Evernote, part 4: Accessing information
All of this information storage capability is useless unless you can retrieve it quickly and efficiently. As I have continued to build up the size of my database, I have found myself relying more and more on the search feature built in to Evernote. A simple scan of the screen just won’t do the trick now. Remember the cool part about this program being able to find text directly inside an image file? This is where Evernote really shines.
I scanned a recipe card and inserted it into Evernote. After the software had a chance to index it, I could type in any word into the search bar and Evernote would highlight it. Thus, “mushrooms” typed into the search bar would turn these results like this. Get, say, a thousand images or notes all on a similar subject, and you can see how crucial this feature becomes. And, it works equally well on the web as it does the desktop software. This is a poorly scanned image, and Evernote didn’t pick up every single word. Also, the software picks up hand-written text as well.
Although text and images are both searchable, I’ve had a tough time getting Evernote to recognize text within a .pdf file. One of my goals this upcoming school year is to make my office as paperless as possible, and I plan on using this software to accomplish that goal. Hopefully, the techs at Evernote Central are planning this as a feature in an upcoming release.
Next time, we’ll continue this Evernote series with a wish-list of features and a run-down of things that I’d like to see improved.
