How to export notes from a Kindle book to Evernote

How to Save your Kindle Notes and Highlights into Evernote

The one thing about Kindle ebooks that bothered me was that I couldn't get the notes and highlights into Evernote. Now you can!  I've recorded a video tutorial and also written down the steps with screenshots. You can save your Kindle Notes and highlights into Evernote.

Video Tutorial: How to Save your Kindle Notes into Evernote (and share them with students)

(You’ll need the web clipper installed in your web browser to make this work. See: http://evernote.com/webclipper/ )

Step by Step: How to to Export Notes and Highlights from Kindle to Evernote


Step 1: Go to http://kindle.amazon.com

Step 2: Sign in with your Amazon username and password.

Step 3: Click on “highlights”

Step 4: Your recent highlights will show but you can also type the name of the book in the top right corner. You want to see the notes on the screen. I put the notes for each book in separate notecard, but students may want to separate these notes by reading assignment instead. You will want to click where it says “you have x number of highlights and x notes” in the top right side of the screen.

When you open the book, make sure you click the button that shows all the notes on one page.

Figure 1: When you open the book, make sure you click the button that shows all the notes on one page.

Step 5: Highlight the notes you want to put into Evernote and Click the Evernote clipper button in your web browser. You’ll see a clipper card pop up. I put the name of the book in the title and file the book in the appropriate notebook. The student will want to tag it with the course information and put it in the appropriate notebook for current studies.

About now, some of you are going to be concerned about copyright. There is a limit to how much you can copy from a book because I had a great book and hit the limit the other day. Your Kindle app or device will tell you that you can no longer highlight. There seems to be no limit for the notes you write, however.

There is a way to pull your Kindle notes into Evernote, but you have to follow the steps exactly. I do this with all of my favorite books.

Figure 2: There is a way to pull your Kindle notes into Evernote, but you have to follow the steps exactly. I do this with all of my favorite books. In this screenshot, I have gone to the book in my online Kindle file, copied it and am using webclipper to extract the notes into Evernote. You could also copy this into another app or tool.

Step 6: It is now pulled into Evernote, you should sync Evernote because the note will be in the cloud until you do. I go into Evernote and click “sync.” Your card will look similar to Figure 3 The Final Evernote card:

 

Figure 3: This is a sample card with some notes from John Acuff's book, Start.

Figure 3: This is a sample card with some notes from John Acuff's book, Start.

The most powerful thing about this method!

If you open Evernote on your computer and you have downloaded and installed the Kindle app (Go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771) then, when you click the blue text shown in Figure 3 above it will open the Kindle app, download the book and take you to where you read this in your ebook! No more page flipping. This one trick can save hours of time.

Hopefully this will become automated, but until then, I prefer using Kindle for this reason.

You can now go back and scan your reading and add notes as you synthesize and summarize.

Figure 4 Kindle app for PC showing me Location 58 in the book listed in the above note.

Figure 4 Kindle app for PC showing me Location 58 in the book listed in the above note.

What this means for teachers:

This is a very transformative time saver for literature teachers, so let me reiterate.

  • You can have all of your students buy the same version of the book you have (or download one of the free ones).
  • Create highlights where you want them to go.
  • Export from Kindle notes and create a notecard that includes the location numbers.
  • You can either publish the notecard in Evernote to the web, or you can share the notecard (if they have it on their PC's)
  • Make sure they have a copy of the book on their PC and the Kindle App
  • They can open the notecard and follow along with you in the book on their PC.

Look for a post on how to do something similar in iBooks. While it won't open at the direct location number like the hack I discovered above, in some ways the note export feature is easier.

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Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director in Georgia, USA. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and loves talking about the wise, transformational use of technology for teaching and doing good in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast which interviews teachers around the world about remarkable classroom practices to inspire and help teachers. Vicki focuses on what unites us -- a quest for truly remarkable life-changing teaching and learning. The goal of her work is to provide actionable, encouraging, relevant ideas for teachers that are grounded in the truth and shared with love. Vicki has been teaching since 2002 and blogging since 2005. Vicki has spoken around the world to inspire and help teachers reach their students. She is passionate about helping every child find purpose, passion, and meaning in life with a lifelong commitment to the joy and responsibility of learning. If you talk to Vicki for very long, she will encourage you to "Relate to Educate" or "innovate like a turtle" or to be "a remarkable teacher." She loves to talk to teachers who love their students and are trying to do their best. Twitter is her favorite place to share and she loves to make homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls and enjoys running half marathons with her sisters. You can usually find her laughing with her students or digging into a book.

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10 comments

Sean Oliver December 10, 2013 - 9:55 pm

Handy guide. I just use http://www.clippingsconverter.com. Saves the time.

Nathan February 14, 2014 - 1:56 pm

Hi Vicki, this is an awesome guide to an issue many experience. What a great way to solve it :)

If you and your readers would like export your Kindle highlights and notes to Evernote straight from your mobile device, can I recommend the iOS app Snippefy? It does all that and much more. Here’s the link to their app store page https://itunes.apple.com/app/snippefy-read-share-your-kindle/id716481943

coolcatteacher February 14, 2014 - 2:03 pm

Sure Nathan, I’ll take a look.Vicki Davis
@coolcatteacher

Comments are closed.

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