EVERNOTE, PHRASEEXPRESS, AND RESOPHNOTES:
FREEWARE NOTE PROGRAMS TO HELP WITH YOUR FAMILY HISTORY
©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- Evernote
- PhraseExpress
- ResophNotes
- Conclusion
This page was last updated 2012-11-15.
Return to the Utah
Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructors are Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George and Jennifer Snow Jackson of West
Valley City, Utah.
- These notes with the active Internet links are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
and are in the syllabus of the Family History Expo for St. George,
2013-02-22 & 23.
- Tips: (1) Easy to put an icon on your desktop for the
URL to get to these notes. (2) To keep your place in
these note while going to a link from them hold down the Control
key while clicking the link.
- This class will show and discuss three freeware programs that help
in family history -- Evernote, PhraseExpress, and Resoph Notes.
EVERNOTE
- Excellent freeware program for notes and files; commercial version
available with more features, but free version has enough features for
most of us
- Program stores your notes online and between computers; can save
text, images, pdf's, URL's, clips of websites, audio files,
and more
- Download from http://www.evernote.com/
- Helps and video tutorials at -- http://www.evernote.com/about/video/
- Features of Evernote
- Types of notebooks
- Synchronized notebooks - stored in your account online and
on any computers you specify; can have up to 250 of these in
the free account; examples would be a notebook for all FH
notes, one for research logs, one for transcriptions of FH
letters, one for pdf instruction manuals, etc.
- Non-synchronized (local) notebooks - stored only on your
computer; can have any number of these; examples would be a
notebook for passwords and personal info since this is not
sent across the Internet
- Easy to copy or move notes from one notebook to another
- Sync'd notebooks are stored online at the Evernote website -- https://www.evernote.com/Registration.action
-- so they are also available to you anywhere you can get to the
Internet, including on mobile devices
- Local notebooks are stored only on your computer, so they are
private and not sent over the Internet
- Any notebook or set of notes can be exported in several formats,
e.g. Evernote format, text, html, etc., and thereby backed up to a
flash drive or elsewhere; can use this to transfer a copy to any
other computer, even it if is a local non-synchronized notebook;
can also import Evernote format back into Evernote with a
different name, if desired.
- Searching -- can show and/or search all notebooks or only
selected ones; search terms are highlighted in results; searching
for "win" (no quotes) brings up results with "Win", "Windows",
"wind", etc.; searching for "Utah Valley" (in quotes) searches
for that exact string; has
global find and replace
- Can add tags to notes so clicking on a tag brings up all
notes with that tag -- can use an unlimited number of tags
- Can edit notes and titles of notes at any time; also has an undo
feature so deleting part of a note is recoverable, but not if you
delete an entire note
- Has a spell checker for editing notes
- If you save a pdf as a note in a synchronized notebook, it OCR's
it so the file becomes every-word searchable, but you only see the
pdf, i.e. the index is stored online and not in your file
- Has easy way to clip parts of a website to save with the URL and
can use freeware browser add-ons such as Print
Friendly and Clarify
to save all or parts of websites
- Usage button shows you how much of your free space you have
used in the 30-day cycle -- free version includes enough space
for hundreds of notes, enough for most people
- Demo of Evernote
PHRASEEXPRESS
- Freeware Windows text expander and clipboard extender, i.e. a
program in which you set up shortcuts for frequently used words,
phrases, paragraphs, documents, etc., so when you type the shortcut
the entire phrase or paragraph is pasted in at the cursor
- Download from http://www.phraseexpress.com/
-- has both installed and portable versions
- For manual see http://www.phraseexpress.com/docs9/09/manual.htm
- Short tutorials at http://www.phraseexpress.com/demo.htm
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SUaJboqWsA
- For review see http://www.pcworld.com/article/233746/resophnotes.html
- Comes with many common phrases and shortcuts already entered, e.g.
Dear Mr., Dear Mrs., for your information, etc.; also has
Auto-Correcting of spelling for many common English words
- Allows unlimited number of shortcuts and has folders for categories
for ease of finding
- Helpful to keep things uniform in your FH and for text you always
enter the same way, e.g. salutations, information about sources of
genealogy data, information about individuals, URL's, paragraphs
in letters, etc.
- Also has a Clipboard Cache to remember everything copied to
clipboard; can set it to remember as many entries as you want
- When the program is running there is an icon in the System Tray
(bottom right side of taskbar); to see all folders, phrases, and
categories click on the icon > Settings; can edit any phrase and/or
shortcut here
- For a shortcut don't use a a word that actually spells something or
you will get the attached phrase spelled out whenever you type the
word; to avoid this you can use a word preceded or followed by an
unusual character, e.g. a left bracket or slash
- Demo of PhraseExpress
RESOPHNOTES
- Simple freeware clipboard extender that sync's online with your
other computers and mobile devices
- Download from http://resoph.com/ResophNotes/Welcome.html
-- installed and portable versions
- Review and summary of features at http://lifehacker.com/5816187/the-best-syncing-note+taker-for-windows
- Many keyboard shortcuts -- see download website above
- To enter a note click on "+"; to delete a note click on "-"
- To edit a note click on it and edit it in the right-hand panel
- Allows unlimited number of notes which are automatically
alphabetized and easy to find
- Sync's online with your other computers and mobile device using
free accounts on http://simplenoteapp.com
- Demo of ResophNotes
CONCLUSION
- These are three helpful freeware note programs with many uses in
family history.
- See Don's Freeware
Notes for many other freeware programs for family history.
Return to the
Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's
Class Listings Page .