EverNote
Encyclopedia
Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking
and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.
Evernote supports a number of operating system platforms (including Microsoft Windows
, Mac OS X
, Chrome OS, Android, iOS
and WebOS), and also offers online synchronization and backup services.
The Evernote web service launched into open beta on June 24, 2008 and reached 11 million users in July of 2011.
In October 2010, the company raised a $20 million USD funding round led by Sequoia Capital
with participation from Morgenthaler
Ventures and DoCoMo Capital. Since then, the company also has raised an additional USD $50 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital and Morgenthaler Ventures.
Evernote is available in a paid version or a more restricted, advertising-supported, "free" version.
Use of the online server is free up to a certain monthly usage limit, with additional monthly use reserved for paying subscribers.
Users with internet access and an Evernote account can also have their notes automatically synchronized with a master copy held on the Evernote server.
This approach lets a user access and edit their data across multiple machines and operating system platforms, but still view, input and edit data when an internet connection is not available.
Where Evernote client software is not available, online account-holders can access their note archive via a web interface or through a media device.
The Evernote software can be downloaded and used as "stand-alone" software without using the online portion of your Evernote account (online registration is required for initial setup, however), but will not be able to upload files to the Evernote server, or use the server to synchronize or share files between different Evernote installations. Also, no image or Image-PDF (Premium only) recognition and indexing will take place if you use the software entirely offline.
and annotated. Evernote also supports touch and tablet screens with handwriting recognition
. Evernote web clipping plugins are available for the most popular internet browsers that allow marked sections of webpages to be captured and clipped to Evernote. If no section of a webpage has been highlighted, Evernote can clip the full page. Evernote also supports the ability to e-mail notes to the service, allowing for automated note entry via e-mail rules or filters.
Where suitable hardware is available, Evernote can automatically add geolocation tags to notes.
The online service also allows selected files to be shared for viewing and editing by other users, and allows integration with Twitter
for storing or forwarding "tweets". Users can also use the Twitter system to add notes to Evernote remotely, by sending tweets from any Twitter-capable device.
As well as the larger per-month upload limit, the premium service features faster word recognition in images, greater security and text searching within PDF files.
The free service is supported by advertising, on both the web interface and in the application. The premium service allows the user to disable this advertising.
Free service also does not allow files be available offline. Sometimes it does make them available from cache but that can cause conflicts when synced.
All Evernote accounts, both free and premium, have a maximum limit of 100,000 notes and 250 notebooks.
, Windows Phone 7
, WebOS, Maemo
, Android, BlackBerry
(including BlackBerry Playbook
), iOS, Google Wave
, and iPad
mobile platforms as well as a beta for Symbian S60
5th Edition. There are portable versions of Evernote available for flash drives and U3
drives.
There is substantial variation in supported features on different platforms: for example it is possible to edit rich text and sketches on Windows; on Mac it is possible to edit rich text, but only view sketches; and on the iPad only plain text could be edited prior to version 4.1.0 (August 2011).
There is currently no officially supported native application for Linux or BSD.
Web clipping support is installed by default on the Internet Explorer
and Safari
browsers when the Evernote software is installed under Windows or Mac OS X.
Evernote web-clipping plugins are also available for the Firefox and Google Chrome
browsers, but need to be downloaded and installed separately.
Evernote email-clipper is automatically installed in Microsoft Office Outlook if the desktop version is installed on the same computer. There is a Thunderbird
email plugin, but it too must be installed separately.
There are some third-party clients for Evernote:
; Springpad
; Simplenote
; Microsoft OneNote; Yojimbo
; Journler
; Circus Ponies NoteBook
; Lognoter PIM version
; Zotero
; gnote
; BasKet Note Pads
; and Nevernote, an open source clone of Evernote.
Notetaking
Notetaking is the practice of recording information captured from a transient source, such as an oral discussion at a meeting, or a lecture. Notes of a meeting are usually called minutes. The format of the initial record may often be informal and/or unstructured. One common format for such notes is...
and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.
Evernote supports a number of operating system platforms (including Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, Chrome OS, Android, iOS
IOS
iOS is an operating system for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Apple TV.IOS may also refer to:-Companies and organisations:* Illinois Ornithological Society, American state-based bird club...
and WebOS), and also offers online synchronization and backup services.
The Evernote web service launched into open beta on June 24, 2008 and reached 11 million users in July of 2011.
In October 2010, the company raised a $20 million USD funding round led by Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is a Californian venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital "one of the highest-caliber venture firms", and noted that it is "one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture-capital firms"...
with participation from Morgenthaler
Morgenthaler
- People :* Walter Morgenthaler , Swiss psychiatry* Otto Morgenthaler * Ernst Morgenthaler , a Swiss painter* Wendelin Morgenthaler , German politician * Hans Morgenthaler , Swiss poet...
Ventures and DoCoMo Capital. Since then, the company also has raised an additional USD $50 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital and Morgenthaler Ventures.
Evernote is available in a paid version or a more restricted, advertising-supported, "free" version.
Use of the online server is free up to a certain monthly usage limit, with additional monthly use reserved for paying subscribers.
Data storage and access
On supported operating systems, Evernote stores and edits the user's notes on their local machine.Users with internet access and an Evernote account can also have their notes automatically synchronized with a master copy held on the Evernote server.
This approach lets a user access and edit their data across multiple machines and operating system platforms, but still view, input and edit data when an internet connection is not available.
Where Evernote client software is not available, online account-holders can access their note archive via a web interface or through a media device.
The Evernote software can be downloaded and used as "stand-alone" software without using the online portion of your Evernote account (online registration is required for initial setup, however), but will not be able to upload files to the Evernote server, or use the server to synchronize or share files between different Evernote installations. Also, no image or Image-PDF (Premium only) recognition and indexing will take place if you use the software entirely offline.
Data entry
As well as the keyboard entry of typed notes, Evernote supports image capture from cameras on supported devices, and the recording of voice notes. In some situations, text that appears in captured images can be recognized using OCROptical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
and annotated. Evernote also supports touch and tablet screens with handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition
Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...
. Evernote web clipping plugins are available for the most popular internet browsers that allow marked sections of webpages to be captured and clipped to Evernote. If no section of a webpage has been highlighted, Evernote can clip the full page. Evernote also supports the ability to e-mail notes to the service, allowing for automated note entry via e-mail rules or filters.
Where suitable hardware is available, Evernote can automatically add geolocation tags to notes.
The online service also allows selected files to be shared for viewing and editing by other users, and allows integration with Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
for storing or forwarding "tweets". Users can also use the Twitter system to add notes to Evernote remotely, by sending tweets from any Twitter-capable device.
"Free" and "Premium" accounts
The free online service has monthly usage limitations (currently 60 MB/month), and displays a "usage" meter. A premium service is also available that currently costs $5 per month or $45 per year, and currently offers 1,000 MB/month usage.As well as the larger per-month upload limit, the premium service features faster word recognition in images, greater security and text searching within PDF files.
The free service is supported by advertising, on both the web interface and in the application. The premium service allows the user to disable this advertising.
Free service also does not allow files be available offline. Sometimes it does make them available from cache but that can cause conflicts when synced.
All Evernote accounts, both free and premium, have a maximum limit of 100,000 notes and 250 notebooks.
Supported platforms
Evernote clients are available for Android 1.6 and above, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, and for Windows MobileWindows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
, Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
, WebOS, Maemo
Maemo
Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...
, Android, BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
(including BlackBerry Playbook
BlackBerry PlayBook
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a tablet computer by Research In Motion , best known for the BlackBerry smartphone. It competes against Apple's iPad and a slew of Android-powered tablets....
), iOS, Google Wave
Google Wave
Apache Wave is a software framework for real-time collaborative editing online. Google Inc. originally developed it as Google Wave.It was announced at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009....
, and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
mobile platforms as well as a beta for Symbian S60
S60 (software platform)
The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...
5th Edition. There are portable versions of Evernote available for flash drives and U3
U3
U3 was a joint venture between SanDisk and M-Systems , producing a proprietary method of launching Windows applications from special USB flash drives. Flash drives adhering to the U3 specification are termed "U3 smart drives"....
drives.
There is substantial variation in supported features on different platforms: for example it is possible to edit rich text and sketches on Windows; on Mac it is possible to edit rich text, but only view sketches; and on the iPad only plain text could be edited prior to version 4.1.0 (August 2011).
There is currently no officially supported native application for Linux or BSD.
Web clipping support is installed by default on the Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
and Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
browsers when the Evernote software is installed under Windows or Mac OS X.
Evernote web-clipping plugins are also available for the Firefox and Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...
browsers, but need to be downloaded and installed separately.
Evernote email-clipper is automatically installed in Microsoft Office Outlook if the desktop version is installed on the same computer. There is a Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
email plugin, but it too must be installed separately.
There are some third-party clients for Evernote:
- NixNote. An open-source, cross-platform clone of Evernote written in JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, which runs on any OS with desktop as a Java virtual machine (Java SE) including Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, among other OSs. - People's Note. People's Note is a Windows Mobile note taking application with full-featured Evernote integration. Supports offline notes storage.
- Ploze. Ploze lets you read, search and create Notes on your Windows Mobile phone whether or not you are connected to the internet.
Similar products and services
Evernote's competitors include MemonicMemonic
Memonic is an online notetaking application that allows users to save and organize information while conducting research online and offline. A clip may be a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a document or document excerpt, a text note, or a screenshot. Memonic was launched early 2010.-Product...
; Springpad
Springpad
Springpad is a free online application and web service that allows its registered users to save, organize, and share collected ideas and information. A personal organizer and information capturing service, Springpad is designed to help its users remember content...
; Simplenote
Simplenote
Simplenote is a note taking application. The application works for the iPhone, iPad, Android, the internet, PC, or Macintosh. There is a premium version with extra features that includes syncing Simplenote with Dropbox...
; Microsoft OneNote; Yojimbo
Yojimbo (software)
Yojimbo is a personal information manager for Mac OS X by Bare Bones Software. It can store notes, images/media, URLs, web pages. Yojimbo can also encrypt any of its contents and store the password in the Keychain. It is Bare Bones' second Cocoa application. Super Get Info was the first....
; Journler
Journler
Journler was a hybrid diary and personal organizer for the Macintosh. Somewhat similar to Yojimbo , it features a three-pane interface and supports tagging and categorizing of entries. The entries can be simple text, but also can contain images, PDFs, and other media that the Mac OS supports...
; Circus Ponies NoteBook
Circus Ponies NoteBook
Circus Ponies NoteBook is Macintosh software offered by Circus Ponies Software, Inc. that can be used for taking class notes, documenting research, journaling, scrapbooking, creating photo albums, making to-do lists, organizing projects, creating travel guides, and other things.In late 2008 Circus...
; Lognoter PIM version
Lognoter
Lognoter is a software application that makes it possible to manage all project data, even though they may be of multiple types, existing in diverse formats, on a variety of systems, under differing standards. Lognoter allows users to store information in "database" format or to use a more...
; Zotero
Zotero
Zotero is free, open source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials . Notable features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citations, footnotes and bibliographies, as well as integration with the word processors...
; gnote
Gnote
Gnote is a free and open-source desktop notetaking application written for Linux, cloned from Tomboy by Hubert Figuiere. It uses a Wiki-like linking system to connect notes together. Gnote is part of the GNOME desktop environment, often filling the need for personal information management. The main...
; BasKet Note Pads
Basket
A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, which can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are...
; and Nevernote, an open source clone of Evernote.