Jul 16, 2008

Evernote v. OneNote Pt 2

Apparently the most popular post on my blog is the one about my thoughts on Evernote and OneNote. Judging by the search terms that get them here, I'm guessing that they are not finding what they are looking for, so after about a month of playing with both, here's my update.

Evernote:
The Pros:
  • The Clipping function is much easier to use. It allows for quite a bit of user control over what is clipped and saves the context in which it was clipped.
  • For non-text clips, it offers easy fairly easy conversions to jpeg. I'm sure that there is an easier way, but at the moment I copy the image out of Evernote, paste it into paint and click save. There is an option to save images in Evernote, but right now, it doesn't offer .jpeg
  • Content can be clipped to downloaded program or online site. Once synced, content can be accessed from either place.
  • Notes can toggle between a "drawing" entry and a "text" entry. The drawing tool provides great entertainment with the appearance of "working."
  • Notes can be emailed via website without setting up an Outlook account.
  • The import wizard will allow it to import OneNote notes (some editability is lost, however).
  • It's free!
  • You can upload files from your phone.
  • You can email files/content to a specified address and they are added to your notebook of choice.
The Cons:
  • Emailing notes at the moment has to be done one at a time.
  • Because it's free, there is a limited amount of storage, unless you upgrade to a pay account.
  • The only way to "share" an entire notebook efficiently is to make the notebook public. No Google sharing options here.
  • It doesn't not export easily. Like emailing notes, saving has to be done one note at a time.
OneNote:

The Pros:
  • Since it's made by Microsoft, notes can be exported as Word Documents (very nice for those who might be using it for research logs that have to be turned in)
  • Multiple clips can be put in the same "note" with text in between (Evernote puts each clip in a separate note)
  • Storage is unlimited because notes are stored on the computer's hard drive.
  • Notes appear in interface that looks like a "notebook." For people that need the visual appearance of an actual notebook with dividers this is nice.
The Cons:
  • It's made by Microsoft (I don't really have to explain that, do I)
  • You have to buy OneNote for each computer you plan to use it one. Our desktop is new and came with it, but I'm not going to shell out $90 to put it on the laptop.
  • Sharing notes is nearly impossible. The directions are convuluted and basically tell you to set up a network among the computers wanting to share in which everyone only saves notes to one location that can be accessed by everyone. (I don't think this is exactly what I would call document sharing).
  • There is no online access.
  • It does not import from One Note (are we really suprised)
In the end, I went with Evernote. Mostly because I don't like the lack of access that I have with One Note. I work from multiple computers and although I would like be able to install a program on each, I don't want to have to pay to do that, and I like the web option even better. I would rather pay $5 a month to upgrade storage if needed and have to portability. I still use One Note occasionally, mostly if I am on the desktop and accidentally copy something to it, but luckily it's easily imported and indexed in my Evernote account.


4 comments:

Zog said...

Another big pro for Evernote is it's automatic OCR'ing and indexing of images. That, combined with the email and syncing features you mentioned mean, for instance, that I can use my mobile phone to take a picture of the whiteboard during a meeting, email the photo from the phone to Evernote, and by the time I get back to my desk I can search for the words on the whiteboard using the desktop client and have the whiteboard photo come up as a result.

In theory.

In my experience, Evernote's text recognition is still rather hit-and-miss. But if they could perfect that feature, it'd be killer.

G said...

@zog I've not had such good luck with the OCR, but that may be more a reflection of the poor quality of the images of texts I'm asking it to index. I mean indexing grainy images of food ads from 1920 may be asking a little much :)

Zog said...

Thought you might be interested in this recent article:

Can Evernote Make You into a Digital Leonardo?

Anonymous said...

Please...OneNote is head and shoulders better than Evernote could possibly be. Evernote 2.2 WAS nearly on par, but this 3.x abomination they put out has reduced what was a fine product to an inferior product. OneNote 2007 features a much more robust OCR feature, has far better text formatting options, is more intuitive and you CAN share notebooks rather easily. And there is nothing wrong with the product coming from Microsoft. It is one of the best parts of Office.