Brett Kelly - Evernote Essentials

Evernote Essentials, 4 th Edition

by Brett Kelly

2010-2013 by Brett Kelly Media, Inc.

Published by Brett Kelly Media, Inc.

1038 Bastanchury Road

Suite 223

Fullerton, California 92835

All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-0-6158719-5-0

First Edition: July, 2010

Second Edition: August, 2011

Third Edition: February, 2013

EVERNOTE and REMEMBER EVERYTHING are trademarks of Evernote Corporation and used under a license.

First of all, thanks for grabbing a copy of Evernote Essentials!

Historically, this book has been sold as a PDF on my own website and everybody who bought it from there receives access to a special members area of my site where I sometimes add extra content (video, audio interviews, etc.). Since you purchased this via the iBookstore, Im not able to offer you this supplemental material automatically.

If youre interested in taking a look at what else Ive got, head over to this special page on my website where youll find instructions on how to get access. You dont have to, of course only if it sounds interesting to you!

Oh, and as you may or may not be aware, Im not able to respond to reviews left for this book in the iBookstore. If you have any problems with the guide or its contents, please contact me directly by emailing and Ill do absolutely everything I can to get things straightened out. Thanks!

Without further ado

I'd be willing to bet that, at some point in your life, you've purchased a paper notebook of some kind. Maybe it was wire-bound and cost a nickel at the grocery store; or perhaps it was encased in a rare animal skin and cost as much as a fine pair of Italian loafers. Your notebook may have been used for anything from compiling shopping lists to brainstorming the Definitive American Novel. It could be equally useful in tracking a list of tasks or keeping tabs on your monthly spending at the Waffle House.

None of this actually matters as long as you can identify with the need to have a large number of pages bound into a conveniently portable little package.

Paper notebooks have their obvious limitations. As handy as they can be, theyto use an Internet buzzworddon't scale. If your notebook isn't with you when you need to find something written in it or record a new idea, you're out of luck, Chuck. And flipping through a hundred pages or so in search of that phone number you jotted down in the elevator at that conference is, to say the least, inefficient (and, potentially, more than a little embarrassing).

Now imagine you could take that same paper notebook and add any type of digital file you wanted to it. It could hold images and record your voice and play it back to you. You could easily rearrange the pages, annotate them in any way that tickles your fancy, and search the whole mess from the top of the very first page. This notebook is designed to be with you for your entire life. You won't ever have to worry about it filling up or about accidentally misplacing it. That's Evernote: a ubiquitous digital notebook which syncs to the web and across all of your devices that can capture, store, and index just about any type of data you can throw at it.

Since you're reading this, chances are you have at least a fleeting interest in learning more about this versatile application. As I write this, I've been using Evernote for over five years and have well over 12,000 discrete pieces of information stored in it: funny pictures that I've found on the Internet, digital backups of my tax forms, photos of my wife and kids, and audio recordings I've both made and foundeven early versions of this very text you're reading right nowit all lives in Evernote.

My goal in writing this is twofold:

First, to take people from Evernote Newbies to Evernote Ninjas. Second, take the Evernote Ninjas and show them a few tricks and advanced techniques they never knew existed.

A lofty goal, I admit. But, I'm one of the biggest Evernote nerds you're likely to come across and I think that, if you're really interested in getting the most out of Evernote, this is the guide for you. So, rather than continue prattling on about it, we're going to get into the nuts and bolts of the desktop applications, the mobile applications, and the web service (yes, Evernote is all of these things). I'll cover how to configure Evernote for the first-timers as well as how experienced Evernoters can make the most out of facilities like tagging and advanced searching. I'll also be providing a bunch of use cases and examples for how you, my dear friend, can take your use of Evernote to the next level.

To make sure we're all speaking the same language, I've defined a few key terms that will appear frequently within this book. I give you The 60-Second Evernote Glossary (patent-pending):

• Database: While not an official term, you'll see it throughout this book as a succinct descriptor for your entire collection of Evernote notes and notebooks. This term is interchangeable with "Evernote account."
• Note: A single item stored in your Evernote database. This could be a PDF, an image, a piece of text, any kind of other file on your computer, an audio file, or any combination thereof.
• Notebook: A named container used for storing notes in a logical way (you might have a notebook called "Shopping Lists" or "Recipes," for example). As of this writing, each Evernote account can have up to 250 notebooks.
• Stack: A named container for notebooks. This allows an additional level of organization of your notes and notebooks (your "Medical" stack might contain "Insurance" and "Records" notebooks, for instance).
• Tag: A short, descriptive piece of text applied to a note that can be used to identify it later or group several notes by topic. Each note may have multiple tags (or none at all).
• Clipping: The act of snagging content from a source (your web browser or another application on your desktop or mobile device) and adding it to your Evernote database.
• Sync (or synchronization): Evernote's behavior of keeping an up-to-date copy of your entire database (except the parts you tell it not to) somewhere on the Internet. This happens at timed intervals that you can configure.
• Premium Subscriber (or Premium user): An Evernote user that pays a nominal fee every month for additional features and the ability to add more data per month than free users.
• Shortcuts (keyboard): A set of global keystrokes (which means they work no matter which application is currently active) for adding new notes, taking screenshots, or initiating a new search of your Evernote database.
• Shortcuts: A collection of selected notes, notebooks and tags that are readily accessible in most Evernote applications (desktop, mobile, etc.).
• Saved Search: A search query that has been saved with a custom name and that can be executed anytime with a single click.
• Reminder: A note attribute that, when activated, will cause the note to appear at the top of any list of notes in which it appears. Reminders can also have an optional notification sent at a date and time set by the user.
• Attributes: Bits of data about each of your notes: the day it was created, how it was added, which types of media it contains, and so on. Each note in your database has these (though, some have more than others).