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Microsoft OneNote - some experiential Tips & Tricks
dantheman:
That was a full course meal Ian!
A web clipper add-on like Evernotes' for Firefox would be a nice addition.
Thanks again! :up:
IainB:
That was a full course meal Ian!
A web clipper add-on like Evernotes' for Firefox would be a nice addition.
Thanks again! :up:
-dantheman (March 04, 2015, 01:46 PM)
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You're most welcome.
RANT ON/
I had thought to mention Evernote, but as per separate discussions in this forum, I don't think its current incarnation is up to much, and I would like to go back to the version that had a FREE and very good client component - but that doesn't work with the current Cloud-based Evernote service. (Sigh.)
I used to think that if EN and ON were somehow merged, then that might be a good idea, but now I am not so sure, and I only have ON as the PIM I could really recommend for a future migration path (which is why I have taken that route for myself).
ON is hard to beat, and with MS Office integrated withal for a paltry US$10 (Corporate Home Use licence), I reckon it's a no-brainer. That does not mean it is perfect by any means - you only need to re-read my comments to you above to see where some gaping holes still require patching up. (Those comments do not provide a comprehensive list of ON failings either, though this entire thread does provide some more!)
For example, I can hardly believe I am still having to rely on the FF extension ScrapBook to store copies of web pages; and what about the Windows Desktop Search (Index/Search) non-integration with OneDrive-based notebooks? How did that all happen?
/RANT OFF
IainB:
It's nice see that OneNote is now a free program.
Do have one hick with this software.
The other day, tried to import a .pdf file but it created separate "pages" for each page instead of one page (as hoped for) but ended up with over 400!
Evidently i went on to delete the OneNote pages but it seems that we can only delete one page at a time.
Fortunately, i was able to transfer the other pages to another "tab" then simply delete the one with all the extra pages.
Wish there was a way to batch delete some pages instead of one at a time.
-dantheman (February 17, 2015, 02:18 PM)
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As well as my comment above, I though I might respond to this more specifically (and apologies for ny duplication).
* Definition of "Free": I personally wouldn't describe what Microsoft offer as a "free" OneNote program as being a truly free program. There are too many hooks/constraints associated with it, and it's not really all that usable compared to the full client-based software (which comes with MS Office). For that reason, I would not recommend it, except possibly as a taste of some of what OneNote could do.
However, if you wanted to trial OneNote, then you could download a free trial of the full MS Office 2013, which would be good for a 60-day trial:
60-day evaluation copy of Office Professional Plus 2013
EDIT 2015-04-09: fixed bad link here.
The download is:
* Office Professional Plus 2013 32-bit IMG - this is the one you will most likely need; a 666MB file.
* Office Professional Plus 2013 64-bit IMG
Be warned though that the experiences of many users - myself included - who have downloaded this seems to be that this download will not always install for various obscure reasons, and there seems to be little or no support offered from Microsoft for users to get the thing working. Amazing.
* Inserting PDF files: The issue with inserting PDF files is that you can either insert them into a OneNote page as an actual file, or as an image printout of the file contents. In the latter case, OneNote effectively is set up as an output device (a printer) in your devices - named "Send To OneNote 2013", or similar. This is what you seem to have done. I can't really see that it is all that useful - i.e., why would a user want to do this? When you get a separate OneNote page for each page of the PDF file, then it is a PITA.
However, once you discover that you have all these unwanted pages, the correct/quickest way to delete such pages is as a "batch". You go to the first page, select that page's tab (usually 2 clicks or until it goes grey) and then scroll down the page tabs to the last page in the series that you want deleted and select that whist holding down the Shift key - that selects all the pages in that range, from 1st to last. Then press the delete key, which removes the pages to Trash, wherefrom they will be deleted permanently after 60 days or so (default) or whatever is the user setting, if different. The delete is thus undoable/reversible if you change your mind about it.
Notes:
* 1. OneNote and OCR: The printed images of those PDF file pages are in a "background" image, or something, and even if you have set OneNote to auto-OCR text in images, it will not OCR "background" images. I seem to recall that, if you want the text of those images to be OCRed and indexed for subsequent search, you have to select every image and bring it to foreground, and then check that those will be or are being auto-OCRed by default. As I said above, a PITA.
Thus, if you want the text in the images in a PDF file to be indexed for search, then OCR the images in the PDF file, and rely on your Windows Desktop Search to do the indexing/searching (as it can do with text in .TIF image files).
* 2. OneNote OCR threshold text: I have noticed that OneNote will not OCR scan and index text in any image on a page where the amount of text is below some undefined threshold.
For example, yesterday, I clipped the image of a subtitle on a video where the text in the image was:
"ice age is creeping over the northern hemisphere even then it won't be as bad" (i.e., 15 words).
I then got OneNote to select the text from the image , and OneNote reported a longish error message that began:
This image does not contain any recognised text. ...
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So I clumped that subtitle clip with several others from the video and then consolidated them as a single, larger image:
- and then got OneNote to select the text from the larger image and got (with errors, and with lines inserted to distinguish each imaged group of text):
____________________________
British professor Hubert lamb says that
a new
____________________________
ice age is creeping cwer the northern
hem isphere even then it 'MM1t be as bad
____________________________
as the last ice age sixty thousand years
____________________________
then NewYork Cincinnati Saint lost
runner 5,000 be unified
____________________________
presumably no tramc movement school
was let out for the day
____________________________
and thats the way it is Monday Sept
11th 1972
____________________________
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IainB:
I had pointed out elsewhere that MS Office Lens on the Windows phone looked potentially useful:
...
3. Office Lens for capturing documents and whiteboards with your Windows Phone. Amazing. Potentially very useful. Just what I was needing/wanting. Now all I need is a Windows phone, and this is a good reason for getting one (so I can test Office Lens). ...
-IainB (March 18, 2014, 08:43 PM)
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I still have not justified getting a Windows Phone, so I was pleased to read today that:
Office Lens comes to iPhone and Android - Office Blogs
by OneNote Team, on April 2, 2015 | 16 Comments | 0
Just over a year ago, we introduced Office Lens for Windows Phone—and over that time the app has become one of the most popular free apps on Windows Phone, with an average rating of 4.6 stars (out of 5) from more than 18,500 reviews.
Today, we’re releasing Office Lens for iPhone and Android phones.
Office Lens is a handy capture app that turns your smartphone into a pocket scanner and it works with OneNote so you’ll never lose a thing. Use it to take pictures of receipts, business cards, menus, whiteboards or sticky notes—then let Office Lens crop, enhance and save to OneNote. Just like that—all the scanned images you capture from Office Lens are accessible on all your devices. ...(read more at the link).
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dantheman:
Excellent find Ian! Thank you! :Thmbsup:
Thought i was subscribed to this thread... where is that darn bookmark/subscribe to thread link now?
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