I understand your irony and almost agree with you. 
And, as all we know, Devil is in details. But… As Keith mentioned in the first post, Evernote has rich API which allows programmer to do wide range of things. So you not need to work with EV database directly. From the API side it looks like you’re working with plain filesystem (i. e. without subdirectories) where all text documents has HTML format and (optional) attachments.
Best regards,
Flex.
SimpleNote integrates nicely with Scrivener,
and if you need formatted text, write in MarkDown.
This works on the Mac side; I don’t know about Windows.
I agree that EverNote is handy for quick reminders,
But I don’t see it for extensive research notes.
Main problem is the limited export, either html or xml.
While on the Scrivener side, you have RTF files, with or without embedded images, and the ability to construct and maintain complex hierarchical outlines is a core function of the program.
Katherine
And what is the real problem? I know nothing about Scrivener for Mac internals (AFAIK, it’s native Cocoa application), but it looks like Scrivener for Win is using QTextDocument infrastructure for text editing. It’s much easier to convert QTextDocument content into HTML rather than into RTF. In any case, Scrivener has wide range of embedded converters. Isn’t it? 
“Complex hierarchical outline” also can be stored within Evernote as a separate note with, for example, attached OPML document. Embedded images can be stored as attachment for the corresponding notes with appropriate HTML references inside notes. And so on.
The real problems are at least:
Evernote is that kind of application that I really will never understand.
For me it’s simple useless.
I hate app that claims to be able to do all, but do all in a poor way.
For database, Devonthink is simply amazing.
Evernote could just be useful to clip and clip and clip.
And then???
Really, I’d like to understand.
And apart from that, its UI is awful.
For a long time, I barely used Evernote, I couldn’t see the point. I found it confusing. But I confess that I am using DevonThink less and less and Evernote more and more. Evernote is ubiquitous (on all my devices) and it makes it incredibly to easy to capture data (I can clip images, websites, text from websites, send emails, take photos with my phone, drag & drop, even type my own notes… the list goes on). It has the added benefit of allowing any entry to made into a ToDo (with reminders if required) - so I can forget about that email from John about the thing because Evernote will remind me the day before. The more I get used to tagging, the more useful I find Evernote to be.
I still use DevonThink, but more as an archive for old data.
I don’t know how I would use Evernote with Scrivener though. I still prefer different apps for different functions. e.g. I use a journaling app for maintaining a journal even though I could use Evernote.
Yes, but Evernote is totally unorganized.
You can search and find everything.
But you dont’have things in a mental order.
For these thing i prefer GTD apps.
Before you put your life in Evernote, make sure you know how to get your data out of the application if necessary.
(The same is true of any application, but some make their data more accessible than others.)
Katherine
Syncing Evernote with Scrivener is important to me. Yes, I find Evernote difficult to organize on the iOS app, but it is easier in the desktop app (for me OSX). Still not perfect, but there you have it. I use Evernote to store just about anything I come across with my phone. I usually come across things while on my phone that I would not come across on my desktop and use it most of the time. Today I played around with storing a local Evernote notebook in a synced archive (go figure - I am not a coder, so there you have it) and that pretty well failed. But I did use export>HTML and created a folder on my desktop. That folder is a Scrivener Sync folder. Quicker than copying and pasting multiple notes. Not great and doesn’t let me use Scrivener on the fly, but gets my research and notes into the place I need them to be. So far, once in Scrivener, I have to organize the info and it seems media files prefer (for some reason) to stay in the Research folder. Not sure why that is, but I packed it in for the night.
Just thought I would share in case it would benefit anyone else.
Hi all,
I’m a Scrivener newbie and thrilled with its capabilities.
Bottom line: I would love a simple, one-step way to import Evernote notes into Scrivener, I suppose with each Evernote note becoming a single document.
Evernote is a platform… each user must design a way to use it. It’s all subjective… if you like one Evernote Notebook or multiples; lots of tags or none… etc.
I’ve come up with my own way to organize things, and Evernote now organizes everything for me.
I have many notes related to writing projects, and I would love to import them right into Scrivener. I’ve seen the HTML work-around, and that’s fine…
…but please, please consider finding a way to add Evernote note files to the Scrivener Import function and, well, I’ll be as satisfied with integrating the two as I could possibly be.
Thanks!
I actually quite like CMD-C → (gently enforced, but incredibly useful, review of what content I am about to transfer) → CMD-V (actually Shift-Alt-CMD-V to match the Scrivener formatting).
Yes… that’s what I’ve done on my (first!) Scrivener project…
…but I’d sure like a way to import multiple selected Evernote notes directly into Scrivener with one Scrivener command…
It would speed things up tremendously.
Barnet
It would do that. But it misses the review component, and I find that invaluable.
Does anyone know with the Evernote -> Scrivener HTML workaround if Evernote Tags can become Scrivener keywords?
Or vice the versa?
Is it possible to export Scrivener notes + keywords and get them to show as tags in Evernote?
Would be most useful.
Thanks
There wouldn’t be a really good way of doing that, in either direction. HTML does indeed have a “keywords” meta-data field in its self-description section, but this is typically used for data that is unlike what we could consider to be keywords (or tags). It is most often used for search engines on the Web, and is thus rather cluttered and often filled with redundant terms.
Well, no. Evernote can be totally unorganised, but it can also be rigidly organised. You can have hundreds of notebooks which, in turn, can each be allocated to a “stack” of related notebooks (so I have a home stack, a work stack, a personal stack, etc). Plus you can have thousands(? I actually have no idea if there even is a limit) of tags and tags can also be nested to create additional structure. I’m not a rigid kind of person, but I do have a lot of order and structure in Evernote through the use of stacks and nested tags. I can search for all my tax documents for the 2014 financial year in seconds. And I can find all my “writing” documents just by opening the relevant notebook.
There are also plenty of websites where people describe using Evernote for formal GTD, so the two are not incompatible. Personally, I use Evernote with a GTD app (although I am not a GTD disciple, I find it too rigid and it does not work well with my brain.
That is not hard to believe…
hey folks, stumbled upon this thread, figured, heck, it’s only 4 years old so why not keep it going.
I’ve been a longtime Scrivener user but haven’t made nearly as much use of it as it deserves. Recently bought access to a fantastic but pricey Scrivener tutorial program (learnscrivenerfast.com, I highly recommend it) and when I got to his section on integrating Evernote and Scrivener, I found that many of his recommendations didn’t work well. That set me about the task of figuring out a best practices for getting data out of Evernote and into Scrivener. I’ll go ahead and copy that here in case it helps anyone. But first, a few points.
I was disappointed to see some comments on this thread that attempted to turn it into a “well, why use Evernote at all, DevonThink is much better” discussion. That’s not appropriate. If you want a thread on integrating DT and Scrivener, go start one. This is about Evernote and Scrivener. For the record, I was a longtime DevonThink Pro Office user, still have a license for it, but have now migrated all my notes from it into Evernote and am very happy I did. Works better for me in a lot of ways. If you prefer DT, awesome. That’s not what this thread is about.
My basic workflow is if I find items I think I want to access later as some kind of reference point, I import those items into Evernote. Then when I start a Scrivener project, perhaps there are a number of items in Evernote I’d find useful to also have in Scrivener’s Research section. I wish Scrivener had something akin to Curio’s level of Evernote integration, that would be awesome. I suspect that will never happen. The point was made above that there are ways to import individual items satisfactorily, but that if you need to import a lot of items for some reason, then doing these one at a time is quite tedious, and I agree. So, count mine as one more vote for tighter integration between two of my favorite apps.
Here’s my best practices for moving Evernote notes into Scrivener. Hope it’s helpful to someone.
You can move items into one of two places (not counting moving stuff into the Drafts section):
Into the Reference Section:
copy classic note link to open directly in Evernote
copy note link to open first in the browser (which then opens in Evernote)
both methods work equally well regardless of media type
Into the binder “Research” area
the most important point here from my experience is that the best method depends on what is being imported into Scrivener. Different source types require different import methods.
if the media type is a web capture, then in Evernote go to Share/Copy Share URL to create a public link, then in Scrivener, do a File/Import/Web Page
If the media type is an imported file, like a PDF, JPG, MP3, MP4, etc…, then in the Evernote note, click on the file name within the note and drag that file directly into Scrivener. Now, if your Evernote note has both a file like this AND text you wrote in the same note, this method will not import the text you wrote. You’ll have to copy and paste that separately. In my tests, selecting All and then copying and pasting did not bring over the file, just the text.
If the media type is something you either typed directly into Evernote, or copied and pasted into Evernote, then copy and paste the note contents into Scrivener. You can also use the ‘share a public link’ method, but that creates an item that Scrivener has to read through the Evernote website, and that seems to work unreliably. Sometimes it displays the note in Scrivener right away, sometimes it seems to spin for awhile before it displays it. Copy and pasting it will avoid this, obviously.
I’ll refresh this thread too. Since I come from a Web dev and programming background, I understand the challenges of integration. It’s tough. But luckily, with the web, integration has become a common tool, and API’s make integration far easier, despite the labyrinthine documentation often provided.
So why integrate Evernote with Scrivener? Because of two opposing forces: one, the desire of users for more and more functionality in Scrivener, and the opposite goal of keeping Scrivener lean and mean, devoid of the bloat that ruined Microsoft Word years ago.
Frankly, Scrivener is a tool best used on a desktop. There simply isn’t enough real estate on a phone or tablet to make best use of Scrivener’s organizational tools, which is probably why the programmers have struggled so much with the iPad version.
Evernote on the other hand, is DESIGNED for mobility and interactivity.
As a programmer, the best way to give Scrivener users what they want, while keeping the program lean and mean, is to interact with other existing packages like Evernote. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just use one from your neighbor.
Thanks to the Evernote API, two way integration is not only possible, but practically done by someone with the proper training. The Scrivener folks might want to hire a web designer who has Evernote API skills.
Here’s how I would envision a simple but powerful integration of both programs, each perfectly designed for their respective environments:
An Evernote notebook could be imported or linked to a folder in the Scrivener research section. Any notes in the Evernote notebook would be automatically imported at the next outline level down from the folder.
If linked, these Evernote Notebooks could be “synced on Scrivener open” or “synced manually.” Any new notes in the Evernote Notebook container would be added or updated as provided by the Evernote API.
If there is an Evernote format (like an audio for instance) that is unsupported in Scrivener, then scrivener would attempt to build a link, if the file is available on the web.
Once the Scrivener user copies the text from the research folder to the Draft section, all links and interactivity would be broken, and the text would stand on its own.
Evernote interaction would achieve the following for Scrivener Users:
a) Eliminate the need for Scrivener programmers to attempt a mobile version of Scrivener, allowing them to focus instead, on making the Desktop versions as perfect as possible.
b) Give us users a convenient way to assemble notes, research, and creative ideas on the fly, using our phones and tablets, by using Evernote, knowing that the information we assemble under specific notebooks would be readily available to us the next time we enter our Scrivener project.
Scrivener becomes much more powerful and web savvy, yet still lean and mean.
Love it. That would be powerful. I’m not familiar with the Evernote API, but so many programs hook into it pretty tightly (Curio, for example) that this seems doable.