Author Topic: Microsoft OneNote - some experiential Tips & Tricks (Read 205439 times)

superboyac · « **Reply #75 on:** December 17, 2015, 11:35 PM »

I will soon experiment with Onenote again, based on some of IainB's ideas here. I am puzzled (fascianted?) by one comment...that he recommends getting training for it. This is interesting because I always saw it as a somewhat simple application, in the sense that I wish it did more. But it sure sounds like there is a lot under the hood that I haven't looked into. I am also more flexible with this stuff than I once was in my ultimate notetaker searching, and I'm willing to let certain things go now if I can actually have my notes in one spot.

20 years now I've been trying out notetakers. it never ends.

Angry Thinker · « **Reply #76 on:** December 17, 2015, 11:54 PM »

2. Uses for OneNote: Certainly, as you suggest, my use of OneNote is for more than just as a Zettelkasten (card index) and always has been. I mean, of what use would a card index be to anyone in this day and age?
-IainB (December 17, 2015, 04:49 PM)

Thanks for your reply IainB, I understand your thinking. I would like to make 1 point: there are quite a few people out there who use a digital Zettelkasten purely as a card index system only. There are even some apps designed for that purpose only, notably (but not confined to) Daniel Luedecke's ZKN3 app.
I agree with you that OneNote is designed as an integrated PIM & KM, it seems to me that the author of that OneNote-Zettelkasten article uses as such and wanted to give it a try as a Zettelkasten too, because in the intro he says:

Much to my surprise OneNote surpassed my expectations, so a next step I wanted to take was to give OneNote a try as a Zettelkasten app too.

superboyac · « **Reply #77 on:** December 18, 2015, 12:11 AM »

OK IainB, before I study this thread in more detail, let me ask you for some subjects that I'm interested in (in case it hasn't been covered in the earlier posts).

Do you think Onenote works well as a daily journal? Writing random subjects on a daily basis, searching through them...exporting them later, etc.?

How is the import/export capabilities? Does it get mangled? is it easy enough...exporting is more important. Retains formats, alignments, etc?

Printing and print previewing? How do you feel about it. it's ok from I can tell.

Searching in general? I think it's quite good, one of the strengths.

web clipping? how's the experience? Just in general, I never have liked any automated web clipping...either the way it creates new notes annoys me, or it doesn't work right, etc. I have eventually settled on copying the content manually (ctrl-c) and pasting it manually in the notetaker where the link gets added automatically. That's my sweet spot right now. Sometimes I do a new note per clip, but usually a bunch of clips go inside one note. I would have to have the ability to choose per instance.

IainB · « **Reply #78 on:** December 19, 2015, 05:32 AM »

2. Uses for OneNote: Certainly, as you suggest, my use of OneNote is for more than just as a Zettelkasten (card index) and always has been. I mean, of what use would a card index be to anyone in this day and age?
-IainB (December 17, 2015, 04:49 PM)

Thanks for your reply IainB, I understand your thinking. I would like to make 1 point: there are quite a few people out there who use a digital Zettelkasten purely as a card index system only. There are even some apps designed for that purpose only, notably (but not confined to) Daniel Luedecke's ZKN3 app.
I agree with you that OneNote is designed as an integrated PIM & KM, it seems to me that the author of that OneNote-Zettelkasten article uses as such and wanted to give it a try as a Zettelkasten too, because in the intro he says:
Much to my surprise OneNote surpassed my expectations, so a next step I wanted to take was to give OneNote a try as a Zettelkasten app too.
-Angry Thinker (December 17, 2015, 11:54 PM)

Hahaha, sorry, my question "of what use would a card index be to anyone in this day and age?" was a rhetorical question. I did not intend to offend anyone who actually likes and wants to use card indexes - I mean, I think they were very useful tools, and Rolodexes too - but I had no idea that anyone actually still wanted to build and use them. I could be out of touch, I suppose...

Yes, I do know there are some computerised applications that mimic a card index (or Zettelkasten) - I I referred to some - but I would probably consider those to be largely academic or purist applications with a different definition of "information" compared to my extended data set, and different requirements to my PIM needs as well, of course. I recall in the early Windows and Mac OSes, there were card index-type applications that I think came with the OS - and they were great - and I think that PackRat may have been one also. They are now obsolete, I presume.

Yes, that quote:

Much to my surprise OneNote surpassed my expectations, so a next step I wanted to take was to give OneNote a try as a Zettelkasten app too.
_______________________

- pretty much describes my initial position also and was what I meant by my having "blundered into" this experiment 7 or 8 years ago. I tried to explain that in the context of the penny dropping when I saw OneNote's wiki-like links and the potential of embedded hyperlinking.
Me:

"Ooh look! Hyperlinks and double square brackets does that does it? Hmm. Like a wiki ... like a Zettelkasten (card index) too, sort of... I wonder... (mumble, mumble)"

However, this is a digression from the discussion thread which is to discuss Microsoft OneNote experiential Tips & Tricks, not the merits or otherwise of the Zettelkasten (card index) concept or apps. etc. per se. Like I said above, Zettelkasten is a bit of a yawn, and there are plenty of other web sites where the acolytes of Zettelkasten may gather - and indeed do - to sagely consider the practical and philosophical aspects of their treasured subject of study, and at great length.

I have by this stage come to realise, of course, that I might properly be considered unworthy - or not worthy and lacking in sufficient understanding - to utter the term "Zettelkasten" in such a forum as this. I acknowledge that in my utter ignorance and careless youthful exuberance I mistakenly attempted to proffer some help, or something - some mere scrapings of imperfect knowledge - which might be of possible use to my fellows, and I regret having done so from such a depth of ignorance and having unwittingly risked blaspheming the dogma, angering the Old Ones and possibly even destabilising the orbit of the Sun about the flat earth and the balance of the turtles below the Earth. Verily, I shall don sackcloth and ashes for the next three months and self-flagellate with barbed wire on Mondays, and drink no tea on Fridays, and go walking in bare feet instead of my Nikes, as a wholly inadequate penance for my miserable sins, and thus beg forgiveness from the Old Ones.

Angry Thinker · « **Reply #79 on:** December 19, 2015, 06:14 AM »

IainB, your insight and comments have been invaluable. You have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself, you are entitled to your opinion. I agree that the concept of a digital Zettelkasten is more applicable to academia, and also to authoring. In today's world a Zettelkasten is more likely to be a component of a complete PIM/KM system like you have. I also use OneNote as my PIM/KM system, but am always interested to see others' applications & opinions. Anyway, good to be able to spar constructively

IainB · « **Reply #80 on:** December 19, 2015, 06:31 AM »

@superboyac:

"...before I study this thread in more detail, let me ask you for some subjects that I'm interested in (in case it hasn't been covered in the earlier posts)."

Do read the previous posts, please, into which I have invested considerable cognitive surplus, and which I think you will find probably would have covered some of the points you raised had you read them first.
Like I said in an earlier comment, one really has to "Find out for yourself" (and maybe undertake some training/education in OneNote). I had to overcome an almost instinctive aversion to OneNote and took responsibility for forcing myself to understand the thing, because I could not be sure of its potential use to me until I had done that.

Q1. Do you think Onenote works well as a daily journal? Writing random subjects on a daily basis, searching through them...exporting them later, etc.?
Answer: Most emphatically, Yes. In ON 2007 there was an unofficial add-on or application written by a developer at Microsoft (I think) that did a superbly innovative job of automating the creation and adding to a daily journal. Newer versions of ON broke the app. and it has not been replaced. It is sorely missed by myself and many others.
I still maintain my journal using that tool's approach, but not using the tool itself. Working methods and preferences differ between individuals, so I am unsure whether all users liked the add-on and/or its approach. OneCalendar - a current OneTastic standalone app. - has to be used to appreciate what it does in terms of enabling the user to review their activity (including journal entries).

Q2: Quick Q & A:
Searching? Already covered that to a greater extent.
Import/export capabilities? Not sure what you mean or require by that. Needs more definition.
Printing and print previewing? I don't know as I have never needed to do either with OneNote notes. (I abhor paper output and avoid using it if at all possible.)
Web clipping? Already covered that to a greater extent and suggested the best/better tools that I have used.

IainB · « **Reply #81 on:** December 27, 2015, 05:50 AM »

@superboyac: re Import/Export to/from OneNote.

Specifically, Export from Evernote to OneNote.
Quite coincidentally, I read in Lifehacker about a third-party tool to do this. So I did a search and got this:

OneNote - export from Evernote to OneNote.png

OneNote - export from Evernote to OneNote.png

IainB · « **Reply #82 on:** January 10, 2016, 05:33 PM »

This might be relevant to optimising the use of OneNote Notebooks (databases).
I just stumbled upon this discussion from 2014 in the DC Forum: Re: For Serious Research: Cadillac of "ClipBoard Managers" vs. "Info/Data Manager"
I don't recall having read all of that discussion, but I made a post on it at the end regarding MyInfo**. The thread itself seems relevant to what I posted about regarding Microsoft OneNote - how to make it your 21st century Zettelkasten PIM.

I have copied below in full a comment by @dr_andus that seemed particularly relevant, and it is full of useful information, some of it pointing to what could be considered as potential alternatives to the OneNote Zettelkasten approach that I was describing. I had in any event actually looked at and trialled all of the apps mentioned (and more, but with one exception), and variously discounted them for my peculiar purposes/requirements - with CT (Connected Text) being a rather good runner-up. The rest of the thread is worth re-reading IMHO. A reminder that the DC Forum can be a veritable treasure trove of pretty useful discussions and ideas over the years, and that may retain currency and relevance with our needs today and potentially for the future.

Tomos is probably right in that it also depends on the nature of the data being organised. The tree-like hierarchy clearly works for TaoPhoenix and many other people, otherwise hierarchical software like UltraRecall, RightNote, MyInfo etc. wouldn't be around.

The scenarios I'm talking about have to do with organising a large number of small chunks of text (with occasional images or links to other files and websites), such as a database of quotes and reading notes that one collects over a lifetime. In that situation it is not all that useful to organise these items into trees at the time of collecting or creating them because they are being gathered for later consumption, where they may be re-used for different purposes. It would be more important to label/categorise them, so that they would turn up in relevant searches.

The method I'm using is called the Zettelkasten (slip box) method, developed initially by a sociologist called Niklas Luhmann. If you do a search for it, you can find sites that explain it.

One category of software to implement this system are personal/desktop wikis. I use ConnectedText, but as I said, it's got a steep learning curve, it took me several tries over several years to finally start using it. Zim is another one.

There are some cross-over software that try to combine the tree with a wiki. E.g. Wikidpad, Whizfolders, or Outwiker.

There is also Luedecke's Zettelkasten software.

Piggydb is another interesting approach.

Is this sort of program beyond what we might hope for on donationcoder.com?

Not necessarily. There are some very simple implementations of the Zettelkasten out there, such as using nvALT on Mac or ResophNotes on Windows. Apparently it's even possible to create a desktop wiki using AutoHotkey.
__________________________
-dr_andus (February 16, 2014, 04:13 AM)

The exception that I referred to is the desktop wiki using AutoHotkey - the link goes to a post from 2009 that I do not recall having read before, in the excellent blog Taking note. That blog has long been in my feed-reader as a very useful and informative source of information and analysis of "Taking Note"-related software and practices, and which also sometimes explores scripting coding in detail - of which, the post linked to is a arguably a good example.

This CRIMPer is now going to have to trial the script and see...

**MyInfo: It was my comment about MyInfo that made me realise that it I was due to re-trial the latest version of MyInfo to establish whether the somewhat serious search constraint that I had observed had been remedied in the latest version.

dantheman · « **Reply #83 on:** January 11, 2016, 05:49 AM »

Pardon me for shifting to another issue.
When clipping with extensions like the one available for Chrome, the hyperlinks are no longer active within the Onenote app.
I recall one for Firefox by a private dev. didn't have that problem.

IainB · « **Reply #84 on:** January 11, 2016, 08:57 AM »

That's odd. Maybe I misunderstand you.
I always get the source URL tagged on when I copy text from Firefox or IE11, then alt-tab to OneNote, and then paste it into OneNote.
Similarly when I bring up the New quick note Systray app to make the copy/paste or the Linked notes function (see the Review tab in the OneNote ribbon to get the latter directly).
I used to use a third party add-on called Clip to OneNote, but it broke with a newer version of OneNote, and then became redundant anyway.

dantheman · « **Reply #85 on:** January 11, 2016, 01:17 PM »

Exactly!
CliptoOnenote works just fine in Firefox (for me) whereas the "official" one for Chrome just does like a photocopy, no active hyperlinks.

IainB · « **Reply #86 on:** January 11, 2016, 04:04 PM »

@dantheman:
It looks like you probably need to tell the extension to collect the URLs, as it does not do so by default.

I had never used the OneNote Clipper Chrome extension provided by Microsoft, so I just now fired up Google Chrome "Canary" (the Beta channel version) and installed the OneNote Clipper extension.
Then I went to the page: chrome://extensions/ and scrolled down till I found the extension description listed there, and then checked/ticked the box at the bottom of the extension description where it says "Allow access to file URLs", and it worked just fine regardless of whether you used the Clipper to get a screenshot image of that whole webpage, or just the image of a selected area of the webpage, or just the rough RTF text (sans images) of the article on that webpage.

I must say the extension for Chrome seems to work very nicely - pity they don't provide one for Firefox like that! (They provide a cruddy bookmarklet instead, which uses Java, and it doesn't work on my installation of Firefox.)
I presume the reasoning is that the Clipper tool is specifically only issued to save clippings to the default Quick Notes section of the Cloud-based "Notebook" they provide for "FREE"** - so you have to login to your Outlook account before it can capture clips. I have mentioned elsewhere that IMHO that seems to be a cynical marketing ploy and I wouldn't recommend it as the cloud-based app has very little useful functionality. It's a "teaser".

The only really useful OneNote is the one where you have the full-blown OneNote app installed on the PC client, as delivered with the MS Office suite of proggies. With that you can put your Notebooks all in the Cloud environment, or all on the client PC environment, or distributed across both. I mention that above, and that I have some concerns regarding the apparently high potential for corrupted Cloud-based Notebooks - as discovered by myself and many other users. Reading about the user problems/issues with OneNote, as described on the discussion forums, is quite an eye-opener.

**If you have the full MS Office installed, then you can specify in OneNote whatever default sections you want set for clippings to be sent to, on whichever environment. However, these settings can not override the fixed settings of the Clipper tool as released for the "FREE" OneNote. Rather confusing.

dantheman · « **Reply #87 on:** January 11, 2016, 08:02 PM »

Ya, Microsoft does have that habit of confusing us (Hotmail to Live to Outlook...).
Ever try do a search for Outlook client and not Outlook email?

Anyhow, are you aware of a trick to send notes from one notebook to another?

IainB · « **Reply #88 on:** January 11, 2016, 09:15 PM »

Anyhow, are you aware of a trick to send notes from one notebook to another?
-dantheman (January 11, 2016, 08:02 PM)

There is no "trick". The Notebook metaphor is relatively consistently applied in the 3-pane GUI. There are straightforward and relatively foolproof operations to move stuff around, though if one does make a mistake - as one does, sometimes

- then the Ctrl-Z (undo history) hotkey shows itself to be a highly reliable lifesaver, and the Recycled pages are searched for content by default and can provide a useful backstop for recovery (they are auto-deleted after 60 days, by default). You get warnings where specific actions cannot be undone.

Operations which need to be learned here include:

You can cut-and-paste or copy-and-paste pages and discrete bits of page contents pretty much wherever you want.
You can drag-and-drop individual pages or groups of pages (including the collapsible/indented type of Page Groups) within sections in a Notebook, and between Notebooks.
Very useful: You can also right-click Move or Copy individual pages, sending them to somewhere else within a Notebook or to other Notebooks.
You can drag-and-drop discrete sections (including the special collapsible Section Groups).
Very useful: You can also right-click Move or Copy individual sections within a Notebook and between Notebooks.
You can right-click Merge (with options) discrete sections into other discrete sections within a Notebook and between Notebooks.

When I was trying to fix a corrupted Cloud-based Notebook, I learned to use the above operations and it made light work of an otherwise tedious job. It turned out that only one page had been partially corrupted, but it did make me wary about Cloud-based Notebooks. I have never yet had a corrupted client-based Notebook, despite thrashing the application and making it crash from time to time. It always seems to fail safe.

dantheman · « **Reply #89 on:** January 12, 2016, 09:31 AM »

You're a pro IanB!
Shall work with desktop version only.
Thanks a bunch!

superboyac · « **Reply #90 on:** January 15, 2016, 02:03 PM »

I am officially starting what I am calling the...
'The 2016 Superboyac's IanB Onenote experiment"

IainB · « **Reply #91 on:** January 16, 2016, 04:30 PM »

2016-01-17 1123hrs: Just made some changes to my last comment above: Added further notes about right-click Move and Copy functions.
I had previously omitted to mention the page Move/Copy, and how useful these were - compared to drag-and-drop. Limiting the user to manually having to copy/move pages or sections around in or between Notebooks would probably be taking the Notebook metaphor a bit too far. ...

superboyac · « **Reply #92 on:** January 16, 2016, 09:59 PM »

damn IainB...I just came across a couple of blasts from the past regarding you...

around 2010, you had sent me some documents to help me with process flow stuff. crazy stuff. I remember trying that out at my job.

And before that, maybe around 2007, your hilarious comment to my informal coffee club at work about why the girl has all the cleaning responsibilities. lol!! time flies!!

IainB · « **Reply #93 on:** January 18, 2016, 07:50 AM »

damn IainB...I just came across a couple of blasts from the past regarding you...
...around 2010, you had sent me some documents to help me with process flow stuff. crazy stuff. I remember trying that out at my job.
And before that, maybe around 2007, your hilarious comment to my informal coffee club at work about why the girl has all the cleaning responsibilities. lol!! time flies!!
-superboyac (January 16, 2016, 09:59 PM)

I'm not absolutely sure, but as I recall it, I/we used Google WAVE on that process flow stuff. I still have a copy of that somewhere.
I don't recall the coffee club joke.

superboyac · « **Reply #94 on:** February 15, 2016, 03:13 PM »

The audio clip transcription on the first page here is blowing my mind a bit. that's great.

initial thoughts:
i'm not syncing anything right now yet in my experiment, so my onenote files are per device right now.
if i unify/sync everything...wouldn't all these audio/video/media clips bog things down? and what if i don't want to use cloud syncing and instead use local or local enterprise syncing? I ask because if i start committing to use onenote a lot for media stuff, these databases are going to get huge.

superboyac · « **Reply #95 on:** February 15, 2016, 06:44 PM »

The latest changes/updates in MS Office 2013 (including especially OCR features in OneNote) have helped to make life easier for notetakers.
[ Invalid Attachment ]

-IainB (October 25, 2014, 03:42 AM)

wow

superboyac · « **Reply #96 on:** February 15, 2016, 07:03 PM »

So far in my experiment, I am liking Onenote. I am warming up to it, and I can see myself committing to it long-term.

IainB · « **Reply #97 on:** February 16, 2016, 07:27 AM »

@superboyac:
Audio data: Yes, my "discovery" of OneNote's the indexing of detected words/phrases in audio clips, and syncing of the playing of the audio clip with a transcript took me by surprise. The indexing also includes when (in mins and secs) the phrase occurs.

Syncing OneNote Notebooks to OneDrive: I started off with all Notebooks being Client-based, and I kept it that way until MS offered their "free" crippled OneNote, trying out the web-based Notebook they provided in my account. It seemed to work fine, so I selected Notebooks one at a time to "locate" them on OneDrive. Results as described in comments above. Even though Cloud-based, they are still backed up (backup files are) on the Client.

In playing about with Notebooks, I experimentally merged most of them into one very big one, then split that up a bit later. Some of my Notebooks are a few Gb large now, as they contain lots of text, images and multimedia (audio and audio-visual) files, as well as program and document files.
What I learned is that file/database size seems to be a non-issue, as Cloud-based OneNote files are automatically synced with changes on the Client at the .ONE file level - so whole notebooks are not being repeatedly updated/synced, but only the changed elements.

I have the concern noted above where my first experience of (so far) a single corrupt Note page in a Notebook was one too many. The Client-based Notebooks worked flawlessly, and were actually faster in use (no bandwidth-sucking downloading/caching/syncing of parts of a Notebook stored on OneDrive).

OneNote OCR functionality and search: Ruddy brilliant IMHO.

I don't know who they had in the OneNote development team, but from MS Office 2007 and onwards, there seems to have been some very cogent thinking going on - and not just for OneNote. Respect.

superboyac · « **Reply #98 on:** February 16, 2016, 05:47 PM »

interesting. I'm not ready yet to start cloud unifying everything, so I'm still in the phase of multiple client notebooks on 2-3 devices.

I just became annoyed at the web clipper...which doesn't allow me to save clips to a local/offline notebook. what the hell? this is using the extension for firefox. i'm going to try with the desktop clipper.

IainB · « **Reply #99 on:** February 16, 2016, 11:30 PM »

interesting. I'm not ready yet to start cloud unifying everything, so I'm still in the phase of multiple client notebooks on 2-3 devices.

I just became annoyed at the web clipper...which doesn't allow me to save clips to a local/offline notebook. what the hell? this is using the extension for firefox. i'm going to try with the desktop clipper.
_____________________________
-superboyac (February 16, 2016, 05:47 PM)

Using client-based Notebooks:
I suspect that your experience of setting up and using client-based OneNote Notebooks will only be good for PC clients. Other devices, not so good. Bound to be constraints. There's only so much functionality you can develop, maintain and pack into smaller capacity processors.

Getting to understand the clipping functionality in different modes of working:
I, like you, was initially "...annoyed at the web clipper...which doesn't allow me to save clips to a local/offline notebook."
Then I realised, after thinking about it, that that's the only way it could work, since it has to access one's account. So the only Notebook it can save to is a Cloud-based one - i.e., it can't know how to network back from the Internet to your PC-based Notebook. By the way, that functionality can also send a perfect scrollable web-page snapshot (image file) to your web-based Notebook. Once in your Notebook, the image is OCRed and that content then gets indexed and becomes searchable, and thus becomes part of your knowledge base (make sure you have set the switch to auto-OCR images ON, as it might not be on by default). This is the only product I have found that takes better and quicker snapshots than Screenshot Captor, and it OCRs everything too, and all perfectly done (so far). So one does not need to worry about ensuring the capture of all a web page's text...Hmm. Trouble is, any embedded hyperlinks are lost, so the Firefox add-on Scrapbook is not made redundant.

Otherwise, if you want to clip something from any application to a PC client-based Notebook, then one has some very useful alternative approaches:

(a) Select-->Copy-->Paste: Use the conventional Select-->Copy-->Paste, directly into the Notebook on the PC that you are using.
(b) New Quick Note: Select/bring up a New Quick Note from the Systray icon (hotkey is Ctrl+Shift+M from within OneNote, but be careful as this hotkey does something quite different in Firefox!), which pops up a narrow window on the RHS of the screen (RHS is by default, and I think can be changed). The New Quick Note is quite nifty as it provides you with automatic source-linking (a bit like Clipboard Help & Spell) and options for setting that. You need to use this to understand it and get the hang of what it is doing, or could be doing, depending on the settings/options you select.
(c) Screen Clipping Tool: Take a screen clipping from the Systray icon (hotkey is Win+Shift+S). You need to use this to understand it and get the hang of what it is doing, or could be doing, depending on the settings/options you select.
(d) Send to OneNote or OneNote Linked Notes: In IE use the Send to OneNote or OneNote Linked Notes buttons/functions. This demonstrates superb integration between IE+OneNote. You need to use this to understand it and get the hang of what it is doing, or could be doing, depending on the settings/options you select. There are/were extensions to do similar in Firefox, but I gave up using them as my Firefox beta updates kept breaking things and they wouldn't work.

By the way, if not already done, consider installing OneTastic macros. There are now a few really useful macros - e.g., two of my frequently-used favourites are:

Where am I +
This is useful when you have navigated by links somewhere into your Notebooks and need to know where you are currently "nested".
TOC in Current Section
This is a handy macro.