Everyone has their favorite applications they like to use. What is your favorite program? Is it your web browser, is it Outlook, or what is it? One of my all time favorite applications is Evernote. This application is truly amazing. This program is your brain on steroids. If implemented correctly you can use this program to keep track of anything and everything, from shopping lists, to gift lists, to important emails, to receipts, to anything that you need to remember. There are tons of ways you can use it. Check out the Evernote blog for all the possible uses, or come up with your own.
I currently use Evernote for a variety of things, including capturing articles on the web, keeping receipts, saving recipes, and any document that comes in the mail that I need to retain. My favorite use is utilizing Evernote as a Document Management System. Here’s my setup.
Evernote has the ability to monitor a directory (folder) 0n a computer, and any file that is put into that folder is automatically imported into Evernote.
- I setup a Visioneer RoadWarrior Scanner to scan automatically any paper that is inserted into the scanner, save it to a file, in a PDF Format. (Note: Evernote can accept images as well.)
- The scanned image is automatically saved as a PDF File, into a folder that Evernote Monitors.
- Evernote then imports that file into the Evernote Database, and indexes the text of the file so it can be searched on at a later date.
- After the file is imported I go into Evernote, file it in the appropriate notebook and tag the note so I can search by tags as well.
- If I wish I can modify other attributes of the note, including date, subject date, title, author, additional tags, or move to another folder.
- Since Evernote has the ability to host these notes on their servers I sync the notes up to their servers so I can access them from my web based phone, a browser, and/or the application itself on the computer. Since the notes are stored both locally on the computer and on the server this provides built in disaster recovery for my notes.
- Evernote provides the ability to share publicly notes if you wish or they can be all stored securely. Here’s a sample receipt I scanned from Taco Bell with some missing items and stored within Evernote (note requires Adobe Reader to see receipt).
- After items are scanned in I have the ability to add comments at the bottom below the PDF file or scanned image. This works great when dealing with insurance companies, scan in the summary of benefits, make notes of the phone calls below it when discussing errors, or add in further communications like additional emails or faxes or hard copies of letters that have been scanned.
To see how well Evernote captures text from an image, even an image from a camera phone go to this link and in the top right corner you will see this search box.
Evernote Search Box
Now type in the word “Cow” or “Cowboy” in the search box and you will see how well Evernote identified the text from the photo. If you click on the resulting note in Evernote you will see that Evernote identified Cowboys by the highlighted yellow text.
Text Recognition in Evernote
This is just a sample of what Evernote can do. Try it out and let me know how you use it.