Export Evernote to TW

1,121 views
Skip to first unread message

Ray Vermey

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 4:14:11 AM2/2/16
to TiddlyWiki
Good day,

is there a possibilty to export a couple of 500 Evernote notes to TiddlyWiki?

A search here did not give an answer.. so maybe someone has done it before?

Thanks

Ray (i keep coming back to TW...)

Mat

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 5:54:44 AM2/2/16
to TiddlyWiki
I don't know...

...but can you export the Evernote notes into e.g json format? Or what other formats?

Overall it sounds like a very good idea and a reasonable request, i.e an Evernote to TW converter. Same for OneNote.

Maybe it would be useful if you could post/attach one such note here so one could investigate it? And if there are multiple formats that such notes can be exported into, then perhaps one of each.

<:-)

Jed Carty

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 6:39:15 AM2/2/16
to TiddlyWiki
I didn't like Evernote so I stopped using it after a day or two so I can't guarantee any of this, but it looks like it is possible.

You would export all of your notes, it looks like you can do this to html or to xml. You could then create a converter to change these into a tiddlywiki friendly format. Either to .tid files or some sort of bundle file (JSON would probably be best)

 I would need to see some actual files to give anything more specific.

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 1:01:36 PM2/2/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Ray

It turns out that there is a fairly usable export file format for Evernote called ENEX:


Here’s an example:


It looks to me as though it would be pretty easy to create a deserialiser that processed these files into individual tiddlers. (I’ve actually recently added a plugin that provides an XML parser for Node.js, one of the otherwise missing pieces). I’d be happy to help anyone who wants to pick it up.

Best wishes

Jeremy.


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/e2684009-32d2-47a3-8e7f-4fce13d45602%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Ray Vermey

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 1:17:42 PM2/2/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Jermey, but ehhhr how should i proceed?
Ofc i can export to ENEX... but then?? ;-)

Thanks

Ray

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/tiddlywiki/LHPPXLYENio/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki.

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 1:46:04 PM2/2/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Ray

Thanks Jermey, but ehhhr how should i proceed?
Ofc i can export to ENEX... but then?? ;-)

Apologies for not being clear. 

There is currently no capability to import ENEX files into TiddlyWiki.

I meant that a TiddlyWiki developer could write some code to do the conversion. It would need experience with doing JavaScript development in TiddlyWiki if it were done as a TW plugin, but literally anyone could make a program that reads an ENEX file and generates a JSON file in a format that TiddlyWiki would understand.

Best wishes

Jeremy.


Mat

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 2:22:44 PM2/2/16
to TiddlyWiki
Via this blogpost I fond teh following which is supposedly a enex to json converter;

https://github.com/claytron/ever2simple

<:-)

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 3:28:14 PM2/2/16
to TiddlyWiki
You can export notes as web pages, then drag and drop them into TW5. The notes I just tried look beautiful, but that's because it brings them in as framed HTML. Converting that html into plain tiddler text might be a bit of a task. I suspect that converting enex to json would present the same problem unless the translator also converted HTML to TW markdown. When EN exports, it also exports the images as subdirectories. In theory, you should be able to put those images below your TW and see them. However, here we hit a snag. The TW HTML/Text tiddlers apparently can not display images. Which is odd because tiddlers can display external images when they're not using standard TW/vnd mode. Or at least that's how it worked for me, still using v. 5.1.8

So, what you could do is, after dragging dropping your exported HTML and moving the exported image directories below your TW, then go back in and change the tiddler to TW/vnd mode.  There's probably an efficient way to change a lot of these at once.

Now you have tiddlers that look great, though their markup is actually in HTML.

Also, you might want to consolidate all those images into one directory, but that's another topic.

Mark

Matabele

unread,
Feb 3, 2016, 1:40:55 AM2/3/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Ray

There are a couple of libraries for converting Evernote notes to markdown (untested):



This may be viewed in TW with the Markdown plugin. Perhaps one of these might meet your requirements?

regards

Jed Carty

unread,
Feb 4, 2016, 6:01:49 AM2/4/16
to TiddlyWiki
Can you post some example .enex files? I use linux so there isn't a desktop version of the client for me and I can't figure out how to export from the web interface. I can't promise I will spend much time on it, but I think that making this could help with importing other file types as well.

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 4, 2016, 5:48:10 PM2/4/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
I’ve made a start on a simple plugin to allow the import of Evernote notebooks.

The ticket describing the work is here:


The code is here:


I think that the importing of notes as HTML tiddlers now works. I’ll shortly push a commit with support for images attached to notes (the linkages won’t work just yet).

I’ve two requests:

Firstly, it would be incredibly useful if any Evernote users could use the app to create us some more complex sample ENEX files. I’ve only got a simple sample file with a single note and a single image. You can attach files to posts here on the group.

Secondly, as discussed in the above ticket, I’m appealing for a JavaScript developer take the lead with this plugin. Jed’s expressed an interest but points out that he is not an Evernote user.

Best wishes

Jeremy.



On 4 Feb 2016, at 11:01, Jed Carty <inmy...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can you post some example .enex files? I use linux so there isn't a desktop version of the client for me and I can't figure out how to export from the web interface. I can't promise I will spend much time on it, but I think that making this could help with importing other file types as well.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki.

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 11:41:20 AM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
If we wanted to try using this plugin, how do we go about this? Do we need to download/obtain the latest TW5 beta?

Thanks,

Mark

On Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 1:14:11 AM UTC-8, Ray Vermey wrote:

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 2:21:38 PM2/5/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Mark

I’ve uploaded a prerelease of 5.1.12 that includes the plugin.


To try it out, rename your ENEX file to have the extension “.enex”, and then drag and drop it into the TW window. You should see an import tiddler offering to import the constituent notes and images.

There are lots of issues with it - I’ve already discovered that notes with a vertical bar in the title cause problems. Nonetheless, your feedback would be useful.  I’d be interested to know whether images work at all.

Best wishes

Jeremy.


-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki.

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 3:32:00 PM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Jeremy

I tried it (5.1.12 pre release)  with enex containing two notes that were text only and another enex containing two notes that were image only.

In both cases, it brought the notes in as ONE tiddler, with the type "application/enex+xml". I had the impression from reading the plugin code that the objective was to have it marked as text/html, so not sure about that. It looks like basically the contents of the enex file were just dumped into the tiddler and marked as  application/enex+xml.

The top of the tiddler looks like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE en-export SYSTEM "http://xml.evernote.com/pub/evernote-export.dtd">
<en-export export-date="20160205T200144Z" application="Evernote/Windows" version="4.x">
<note><title>Storage Options</title><content><![CDATA[<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE en-note SYSTEM "http://xml.evernote.com/pub/enml2.dtd">
... html text begins ...


I tried one of Matebele's sample files in case my evernote was exporting an old format, but his were single-note exports. It had the same problem with the DTD stuff at the top and marked as "application/enex+xml"

Image data  appears to be embedded in the imported tiddler, but of course are not exposed as images but as XML data.

So, in summary, multiple notes are not parsing as multiple tiddlers but as one single tiddler marked as application/enex+xml.

I would speculate that the plugin code is being ignored for some reason.

HTH
Mark

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 3:50:10 PM2/5/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Mark

Did you rename the file to have the .enex extension?

How did you import the enex files?

What browser and operating system are you using?

Many thanks

Jeremy

--
Jeremy Ruston

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 4:26:19 PM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
HI Jeremy,

EN automatically exports with the .enex extension, so, yes, all the files had the enex extension.

I dragged and dropped them.

Firefox 33 and Pale Moon (a FF fork)  25.8.1  on windows 7.

HTH
Mark

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 4:42:01 PM2/5/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
It works for me in Firefox for Mac.

Is the plugin showing up in control panel? You're using the index.html itself, not empty.html?

Best wishes

Jeremy 

--
Jeremy Ruston

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 5:59:22 PM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
D'oh! Maybe let's just ignore my prior reports.

Now importing text-only files works pretty well except that items with multiple tags have the tags joined together. So "Android" and "2016" becomes a single tag "2016,Android".

Image-only notes however invoke the Internal Javascript Red Box-o-doom with the message "TypeError: noteNode.querySelector(...) is null"

I haven't tried mixed text / image yet.

HTH
Mark

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 6:11:43 PM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
And now I've tried mixed text/images.

Notes with mixed text and images import but without the images. The image data is missing (no base 64 data stream in the tiddler). Looking at the original raw enex file, I see that the image was in there as base 64.

Import ENEX files that contain even one tiddler that is image-only invoke the internal javascript error.

Mark

Jeremy Ruston

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 6:12:38 PM2/5/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Mark

Not to worry, that’s very helpful. I’ve uploaded an update, please give it a try,

Many thanks,

Jeremy.


Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 6:45:38 PM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
Here's a couple more observations.

Tried using Matabele's file "Drew's grep tutorial".  It turns out that internally the title is a url. After importing, I can't reach the actual tiddler because the title is a url and clicking on it brings me to the original (external) page. I'm guessing that in cases where the title is a url the code needs to strip out the http:// so that it's possible to click through to the tiddler.

Which brings me to something else.

Something must be going on with the date stamping. None of the imported articles are showing up in the "recent" list. It could be using some internal stamp, but I know that at least one of the articles I used was created in the last month. The "recent" list goes back to June 2015, so I should be able to see at least my articles.

Mark

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 7:02:46 PM2/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi again,

On the new, new pre-release (how do we refer to these sub-releases?) the good news is that the internal javascript error no longer appears for image-only notes. However, no image appears either.

Internally, a tiddler for an image-only note looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE en-note SYSTEM "http://xml.evernote.com/pub/enml2.dtd"
><en-note><en-media hash="47a1a2ae564fb251bb916208b73ae42f" type="image/png"/></en-note>

On tags, its's a real mixed bag. One of the tiddlers came across with each tag separated the way it was supposed to. However, in a few others with multiple tags, no tag whatsoever was applied -- the original tags were disappeared!

It looks like notes with single tags might come across OK, but more testing is needed.

Mark S.

unread,
Feb 7, 2016, 2:53:15 PM2/7/16
to TiddlyWiki
I've posted a patch that will allow modification/creation dates to be applied. This should make it easier to find imported items in the testing phase.

Mark

Shay Shaked

unread,
Jun 4, 2017, 9:38:24 AM6/4/17
to TiddlyWiki
This is now an old topic I guess... 

but just FYI I have a huge notebook enex from evernote I'm trying to get into Tiddly Wiki, 3.5 GB to be honest with photos and all. I used Evernote for two years you see. 
Dragging it over after installing the  plug-in (or using import) simply crashes the browser. I have to reload the wiki. I tried both on my Wiki, which already contains a bunch of plugins, and on an empty.html. I'm using Google Chrome for this on a Windows Machine. I might try with smaller chunks from Evernote. 

Shay Shaked

unread,
Jun 4, 2017, 9:47:51 AM6/4/17
to TiddlyWiki
As well, much simpler enex files (of say, 10 notes) crash the browser. 

Danielo Rodríguez

unread,
Jun 4, 2017, 12:31:05 PM6/4/17
to TiddlyWiki
I bet that at least 90% of that size it's because the photos. Please, don't include them. A tiddlywiki bigger than 50mb is something close to unusable

Mark S.

unread,
Jun 4, 2017, 6:10:00 PM6/4/17
to TiddlyWiki
In my attempts to import enex, the images never came along (even though I could see the image data in the enex file).

As a practical matter, it might be better to export to HTML or MHT and then use an Iframe (possibly via a macro) to display the pages inside of TW.

Mark
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages