone 7
Tap on the application bar dots and choose Settings from the menu. Next, swipe to the Offline Notebooks panel and check off the notebook(s) you want offline.

When you’re preparing for a trip or would like to avoid syncing notes for a whole, select the notebooks you want to take offline and allow them to sync over Wi-Fi. Since you’re potentially downloading a lot of content, being connected throughout the process will ensure that your notes with sync quickly.

Offline access to shared notebooks

Shared notebooks (notebooks that others have shared with you) are also stored locally on your computer. When you open a shared notebook, you’ll automatically save that notebook’s content to your computer, where it will be accessible to you even if you don’t have an Internet connection. This feature is available on desktop versions and Android.

When you open a PDF in Evernote, you’ll also be able to view it from any device you’ve opened it on, even without a connection (devices that support this feature include Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 7).

When have offline notebooks come in handy for you? Has an offline notebook saved you in a pinch? Let us know in the comments.

What kind of checklist should I make?

Creating a checklist that’s accessible from any device where you have Evernote installed allows you to get more done by helping you remember stuff you need to do at any moment. Here are some ideas for checklists that you might want to create:

• To-do list: make one for work from your desk on a Monday morning and check it on your phone on a Wednesday.
• Packing list: don’t forget your sunscreen, your bathing suit, or your phone charger.
• Goals list: keep it with you, wherever you are.
• Reading list: keep adding to it — when you’re at the bookstore with your phone, or at the airport with your tablet
• Home repairs list: pull it up on your phone when you’re at Home Depot and grab everything you need.
• Grocery list: add items you need and even share it with your spouse!
• Where to eat list: explore where you live through food and check off restaurants as you try them. See our list.

Ok, how do I get started?

You can make a checklist using several versions of Evernote—Mac, Windows, Web, Android, and others soon—by clicking on the checkbox button in the note formatting bar (on your Android device, you can find the checkbox in the bar above your keyboard). To add items, just click on the checkbox button again and a new checkbox will appear in your note.  On a Mac, you can can also create a check-list by going to Format > Insert To-Do. On your Windows PC, go to Format > To-Do > Insert Checkbox (or CTRL + SHIFT + C).

To check the box, just click inside of it. Double click to uncheck it.

Keep it all in sync

Above: checklist on Android

Whenever you update a note, Evernote automatically synchronizes the change to all versions you use, meaning that something you’ve checked off on your phone will also be checked off when you log into Evernote on the Web, or from your desktop, so you’ll never lose sight of what you’ve done or what needs to be done.

Search for your checkboxes in Evernote

To find notes containing one or more unchecked boxes, type in todo:false into the Evernote search box. To find all notes containing a checkbox, type in todo:*. [More about searching in Evernote]

Note Links – Associate Checkboxes with other Notes, or your Calendar

Want to associate your checklist with a calendar reminder? Now you can. You can create a Note Link by right-clicking on the note in a desktop version of Evernote and choosing the option Copy Note Link. Open your calendar and paste in the Note Link. Clicking on the link will open the note (in this case, your checklist). You can read more about Note Links and how they work in this blog post.

How do you use checklists? Tell us in the comments.

Ways to remember something

If you put something in Evernote, there’s always a way to find it. Let’s go over some specific ways you can search through your notebooks and notes. We’ll illustrate simple and more advanced search options. Note that these tips apply to all versions of Evernote, including iPhone, Mac, Windows, Web, Android, iPad and more.

Two Common Ways to Find Stuff

I remember exactly what I’m looking for

When you know exactly what you’re looking for and are confident you put it in Evernote (for example, an itinerary you emailed yourself for a trip to New York and tagged with “trip” and “New York”), you can type in a few keywords associated with this memory into the search box and immediately find the note. Remember, Evernote can even search for text inside of images. When you’re using your desktop, you can also search by Attributes such as created date, last modified, and resource type (notes that contain images, audio, and attachments).

If you’re familiar with Evernote’s search syntax, you might want to try entering some of these quick shortcuts into the search box:

• notebook:”notebookname” – Search for notes saved in a specific notebook (ie: notebook:”Travel”). Make sure there are no spaces after the colon.
• any: - Enter multiple search terms and pull up notes that include any one of the words you typed in (ie: any:”New York” will pull notes that include either word, but just typing “New York” into the search box will pull notes that contain both of these words.) The word any: needs to come at the beginning of your search, so you can’t type Cooking any:”Mexican.“
• tag: – Search by tags (ie: tag:”trip”).

I vaguely remember what I’m looking for

Let’s say you remember going to a restaurant last month and you remember taking a picture of the menu and saving it into your Evernote account. You remember eating a very tasty black cod and now you’d like to know the name of this restaurant so you can recommend it to a friend. You can search by entering in the word “black cod” into the search box, or search notes by date of creation and attributes (pull down the attributes menu and select Contains: image). Several of Evernote’s mobile versions allow you to find the restaurant on a map.

Here are some useful search syntax tips:

• created:[datetime] – Search for notes by date of creation using the format YYYYMMDD. You can also search by time period (for example, day-30 will pull up all notes created in the last 30 days).
• intitle:”name” – Search within the title of the note (ie: intitle:”restaurant” will pull up a note titled “French restaurant”).
• resource:image/* – Search only for notes that contain images.

You can always use the global “find in Evernote” desktop hotkey. On Mac, the default hotkey is Ctrl+Cmd+F. On Windows, the default hotkey is Win+Shift+F .

When you need to pull up something really fast

This happens to me all of the time. I need to get directions, a recipe, a telephone number, or meeting notes on my phone or my desktop. The beauty of Evernote’s search feature is that it aids your own memory in a very powerful way. By entering only the things you remember off hand (the name of the city to which you’re trying to find directions, one ingredient in a recipe, first name of the person whose phone number you need, or a keyword you recall from the meeting), you’ll narrow down your notes to those that include this word or combination of words. Once Evernote identifies a few notes with these works, your own memory can help you find exactly what you’re looking for visually — something that’s particularly useful when you have that Tip of the Tongue sensation and need a slight nudge to help you remember something.

Tip: Keep to-do lists in Evernote? Find them quickly by by typing todo:* into the search box to pull up all notes that contain checkboxes.

For more tips on how to use Evernote’s advanced search features, check out our Knowledge Base.

Evernote Did You Know Series

• Did You Know? — Get More By Using Evernote On Your Desktop
• Did You Know? — How to Clip Web Content

Evernote lets you capture anything you might want to remember — be it an image, a file, a handwritten, audio note or a quick, typed reminder. With most of us spending hours every day surfing the web for work, school, and fun, it’s not surprising that the things we want to remember are often found online.

How clipping from the Web with Evernote works

Above: clip your favorite recipes from around the web

Have you downloaded one of our Web Clipper extensions for your browser of choice? You can download clippers for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer and then clip anything from the web and immediately have it saved to your Evernote account.

Each clipper works a little differently (depending on your browser), but their end goal is the same — to help you grab anything you might want to remember from the web, and always be able to find it later. When you clip a selection from the web and sync your Evernote account, you’ll be able to access that clip on any computer or device where you have Evernote installed.

Here are some of the ways that you can use the Evernote Web Clipper:

• For comparison shopping: when you’re browsing sites like Amazon and Crate and Barrel, clip products you like (along with prices). Pull them up on your phone when you’re out shopping.
• For gift ideas (for yourself and others): keep track of gift ideas as you come across them. Maybe there’s a great barbecue set for your dad for Father’s Day, or the perfect book for your best friend’s birthday. Tag your clips with ‘Gift Ideas’ or ‘Want.’
  
• For research: clip articles from the web and save them to a research notebook in Evernote. Writing a thesis or a business plan? Refer to your research notes in Evernote as you build on the document.
• For travel planning: capture recommendations from trusted travel websites and travel deals in Evernote. Save to your travel or trip notebook. Scroll through everything you’ve found when you get to the booking phase.
• For recipes: clip recipes from your favorite recipe sites, blogs, and newspapers. Save them to your Evernote account and tag with ‘recipes’ or ingredients. Make notes like: “Make for Sunday dinner” right inside of the clipped recipe.
• For inspiration: whether you are planning a wedding or redecorating your house, clip anything that inspires you around the web. DYI projects from design*sponge and ReadyMade, wedding placecards from Style Me Pretty, wine openers from Etsy, sneakers from Cool Hunting, etc.

Clippers for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer

Above: clipping for trip planning in Firefox

Every browser is different and Evernote takes advantage of each browser’s unique capabilities. In all of the browsers, you can choose to clip a whole page or just a selection from a page. We recommend highlighting the section you’re interested in before clipping, so you capture the stuff you really want to remember.

Above: clipping products you like in Chrome

Cool benefits of web clipping with Evernote

As with all of your notes, your web clips are super searchable — meaning Evernote will even scan your clipped web images for text. The URL associated with the clip will also be automatically embedded in your note, so if you are doing a research project, for example, you’ll always be able to go back to the original source to add the proper citation.

Clip it from your desktop, pull it up on your phone

Web clipping is sort of like creating your own ‘best of’ list – it’s curated and customized by you and for you. When you clip something from the web to Evernote, you can quickly pull it up on your phone, without having to re-launch your web browser.

Site Memory

If you are a website or blog publisher, check out the Evernote Site Memory button. When you add it to your site, the button will allow visitors to add content from your site directly to their Evernote account in a clean, visually-appealing format. Site Memory builds long-term loyalty with your readers, who can revisit their favorite posts in their Evernote account and remember to go back to your site for more great content. Learn more about Site Memory.

Get the Web Clipper for your browser

To download the Web Clipper of your choice, just hit this link — we’ll figure out which browser you’re using. From there, click the download button and follow the instructions. Happy clipping!

What features would you like us to explore in our Did You Know Series? Let us know in the comments.

Evernote Did You Know Series

• Did You Know? — Get More By Using Evernote On Your Desktop

Many of us are so mobile these days that we sometimes forget about the desktop–we’re really concerned with having something available to us on our mobile phones. It’s no surprise that the majority of Evernote users come to us from mobile devices. But all of you probably also have a desktop computer that you use every day…that you’re likely working on right now. If you haven’t tried Evernote on your desktop, you’ve only seen half of what Evernote has to offer.

Let’s talk about why you should get to know Evernote on your desktop:

1. You Can Create Long-Form Notes

Unlike your phone, your desktop is great for creating and digesting longer content. Similarly, Evernote on your desktop is perfect for taking long-form notes and working on projects that may contain pages and pages of text, images, and attachments. Use Evernote for meeting agendas, to take notes in class, draft blog posts, and organize a research project.

2. You Can Attach Files

Your desktop experience is, naturally, more integrated with your other desktop tools. When you’re on your desktop, you can easily drag and drop images, audio and PDFs into Evernote (Premium users can save any file type), making them instantly available on any number of devices that you use when you’re away from your desktop. You can also bring in scanned documents and handwritten notes thanks to integrations with personal scanners, smartpens, photos from your digital camera and lots more.

3.  You Can Clip Content from the Web

The Evernote Web Clippers, available for all major browsers, allow you to quickly and seamlessly capture content as you’re surfing the web. You can clip text and images by selecting what you like and then clicking on the browser extension. The Web Clipper preserves the source URL in your note, so you’ll always have it for reference later. You can clip a recipe from the web and create a grocery list for it, then access it on your phone while you’re shopping. When you’re home cooking in your kitchen, you can pull it back up on your laptop or your mobile device. We can’t live without the Web Clipper.

The desktop versions of Evernote also allow you to take screenshots of your full screen or a small portion of it, dropping these images directly into your Evernote account.

4. You Can View Your Memories in a Super Visual Way

When you’re on the go, you have your phone, but when you’re at your desk, you tend to be in front of your computer. So, take advantage of the most powerful and feature-rich experience Evernote has to offer. See more notes on your screen, browse notes visually, access the Trunk and drop in integrations that make Evernote even more customizable (for example: making voice notes searchable), and see of your memories in the full glory of your computer’s screen.

Evernote, Everywhere

Having Evernote on your desktop and your mobile device(s) ensures that you never have to think about how to capture or search through your memories. The beauty of Evernote is that it seamlessly connects your computer, mobile device and the web. No more worrying about where to look for your notes, documents, audio files, or photos because they’re all in one place.

If you’ve never tried using Evernote on your desktop, give it a whirl.

If you have questions about Evernote or specific features you’d like explained, let us know in the comments.

Install Evernote for Mac
Install Evernote for Windows
Download the Evernote Web Clipper
Access Evernote on the Web, from any computer