Friday, January 21, 2011

Evernote

This is the first of a few posts about programs that I find especially helpful in terms of writers' tools.

The top of my list is Evernote.

Evernote's tag line is Remember Everything however the beauty of Evernote is that it does the remembering for you and supplies it back to you through its powerful search function. It also does the backing up for you - storing all your information encrypted - if you choose to activate the web-based side of the program by setting up a profile.

Evernote is the perfect tool for us writers who are forever seeing an interesting quote, a piece of information or photo or compiling research for our articles or book. Information can be entered into Evernote from everywhere - a clipping from the web, a photo you take on your phone, a dictated memo, typing information in, or photographing a business card with your webcam. Documents such as pdfs or other files can also be added to notes in the Pro version.

Evernote makes a note for each piece of information you add. You can group notes in Notebooks which can be nested within each other in the Mac version of the program. Notes can also be tagged with key words.

The search-ability is what I love most about Evernote. You do not have to remember what you titled a note, where you put it, or what tags you used. Type a word into the search box and Evernote will find every note with that word, including if it appears in photos. Evernote has a powerful word recognition software embedded in the program.

Evernote works on Windows, Mac OS and other less popular operating systems. It has apps for iPhone, Android, iPad and other phone and tablet devices.

Evernote is entirely free. It is fully functional with no trial period. However, I personally find the bells and whistles of the pro subscription well worth the $5 per month or $45/year fee plus I like supporting a piece of software that is so well designed.

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