Microsoft OneNote - some experiential Tips & Tricks

[IainB]

Cross-posted: Resetting the paste formatting defaults:
Fix for when ON users find that pasting images into ON causes the images to be small (resized).

...When I use SC in the way you describe, the captured image pastes perfectly into ON. So I don't experience the problem as you do and cannot replicate it.
I am using ON 2016.

However, after doing some searching, I discovered that the problem you describe seems to be longstanding, and common. For example:

How can we improve OneNote for Windows?
? OneNote for Windows & Windows phone

Keep image size when pasting an image
Keep image size when pasting an image to a notebook. Right now we have to right-click and "restore to original size" on every image.
Darryl shared this idea  ·  Mar 21, 2017  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…
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2 comments
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Jeff Roback commented  ·  September 19, 2017 2:26 PM  ·  Flag as inappropriate
I agree.... I do a lot of screenshots in my work and having to click restore to original size for every single one is making me consider using another program for notes after over 10 years in onenote!
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Brian Cargnelli commented  ·  March 24, 2017 2:34 PM  ·  Flag as inappropriate
I use OneNote in my photography classes to upload completed projects. I ask students to resize their images to 800X800 at 72 DPI resolution and have created a table with one column and multiple rows to paste these images into. However the images all get resized smaller and as the post says, I have to right click each one and restore to original size. This small problem actually is very frustrating as if the student has 20 images for review then that is 20 times I have to do this for this one student, times 30-40 in each class.
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Copied from: Keep image size when pasting an image - Welcome to OneNote and Sticky Notes Suggestion Portal! - <https://onenote.uservoice.com/forums/327186-onenote-for-windows-windows-phone/suggestions/18676150-keep-image-size-when-pasting-an-image>
______________________

I came across this possible solution:
(The text is copied into the spoiler below the image.)

Spoiler

Resetting the paste formatting defaults:
1. Copy several words to clipboard: e.g., This is a test
   - Right-click somewhere on a OneNote page.
   - Under Paste Options, select the first icon --> Keep Source Formatting (K).
   - This pastes the clipboard contents to OneNote (happens when you select Keep Source Formatting (K). ).
      
   This will paste: This is a test
2. Select the little drop-down menu that appears next to the pasted text:
      
3. Select "Set as Default Paste":
      
4. Try to copy/paste an image again.
     (The as-copied formatting should persist on pasting, without resizing.)
      Copied from: https://social.techn...es?forum=officeitpro
________________________________

-IainB (March 20, 2018, 05:33 PM)

[IainB]

EDIT 2018-04-18 0836hrs: Just updated the OP to better reflect and introduce what this discussion thread has developed into.

I was prompted to do this after someone - not a DCF member - telling me how they had stumbled upon this thread and how useful/informative they had found it.

[IainB]

I started to have a discussion offline about OneNote, but I realised it might be worth recording it here, as it could be of interest to others. It's between me and someone I shall call "Frank":

On the subject of webpage copying:

• I have searched the Internet for years to find something that makes a decent copy of web pages, for archive/library reference purposes.
  The best I had found was the Firefox add-on Scrapbook.
  More recently, I found Zotero.
  Nothing else seems to come close.
  They are both very good indeed.
  Then I discovered that they both use the same engine:WebPageDump <http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/pollak/webpagedump/>
  (Details partially copied below and with just the download file embedded hyperlinks.)
  

  -IainB (March 17, 2016, 11:16 AM)

  
  
• WizNote: Superb web page copying (and editable too), but I had the same qualms as you re Cloud-based and security, so do not use it. By the way, I did a review of WizNote on the DC Forum:
   WizNote (a PIM from China) - Mini-Review + Provisional User Forum.
  
  
• See also comments here: Re: flamory <https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=41879.msg392045#msg392045>
  
  
• OneNote is not very good for webpage capture/viewing, but is good for partial webpage clips.
  
  
• Wezinc could have been almost exactly what I was looking for as a PIM, though it's performance for webpage copying was unreliable - it would occasionally miss some parts of pages. It also did rather nifty relationship mind-maps. I was a Beta tester for Wezinc and was disappointed when the developer seemed to just shut down without notice. Maybe he was ill/died. If you wanted it, I have the last Beta version that he provided to me. It was never published on his website, so it'd not be in Wayback.
  
  
• Zotero remains current and supported and thus arguably the "best" proprietary option left by default.
  
  
• .mhtml copies of webpages is probably the most "open" and non-proprietary way to go at present, under the circumstances, so that is where I have gone. This has the advantage of providing webpage copies  that are self-contained single files that are  readable by various browsers and able to be indexed by WDS (Windows Desktop Search and GDS (Google Desktop Search) - the latter still being fully functional and best-in-class by default. Web pages saved by Scrapbook are also indexable by WDS/GDS, and are easily viewable if one goes to the index.html file for each Scrapbook page. This is of course a pain, but I have not yet figured out a way to batch convert the thousands of Scrapbooked web pages I have in my library (together with their nested lower levels and any embedded files).

On the subject of audio index/search + privacy/security concerns:

• (Frank): I too remember my mind being blown when I discovered that ON had this ability [indexing of identified words in audio files]. However, I have refrained from using it because of the hurdles I mentioned AND my hope was that OCR and Audio indexing would become available in the opensource landscape. It has, but only as web services.
• IainB response: If you are using ON on client-based notebooks, then the notebooks are processed in isolation on the client (i.e., not in the Cloud), by audio analysis and OCR capture software functionality in the client app., and, whilst it is processing, there is no chitchat or "phoning home" between client and Cloud, and (for paranoia belts and braces) ON can be easily blocked at the Firewall, anyway (I use Windows Firewall Control to manage this). Also, don't forget that Notebooks or individual pages within Notebooks can be locked/encrypted. (Woe betide you if you forget/lose the key.)

On the subject of automation of functionality (e.g., tagging, search) in the database:

• (Frank) I still think that it would be possible to automate these things. Something like ultrarecall with indexing or an AI or machine learning back end. While tagging is very important, I want to spend less time processing the information I collect and more time digesting and doing interesting things with it.
• IainB response: Automation of sophisticated tagging is possible and has been for years - just not in OneNote or any other of the current clutch pf PIMs (that I am aware of). The technology for this seems to be difficult to implement however, using conventional database design methods. The assumption implicit in what you write is that the database would need to be stored and processed within the microcosm of a self-contained proprietary database system. This would be a conventional approach.
  
  
• My guess is that, in ON, the conventional approach of a single (probably relational) database would seem to have been superseded by default and by design, by Microsoft, presumably in the interests of simplicity and efficiency. The database is now comprised of the structured collection of OneNote's .one files/folders stored on the hard drive (or SSD), and the processing is being/can be done by a suite of ON client-based apps able to operate on those files. To a greater extent, that describes what ON is/does. To do this, ON would need to also be maintaining a local database of pointers to the location of the data held in these files - e.g., hyperlinking.
  
  
• Thus, the entire database would consist of two major components (database stores):
  
  • the largest volume of data - the data itself (objects} - held in an integrated, structured collection of discrete .one files/folders, on disk,
  • a smaller volume of data  - indexes/pointers - held in a proprietary database of pointers to the locations of the data held in these files.
  
  This would seem to be redolent of the design patent for Lotus Agenda - US Patent US5115504 - Information management system which defined:
  Two DATA structures:
  
  • FILE .AGA:
      - CATEGORY OBJECTS
      - ITEM OBJECTS [NB: in Lotus Agenda, ITEM objects could be optionally saved externally to disk, as discrete text files).
      - GENEOLOGY OBJECTS
      - VIEW OBJECTS
    
    
  • FILE .AGB:
      - LINK STRUCTURES
    
  
  
• The ON notebooks consist of discrete page files with a .one extension (suffix). This not only makes them accessible at the file level (e.g., for WDS/GDS indexing and search), but also means that updates to a Notebook only involve single pages (files), so file read/write access is greatly simplified and does not require updating a whole database. Similarly, in the case of online (cloud-based) Notebooks, file data traversal/transmission is required only for those small files as and when they are actually updated, so bandwidth is kept to a bare minimum, leading to speedy/efficient updates of Cloud-based files as and when they are edited/changed.

On the subject of Tagging:

• Tagging in ON is pretty restrictive and manual/tedious, having to be done to information items individually or by groups within a page only. Microsoft probably could have implemented a much more useful and sophisticated form of automated tagging in the design, if they had wanted to, à la Lotus Agenda.
  
  
• In Lotus Agenda, tagging was done through the use of a semi-hierarchical tree of CATEGORIES. These CATEGORIES were effectively what we might call "tags" today, and they had selectable properties - they could be treated variously as, for example, strict hierarchies in places where you wanted that (with normal Parent-Child inheritance properties), with mutually exclusive categories, or multiple/inclusive categories, and some special categories could have Condition/Action properties (e.g., trigger an alarm at a certain date/time), or be numerical strings, alpha strings, or alpha-meric strings. Tags could be manually assigned on an individual or mass group selective basis, or automatically and dynamically assigned/reassigned to ITEMS, depending on certain conditions of the set/changed data in any given ITEM.
  
  
• This was incredibly flexible, but it had a steep learning curve, which might have explained why Lotus Agenda was reputedly not a great seller.

[Tuxman]

Ew: OneNote (the non-UWP application) is discontinued.
https://techcommunit...-Windows/ba-p/183974

[IainB]

Just as a "heads-up", for those who may only be interested in the possibility of using OneNote as a daily journal, @rgdot has posted a mini-review of an alternative PIM - Mini review: The Journal. I gave this a brief trial a while back and it seemed rather good at what it was designed for, but it did not meet my peculiar requirements.

By the way, there is quite a good journal template in the AHK-coded wiki proggy Wikichucks <https://code.google....rchive/p/wikichucks/>

[IainB]

A rather thought-provoking and potentially very useful post for those OneNote or other MS Office users considering how to jump ship from MS Office to something else - with MS Office 365 + Windows 10 it rather seems that the caveats abound: Software rental brought to you by Microsoft !
(Section copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Software rental brought to you by Microsoft !
Posted on May 15, 2018 by pauljmiller
I have recently been having problems with my laptop computer.

The nature of these problems is not relevant to this discussion but it did necessitate what Microsoft call a ‘Reset’ of the PC.  I opted to keep all my personal files. I thought I could re-install the applications I had bought and paid for from Microsoft after all it was the same PC they had originally been installed on and I had bought a valid license key for that computer right !

Wrong !  Microsoft have stopped re-activation of license keys for previous versions of Office software.  This was a copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2010 which I had been forced to buy after Microsoft destroyed my previous laptop with the disastrous Windows 10 upgrade.  I bought this software in September 2016 so I have had just over 18 months use out of it and now Microsoft refuse to re-activate the license key.

For many years Office has been a very profitable product for Microsoft.

Software has different characteristics to normal products, the development costs are high but the production costs are low.  This means that for a small company who aren’t selling very many copies the development costs are a large percentage of the profit for each copy sold but for a large company who are selling a large number of copies the development costs become tiny compared to the profit for every copy sold, particularly at the excessive prices that Microsoft charge.

This is what destroys many small software companies.  However Microsoft are not a small company and they have sold many copies of Office and looking at the differences between Office 2010 and Office 2013 they have done little or no development in those three years.  But now they have become even more greedy than they were previously.

They have moved their business model over to ‘SaaS’ or ‘Software as a Sentence‘.  So they have stopped the service to activate the license key by telephone which means that a license key which needs activation can be activated just once online.  If it has already been activated then it can no longer be re-activated.  They are trying to kill off older versions of Office.  They are trying to force everyone onto the rental version, Microsoft Office 365 because it generates a steady revenue stream for Microsoft.

Be warned, if you have a copy of Microsoft Office previous to Office 365 installed on your machine do not un-install it unless you really mean to get rid of it completely because you won’t ever be able to re-activate it on any computer ever again, not even the one on which it was originally installed!

So what alternatives are there for people who don’t like being milked by Microsoft.

Microsoft Office Professional 2010 consists of Word, Excel, OneNote, Power Point, Publisher, Access and Outlook.
(Read the rest at the link above.)

[tomos]

^ that is very disturbing. I wonder was activation not agreed in the software purchase license/agreement.

I'm shocked that they would even go so far.

[IainB]

@tomos: Well, if what is described in the article is correct - i.e., that is what MS are actually doing or intending - then it would seem to be a form of "price gouging", which is illegal in some countries. It will be interesting to see how the governments in those countries view the actions of MS in regard to MS Office licencing in light of prevailing consumer protection regulations.

The more inept governments or those with weaker consumer protection legislation would probably just roll over and accept it, whereas others (perhaps including the UK, for example), could be unlikely to tolerate such monopolistic practices. We shall see.
What we have seen so far is that the US may have rather publicly set the bar very low here - e.g., the price-gouging initiated by Martin Shkreli (the overnight 5,000 percent increase in price of the drug Daraprim by Turing Pharmaceuticals) and then other drug companies apparently following suit, would seem to have gone unchallenged/uncorrected by commerce regulators.

[wraith808]

I just did an activation of an older copy of office recently, so not sure what the disconnect is.  Does it say that he attempted to call Microsoft support to straighten it out?  Or is this merely another from of FUD?

[Dormouse]

excessive prices that Microsoft charge.

now they have become even more greedy than they were previously.

‘Software as a Sentence‘.

OneNote was never a very good solution to note taking,

There is also Ultra Recall, WhizFolders, TreeDBnotes, The Brain and 3D Topicscape. I can’t recommend any of these for a variety of different reasons, but they are all better than Microsoft OneNote.

So help to promote more diversity in the software marketplace, switch to a non-Microsoft solution today!

#DeleteMicrosoft

Seems that he doesn't like Microsoft! (or OneNote)
May well be FUD. Doesn't sound like he had a conversation with Support.

Unfortunately the version of SaaS they have chosen is a very pernicious one, if you stop paying the rent the program stops working completely. In other words they are holding your documents and files hostage against your future payments.

I don't think that you lose access to documents or files.

I also don't think that the Office365 price is excessive.
In the UK I can buy a 5 computer licence for between £50 and £60 from Amazon which can last 13 months (by switching to automatic renewal which you then turn off to enter your new annual code). And that also gives you 1TB storage. I can remember the prices that Bill Gates charged.

OneNote has a tagging system but it is designed in such a way that if you have more than about 30 or 40 tags then it starts to become unusable.

Have to agree with this, but it is only one of many deficiencies in the OneNote tagging system.

Microsoft Word has a very good, well designed and easy to use outlining mode and once you have finished organising your document you can go back to the normal mode and concentrate on the formatting and presentation of your document.  But at any time you can switch back to the outline mode and re-organise/re-arrange things.  As an outliner Word is hard to beat.

Certainly better than it was, but 'hard to beat?'

[wraith808]

I don't think that you lose access to documents or files.

I also don't think that the Office365 price is excessive.
In the UK I can buy a 5 computer licence for between £50 and £60 from Amazon which can last 13 months (by switching to automatic renewal which you then turn off to enter your new annual code). And that also gives you 1TB storage. I can remember the prices that Bill Gates charged.

-Dormouse (May 18, 2018, 08:03 AM)

You don't, and I agree it's quite good, and agree that the price isn't exorbitant.

[IainB]

If they don't come out and say so directly, then time will tell whatever Microsoft's marketing strategies are intending to do.
What I had noticed was that the ability to unlock and use some newly-updated/developed nifty MS Office functionality had sometimes been predicated on the user migrating from earlier versions of Windows to Windows 10 and/or OneDrive.
In other words, there was (apparently deliberately) no backwards compatibility, but it did not threaten to invalidate  existing licences. I had thought that this was probably nothing more than an incentive to urge users to the newer OS, but still, it did seem to smack of coercion and making existing/old licences seem to be obsolete.

@tomos: Well, if what is described in the article is correct - i.e., that is what MS are actually doing or intending - then it would seem to be a form of "price gouging", which is illegal in some countries. It will be interesting to see how the governments in those countries view the actions of MS in regard to MS Office licencing in light of prevailing consumer protection regulations.

-IainB (May 16, 2018, 03:30 PM)

The post I quoted from may be incorrect.
Defeating existing/old MS Office licences would seem to be going a bit far and thus would seem to be unlikely. Nevertheless, one never knows, so I would still bear that in mind as a potential caveat.

[wraith808]

What I had noticed was that the ability to unlock and use some newly-updated/developed nifty MS Office functionality had sometimes been predicated on the user migrating from earlier versions of Windows to Windows 10 and/or OneDrive.
In other words, there was (apparently deliberately) no backwards compatibility, but it did not threaten to invalidate  existing licences. I had thought that this was probably nothing more than an incentive to urge users to the newer OS, but still, it did seem to smack of coercion and making existing/old licences seem to be obsolete.

-IainB (May 19, 2018, 11:55 AM)

Understanding programming and features in .NET, it could be perfectly valid based on features being available in supporting versions of the framework that weren't available in older operating systems and supporting programs.  They can't be expected to support old versions of their software forever.

[IainB]

In Microsoft's favour, there may be recent history that would seem to indicate that Microsoft does consider support for backwards compatibility in Windows 10, for older/legacy software.
Significantly, even for "Sunset" products, for example:

A few days ago, the MS Money user forums were buzzing about how Win10 had disabled MS Money - when MS Money started up, it suddenly stopped and said it needed IE6 to be installed.
(For those as might not know it, MS Money uses IE as its primary UI.)

When my MS Money (Sunset version) failed on this error, I clicked the "Send Error Report" button.

[Image of error message panel not copied to this quote]


Reading the forums, a workaround to the problem was soon discovered. A good description of the problem and the workaround is here: Windows 10 Compatibility with Microsoft Money | Ameridan's Microsoft Money Offline Weblog

However, following a Win10 update today, MS Money is now working perfectly again.
Kudos to MS for fairly swift action on this. I don't know whether the error was a bug, or if it only affected MS Money, but the effect of fixing it seems to indicate that MS is listening and just might be aware of the need to support this and other legacy applications in Win10.

I am cross-posting this to Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review

-IainB (August 13, 2015, 09:07 AM)

[IainB]

In windows the creation data presents in properties the data the file was created and the hour , minutes and seconds.
So I think is possible, to determine in an audio , the hour-minute and second of every moment.
Do you know an audio reproductor that presents the every moment while the audio is playing ?
Best Regards
 

-Contro (August 23, 2018, 07:15 AM)

Go to this DCF discussion: Searching for information in audio notes in OneNote.
MS OneNote users are able to search for decipherable words and phrases in audio clips saved to OneNote. ON starts to index these audio tracks for decipherable spoken words/phrases, as soon as an audio file is saved into ON. It will do this for audio/video files also.  The ON search function will list the indexed Notebook pages with audio file(s) containing the words/phrases being searched for.
Clicking on the audio file (an attachment icon) on the relevant Notebook page will play the audio recording.

Furthermore, if there is also a documented transcript of the audio, under the saved audio file, showing the minutes and seconds of each spoken phrase, then OneNote will move a selector bar down the transcript, line-by line as the audio is playing. If the user clicks on any particular line at any chosen minute/second, then OneNote will immediately jump to and play from that line onwards.

This seemed to be an amazingly powerful set of functionality, one which I literally stumbled upon by chance, not having previously seen it documented anywhere.

-IainB (August 23, 2018, 09:42 AM)

[Contro]

Downloading OneNote
Sounds like Keep or Gnotes....

[dantheman]

While the theme is still "hot"...
Does this audio/video search feature work for non-English languages?



(do not hesitate to let me know if it is better for further questions to post at the aforementioned thread).

[IainB]

@dantheman:
You ask:

While the theme is still "hot"...
Does this audio/video search feature work for non-English languages?
(do not hesitate to let me know if it is better for further questions to post at the aforementioned thread).

-dantheman (August 24, 2018, 08:31 AM)

Good question!   
 - and certainly good that you asked it in this forum, as the answer is both relevant and informative and it relates to other ON voice-related issues (e.g., generating transcripts) which have puzzled me for some time.

I didn't have an answer - as I have only needed/used English audio for searches, though I do have some French audio (songs) in ON in .mp3 files.
So, I did a duckduckgo.com search using the terms: Onenote audio search works in what languages?

Bingo! The first item in the search results list was:
(Partially copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images, with some notes/emphasis being mine.)

OneNote Audio Search &amp; Audio Search Languages
Daniel EscapaOctober 10, 2006 <-- Note the date! This technology has been around for years.
...
... Olya might want to comment more on this as she is the owner of audio search but I also wanted to mention which languages are supported:

• English
• Japanese
• Chinese Traditional
• Chinese Simplified
• Korean
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Italian

... (read it all at the link).
Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/descapa/2006/10/10/onenote-audio-search-amp-audio-search-languages/

That's just the bit about languages - to answer your question. The rest of that post was rather interesting too and also the other search results in the list, including for example:

• 2nd.: Search notes in OneNote
  
  
• 3rd.: ONENOTE : can't search inside my AUDIO registrations ...
  
  
• 4th.: Audio transcriptions and annotations with OneNote
  

  Let's say for example that you have a voice recording that you made using a dedicated recorder and want to put a transcription of it into OneNote (maybe in support of meeting minutes and other notes). ...
  ,,, Follow Richard's instructions to set up your audio input for speech. In OneNote, place the insertion point on the page where you want the text to appear. Using the speech TIP (available on Tablet PC or Vista), set the dictation mode ON. Here's where to find some of these settings on a Tablet PC (use the settings in order 1, 2, 3): ...
  ... Now play back the audio as you would normally. Voilà, text appears in OneNote that is vaguely similar to a transcription (see caveat above). ...
  ... If you want to use recordings made in OneNote, be aware that the default recording quality for OneNote is not meant for speech recognition. We use a voice codec and bit rate/sample rate designed to compress spoken word audio as small as can be while still usable by human beings. In OneNote 2007 we increased the settings slightly to make audio search work better, but speech recognition (transcription) requires a much higher level of quality. ...
  ... To set up your future recordings in OneNote to be transcribable, first go to Tools/Options/Audio and Video. Switch the codec to Windows Media Audio 9.1 Professional. If this isn't available consider downloading the latest set of codec for Windows Media (should come with WM Player 10). Otherwise just pick the highest settings available (e.g. 44Khz, 440kbps) for now - you can experiment with lower settings later. ...
  Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chris_pratley/2006/03/16/audio-transcriptions-and-annotations-with-onenote/
  

[dantheman]

Seeing that there's no "like post" or "thank you" icon to click on...
Just want to "verbally" express it with these lines 
Hope it can work out for me as well as for everyone else who'll drop by to read your most extensive explanation!

[IainB]

Interesting real-world comparison of typical OCR quality in OneNote v. ABBY SR (Screenshot Reader): (text from the image is in the spoiler below the image)

Spoiler

Text selected, OCRed and copied to Clipboard using ABBY SR (Screenshot Reader) and as pasted:
   (areas with errors highlighted)
   ________________________________
   SUKPLUSIRONICS IRVING LTD
   520 QUEEN ST
   AUCKLAND
   PHONE 09 302 0608
   fHANKS POR SHOPPING WITH US
   GST NO. 53-638-449
   25/08/201/ 16:2/ 000000*3648
   0001 WY
   1> 29.50
   BAMiRIES $29.50
   CASH
   \>2S 50
   _________________________________
   The quality/accuracy of OCR isn't bad, considering the poor state of the receipt.
   
   The pasted output is usable AS-IS, with minimal manual corrections needed.
   
   Already OCRed and searchable text in OneNote selected and copied to Clipboard using OneNote tool and as pasted:
   (areas with errors highlighted)
   ________________________________
   SURPLUSIRONICS
   520 QUEEN sl
   AUCKLAND
   PHONE 09 30?
   THANKS FOR SHOPPING WITH US
   NO. 53-638-449
   000000#364d
   25/08/2011 1b: 21
   
   THANKS FOR SHOPPING WITH US
   GST NO 53 - 638- 449
   
   25 08 2017 16:27 000000 # 36 48
   
   1 X 29 50
   BATTERIES
   $29 50
   
   CASH $ 29 50
   
   0001 WY
   
   29. bo
   BATTERIES
   
   CASH
   
   $29.50
   _________________________________
   The quality/accuracy of OCR isn't bad, considering the poor state of the receipt.
   The nature of the scattered/duplicated pasted output makes it not very usable without quite a bit of manual correction.

[IainB]

I had a discussion in the Personal Message area of DCF, about OneNote and PIMs. I figured a lot of it could be of common interest, so I have duplicated some of the post here:

You say (**1): "I'm still searching for the best PIM system.", but I'm not so sure that there is a "best" one. What I perceive is that there are lots of different good ones, of which a few may meet your needs/requirements - e.g., (say) Lotus Agenda, ConnectedText, TreeProjects, InfoSelect, OneNote.
For example, a criterion you have (like me) is (**2) a preference for a local desktop-based app + database, so, all of the above PIMs could potentially meet that criterion, and so on.

You say (**3): "I like having the occasional cloud alternative/option.", and so do I. OneNote seems to fit that bill pretty well, but you could also use the technology available to turn your non-Cloud desktop-based app and database into a sort of Cloud-backed service. For example, I use MEGAsync, which has a 50GB free starter package. I have put all my music media files into a MEGA Cloud drive, that appears as a folder on my C: drive, and which is continually syncing with the Cloud-based files. I used to hold all those music media files in a directory C:\Workdata.007 (Media 1), but I moved them from there to the MEGA folder (i.e., and to the Cloud). I then set up a Reparse Point to that MEGA folder, and named it C:\Workdata.007 (Media 1), so that became a virtual folder. My music media players and audio and MP3 Tag editing software have always used that folder name as their Library and they continue to do so. Any edits/writes to that virtual folder or its files are reflected in the MEGA folder and synced  to the Cloud whenever I choose to connect.
I have done something similar with several other applications, including the PIM InfoSelect, syncing their databases and the application itself to OneDrive. This was where I discovered that OneDrive is insecure in that Microsoft will sometimes delete some executable files in the apps, if they don't like the file(s) for whatever reason - so they're only good/reliable for data storage, and even that is not certain, unless its one of their apps - e.g., (say) OneNote. Long live encrypted sync à la MEGAsync!

You say (**4): "In the coming months I'm going be working on a project and I'm considering using it as an opportunity to seriously try out Microsoft Onenote."
Whilst you are at it, I would suggest that you also try out TreeProjects:
 * http://www.rgdot.com/bl/2011/09/11/smereka-treeprojects-powerful-personal-database/
 * http://personaldatabase.org/

Now, regarding encryption and security, here's an interesting thing: Telegram
(https://telegram.org/)
Telegram is FREE for all use. It requires a smartphone to use. Like LINE, it just uses your phone number as a base ID, but that's where the similarity stops. You can use it on any number of devices, and you can also use it on a PC as a desktop app.
You could copy media files, data files, app files - any files - into what's called a Channel (in the Telegram Cloud), and it's stored there, fully encrypted and preserved intact for as long as you want. You could do that from the Telegram desktop app, then Access your Telegram account and that Channel from another PC using the Telegram desktop app, or from a smartphone using your Telegram app/ID. When you try to access the files saved to a given Channel, if those files are not already stored on the device (smartphone or PC) that you are using, then they are downloaded from the Channel, to that device. The potential is mind-blowing, and people are already taking advantage of that potential. You could, for example, (say) backup your OneNote Notebooks to the Telegram Cloud that way... and if you wanted to give a person (or persons) access to a particular OneNote Notebook, then you could let them have read access to that backup in the relevant Telegram Channel...

You say (**5): "The prospect that Microsoft might be phasing out the cloudless version of Onenote does have me a little bit wary about trying it out.", and you also consider using OneNote from an old copy of MS Office 2013.

• Evernote killed off their rather good desktop app, focused on a Cloud-only business revenue strategy and stuck to it - though I suspect they probably could have regretted it since. It could have been a cash-cow for them.
• In Microsoft's case, they would seem to be decidedly NOT a Cloud-only business and have many examples of where their software continues for ages, or is responsibly and gracefully sunsetted (and even kept backwards compatible in the Windows 10 OS) - the most recent being, I think, Microsoft Money Plus Sunset
• I would recommend a wait-and-see approach regarding OneNote. Trial/use it anyway. It seems unlikely that it will be killed off for several years yet.
  A licence for MS Office 2019 Plus is available relatively cheaply - e.g., here.
• It was possible to get MS Office 2016 Plus relatively cheaply, but I am unsure if it is still available - e.g., here.
• As regards using MS Office 2013, I wouldn't recommend it as the OneNote functionality would be kludgy - it has been vastly improved on since, in ON 2016.

[IainB]

Just as a basis for making some comparisons, this is a useful Wikipedia reference: Comparison of notetaking software

It's not an exhaustive list by any means, but it is worth a look.

[IainB]

Bit of interesting history of OneNote here. I saved the webpages to .mhtml files:
2004-01-30 OneNote genesis – Chris Pratley's Office Labs and OneNote Blog.mhtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20170327080319/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chris_pratley/2004/01/30/onenote-genesis/

2006-07-12 Microsoft OneNote 2003 « Later On.mhtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20111207225115/http://leisureguy.wordpress.com/2006/07/12/microsoft-onenote-2003/

[sphere]

Onenote 2016 vs Onenote 2019 vs DesktopApp

I am interested in securing another copy of Onenote (desktop application) before the only version that is available is the Win 10 OS Desktop version ( included free in Windows 10).  Since Microsoft is discontinuing the development of the standalone Onenote software (2013, 2016 and so on) app I am trying to figure out the best option.  My understanding is that the Free Onenote Desktop App that is included with Windows 10 does not allow local saving. It saves to the cloud by default and caches locally so that users can work offline.  If I am wrong about this please let me know.  I am not interested in my notebooks being hosted on Microsoft's cloud.  I also have been told that the version of OneNote contained in MS Office 2019 is actually just OneNote 2016 as there development focused on the free OneNote app included with Win 10.    I will likely get it bundled with Microsoft Office so I have access to the other office programs before everything moves towards a subscription service.   

My understanding is that there are 3 versions of OneNote for Windows: 

1) One Note Standalone or bundled wing Ms Office version 2011, 2013, 2016
2) Free Onenote Desktop App included with Win 10 OS
3) Onenote as it is included with MS Office 365, which I believe offers different versions based on the subscription service.

I am leaning away from 365 as it is a subscription service that can have its offerings changed on a whim and 356  nags/bullies users as MS sees fit.  It seems like purchasing a copy of Office 2016 or Office 2019 would be the best, but I would be interested in hearing other people's thoughts???   I have read, but have not been able to confirm, that the version of OneNote in MS office 2019 is just OneNote 2016 as they did not develop it.   As I have mentioned being able to save locally is important to me.   I also really like OneNote's ability to LOCALLY index audio and video and images making them searchable.

Further complicating this decision is my lack of understanding about how Win 10 handles the installation of an older version of OneNote with the free OneNote app?  Does one have both versions after installing an older version? I have read some places that Widows defaults to the Free included app if you install MS Office 2019 as the version on Win 10 is more recent than the version included with MS Office 2019. I am currently using win 7, but imagine I might change that before Jan 2020 when win 7 will no longer receive security updates.   I have read that ONe Note 2016 will have security updates until 2025.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
thank you
 
 

[IainB]

@sphere: You are concerned that MS are going to deprecate support for maintaining OneNote standalone local client databases.
I'm not so sure that MS would become a cloud-only business, as I wrote above:

• In Microsoft's case, they would seem to be decidedly NOT a Cloud-only business and have many examples of where their software continues for ages, or is responsibly and gracefully sunsetted (and even kept backwards compatible in the Windows 10 OS) - the most recent being, I think, Microsoft Money Plus Sunset
• I would recommend a wait-and-see approach regarding OneNote. Trial/use it anyway. It seems unlikely that it will be killed off for several years yet.
• A licence for MS Office 2019 Plus is available relatively cheaply - e.g., here.
• It was possible to get MS Office 2016 Plus relatively cheaply, but I am unsure if it is still available - e.g., here.
• As regards using MS Office 2013, I wouldn't recommend it as the OneNote functionality would be kludgy - it has been vastly improved on since, in ON 2016.

-IainB (April 27, 2019, 04:03 AM)

The idea of going Cloud-only or Cloud-compulsory would seem to take away the consumer choice of using standalone local client databases. That's why, for example I would (and do) advise clients to think twice about doing business with Evernote or (similarly) Google Docs and other Cloud-based service providers, etc.. It's simply too risky, and it's an avoidable risk. It puts Evernote or Google etc. in control of your business databases. If you can afford to take that risk - or can't afford to avoid it - then go for it, but I still wouldn't recommend it - especially if you can afford not to take that risk. That is different to things like implementing (say) Citrix Thin Client systems though, which may often seem to be (and often are, in business terms) a no-brainer from the user perspective.
The status quo of doing work on standalone local "fat" clients that are not-network-connected devices and have local databases would be a typical and fundamental user security and ease-of-use/access requirement - e.g., especially in Defence organisations.
I would suggest that commercial use of MS Office licences (which comes as a bundle with OneNote) would stop dead if MS went all fascist and disabled the app from being able to be used stand-alone - it would adversely affect potential security risks, by definition.

However, if you want to ensure that you don't get caught out with your pants down, as it were, in the event that MS does leave OneNote users high-and-dry without the future option for full standalone independent OneNote client functionality (and databases), then make sure that you have a backup copy of the latest MS Office 2016 install + all updates and stock up on MS-Office Pro licences - now!   

By the way, LOOK OUT! The sky is falling down! I think a lot of the supposition and discussion on this subject might/could be "fake news" promulgated by the IT media who need those clicks from the nervous and twitchy fingers of all those millions of MS Office OneNote users out there. Must be one heck of a big market.