Your livescribe notebook lives inside your pen. This is why you tap the notebook seal before beginning to use a new Livescribe notebook. Tapping the seal sets up the new notebook for your pen. From then on, every time you write in the notebook, your pen knows which page you’re on and what notebook that page belongs to. Whenever your pen syncs to Evernote, any pages that have been updated on your pen are updated in the Evernote.

It’s important to know that this update is one-way: pen to Evernote. Any changes you make to the livescribe page as you see it in Evernote are not propagated back to the physical notebook. That’s OK. At this time, the changes you can make to a Livescribe page in Evernote are limited to tagging and moving to a different Evernote notebook. Those updates are very helpful on the Evernote side, they don’t affect the work you do in your Livescribe paper-based notebook.

You may have noticed that your paper notebook has a very specific name when you see it’s pages in Evernote. The Livescribe notebook I’m currently working on appears in Evernote with the ponderous name “WiFi A5 Notebook 1”. The first time you use a new notebook and sync to Evernote, you’ll find the notebook in the stack associated with the notebook. Of course, it’s probably much more helpful to have a notebook named “Biology 101” than “WiFi A5 Notebook 1”. If you want a more descriptive name for the book, rename the notebook in Evernote by right-clicking on the notebook and selecting Rename from the menu. This will not affect the way the pen synchs with your Evernote account. After renaming, the notes go to the same notebook.

Even though you rename the notebook in Evernote, your pen still remembers the official notebook name you saw when you first clicked on the book’s seal. This notebook name gives a few hints about the way paper notebooks are organized in your pen’s memory.

Livescribe manufactures several types of notebooks. These are organized by style and size and generally come in sets of four. The title of my current Livescribe notebook indicates the style (WiFi), size (A5), and position in the set of four (1st). You need not use the notebooks in order, and you can have multiple notebooks from a set in use at the same time. Students often use a separate notebook for each subject or class in order to keep related notes together. It’s important to note, however, that you cannot have two notebooks with the same name on your pen at the same time. You will discover this when you buy your second set of of notebooks and tap the seal of the first book in order to set it up in your pen. The pen will display a tart little message telling you that the notebook is already in use on the pen. In order to begin using the new book, you’ll need to archive the old one (Linkto Archiving your notebook).

If you need to run more than four concurrent paper notebooks, there’s an easy workaround to this limitation. Simply buy a set of books from a different style/size family. Each style is designed to suit a different use. My favorite style is the Grid A5 style since my notes frequently include charts, diagrams, and little sketches. Other styles include the bound Journal and spiral-bound College Ruled. Not all styles and sizes are available from any given retailer. I’ve found the widest range of styles available from the Livescribe store. If you join the Livescribe mailing list, you’re likely to receive occasional offers with discounts on notebooks and other accessories.