The Evernote note taking app recently added a very helpful template feature. You can save any note as a template, and then later create a new identical note from that template.
Unfortunately, there is currently no obvious option to view or edit your existing library of templates. There’s no menu option that says “view templates” and there is no menu option that says “edit this template.” These are important features to be missing.
View Template Library
To view your collection of templates, follow these steps:
- Create a new note.
- Tap on the Template button.
- This will show you your existing templates.
- Once viewing your collection of templates, you can hover your mouse over any listed template and a three-dot menu … will appear.
- Click on the three dot menu and you will see there are only three options: Apply, Rename, Delete.
Edit Template
To edit an existing template, follow these steps:
- Create a new note.
- Tap on the Template button.
- This will show you your existing templates.
- Double-click on any template to copy it into the existing new note.
- Make the changes you would like.
- In the top right corner of your note, click on the three-dot menu … next to Share.
- Choose the Save as Template option.
- Give the template a name and choose save. Multiple templates can have the same name.
- Note that the above steps will create a new edited template. The old one will still exist in your library collection. To delete the old unrevised template, continue to the next step.
- Create a new note.
- Tap on the Template button.
- This will show you your existing templates.
- Once viewing your collection of templates, you can hover your mouse over any listed template and a three-dot menu … will appear.
- Click on the three-dot menu and you will see there are only three options: Apply, Rename, Delete.
- Choose Delete to remove any old version of a modified template you no longer want.
Backup a Template
If you accidentally delete a template, there does not seem to be an undo option. So, you’ll want to make sure that you have a backup copy of any lengthy templates you’ve spent a lot of time creating. To do this, just create a note from that template and don’t modify the note.
Conclusion
Hopefully in the future, Evernote will offer a simple way to view existing templates, and edit any of them with a single click.
Thank you! Templates are very useful. Not sure why Evernote doesn’t make template management a little more accessible/intuitive, but this quick tutorial really helps.