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Microsocft MVP: Tablet PC
Sliding over to OneNote…again
14 March 2007Posted By: TracyPosted in: Note-Taking, OneNote
Yes, OK, I will admit I tossed OneNote last semester when it died right before finals and I couldn’t get to my notes for a week. The extra functionality just didn’t seem worth the hassle.
But I’m not one to hold a grudge. I can’t remember but I think I might have been still using the Office Beta 2, anyway. After a while of opening six PowerPoints, four Word documents and a few PDFs just to do some homework, I decided to try a program that I could group all those files together. Journal also isn’t quite as stable under Vista as it was with XP, so it was worth a shot.
The end result has turned out to be a sort of mix between Journal and OneNote. Homework solutions, lecture notes, book notes, and handouts make it into OneNote. Assignments or anything else I’ll need to print later is done in Journal. That seems to work for me. I can have my notebook open to whatever I want it to without needing to open a second instance of OneNote to have both the homework and the course notes up at one time. Also, Journal is hands down the king of print layout.
After using Journal for a long while and finally having the final version of OneNote instead of the beta, I’ve noticed some real benefits of OneNote that weren’t quite there before (IMO).
- While it’s barely noticeable, I’m convinced the ink in OneNote is now smoother than the ink in Journal. It makes sense since Journal is older and the same people probably worked on both, but it never seemed to be the case. I turned off the ink boxes completely since I never move the ink without selecting it with the lasso, and all has been wonderful since.
- The OCR of printed-to-OneNote documents is working perfectly. Before, it didn’t recognize the text unless I clicked on the image and clicked recognize text. The lack of having to bother with anything to make all my documents searchable is a real gem.
I just like being able to easily study for an exam because I can view all my lectures with a simple switch of the tabs. I can also easily arrange my lectures and see what documents I still need to grab from the web. I can keep a page at the top for announcements and the rest of the pages can be lecture material only. I’m just very happy with how it’s working right now.
So go ahead, laugh all you want that I can’t stick to a notes program, but my search of perfection is an endless battle. One of these days I’ll find something…maybe…I’m still not grip free. I hope it’s possible to move the notebooks bar to the bottom instead of the side, and it also takes it’s time handling a large number of printouts (a small pause in between loading each picture for the first time).
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March 14th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
I agree with the comment about the ink smoothness - especially with the lasso tool, I find that Journal doesn’t do quite what I expect.
I didn’t know you could turn off the ink boxes - thanks for the tip!
March 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Tracy, are you still using GoBinder? Can you comment on why you find OneNote to be better for taking notes than GoBinder (or PlanPlus — same difference)?
March 16th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Quickies from The Student Tablet PC…
InkLearn is a tool for learning to write in Chinese—this looks very cool; I wish I’d had something like this when I was learning Japanese (from “InkLearn has a Home”). Lenovo is offering a free tablet pen for doing a survey—I str…
March 21st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
What is meant by smoother ink in OneNote than that of Journal’s ink. I stopped using OneNote for inking lecture notes and now only use Journal. Pressure sensitivity is obvious in Journal. I don’t know, but I’ve yet to find any other digital ink that compares to Journal’s. I’m able to lasso an inked word in the middle of a sentence far more successfully than in OneNote. I made the change to using Journal during lecture really because of the chisel tip. It makes my symbols and Greek letters in mathematical proofs look much nicer than what I could ever do with pencil and paper.
In Journal I set my default page size to 8.5″ X 20″ and simply CTRL+A, COPY then PASTE lecture ink into OneNote. This method of transferring ink to OneNote lets me enjoy Journal’s digital ink and OneNote’s unmatched organized consolidation of material. Yah, it may seem cumbersome but I’m vein like that; while in class, I love the black background page color with my tribal image as a watermark in Journal. OneNote slaps pictures on top of the rule lines (even when set in the background). Not only that but the color of OneNote’s UI is so behind the rest of the 2007 Office Suite.
I’m not sure how more productive a black background with a snazzy looking watermark might make me during lecture, but I’ve always been a firm believer in the “feel good, look good” cliché. I’ve taken that saying and adapted it “ink good, learn good.”
Tracy WELCOME back to the OneNote bandwagon…for the 3rd time…or is that the fifth? I’m just playing around of course. Heck, I’m still in search of the perfect PC with tablet capability (desktop or mobile pc).
March 21st, 2007 at 3:59 pm
By smoother ink I mean the ink flows smoother…more naturally. Perhaps it’s less choppy? Perhaps it’s just the pen setting. But the over-all ink experience is better as well. Believe me, I’ve taken a lot of notes in Journal and a lot of notes in OneNote. I didn’t notice any positive difference until the final release of OneNote 2007. The beta still seemed to be handling things weird, which is partly why I ditched it a while ago. I never have any trouble selecting letters mid-word. I tried it quite a few times in different situations just now to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things ^_^. Yeah there’s no chisel tip (which is odd…) but I didn’t even notice that until now because I never use it.
I was just about to write a quick post about changing the background to something other than white ^_^. Good to see someone else thought of it, too.
Frank, how about just copying a blank Journal page with your backgroud into OneNote as a picture, setting it to the background, and then saving it as the default template? That would likely save you some time.
March 21st, 2007 at 4:01 pm
…Except then you wouldn’t have a chisel tip. Oh well. I hope the chisel tip is worth it ;-P.
March 21st, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Tracy, a template containing an image in OneNote is static. Adding blank space to the page will do nothing to a picture in the background, so my page would grow while the template of a black background with white lines would not. My OneNote files are all filled with screen clippings from texts and research already. A black background in One Note would mean a huge black picture file on every page. Nice suggestion but it didn’t work for me in the past mainly because adding page length is sometimes more important than creating a new page or subpage for that matter. Yes, keeping an entire proof on one page always helps during a review that involves switching between many sections and pages. As for handling things weird, give OneNote time. Sentence input with ink only is great, but start adding too many arrows along with symbols such as bars for matrices then the old OneNote will begin to show its old face again. I used to hide the note containers also. The problem with doing that is when selecting ink along with say an image clipping will not always guarantee both items will be selected. Although the image is under ink it may still be in a different container, so you’ll have to keep increasing the area that you are trying to lasso. If your containers are hidden then you might think something is wrong with the selection tool being used. So yah, One Note “2007” has smoother ink than One Note “2003.” If you stick with OneNote long enough this time around you’ll see how ink is still not OneNote’s main objective as opposed to Journal’s dedication to ink. The sad thing is that ink is probably the only weak link in OneNote if you compare it to software created for the same purpose.
March 21st, 2007 at 5:24 pm
…Tracy,I sent you an email with a screen clipping that demonstrates what kind of inked notes cause conflict in OneNote. Selecting ink in such commotion while using OneNote is nowhere close to selecting it in Journal.
March 21st, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Exactly what version number of OneNote are you using, like 12.____ what?? I know exactly what you’re talking about and I seriously don’t experience that anymore.
March 21st, 2007 at 6:55 pm
I only use One Note 2007.
That’s why I explicitly mentioned to give this type of error some time. Try selecting all of the ink in one page. If you paste the selection on another page, it’s likely it will not be what you copied. This sorry handling of ink is especially simple to duplicate if the selection includes ink and images. The containers have a tough time containing.
It’s true; the later version of OneNote has come a long way with digital ink, but it’s still not in the same class as Journal. Change the scenario around and take notes using a keyboard. One Note put all others to shame. Creating tags with highlighted text from keyboard input is simple and fast, Ctrl+#. Try doing the same with ink and find out how OneNote often fails to understand what exactly you want tagged.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:17 pm
The only time I have any deformation of my notes is when adding a tag to a really big selection full of text and drawings. This is technically an unfair comparison to Journal since Journal doesn’t tag items, it tags pages.
I can select an entire, long page of mixed equations, arrows, and text, paste into a new page and everything looks perfect. I can select images just by circling, text by circling, half a word by circling, half a word and two images by circling…
I can make a video recording of all this if you want. I’m curious what the difference is here. I thought it was just improved.
And yes, I also never create a new page unless it’s a new lecture day. I have one long page for each class meeting. Maybe there’s a workaround for the background color other than pastels (yuck) and white.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:39 pm
It never fails. You disagree with what I’m getting across and later you end up preaching it…lol. All the way back since I tried to tell Trev that the OpticBook was the “it” scanner for students wanting digital textbooks. That post is somewhere buried in TabletPCBuzz.
I brought up tags because it shows how well OneNote works with keyboard input but it continues with some ink short comings.
From what you are writing, I’m getting that OneNote handles ink just perfectly… O.K.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:51 pm
A final thought…OneNote runs circles around software meant for note taking, and its digital ink is awsome especially compared to the first version, yet the ink continues to have bugs because of the containers. That to me is a small price to pay. I know, I’ve been using it daily even before Go Binder appeared on the scenes.
March 21st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Lol, hey, I never disagreed with your scanner choice. I purchased the OpticBook because of that post buried deep in the Buzz :). Other scanners are better for loose paper handouts, which is the kind of “textbooks” he had. That’s all Trev was saying back then (and still).
I’m saying OneNote handles ink fine for me not because I don’t agree with the things your issues, but because I’m not experiencing them at all and that’s weird.
In a previous install of OneNote 2007, it did go all crazy when I tagged ink, tagging every other word or letter, but now it’s tagging logical groupings.
Oh, hey, perhaps it’s the fact I’m running Vista? That’s the only difference I can think it could be. Unless you’re running Vista also, in which case nevemind :).
If nothing else, I’m fairly certain OneNote has a more reliable scratchout gesture then Journal, which I use all the time and is a big difference for me.
March 21st, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Why did you have to bring that up? It made me recall how much I hate not having the so called scratch out gesture during lecture. I’m laughing inside when a professor botches up an entire sentence on the board which makes students whip out their eraser and have to blow the eraser mess off their desk. Flipping the digitizer is not too bad though. I’m a tablet geek, I know.
Oh, and I’m running Vista too…
March 25th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I tell ya, I downloaded the 60-day trial of Office 2007 with Outlook and OneNote 2007. I’ve not looked back at OpenOffice and Journal. It’s so easy in these new versions to link tasks and calendar entries and contacts in Outlook to items in OneNote and vice versa. All the linking makes it really easy to bring up notes from a meeting or notes from a class while my colleagues and classmates are still fumbling with paper notes or trying to find a file on their PC. I really like that I can create my own links if I want (that way I can link to additional notes and reading that wouldn’t necessarily be part of the automatically created links).
Here’s a sample of how I set up my OneNote icons for fullscreen mode when I click the icon in the upper left-hand corner (http://www.whetzel.com/images/OneNote.png) and what happens when I click the link again (http://www.whetzel.com/images/FullNote.png) — easy to move around through the folders yet get back to notetaking really quickly.
By the way, I’m using the Lenovo X60 Tablet with the high-res screen (upgrading from a TC1100) in 1400×1050, so I can see a lot on-screen at once.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Is there any way to keep the floating tip alive in OneNote when you want to enter text instead of ink? I am using a P1610 and am wondering if this is because it is not an active digitizer. Otherwise everything is great! Oh, BTW, I am running TabletPC 2005. Will Vista make a difference when using the TIP?
April 17th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Well, check the options panel under Pen to see if it’s checked to show the TIP in OneNote. If it is, make sure you’re clicking the text button before you start to edit text. If you have it on the text tool and it’s still not working with the TIP, then you probably just need to dock the TIP at the bottom or top.
Vista definitely makes a difference with the TIP! Not only can you train the recognizer to your handwriting, but there is a pull-out TIP that is essentially a docked tip when you pull it out except you can position it where ever you want on the screen.
Hope that helped!