So many of you are harnessing the organizing and storage power of Evernote for family history research (and probably everything else you know!). 
Every time I teach on Evernote, a round of excited follow-up questions follows. Here are two great questions from Karen:
Q: The handwriting app on my phone is way cool, yet Evernote doesn’t seem to recognize any of the words. I thought it would apply OCR to the handwriting. Is that just a premium feature?
A: The key to handwriting OCR is to print clearly. OCR can not read cursive. Also, if you created your handwritten note and then immediately tried to search for a keyword, (and the note was printed clearly) it may not have found it because you searched before it had a chance to sync through the cloud and apply OCR. If you’re in a hurry, click the SYNC button in Evernote. Also, Premium accounts sync and apply OCR faster than free ones.
Q: My husband has a single note file that he has been putting all his daily notes in for years – currently about 14mb. Once he has uploaded that file, then when he makes additional notes to it each day, will he be “charged” for the entire file being saved again or just the incremental portion?
A: No he won’t be using 14 mb of upload each time he saves it. The key here is “upload.” You are charged uploading for the first time you upload the item to Evernote. I believe that if he adds a paragraph that is 1kb of text to the note the next day, he will only have 1kb deducted from his monthly upload.
One word of caution, if he has a desire to some day publish a book or some other project with his daily notes, I wouldn’t recommend Evernote. As you saw, the export file types are limited, and it does not export directly to Word or .txt. However, if he just wants it for his one record keeping, I think Evernote is a great solution.
Resources
How to Get Started in Evernote, and the Ultimate Evernote Education
Evernote for Genealogists quick reference guide (for both Mac and Windows users: purchase the one that goes with your computer’s operating system, not your mobile device
Genealogy Gems Premium members can also access exclusive full-length videos on how to use Evernote for family history, like:
- How the Genealogist can Remember Everything with Evernote (Beginner);
- How to Organize Your Research with Evernote (Intermediate);
- Making Evernote Effortless(Intermediate)
- Collaborative Genealogy with Evernote (Intermediate);
- Using Evernote to Create a Research Plan (Advanced).
