Ask the OneNote Power User

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have been asked to start a OneNote thread. I think this program is the bees knees, and I’ve used it pretty extensively since the first Office2003 version. It is one of Microsoft’s best kept secrets.

To kick things off, I’m going to cut and paste from what I wrote in this thread.

As an old fashioned pen and notepad kinda guy, I tried Microsoft’s OneNote on a flight once. It works for me just the way I have always wanted something to replace notebooks with. It’s the greatest thing since the spreadsheet was invented IMHO. While I like to evangelize this program, I also realize that for the majority of people out there it’s not the best thing since sliced bread that I think it is.

I’ve converted an awful lot of traditional pen and notebook users into OneNote fans. If you’re wired that way, OneNote is the bees knees. It’s $68 at amazon. Again, i go back to my point that just because a program is great for me, doesn’t mean that forcefitting it for others will be successful.

[The beauty of OneNote for me is that you can throw all related stuff into one place with pitiful (or minimal) organization and find it all. Heirachy is Notebook (left side) > section (top) > pages (right side).

For example, I could set up a new notebook for conferences because I have to organize several a year.

Then I’ll probably have a couple of sections. Dopefest, Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, etc. So, take Dopefest as a section. Then on the right I’ll have a bunch of pages. First page might be “locations.” I’ll just cut and paste in a bunch of locations for the potential dopefest like restaurants/bars/brewpubs, etc. into this page. Someone sends an email, I’ll just copy over the place to “locations.” I could make a master list of locations in this page.

I’d set up a page for “invitations” and write up a master Dopefest invitation cover letter with details. When I actually want to send out the invitation, I could copy and paste to another program to pretty it up. Or I could just do basic formatting in OneNote and then hit the email page button and send it out.

If someone sent me a detailed email with a ton of stuff, I would just one click and copy the whole email over into a OneNote page.

Get feedback that Joe’s Brewpub is a promising location, I could go to the webpage and one click copy that webpage over to OneNote. ditto with Cecil’s Tavern.

Maybe I’d email these different places to see if we could Christian 'em down for a group Dope Fest discount. Replies would go into the Doper Deals page

I’d have “people to invite” page. Just put in their email and/or names and/or phone number.

Then when things are firmed up, I’ve got all the buckets at least roughed out: place, people to invite, invitation letter, Doper deal, key emails, etc are all right there in one easy to visualize place. And then it’s really easy to send the stuff out. And then on to dope fest2, even if I haven’t organzed anything from dope fest1, it’s still all right there. Now if there are enough pages I might do some consolidation or clean up. But the beauty is that usually there’s not that many different pages where it doesn’t fit on the screen and I feel the need to organize it. it’s just there at a glance - even 3 years later when I need to do it all over again. Or if I need to write up Dopefests for Dummies guide, again all the pieces are right there and pretty easy to organize.

With Windows Live SkyDrive (or through a sharepoint site), you can then put the OneNote notebooks in the cloud. And it’s really easy to make this OneNote online as the master repository, and sync with any number of devices or work from a kiosk. For example, at work, I have an All In One PC, and a netbook, and at home I have a laptop and a desktop, and I have a Windows7 Phone (now OneNote is available for the iPhone). All of these devices sync up with one easy click as long as you remember to do the syncing. (If there is a sync conflict you get two pages to choose from).

If you use a tablet or slate, the handwriting to text function in OneNote 2010 works great. (It used to not be very good but I was playing around the other day and was pleasantly surprised.)

Again, you put everything into one sorta organized place. Got a PDF file, paste it in (and chose between just keeping the file there or having it print in the page). Got a video, drop it in. Web page, paste it. All key emails relating to the subject, paste them over. Got a spreadsheet, paste the spreadsheet in and have a picture file of it.

And the OneNote search function is really good. And it can search on handwriting. There’s a lot more stuff buried in OneNote, and while I’ve been a poweruser since it came out in Office2003, there’s a lot in there I don’t know. And it’s easily synced across all of my computers and smart phone. For me, it’s the bees knees. And if you have a tablet or slate, I have seen some Mind Map type templates set up for OneNote (but it wasn’t my cup of tea).

Anyhoo, I’ll try my best to answer questions on OneNote.

2

Perfect timing! Thanks for starting the thread.

I have OneNote 2007 and I love it. I like that it does an automatic backup, but it backs up to the hard drive. When my computer died a while ago, I lost most of my OneNote data. I had a copy of it on a thumb drive, but the data was almost a year old since I didn’t keep it current.

My question is: how can I keep an external copy of my OneNote files current easily?

I don’t presently back up my whole system since there’s not much there. I just backup up files that need to be current.

3

What’s the utility delta between using it with handwriting recognition vs. using it without?

That’s a bit of a loaded question, as I’m looking for an excuse to buy an X-series tablet.

I’m a committed pencil + graph notebook person, and I found the trial version of OneNote I installed awhile back pretty useless (on a non-tablet) when compared to the speed of drawing a rough and ready network diagram or flowchart on paper.

4

If you don’t save files or embed files into OneNote, then it’s really a small footprint. I forget now, but I put all of my customer information for a couple of years into OneNote, and it was hundreds of pages, and could save it all on a 128MB memory stick.

So, if you’re not dropping photos, videos, and other big files into OneNote, you can probably back it up on a thumb drive.

However, the best thing you can do is to set up a Live.com account for free. You get a bunch of free storage. There is a free on line version of OneNote and you can store your OneNote Notebooks on line. It syncs to your PC (go to the OneNote file > sync status button), Even better it can sync to multiple PC’s and Windows 7 Phone. Probably it can sync to the iPhone and iPad but I don’t have these to test out. I have OneNote on my work PC, my netbook, my home PC and my Windows 7 . phone. All of which sync very easily

5

How well does it work on an iPad?

6

Bad news, you want the OneNote 2010 version. The handwriting to text works really well. Seriously, I was amazed when I upgraded from 2007. You write on the OneNote page without an interface, then the Draw dropdown menu and click on Ink to Text (or Ink to Math if it’s a formula). Damn, it really works with my chicken scratch, although I’m sure if you’re really out their with some wierd handwriting it won’t work.

I have an old really beat up X61 at work with a cracked screen. Drawing diagrams, flow charts, handwriting works really well on it. I have not tried using handwriting with visio but might be something you’d want to check out.

(OneNote2007 was cumbersome and slow for ink to text. I used to write meeting notes by hand, and found it faster to type in a quick summary/action items than to go through the transcribing)

7

Two things that I like about OneNote that I don’t think China Guy mentioned: 1) You can highlight an item, or a list of items, and create Outlook tasks from them, and 2) If you email an OneNote page from within the program, it creates an HTML rendering of the page for people who don’t have OneNote.

Obviously, #1 is really only useful for users of Outlook, but I’ve always had OneNote as part of Office, so it’s great for me.

8

Thanks for the thread!

I just started playing around with it last week, and I really like it so far.

A couple of questions.

  1. The email seems to be tied to Outlook. I’m using gmail and an online email service, so is this a feature which I’ll not be able to utilize?

1.1 (Or is there a way to use Outlook with gmail and other online services?)

  1. Are there good methods of gathering Tasks together? (Again, given the above constraints)

  2. I use a David Allen, Getting Things Done approach to tasks, where I label tasks according to where they are done. (@computer, @home, @shopping, etc.)

  3. Is it possible to search for items based on the tags, such as Task, Important?

I’m sure I’ll have more, thanks!

9

And to think all I ever used it for was to take screenshots. I always just stuck with notepad for notes.

10

I want a little OneNote idol so I can give it love offerings! :smiley:

Law student, things I do - I set up a gizmo so I can highlight cases in my notes, and mark them to be read. Then I ask OneNote to create a separate page of those cases, so I can tick them off as read without going back through my notes to find them.

And about a million other things I do there - love that when I copy/paste from the web it brings the link over, cause often I don’t copy/paste the relevant bit.

Don’t care about ink to text, I take notes in class on my laptop.

I back it up in two places, but I, too, love that it just saves what you’re doing, in case of a computer crash.

I also set up a gizmo that I can get it to list things I need to read/do/study/write in order of importance (and yes, I can export those as a task list, but I usually don’t.)

Love it. Love.

(And I even have a purple background. Sorry, bit of a fan of purple things…)

11

I’ve been using it since 2003 also. Killer program. I have a cookbook notebook with recipes from around the web, a gaming notebook with hints and notes for all the games I play, a notebook for storing receipts from online purchase, a one for school, one for a journal, with poems and my own writing and one that’s just a daily diary. I’d be lost without it.

12

First, there is a helpful “Intro to OneNote” included in OneNote that is useful. Second, when in OneNote, click on the “help” button and the popup has a “Getting started with OneNote 2010” or you can search for specific questions.

First question:
1.Click File.
2.Click Save & Send.
3.Select Send Using E-mail, and then should have a pop up window that will allow you to add/modify email accounts including Live/Hotmail and all the standard “freemail” pop accounts.

Second to fourth question: Search for “tagged notes” in help
1.On the Home tab, in the Tags group, click Find Tags.
2.In the Task Summary task pane that opens, click any tag to find and open the page that contains the associated note.
3. there’s a lot more but not sure about copywrite and how to attribute to OneNote Help.

Note: you can create a summary page but I would delete this after you create it. This is because the summary page will then be included in the next tag search. It gets out of control pretty fast for me. Or you can create a summary page and then paste it into Word or Excel or just print to paper and then work off of that.

Search in OneNote is really powerful. If you do use handwriting, then you can search on handwriting as well. For example, you can type in the search word and it searches the handwriting.

Gleena - you should really set up Live/Hotmail account, and then store OneNote on SkyDrive. It’s a one button sync process and highlights if there is a conflict in synching. You can then literally use a kiosk or someone else’s PC to download from SkyDrive to the PC you’re using, and have all your OneNote files. Or Synch across several PC’s/Phones.

You can also access your files online without doing the download but that is slow when you’re used to having it on your PC.

Merneith - I have *my *cookbook too! Everytime I see a good recipe it gets downloaded and filed in OneNote. I have my version of the recipe on the same page. Usually, I keep track of various attempts until I get the recipe fine tuned. Or put recipe tips to the side of the recipe. I’ll never buy a cookbook (unless it comes in a OneNote format) because having my own customized cookbook is too awesome. Plus I have my “keepers” synched to my smart phone, so I have my recipes at my finger tips.

13

To set Outlook as your default email program, one has to go through control panel > default programs > set default programs > click on Microsoft Outlook > select which option.

You would do the same thing if you want to set up Windows Live Mail.

14

Not sure yet. The iPad is used by my autistic daughter and not by me. I’ll try to test it out one of these days.

I use OneNote a lot on my smart phone to take notes, keep my “to do” list updated, reference key data (like my recipes, favorite authors, etc.) and for any “in progress” documents or projects.

15

Google (gmail) has some good instructions if you search from gmail. I could follow it so I know they’re easy.

How do you do a daily diary? Is there a separate page for every day?

Gleena, how do you back it up in two places? What do you back it up on?

China Guy, thanks for the info. on SkyDrive, but I’m a Luddite and don’t like to save stuff online.

16

I have my OneNote save the notebooks to a particular folder, then I back that folder up on my USB key. Sometimes I just go file save as and then save it right on the USB key or wherever else.

Additionally, I forgot to mention the making my notes be PDF with the press of a button is fantabulous.

And I just got 2010 tonight. I got a Macbook Air, but I’m running Win7 in Parallels specifically so I can have OneNote (and because I have no patience to learn a new OS right now). Have to explore the differences, but I like the docking feature already!

17

Linux user here, so no OneNote, unfortunately. I use Kjots, which is very good for simple note taking - I use it constantly. It is not nearly as advanced as OneNote, though.

More info on Linux alternatives to OneNote (including Kjots) here.

18

OneNote uses very little memory if you’re just typing stuff in, drawing or otherwise creating content inside of OneNote. You could easily back up OneNote using a *small *USB stick. You probably have enough extra memory on your phone or mp3 player for your backup. Just put a reminder in your paper calendar to do this once a week or once a month :wink: I had my laptop stolen and no backups except for a 128 mb memory stick that had a year’s worth of OneNote files backed up a week earlier - I had minimal issues with any lost work and without that memory stick I would have been screwed.

One of the cool things I think about OneNote is that you can copy and paste in just about any kind of file (word, excel, pdf, photo, video, powerpoint, etc). You can choose if you want to paste the file there, a “photo” or “printout” of the file or both. For example, I have a powerpoint presentation with 5 slides. I can paste that to OneNote (and not to a regular file folder) and ask it to keep the whole file and the printout. So, I can go to that page and see the printout, I can email the whole thing to someone, I can copy the .ppt file and use it somewhere else, I can modify and save the ppt file right there. Doing this of course takes up more memory - you can save it to an external hard drive or on line. I’ve been operating this way for about 8 years and my entire OneNote backup is 3 GB. The cool part is that I have *all *the information at my fingertips and not a slave to my work PC or my home PC. When I go on vacation, I usually take a OneNote backup on a memory stick and don’t take my laptop. If I really absolutely have to do some work on vacation, I have access to OneNote and Outlook anywhere and I can do whatever it is that needs to be done.

My old job was very customer facing across 3 countries and 50+ multinationals. I have OneNote records for every meeting, related files, project work, etc and it’s less than 2GB for 7 years worth of work. People constantly ask “do you remember some sorta project that GM did dunno 5-6 years ago that was maybe related to dealerships or something like that” and I can email details within 2 minutes. :smiley:

19

I just started using OneNote, after seeing my girlfriend use it and finding out that it’s been on my laptop for a year. It seems nice so far, although I haven’t done much with it yet. I have organization problems, but so far it seems to have helped me sort out some of my personal interests. I see a lot of stuff on the internet and think “oh cool, I should try this or look into it further” but I usually forget about it. I’ve tried bookmarking, but that didn’t work so well. I haven’t really done much with my work projects yet.

I can’t really use it for notetaking because I don’t have a tablet and need to hand-draw molecules.

20

I am just popping in to say that I am going to read this thread carefully. I work as a high school teacher in a tablet school (we all have them, students and faculty), and many of my students use OneNote. I am aware that it has tons of features I could take advantage of in the classroom–shared notebooks, etc.–but I haven’t really learned the program. I intend to play around with it a lot this summer. If any of you power-users have tips for beginners and/or teachers, please share!