Adding Evernote notes to a Scrivener project

Evernote invariably comes up in my Scrivener courses. Someone mentions how they use it for their research and asks how to integrate it with Scrivener. Someone else asks what it is, and off we go. 😉

Since Evernote is a web clipping tool at its core—and a fabulous way to keep track of all sorts of things, from recipes, all of the ISBNs related to a book, book release checklists, travel resources, and more—it often does a much nicer job of grabbing Internet content than Scrivener. Which is fine with me. I want Keith and the crew at Literature & Latte focusing on Scrivener’s core competencies anyway. Especially since it’s a cinch to import or link to research files stored in Evernote.

Here are a few ways to do bring your Evernote content into a Scrivener project. (Click any image for a larger view.)

Import an Evernote Note as a Web Page

Rather than import the web page directly, let Evernote clip and convert into a nice format, then import the Evernote note.

1. Locate your note in Evernote.
2. Right-click the Note (or select it and click the Note menu).
3. Go to More Sharing—>Copy Public Link (Mac) or Share—>Copy Share URL (Windows).
   NOTE: The link is available publicly, but you’d pretty much have to tell someone where to look for it (via the link) for them to find it. Still, don’t link to any private or personal information this way. If you just copy the note link instead, it may not work properly when you try to view it in Scrivener.
   

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4. Switch to your Scrivener project.
5. Select the folder (one outside of the Draft/Manuscript folder; Research is a good choice) where you’d like to import the web page.
6. Go to File—>Import—>Web Page (or right-click the folder and go to Add—>Web Page).
   A dialogue box appears.
7. If the web address (URL) is not already filled in with the link you copied, paste it into the Address box.
8. In the Title box, add a title for the web page to remind you what it is.
   

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9. (Windows only) Choose how you want to import it. Webpage Complete (MHT) or one of the PDF options should work, but I’m currently having issues importing web pages—especially as PDFs—into Scrivener on my Windows 7 machine. See Windows Import Workaround below.
10. Click OK.
    Scrivener imports the note and adds it to the folder as a web page. Select it in the Binder to view. All of the links are active and clickable. NOTE: The import process can take a-w-h-i-l-e.

Windows Import Workaround

1. Locate the note in Evernote, right-click, and choose Export Note.
2. Choose Export as a Single HTML Web Page (.html).
3. Click Export and save the file to a location where you can find it again (Desktop, maybe?).
4. If you get a message that the export succeeded, click Close.
5. Switch to Scrivener and right-click the folder where you want to import the web page. Choose Add—>Files.
6. Select the HTML file you just saved from Evernote, and click Open. If you get the Import Files dialogue box, click OK.
   The pictures may not import (they’re in a folder on your computer with the same name as the individual HTML file), but the links should work (if not, right-click the hyperlink and choose Copy Link, then paste into your browser).

Create a Reference (Bookmark) to an Evernote Note

Don’t want to clutter up your Binder? Having issues importing notes as web pages? Or maybe you want to link to a note that you expect to update regularly so you always want the most current version.

Create a reference (called Bookmarks in Scrivener 3) to it instead. We’re going to create a project reference, but the steps are the same if you want a document reference (just select the document in the Binder and choose Document References in step 3).

1. Follow steps 1-4 above to copy the note URL.
2. Click the References button in the Inspector pane (or go to View—>Inspect—>References).
3. Make sure the References header says “Project References.” If not, click it to toggle to Project References.
4. Click the + button and choose Create External Reference.
5. Enter the title and paste the URL into the appropriate text boxes.
   

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6. To view your note, double-click the paper icon to the left of the reference.

Create a TOC Note in Evernote

Want a references-like list of clickable links to your Evernote notes on a particular topic, stored as a web page in Scrivener? Follow these steps to create a Table of Contents (TOC) note. It’s a handy thing to have within Evernote too (e.g. as a link from one Evernote folder to notes in another).

1. Select the desired notes in Evernote (the Expanded Card View didn’t work for me, but all others did).
   

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2. Click the Create Table of Contents Note button that appears on the right.
   Evernote creates a TOC note that you can move to any folder within your Evernote account.
   

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3. Follow the steps in the Import an Evernote Note as a Web Page section above to import the TOC note.
   

   Evernote TOC Note viewed in Scrivener

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