Is there an app that lets you save words to a list...

[OregonGreg]

that you can look them up later, or you just like that word and want to save it for later use....as in your as surfing the net and come across words that you want to look up the definitions later...but just keep surfing? is this out there? I have an Ipad Air 2 and I am kind of a word nut and just want to keep a list of words that I like....

 

[twerppoet]

There is probably an app for this somewhere, but since you have the iPad Air 2 you could easily use the Notes app for this.

Swipe your finger from the right edge of the screen and you'll get a list of apps in slide over view. Pick the Notes app, and create a note for you Word List. Now, whenever you encounter a word you want to save, just select and copy it, slide out the Notes app, and paste it into your word list.

If copy and paste does not work, you may have to type in in manually.

That's the most cumbersome way. Once the note has been created you can use the share sheet. Select the word (long press) and choose Share in the pop-up menu, then the notes app icon from the share sheet. The Notes dialog will let you choose creating a new note, or adding the text to an existing one.

Notes:

1: If you use the share/action icon (box with up arrow in the tool bar) then Safari saves a link to your note, not the selected text. Not even if you have copied text into the clipboard. Other apps may have special link/content saving features like this, bypassing the clipboard text.

2: I had trouble using the share option with single words on the Wikipedia site. Don't know why, but it suggests that some sites may not work well this way. When I forced a Desktop version of the Wikipedia site, the method worked again. When the Share option did not work, it failed to pull up the share sheet after tapping Share.

3: To force a Desktop version of a site in iOS 9, Safari, tap hold the reload button in the URL field.

4: If the Share option in the pop-up menu does not appear, you'll have to use the cumbersome method of copy and pasting directly into the note.

Here is a screen shot where I select a word in iBooks. Notice that besides the Share option, you could look up the definition immediately.

After I choose Share, I tap the Notes icon in the share sheet, and get this dialog. Notice the Choose Note dialog at the bottom.

Here is the resulting note in slide over view. The previous entries were added from Safari.

Anyway, it's something you can use and/or play with until you find a better solution.

 

[twerppoet]

Hm, I missed something. Since you have the Air 2, you could pull the Note app further, into split view. This way you could keep the Notes app open all the time while browsing or reading. Kind of cramped on an standard iPad, but doable.

I can't show this mode, since I only have an iPad Air. No split view for me until the iPad Pro arrives (which will make split view awesome).

 

[twerppoet]

Interesting. When I tried this in Reeder (my favorite RSS Reader) it shows two Share options. One saves the selected text, the other saves the link to the article. Nothing indicates which is which, you just have to remember. Or waste time if you try the wrong one first.

My guess is that one is a system Share (the text copy) and the other is app specific, added by the developer.

I'm having fun trying this out in various apps. I'd meant to give the Notes app and it's Share extension a more thorough test anyway, and you've provided the motivation.

 

[twerppoet]

As sometimes happens, I've gotten a bit fixated on this subject.

I spent the last few hours creating and testing a Workflow (an app) action that creates notes in a notebook named Words in Evernote. The title is whatever word was selected, and the body is the definition pulled from the web. So far I've made versions for Wiktionary, Merriam & Webster, Dicionary.com, and Vocabulary.com.

None of them work perfectly, but even when they fail to pull the article you still end up with a note with the word as a title, so you can look it up manually.

* I tried just appending everything to one note, but that soon got too hard to read, and the formatting was to unpredictable to fix; so a notebook where you can still see a list of words seemed like the next best option.

* It might be possible to pull this off with one or two other note taking apps, but Evernote is the only note taking app I own that works with the Workflow app.

Time to give up the project (for now) and go to bed.

 

[LannyC]

A couple of years ago, I started keeping notes, lists, images, and other snippets in Mail messages, saving them as drafts. Since I use IMAP, these drafts are also visible in Mail.app on my Mac. Plus, they're searchable! It's simple, it works, and there's no new software to download and learn.

With SLauncher's today widget, Mail and other useful apps are only a downswipe away from anything I'm doing on my iPad.

 

[JohnnyApple]

You can use Siri for this too. Same thing as using Siri to add items to your shopping list.

How to add events to Reminders app? | Apple iPad Forum

 

[twerppoet]

Ok. I'm done playing with this. The final result was a workflow that takes the selected word, pulls up definitions from four sites (Wiktionary, Merriam & Webster, Dictionary.com, and Vocabulary.com) the saves them in Evernote in the Words notebook. It's a little slow, so far from perfect. It was faster when I only used one dictionary source, but far too often I didn't get any results. Four sources means I almost always get something back.

Anyway, here is a short demo video of the workflow in in action. If anyone wants the workflow itself, just ask and I'll send a share link. You'll need both the Workflow app and Evernote installed on your iPad for it to work.

 

[twerppoet]

The Workflow app just added the ability to save to the Notes app, so with very minor modifications my definition workflow now goes to Notes instead of Evernote.

Though I doubt anyone, including myself, has a real use for this.