HOWTO: Combine Evernote and Postach.io to create a blog

by Steven B. Combs, Ph.D.

While browsing the web this morning, I read about a site that will turn your Evernote notes from a specific notebook to a blog. As a huge Evernote user, I just had to give this a shot to see how well it works. The tool you ask?

The setup is easy and the premise is genius for Evernote users who want a simple and quick way to get online or share a series of Evernote notes to the world in a blog format. You can create a single blog for free to try it out. Below are the steps to get started.

Setup

Postach.io set up took me about five minutes. The process couldn’t be easier:

1. Sign up for a free account at Postach.io
2. Create a site – mine is stevencombs.postach.io
3. Connect your Postach.io account to your Evernote account
4. Select a notebook – I recommend you create a notebook called _Postach.io_ prior to step 1
5. Select a theme
6. Save your changes

Create a post

Once you create a site, create your first post:

1. Open the Evernote app on any device (iOS, Mac, Web, etc.)
2. Create a new note in your Postach.io notebook
3. Write your blog post using the Evernote writing and editing tools
4. Add the tag published to the post
5. Sync Evernote
6. Visit your unique URL – mine is stevencombs.postach.io

Your post is now available to the world. You can use the Postach.io dashboard to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts. This will allow you to broadcast your new blog and post to your social networks.

Markdown support

Postach.io Markdown support is experimental. Just visit your Postach.io dashboard and select the option to write in Markdown. I did create a test post in Markdown but was unsuccessful. All the text was present, but the format was a mess and line numbers did not render sequentially. Seems they still have a ways to go on the Evernote Markdown support.

Format and multimedia

Evernote allows you to easily insert formatted elements, images and audio within notes. Using the Evernote Mac app, these can be included with a simple drag and drop or click of the toolbar. Check out my Postach.io test post to see numerous examples.

Postach.io would not display my attached animated GIFs or video. I tried over and over and simply could not get them to appear, nor appear as a link. Admittedly, I did not research this issue at length. I was not inclined to do so since my expectation was that whatever elements are within the note should render on the page. Maybe a later version will correct or possibly I did something wrong. Although, I can’t imagine what that might be.

Pro version

You can create a single site free of charge. A pro version is available for $5/month or $50/year. Pro users gain the following:

• generate multiple sites
• enhanced security
• share writing duties with other users

This seems very reasonable if you need these features and extremely reasonable for a hosted site. Here’s a nice surprise, the use of a custom domain does not require a pro account!

Conclusion

If you are an Evernote user that does not require Markdown support and you don’t want the hassle of site management, I highly recommend Postach.io. The process to create a blog post in Evernote is extremely easy. What I particularly like for new users, is that they can insert multimedia (sans video or animated GIFs in my experience) using Evernote tools or drag and drop. The user does not have to worry about uploading them first to an FTP or external site and then have to figure out the URL. I enjoyed the process of creating a post in Evernote. The tools are familiar and with some experimentation, you can create some pretty interesting and format rich posts with ease.

If you want to give blogging a try, create free Evernote and Postach.io accounts and give it shot. The two together is probably the easiest way to get a site up and running that I’ve tried and you get the added benefit of Evernote exposure. I will not switch from my GitHub site but I am glad that I gave Postach.io a try so I can recommend it to friends, family and colleagues. Down the road it might even become a useful tool in my arsenal to share specific notebook content.