Yes to all of these.
great question that made me go look at how to do it. If you’re in OneNote 2010 go to help and search on tag text.
The OneNote home menu tab has a “tags” section. The drop down menu has probably 20 tags plus customizable tags. Then you can use the “find tags” to make a summary page of all the tags that you searched on (search on actions, or customized page or whatever).
Now, I don’t know enough of this function but I believe that to do what you want is a bit of a hack. You have to untag the text in the original page, delete the summary page, and then create a new summary page. Maybe someone knows better than I, but in older versions if you make a summary page, and then a new summary page, the new summary page captures all of the tags in the notebook *including *the original summary page (Eg, double counts or does not ignore the summary page). I think you can probably get what you want but it will be somewhat of a hack so not sure if it’s worth it for you.
thanks as I’m going to think about how I might use this. When I tried it before with checkbox tasks, I thought it was more trouble than it was worth. then again, I had tons of checkbox tasks. Maybe I’ll do that for other people? Have to think about it a bit.
Hmmm… I’ve tried it and I even have it installed on my computer(s) already as part of the MS Office Suite but I’ll admit I gave up on it after a fairly short time. Pretty much due to my extreme laziness at not wanting to spend much time learning the software (I have a mountain of other software to learn that takes priority). I didn’t even realize it could store different kinds of documents like PDFs/videos/etc., that’s how little time I spent with it. Another issue is that when I first started using it either the Windows cloud syncing didn’t exist or I didn’t know about it either. Is it free and easy to set that up? Also I only have 2007, not 2010.
I might be willing to give it another shot just because I like your enthusiasm. And because looking at all these messy (and sometimes cryptic) .txt files I have on my computer leads me to see the potential utility of it.
Thanks for this. Apparently the new version of OneNote can do exactly what I need with the Tags Summary page. Any my company will cover the cost of upgrading. So everything works out.
You need some kind of Windows Live or hotmail account to use Skydrive (part of the Microsoft free cloud storage and other services). After you login and are at the main screen, hover over the Windows Live drop down menu (takes 2-3 seconds) and then click on Skydrive.
Set up a OneNote folder (click the “new” drop down menu and click on “folder”). Then click on add files. Upload your OneNote file from the PC to SkyDrive. Then you can download from SkyDrive to your different devices. [although I think if you can login from your device, then you can download the OneNote notebook and it will automatically sync but I’m not sure]
Then you have to set permissions (whether this is public, private or how public), what devices you want to include (multiple PC’s, iPhone, iPad, Windows phone, etc), etc. I won’t go through all the details on SkyDrive/Live but it’s pretty easy.
China Guy - I like your enthusiasm too, and I have a feeling OneNote is something I might find useful (but I’m still not sure how).
Could you please read my post #31 in this thread and respond?
Thanks,
mmm
oh hell yes. This is the type of thing that screams OneNote,
Let’s see. For each feature, do you keep the same word file week after week and just add new cut and paste snips at the top? Or do you open a new word file each week for each feature? Do you use any of the old files after you publish? For example, your recipe file. Do you have a bunch of recipes in it? Maybe one week you find a couple of good ones and just park them in that recipe word file? Of do you just have one recipe in the word file and then delete it after you paste into publisher? How big is your newsletter - just a page or two or much longer?
To put it another way, how would you organize your newsletter on seperate pieces of paper on the dining room table? However way you would logically do this you can probably do something approximate in OneNote.
Two obvious ways you would want to organize. Option #1 would be to have a tab at the top of ONeNote for each topic (eg, recipe, jokes, etc), and then have a page for each topic. For example, you have a recipe topic, and then one page for pizza, one page for omlettes, etc. You can just park things in the page as you find them, and then come back when putting together your newsletter. You can also add a page for items you’ve already used wo you would have “unpublished recipes” and a seperate “used recipes” page.
Option #2, would be a tap at the top of OneNote for every week. This would mean you don’t collect a bunch of topics together and then come back to them in future weeks (eg, you just have one recipe for this week instead of a recipe master page). Then seperate pages under that tab for the topics you’re working on that week. The way you can paste different things on a page (think something like sticky notes), means you could also have one page that covered several topics. Say your newsletter is 2 pages long, then in OneNote you could have 4 different half pages that correspond to the newsletter. This is just to be an easy place to throw in a joke, a recipe, a thought for the week, that’s easy to see and organize.
does this make sense?
I think so, but I have a feeling I need to just buy it and do the hands-on thing to turn on the light bulb.
The newsletter is actually 16-20 pages long, maybe half of which is my content (filler stuff as described).
Here is how I manage it now: I have a folder within documents titled Newsletter. Within this folder I have several Word files (jokes, quotes, recipes, etc.) Each is a separate Word file, and each is several pages long.
As I acquire new stuff for future issues, I add it to the appropriate file. When it’s time to assemble the next newsletter, I open each file, copy what I want, then paste it into the Publisher file (which is the actual newsletter). I keep all content in the Word files, used and unused - I highlight in yellow content that I have already used.
This is a longstanding, ongoing process. My recipe Word document, for example, is probably 60 pages long. I have enough unused content for at least the next 3-4 years.
Thanks for all the info. I’m just about sold.
mmm
OK, that’s a really straight forward use case.
Basically set it up along the lines of option 1. Option #1 would be to have a tab at the top of ONeNote for each topic (eg, recipe, jokes, etc), and then have a page for each topic. For example, you have a recipe topic, and then one page for pizza, one page for omlettes, etc. You can just park things in the page as you find them, and then come back when putting together your newsletter. You can also add a page for items you’ve already used wo you would have “unpublished recipes” and a seperate “used recipes” page. Then you’ll cut and paste it into your destop publisher.
The advantage is that you don’t have to go to the file folder. You’ll open OneNote, see your tab for each subject at the top. Click the tab and then see however many pages you arrange under that tab. Trust me, this is much easier than doing it in Word. Much easier to browse, skim your text, etc. The other advantage is you can sync online via SkyDrive and then have this file available for any PC you’re working on. You can also save it to a USB drive really easily. Search works so much better to find the stuff you want within OneNote
I think you’ll just find it much easier and a more obvious way of working. You’ll know within a few hours of using it. I would suggest don’t try to over organize at first. Once you start using it, you’ll figure out how many pages makes sense. I keep my stuff pretty high level because it’s so easy to skim that I find I don’t need an ultra detailed heirarchy.
OK, now I am sold. Literally. I just ordered it.
I watched a few demos on YouTube that helped me visualize your (very detailed) descriptions.
With regard to the search function: does/can it search everything? For example, if I tell it to search for a specific word, will it search every notebook, folder and page?
Also, how many folders can I create before it gets too crowded and difficult to read the tabs of?
Thanks,
mmm
searches everything. You can search a page, notebook or all. If you have handwriting, it will search that too.
As for the folders, depends on how big your screen is and how long the folder title is. Easily 10 and can be more. You can also make sub folders
Back in the day when OneNote 2003 was fairly new, I used it to visually organize some in-depth research papers. Between organizing quotes and information from books, databases, and websites and dealing with visual data (one of them was on traditional Japanese visual culture in relation to Japanese horror movies), I was able to smoosh all of it together in a way that helped me review and start to plan out my papers before I wrote them. I’m not one of those people who’ll sit down and formally outline a paper 90% of the time unless it’s over 30 pages, so this was really handy for me. I could move stuff around, tag, tab, and play with it until it worked for me. It also made some aspects of early wedding planning ideas easier.
For some of us, it’s easier to compile all of our information in a way that’s not constrained like Word can be. Imagine that you work better by keeping all your information in one place, stacked a certain way, but your current desk won’t handle that particular stack. Do you get an organizer that helps you access all of the stuff without making a jumble, or do you toss it in a bunch of different boxes and say “to hell with it!” instead? That’s what using something like OneNote is like for those of us who have found it useful. I’m now on a Mac, and use the Stickies function extensively-- the last job was Mac-based, and I had seven or eight stickies up on my desktop at any given moment, plus the actual paper stickies for phone numbers and “frequently used” info on the outside of the computer.
nice description. IIRC, OneNote is available for Android phones, the iPad and iPhone, and I believe you can run it on a Mac but you need to run a virtual machine
I can confirm you need a VM. I run OneNote on my Macbook Air (ooo…so shiny!) running a Win7 VM in Parallels. Mac is pushing it’s ‘equivalent’ program, but I had a look and OneNote falls all over it.
I got the Air because I hurt my shoulder carrying my books and things, and I needed to cut weight. It works like silk with the VM and OneNote.
Just checking into say that I have received and installed my OneNote (ver. 2007). I got it from ebay for ten bucks (a sealed, legit disc).
Aside from a few negatives, I think I like it. It will hold all of my newsletter content in one place, making it easy for me to hop around and gather what I need at a given time.
Negatives:
I find the formatting to be a bit inconsistent. When I copy/paste from a Word document, things such as line spacing and fonts change seemingly randomly.
I wish it had a Sort capability.
It acts a little differently than other Office products (example: when I do CRTL-A for ‘select all’, it only selects the current sentence).
Other than that, I find it very intuitive, very agile, and very useful.
Thanks for the recommendation, China Guy.
mmm
Hey, glad it is working out for you. If it grows on you, I would suggest the 2010 version. I can’t remember off hand all the new stuff I use, but each version has gotten significantly better. Certainly the handwriting to type conversion works really well in 2010. I think the Notebooks, tabs and pages layouts are improved, and there’s a lot of other stuff.
I don’t know about you as a poster, China Guy.
You seem a bit OneNote.
Boom, tish.
Question: how would you use OneNote to track books? Both ones you have read (with synopses) and those you want to read?
Looking at some of the guides, it seems you are only able to have 3 levels: the notebook, sections, and pages, and it looks like you can’t have very many sections.
If the Notebook was ‘books’ and the sections things like ‘history’ or ‘SF’ or ‘crafts’, then you’d have to have a page for each book? (But then how to group an author’s books?) Or a page for each author --but then you’d have to cram all his books into a single page? I have read a dozen or more books by some authors, which would make for a very long page.
Is there a way to get a fourth level? So I can have Books/genre/author/individual book?
You can have multiple notebooks. In your case, I would probably have 1 notebook called “SF” 1 for “Crafts” etc.
You can also set up section groups as your fourth level. Like a Section Group for Asimov. Then you’d have a set of pages for Asimov
The only “limiter” is how much screen space you have for notebooks or sections. It’s not really a limit as you can keep adding notebooks, sections or pages, but once it doesn’t fit on the screen you have to start scrolling to find stuff. For example, I tend to limit the sections to the amount that can fit across the top of my screen. If I get too many sections to do that, then I’ll spend 5 minutes organizing some of the sections into sub sections. At least for me, I don’t have to sit down and formally organize OneNote very often. Only when there are too many sections or a section has too many pages (about 20 or so). Normally, the sections and pages may be jumbled up but there are not enough of them where it matters or where I feel like I need to organize it further.
I am probably expressing myself poorly. For organizing OneNote, the beauty is you don’t need to do much organizing. Just throw a bunch of different stuff on a page, and when it gets too crowded for you, then set up another page. Once you get more than a dozen or two pages, you’ll probably want to organize it better but if there are only 5 pages I don’t find a need to. Same with the Sections.
I just looked and I have OneNote as part of Office 2010, gonna have to peruse this thread to see if it’ll be useful for me. 