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.
All Microsoft
software products and titles referenced in this article are trademarks and copyrights
of Microsoft.