This page is a detailed tutorial showing how writers can use Evernote to capture and organize all their writing research.

If you’re not familiar with Evernote, here’s how they describe it at evernote.com:

Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web.

Though, to be fair, Evernote wasn’t designed with that purpose in mind. So, though Scrivener is the clear winner from a book writing perspective, Evernote is more convenient and flexible when it comes to brainstorming, research, and collaboration. Scrivener has a number of formatting options, and allows you to set up your own custom format. Creating an Evernote Account. Go to evernote.com. Click “Create Account” near the upper right of. I video tutorial showing how writers can use Evernote to capture and organize all their writing research. The video includes screenshots and how to use Evern.

What does this mean for a writer? It means you can capture everything you find online (full webpages or clips), as well as capture and tag your photos, notes, and audio notes. Whether at home or doing research on site, Evernote allows writers to gather, organize, and access all their research no matter where they are.

That’s big!

Creating an Evernote Account

Go to evernote.com.

Click “Create Account” near the upper right of the Evernote website.

Follow the windows and prompts to register for your Evernote account.

Downloading Evernote

There are three main components to Evernote:

• Evernote desktop
• Evernote Web Clipper
• Evernote app

How do all these parts work together. Again, straight from the Evernote site:

Evernote works by connecting all the computers and phones you use daily, allowing you to capture something in one place and then access it from another. All in Evernote.

Installing Evernote for Computers

Go to the Evernote download page (http://www.evernote.com/about/download/).

Click your desired download under “For Computers” under the “All Downloads” tab on the right side of the screen.

Result: The download for your computer type appears.

Follow the download prompts as you would any other application downloaded and installed from the Internet.

Installing Evernote Web Clipper

Click “Web Clipper” on the right sidebar after your download.

Note: You can also return to the Evernote download page and click “Web Clipper.”

Result: The Evernote Web Clipper browser extension page appears.

Click the Install link. (In this example, “Install Firefox extension.”

Follow the prompts to install.

Installing the Evernote Mobile App

Click the desired mobile app download from the right sidebar.

Click the link for the download.

Follow the prompts to complete the download.

Note: Of course, you can install the Evernote app directly from your mobile device like any other app. Search for Evernote and install without the need to sync with the download from your computer.

After downloading Evernote and Evernote Web Clipper for your computer — and the Evernote app for your mobile device or tablet — you’re ready to start capturing and organizing all your research!

For this Example

If you haven’t watched the video above — for this tutorial — I’m pretending that I’m researching a cemetery in Aurora, Texas for a Halloween story.

In the late 1800s, a UFO allegedly crashed in Aurora, Texas, and the pilot of the alien craft is supposedly buried in the town cemetery.

That’s just begging for not just a zombie story, but an alien zombie story! (If the idea is your thing and you decide to write it, I want to see the story when you’re done!)

Creating Notebooks

Evernote Notebooks are where all content is stored.

From Evernote on your computer, click “File” from the menu bar.

Select “New Notebook.”

Result: The “Create Notebook” window appears.

Type the name of your new notebook. (Aurora in this example.)

Select the type of notebook.

Note: “Local notebook” is a notebook stored on your computer with content that is never transferred to Evernote’s secure servers. “Syncronized notebook” is the default selection because it allows you to capture information using Web Clipper and the Evernote mobile app and share the information across all devices (the most common use for Evernote).

Click the “OK” button.

Result: The new notebook (Aurora) now appears in the notebooks list.

Web Clipping

Web Clipping allows you to save entire webpages, parts of webpages, or images for your research.

Sure, you can use a browser bookmark, but here’s something that happened to me several years ago: I found a great site for something I was writing. I bookmarked pages and when I was ready to sit down and write the book, the website owner took everything offline!

With Evernote, once you clip something, even if the website goes away, what you captured doesn’t. And, as long as the site is active, all the links from your clippings will work. All that, and you can carry all that information around in your pocket when you’re away from your desk and on a research site.

In this example, before I head out to the Aurora cemetery, I want to do some research before I go.

On Wikipedia, I go to the Aurora, Texas UFO Incident page. I want the whole page.

Click the elephant head icon in the upper right side of the browser.

The New Clip window appears.

Here, you can tag the site for easy retrieval later, as well as designate which Notebook you would like the site to be saved to.

(In this example, I’m saving the site under my “History” tag, which will pull up anything I’ve tagged as “History” in any of my Notebooks. I’ve also told Evernote to send this Web clip to my Aurora Notebook.)

The clipped site is now in my Aurora folder when I go to Evernote for my computer (or mobile app).

Note: If the clipped site is not there, click the Sync button to the right of the menu bar.

You can also clip just an image.

Right-click on the image, and at the bottom of the list, click Add to Evernote.

The New Clip window appears.

Tag the photo if you want, and select the notebook where you want to view the image.

The clipped image is now in my Aurora folder when I go to Evernote for my computer (or mobile app).

You can also highlight bits of text you want if you don’t need an entire webpage.

Once the text is selected, clip the elephant head icon in the upper right of the browser and tag and send the clipped text to the desired Notebook.

Working Remotely

Evernote is a powerful application, but where it really comes in handy for a writer is when capturing items remotely with your mobile device.

During my research, I find out the Aurora cemetery isn’t too far from where I live. So it’s time for a trip out west!

Taking Snapshots in Evernote

When I arrive at the cemetery, I’m greeted by a historical marker.

I want a photo of the marker, so I open the Evernote app on my phone and tap the plus symbol at the bottom.

Result: The capture options screen appears.

I tap the “Snapshot” button.

Result: My phone’s camera opens.

I line up my shot and take my photo.

Result: The Preview screen appears.

Evernote gives the option to retake the photo of you’re not pleased with it, or use the photo if you are.

I’m pleased with my photo, so I tap the “Use” button.

Result: The notes screen displays.

If I want, I can type a note to go with the photo.

When I’m done, I click the “Save” button.

When I get home and sync, the photo is in Evernote on all my devices.

Importing Existing Photos into Evernote

If you’ve taken photos with your mobile device’s camera instead of using Evernote’s snapshot feature, you can still bring those photos into Evernote.

Launch Evernote on your mobile device and tap the “+” symbol.

Result: The Evernote options screen appears.

Tap the Camera Roll button.

Result: Your mobile device’s camera roll appears.

Select the desired photo.

Result: The Evernote app notes screen appears.

Type your note and save.

Since I didn’t specify which notebook I wanted to store the photo in, when I get home and sync, the photo is in my main notebook.

Moving the photo to the Aurora notebook is easy.

If you didn’t name the photo and tag it, you can do that now (steps 1 and 2 in the image below).

Then, click and drag the photo to the Aurora notebook.

The photo is now stored in the Aurora notebook.

Creating Evernote Audio Notes

Sometimes when you’re out doing research, it’s easier making an audio note than trying to type a note on your mobile device.

Typing on a mobile device like a phone can take time…

Creating an audio note in Evernote is much faster, depending on how detailed your note needs to be.

To create an audio note, launch Evernote on your mobile device.

Tap the “+” symbol.

Result: The Evernote app options screen appears.

Tap the “Audio” button.

Evernote For Writing

Record your message.

Tap the “Tap to stop” button to stop recording the audio note and save.

Note: Before saving, you also have the option to tag and make notes about the audio note if desired.

Playing Evernote Audio Notes

To play your audio note, sync Evernote on your computer.

Click the desired note in the Aurora notes list.

Result: The audio note displays in the main window.

Click the play button.

Result: The audio note plays.

Learn More about Evernote

For a behind-the-scenes look at Evernote’s cloud elephants that make all the magic happen, watch the video below.

For more cool Evernote tutorials (trust me, it does a lot more), check out Evernote’s video page.

I got introduced to Evernote by Michael Hyatt at one of his seminars. I had thought at first, “um… I can do all that research in Scrivener. And it’s better that way.” Plus I had Microsoft One Note.

But if you decide nobody can teach you anything, you’re right. It’s self fulfilling. So, I went and tried it.

Since I’m a nuts and bolts software guy like Michael Hyatt, I looked for and downloaded the browser plug in.

I deleted One Note the day after that.

How does Evernote work?

Evernote gives you a basic user interface. Think of it as a filing cabinet. We’re already preprogrammed to think that way, since that’s the architecture that Microsoft still uses.

But instead of business like manila file folders, Evernote thinks in terms of notebooks.

Notebooks

You start out with one notebook. You can add about a thousand, I think it is. So, add one notebook for your “home searching notebook”, where you store all your Zillow bookmarks.

Another for your Writing articles.

Another for screenplay writing.

Another one for Movie Ideas.

Another for “Novel project notes”.

I have 50 notebooks in my Evernote, all for different subjects. I’m tempted to add one called “tin foil hat”, for the weird conspiracy theory stuff I run into from time to time, because there’s novel ideas in all of that!

Notes

You can capture different kinds of notes – screen captures (important for the house hunting), bookmarks (important for finding the free grammar classes you don’t have time to take anyway), article, simplified article (my default) and Amazon. The Amazon article choice appears only on one website. Can you guess which one?

Bookmarks I tag with the tag “bookmarks” (More on tagging in a minute).

Screen Captures can be annotated within Evernote through a graphic interface. I don’t ever really do that, but it’s there if you need it.

And yes, all those web site pages you’ve printed to PDF on your hard drive? you can move them to Evernote.

Apparently, you can do ink notes, webcam notes and audio notes. I guess if you add the app to your phone, you can take a video note of you saying, “Buy three eggs for dinner” or something. Or film a rocky outcropping and say, “like this for the sword fight scene.” I’ve never done it, because I haven’t put the app on my phone. I’m just not one of those people that walks around glued to their phone.

Note Stacks

You can also bundle ALL of your writing notebooks into a Note Stack. This is like when you rubber band two notebooks together in a file drawer because they contain information that’s related.

So, not only can you organize by notebook, you also can bundle all of them together by related information. Your writing articles in one notebook, your writing resources in another, screenplay writing in a third – all in one note stack.

Your information is only as good as your ability to find and process that information.

Tagging

Now, here’s where Evernote shines.

Tagging. You can add tags to every article. Such as your house hunting notebook (because every writer wants to get out of “here” and buy a house “There”). You can add state tags and city tags (say, “Iowa” and “Dubuque”). You can add tags to your writing articles – “Character” “plot” “verbs” “Adjectives” “need to read again” “to read later”. And any tag you want to see listed at the top of your tags, you can add punctuation to the title of the tag, such as “.read later”.

Then you can search all your articles marked “.read later” – and there they are. If one is PRESSING that you MUST READ – you can set an alarm on it to ring later on. I’ve done this several times.

All my bookmarks get tagged with the tag “book Mark”. So when you’re trying to wade through 3,045 notes (the amount I have in Evernote right now) and you want to just find the free grammar classes, click on the tag “book marks”, and… There it is. I think the limit of tags you can have is 9999.

Do some simple math and you’ll see that you can have a LOT of notebooks and a LOT of tags, for a LOT of capabilities.

Remember, the ability to STORE information is divided by the EASE of finding that information again!

Evernote gives you only so much free bandwidth per month. I kept running into my max right around the 20th of every month. I upgraded to the first paid level, and now I’m right where I need to be, and don’t EVER come close to maxing out my Evernote. I’ve never even come close to the limit to need to upgrade to the business level.

An additional benefit to Evernote is – when my Windows 8.1 got corrupted last year and I had to spend a frantic month putting everything back together and frantic searching for information, everything I had in Evernote was instantly restored. I began to move registration numbers of purchased software into my Evernote, so that I’d never run the risk of losing that ever again.

Evernote Templates For Writers

I have maps of foreign countries in my Evernote, clips from Google Maps street view, website bookmarks, registration numbers for software, articles for writing and screenplay writing. You can even utilize the timer and tagging functions to track submissions to agents and publishers, if you’d like.

Templates

I almost forgot templates. I found out about the templates function about a month into Evernote. Evernote really doesn’t have a way to have templates. But if you create a notebook called templates and store some of the notes some people have formatted for you, you can right click and copy those unlimited times to other notebooks. Great if you want to Journal in Evernote.

There’s even “Save The Cat” and “Planning your novel” templates available. “World building”. You name it. I downloaded all the free templates I could find that I thought were useful to me.

Evernote For Writers

One feature of Evernote that is the most important to me – if you spend any time not currently online, Evernote is your only choice. You have access to ALL of your notes, notebooks, clippings and tags while offline.

Evernote Writing Templates

What I thought was a very limited piece of software the first ten minutes I had it has turned literally into “my brain on the internet”.

You can take pictures of business cards and store it in Evernote. Can’t remember your license plate? Evernote. Michael Hyatt has written an entire series of articles of things you can do with Evernote, including packing lists for road trips, phone interviews for seminar planning, lists of items you need for your seminar, the seminar outline (put that on a Kindle, and you can page through it as you do the seminar), movie scripts, log lines for elevator pitches (you can send a note to another user – REALLY important if you find yourself in an elevator with Jerry Bruckheimer – you show him your logline pitch on your Evernote phone app, and he says… “can you send that to me?” Click of a button…), create a shared folder and every note you place in that shows up on your producer’s phone, etc.

And the worst thing is, I still haven’t scratched the surface of what you can do with this program.

And the funny thing is, most Evernote users will look at my list and say, “Hey! You left out the most important features!”

Did I mention checklists? and…