5 ms·

What can Evernote do that can't be done by OneNote? If anything, free OneNote (or some other equivalent) killed it. I don't see what is special about Evernote

What can Evernote do that can't be done by OneNote? If anything, free OneNote (or some other equivalent) killed it. I don't see what is special about Evernote that guarantees its viability.

dasil003 8y ago
Evernote killed itself by losing its vision in search of ever greater monetization, how the current product compares to other products on the landscape is irrelevant.
threeseed 8y ago
OneNote killed it. Apple Notes killed it. Both are free. Both do about 90% of what Evernote Basic does.
- cpburns2009 8y ago
  OneNote is free? I thought you had to pay for it as part of Microsoft Office Student edition.
  - berbec 8y ago
    Just did a fresh install of windows 10. Onenote was pre-installed. When I installed office 365 premium, I got a second Onenote.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      The free version of OneNote is lighter. The version that comes with Office is full-featured. (Don't know exactly what's different, I've only used the office version.)
      - oerpli 8y ago
        The full version is also free. It comes included with the Office365 installer, but can be downloaded on its own: https://www.onenote.com/download https://www.onenote.com/download OneNote syncs to OneDrive - so if you have O365 your storage space is quite large, whereas free users only have 5GB (though compared to Evernote's 25MB this is still plenty)
        PhasmaFelis 8y ago
        Unless they've changed it quite recently, the version that comes with Office365 and the one from https://www.onenote.com/download https://www.onenote.com/download are different programs.
      - MikusR 8y ago
        The version that comes with Office is discontinued.
        berbec 8y ago
        I did an office 365 install a week ago and recall a second Onenote popping up. Is it just no longer being developed, or did I get one of the last installs? I was unaware of the change!
  - downrightmike 8y ago
    Free on apple's appstore too.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  Does Apple notes have a web clipper out even allow for attachments?
  - cknoxrun 8y ago
    Attachments, yes. Web clipper, no I don't think so. But I doubt most people who used to use Evernote and now use Apple notes ever used the web clipper (including me).
  - prepend 8y ago
    I save web site as pdf and attach it to notes files when necessary. Whenever possible, I just try to name the file with tags to find through search.
cpburns2009 8y ago
I don't know what Evernote supports, but OneNote lacks some simple features. Can Evernote import slides from a PowerPoint larger than 50 MB? Because OneNote lost that. Does Evernote actually support saving to a file? Because OneNote doesn't support that trivial feature either.
- mathattack 8y ago
  Can OneNote copy and paste to Outlook without losing formatting?
tjohns 8y ago
They each have their specialty. Evernote is better for filing documents / archiving things - whether those are PDFs, web pages, business cards, physical mail, etc. OneNote is better for free-form notetaking and editing. Each page feels like an open canvas. In particular: I can't drop a file directly onto the OneNote icon to archive a file - I have to make a "page" and drop it into the page's canvas. OneNote doesn't provide tagging. It enforces a certain organization that only makes sense for notes (notebooks > sections > pages). Attachments always feel like a second-class citizen inside of a page (which isn't to say OneNote's attachment handling is wrong, it's just designed for storing handouts in class alongside your handwriting, as opposed to archiving every piece of paper on your desk). In my use case, I use Evernote (with a ScanSnap scanner) to archive every piece of physical mail I receive. It's great that I can just throw in a pile of mail, push one button, let the scanner bundle it into PDFs/JPEGs/contact cards as appropriate, apply metatadata, and OCR/index it. I tried to move this workflow to OneNote, and couldn't get anything as smooth. I use both. I use OneNote for notes in class, and Evernote for long-term archival/recall of everything else. (Personally, I think that DevonThink is a closer replacement to Evernote than OneNote is.)
- zwayhowder 8y ago
  I spent years with the same workflow, and Evernote groaned to a halt with over 5000 PDFs in it for me. (i7, 16gb ram). I now store all my scans in Google Drive and use the OCR that comes with the ScanSnap. It works just as well, the search is Google fast and I can share them easily.
- brantonb 8y ago
  My boss today wondered why he made a particular decision for a commit he made 3 years ago. He pulled up Evernote, searched for the bug number, and had his notes from when he was working on it. Mystery solved. With OneNote, he’d have to have some sort of filing system to organize that. With Evernote, he knew it was there and he could search for it if he needed it. That’s not to say you can’t search in OneNote, just that the archiving model of Evernote works far better for his workflow.
Spooky23 8y ago
OneNote doesn’t scale well once you start using it. Lots of people use it for a few weeks.
- opportune 8y ago
  What do you mean? I have seen medium-sized wikis written using OneNote, and I've seen it used as a collaboration environment for specifications / mockups / design in groups of dozens of people as well.
johntash 8y ago
The one feature I never found a decent replacement for was Evernote's web clipper. It worked really well, and I actually used it quite a bit since it was so low effort compared to saving a page or copy/pasting something that I might want to refer to later.
- unstuckdev 8y ago
  What's missing in OneNote's web clipper?
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
The Mac version of OneNote is missing quite a few features from the Windows version. Evernote doesn't have that problem. (I use OneNote anyway, since it's so much better then Evernote for me, it's just kind of annoying given that I switch between Mac and Windows a lot.) Also, the free (non-Office) version of OneNote is missing some features, I think.
- pishpash 8y ago
  Mac Office is always missing things, it might as well be a different product. The free OneNote though should be the same and there is even a web-based version.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    > Mac Office is always missing things, it might as well be a different product. Is it? I've been using Excel cross-platform for a while and I haven't found a missing feature yet. (Although some keyboard shortcuts are annoyingly altered.) I don't use the rest of the Office suite as much, but OneNote is the only outlier I've seen personally.
    - pishpash 8y ago
      Outlook is another example. Word/Excel are more complete but VBA and plugins may still differ.
stef25 8y ago
While kicking the tyres of OneNote I had an issue where it wouldn't paste all the text I copied, I think because there was a link in it. For some reason only MS seems to create products that fall flat on their face so quickly.

What can Evernote do that can't be done by OneNote? If anything, free OneNote (or some other equivalent) killed it. I don't see what is special about Evernote that guarantees its viability.

dasil003 8y ago

Evernote killed itself by losing its vision in search of ever greater monetization, how the current product compares to other products on the landscape is irrelevant.

threeseed 8y ago

OneNote killed it. Apple Notes killed it. Both are free. Both do about 90% of what Evernote Basic does.

cpburns2009 8y ago
OneNote is free? I thought you had to pay for it as part of Microsoft Office Student edition.
- berbec 8y ago
  Just did a fresh install of windows 10. Onenote was pre-installed. When I installed office 365 premium, I got a second Onenote.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    The free version of OneNote is lighter. The version that comes with Office is full-featured. (Don't know exactly what's different, I've only used the office version.)
    - oerpli 8y ago
      The full version is also free. It comes included with the Office365 installer, but can be downloaded on its own: https://www.onenote.com/download https://www.onenote.com/download OneNote syncs to OneDrive - so if you have O365 your storage space is quite large, whereas free users only have 5GB (though compared to Evernote's 25MB this is still plenty)
      - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
        Unless they've changed it quite recently, the version that comes with Office365 and the one from https://www.onenote.com/download https://www.onenote.com/download are different programs.
    - MikusR 8y ago
      The version that comes with Office is discontinued.
      - berbec 8y ago
        I did an office 365 install a week ago and recall a second Onenote popping up. Is it just no longer being developed, or did I get one of the last installs? I was unaware of the change!
- downrightmike 8y ago
  Free on apple's appstore too.
ajmurmann 8y ago
Does Apple notes have a web clipper out even allow for attachments?
- cknoxrun 8y ago
  Attachments, yes. Web clipper, no I don't think so. But I doubt most people who used to use Evernote and now use Apple notes ever used the web clipper (including me).
- prepend 8y ago
  I save web site as pdf and attach it to notes files when necessary. Whenever possible, I just try to name the file with tags to find through search.

cpburns2009 8y ago

I don't know what Evernote supports, but OneNote lacks some simple features. Can Evernote import slides from a PowerPoint larger than 50 MB? Because OneNote lost that. Does Evernote actually support saving to a file? Because OneNote doesn't support that trivial feature either.

mathattack 8y ago
Can OneNote copy and paste to Outlook without losing formatting?

tjohns 8y ago

They each have their specialty. Evernote is better for filing documents / archiving things - whether those are PDFs, web pages, business cards, physical mail, etc. OneNote is better for free-form notetaking and editing. Each page feels like an open canvas. In particular: I can't drop a file directly onto the OneNote icon to archive a file - I have to make a "page" and drop it into the page's canvas. OneNote doesn't provide tagging. It enforces a certain organization that only makes sense for notes (notebooks > sections > pages). Attachments always feel like a second-class citizen inside of a page (which isn't to say OneNote's attachment handling is wrong, it's just designed for storing handouts in class alongside your handwriting, as opposed to archiving every piece of paper on your desk). In my use case, I use Evernote (with a ScanSnap scanner) to archive every piece of physical mail I receive. It's great that I can just throw in a pile of mail, push one button, let the scanner bundle it into PDFs/JPEGs/contact cards as appropriate, apply metatadata, and OCR/index it. I tried to move this workflow to OneNote, and couldn't get anything as smooth. I use both. I use OneNote for notes in class, and Evernote for long-term archival/recall of everything else. (Personally, I think that DevonThink is a closer replacement to Evernote than OneNote is.)

zwayhowder 8y ago
I spent years with the same workflow, and Evernote groaned to a halt with over 5000 PDFs in it for me. (i7, 16gb ram). I now store all my scans in Google Drive and use the OCR that comes with the ScanSnap. It works just as well, the search is Google fast and I can share them easily.
brantonb 8y ago
My boss today wondered why he made a particular decision for a commit he made 3 years ago. He pulled up Evernote, searched for the bug number, and had his notes from when he was working on it. Mystery solved. With OneNote, he’d have to have some sort of filing system to organize that. With Evernote, he knew it was there and he could search for it if he needed it. That’s not to say you can’t search in OneNote, just that the archiving model of Evernote works far better for his workflow.

Spooky23 8y ago

OneNote doesn’t scale well once you start using it. Lots of people use it for a few weeks.

opportune 8y ago
What do you mean? I have seen medium-sized wikis written using OneNote, and I've seen it used as a collaboration environment for specifications / mockups / design in groups of dozens of people as well.

johntash 8y ago

The one feature I never found a decent replacement for was Evernote's web clipper. It worked really well, and I actually used it quite a bit since it was so low effort compared to saving a page or copy/pasting something that I might want to refer to later.

unstuckdev 8y ago
What's missing in OneNote's web clipper?

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

The Mac version of OneNote is missing quite a few features from the Windows version. Evernote doesn't have that problem. (I use OneNote anyway, since it's so much better then Evernote for me, it's just kind of annoying given that I switch between Mac and Windows a lot.) Also, the free (non-Office) version of OneNote is missing some features, I think.

pishpash 8y ago
Mac Office is always missing things, it might as well be a different product. The free OneNote though should be the same and there is even a web-based version.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  > Mac Office is always missing things, it might as well be a different product. Is it? I've been using Excel cross-platform for a while and I haven't found a missing feature yet. (Although some keyboard shortcuts are annoyingly altered.) I don't use the rest of the Office suite as much, but OneNote is the only outlier I've seen personally.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    Outlook is another example. Word/Excel are more complete but VBA and plugins may still differ.

stef25 8y ago

While kicking the tyres of OneNote I had an issue where it wouldn't paste all the text I copied, I think because there was a link in it. For some reason only MS seems to create products that fall flat on their face so quickly.