Have you ever wanted an electronic replacement for your notebooks, record books, bound diaries, and legal pads? Microsoft OneNote may be your solution. OneNote is a software based notebook that you configure to contain your notes divided with tabs as you would divide them. The application works on both standard computers and those with Microsoft Tablet PC ink functionality. Microsoft marked the first anniversary of OneNote with a special Service Pack 1.

Bug fixes arrived with a long list of new features and now even a price cut. With apologies (and no humor attempted) to the Late Show's sparkling host, David Letterman, I'll run through my top ten features in OneNote SP1. Direct from the home office:

10. Scratch Out Gesture. If you are used to scratching out ink in the Tablet Input Panel ("TIP") or Microsoft Journal, you'll be pleased to find that OneNote now supports scratching out ink with the same gesture.

9. Improved Page Tabs. Each OneNote page has a tab. Now with one click, you can switch those tabs between displaying automatically generated numbers and page titles. You can even resize the width of the tabs by dragging the sizing splitter. Sub-pages also have their own page header and titles. My tabs appear on the left side of the OneNote window, taking advantage of the customizable settings on the [Tools].[Options].[Display] menu and dialog. OneNote now lets you have tabs more like your own physical notebook.

8. Time/Date Stamping. Each page header contains a time/date stamp inserted as the page is created. You can add a time/date stamp right along with your notes as you work. Use [Insert].[Date and Time] menu, or the Alt+Shift+F shortcut. Formatting is controlled by the Control Panel date and time settings.

7. Screen Clipping. OneNote now has its own screen clipper much like the Snipping Tool introduced with the Tablet PC preview. With a couple of clicks, anything on your screen becomes part of your notes. There are four ways to activate the tool. The first is in what Microsoft calls a Side Note Window that is brought up from the OneNote tray icon. Side Notes can be a quick way to access the application for short notes or to bring up the screen clipper. Second, it is on the [Insert] menu. Third, the screen clipper icon can be added to a standard OneNote tool bar. When you activate the button, the OneNote window is minimized so that the next application window (or the desktop) receives the active focus. The fourth way requires that you have the application or image you want to clip active and then right click the tray icon. Options for controlling the screen clipper can be found in the context menu for the tray icon as well.

6. Configurable Pens and Erasers. Users can now define pen widths and colors in OneNote much like you can in Journal. Click the drop down arrow next to the pen on the Standard Toolbar and then click Customize Current Pen. You can name the pen, set the color and thickness. You are limited to a palette of forty colors, but it beats the 4 colors in the initial OneNote release. There is a limit of eight pens to name and four highlighters as well. I find it very handy to display the Pens toolbar and pull it to float in the note window as I write to switch pens quickly. OneNote also supports three sizes of bit erasers and a stroke eraser as well.

5. Customizable Stationery. If you prefer yellow colored pages, you are covered. You can pick from seventeen predefined pastel background page colors. There are also seventeen predefined paper sizes including most standard printer sizes, note cards, a wallet card, tabloid and legal. The new page tab has a drop down arrow on it that lets you pick from recently used stationery to create your next page. The [Format].[Stationery] menu brings up this task pane that lets you click to turn the current page design into stationery. It also displays the types of stationery currently available. If you are like me and need some forms specific to your office, do not despair; you can turn them into stationery as well. You can accomplish this one of two ways using the [Insert].[Picture] or [Insert].[Document As Picture] menu. If your form is in a Microsoft Office 2003 document, you can drag it into the OneNote window. OneNote then uses Microsoft Document Imaging (included with Office 2003) to print an image of your form into OneNote as a picture. If your form is from another source, scan it or get it converted to most any picture format; then insert the picture. Click the inserted image and drag it to fill the necessary space on the page; then right-click the image. At the bottom of the context menu is the "Set Picture As Background" item. Once the page is like you want it, use the "Save current page as stationery" link at the bottom of the Stationery Task Pane and your form is now ready to be a new page in your notebook as needed. You can ink on the form just like you would on a paper form.

4. Note Sharing. OneNote also moves into the collaboration field with SP1. There are now three ways to share your notes electronically and easily with other users. The [File].[Share With Others] menu brings up this Task Pane. The first is email. As you can see, email recipients can read your notes without any special viewers. (You can also send email from the [File].[Send To] menu.) Second, you can create a shared session. Shared sessions allow multiple users to see and (if you choose) edit the same sets of notes in real time. You email the participants a password and your IP address so they can connect. This is simpler to manage within a single corporate firewall. Network connectivity issues are beyond the scope of this review. Lastly, those shops using Microsoft SharePoint Services have the option of "publishing" the material to servers that can be accessed by other participants.

3. Hyperlinks. There are now three ways to link to your notes with OneNote SP1. If you use screen clipping to pick up a piece of a web page, OneNote automatically inserts a hyperlink to the source of the clipping. Second, type a web address just like you would in Word and OneNote will convert it to a hyperlink. Third is drag and drop. When you drag a document onto a OneNote page, you will be prompted to choose the application's response. Inserting a link saves space and version control issues by pointing to a single location. Copying the file into the notebook duplicates the file in the OneNote folders. Inserting the file as a background picture gives you a quick way to annotate an existing document as a part of your notes. (See the Stationery discussion above. This feature is not an equal to the Journal Writer printer driver, but is what I hope is an interim step toward that feature for OneNote.

2. Office Integration. You can now send your notes to Microsoft Word and import information into Microsoft Outlook from OneNote SP1. Using the [File].[Send To].[Microsoft Word] menu sends your notes to Word converted into text, even preserving any outline formatting you applied in OneNote. There are even more options for Outlook. Select some text (ink or typed) and click the [Tools].[Create Outlook Item] menu. You have the option of using the text to create a contact, an appointment, or a task. Pocket PC and Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphone users can even send notes from their devices into your OneNote notebook.

And the Number 1 best feature of the OneNote SP1 is the Price Cut. The suggested retail price for OneNote is now $99.95 USD, down from $199.95 previously. This moves OneNote into and below the price range of other note taking solutions on the market. There are other additional features, but I have focused on the ones that I use regularly. Please see the Microsoft OneNote website at http://office.microsoft.com/onenote for more information.

The great benefit of the Tablet PC platform to me is the ability to maintain a "Single Point of Information" (copyright 2002, all rights reserved) instead of various stacks of legal pads that I may or may not have handy when I need my not so recent notes. Journal was a great start as my first electronic legal pad; it helped wean a fountain pen user from paper pads. Microsoft apparently listened extensively to the feedback given by first generation users. Not all requests made it in the service pack, but this is still technically 1.0 software. The features added to OneNote in SP1 are almost worthy of a version change from my perspective.

OneNote is now an industrial strength information management and organization application. It allows me to collect information from multiple sources, organize my thoughts, share outlines and notes with others, and speed the process of handling documents and decisions across a large enterprise. It helps me improve the way I work and that is the value of good software.

About the author:
Tom is Vice President and Associate General Counsel for one of the largest electric utility and telecommunications companies in the U.S. and is based in Atlanta. His practice areas include IT, Intellectual Property, Marketing and Multi-jurisdictional Litigation. He is a long time contributor to TabletPCBuzz.com and has been a Microsoft MVP for the Tablet PC platform since January 2004.

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