Over a year ago, we commiserated in your Microsoft OneNote frustrations. A key feature, the “Send to OneNote” function, simply didn’t work if you were running a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista. We heard from the OneNote team way back then and although I understand the technical challenge involved, it still left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Pity too, because I still believe that OneNote is one of the most impressive bits of software to come out of Microsoft.

We later heard of a workaround that involved snapping and sending an image of captured data; the image file was then sent into OneNote. That’s a partial help but the ability to read and convert any text or ink data was lost in translation, i.e.: not ideal.

Yesterday I got a tweet from Bhavishya telling me about a newer workaround that appears to be a far better solution. It’s not perfect, but pretty darn close and should carry OneNote users through the issue until the next release of the software. David Rasumussen developed the solution in his spare time and you can find it right on his blog. Essentially, his code uses Vista’s XPS printer driver and monitors a specific folder for new XPS files. Note that this isn’t an official solution from Microsoft, and as such, isn’t supported by them. Thanks Bhavishya!

Fans of Microsoft OneNote, listen up! If you’re running the productivity software on Windows Vista, you’ll want to download Canvas for OneNote. The prototype application comes from the Office Labs team and provides all new ways to organize your notebooks spatially and find information fast. The above demo vid I saw on Dan Escapa’s OneNote Blog explains it far better than I could.

You can easily move pages all around the canvas, group them, resize the groups and more. Simple zoom controls allow you to see your pages in more detail, so you can verify the information you’re looking for. There’s also a useful Activity View that highlights content you created during a specific period, using a time-frame slider. Very nice!

We have long been fans of OneNote and how it is so flexible that you can do almost anything with it.  One thing that we often hear users wish for is a ready-to-use day planner for OneNote to make it as useful as those paper planners.  You can build one yourself but that requires an awful lot of work so it’s great to see that user David has done it for you.  He’s built an entire 2009 day planner in the form of a OneNote notebook and while it’s a pretty big download (13.5 MB) we think you’ll appreciate it.  Check it out and be sure and thank David!

OneNote is a program that has revolutionized the way I work with its stellar note-taking features.  It is also one of the best programs for a Tablet PC (although it works well on any PC) with superb ink-handling capability.  I have taken literally thousands of pages of notes using ink on the screen of my Tablet PCs and it is hard to imagine life without OneNote.

One of the coolest features of OneNote is nothing new, it’s been around for a long time but I often hear OneNote users mention that they aren’t aware of it.  That technology is the audio recording feature of OneNote that can be used for a variety of functions.  OneNote will use a computer’s microphone to record a meeting or lecture for example and it compresses it on the fly so the audio file is not huge.  Once a recording is made OneNote puts the player controls right on the note page for easy access but this is just the start of the coolness. 

Audio recordings on a OneNote page are synchronized with the notes being entered on the note page.  This happens for typed notes and inked notes as well.  This means that in the future when you are going back over your meeting notes that if you read a note and wonder exactly what triggered it in the meeting you can hit play on the controls that appear when you hover near that particular point in your notes.  You can thus listen to the audio recording of the meeting or lecture from the EXACT POINT IN TIME that you made that note.  I have done this countless times and been able to hear right away exactly what was being discussed in the meeting that led to my note.  This is just awesome, there is no other way to describe it.  Try it and see for yourself.

Just yesterday I noticed that on my UMPC I couldn’t use the integrated webcams natively with Microsoft OneNote. After reading the various reader comments, I took a new approach this morning. I got to thinking how this wasn’t an issue in Windows XP, so I decided to focus on why that might be. This thought led me to the properties of the OneNote.exe executable itself; specifically, the compatibility and the security privileges.

Continue reading »

Feeling sick over the weekend, I laid low offline and decided to delve into some desktop applications instead of using the web apps I prefer. Since my cord was cut, I dug around in one of my favorite bits of software: Microsoft OneNote. I installed it on my UMPC a few weeks back and wanted to play with some of the advanced features. Previously, I’ve used OneNote Mobile on a Windows Mobile device to take pictures and have them automatically inserted in my OneNote notebooks. It came in handy with a home project in the past, but since I no longer carry a Windows Mobile Phone, I was looking for another option when it hit me: OneNote can accept images directly from a webcam. My Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium, has not one, but two integrated webcams, so I figured I was all set! Just use the rear-facing camera to snap pics of projects, documents, UPS tracking numbers and more to have them all sucked into OneNote for later use.

Continue reading »

Here’s a nice little OneNote add-on called Instant Navigator that gives you another way to find your notes. Once you install it, you can start typing any part of a note title and the results are instantly updated as you type. I rely heavily on the excellent and native OneNote search feature, but more search options are always welcome. From what I can see, the free add-on is supported on Vista with OneNote 2007.(via OneNote Extensibility)

We already know that the “Send to OneNote” issue on machines running the 64-bit version of Vista won’t be addressed until the next release of OneNote. I’m sure that the problem affects very few individuals as well, since there are very few Tablet PCs capable of running the 64-bit version. If you’re one of the few, the proud, the 64-bit inkers, then here’s a little workaround for you.Dan Escapa offers the solution steps for you, but it’s only a partial workaround as OneNote won’t OCR your artifact under this method. You’ll end up using another program to send your output to a TIFF image format, which you can then insert into OneNote for markups. Part of me wonders why you can’t just the included Snipping Tool to bypass the installation of another app, but I don’t have a 64-bit Tablet PC to test with. I know you can’t save a snip as a TIFF file, but wouldn’t a JPG work for a single page of info and accomplish the same thing?

You may have seen me venting over Microsoft’s ridiculous failure to supply a 64-bit virtual printer driver for OneNote’s great "Send to OneNote 2007" feature.  This is the feature that is a must-have for me as I routinely print documents directly into OneNote 2007 for reference.  The HP tx2051 Tablet PC that I am evaluating came with 64-bit Vista Ultimate installed and this is how I discovered that the Send to OneNote feature does not work (nor install) on the 64-bit version of either WinXP or Vista.  The GottaBeMobile guys were also surprised to hear this and this week since they were at the MVP Summit on the Microsoft campus they asked the Redmond folks if they are going to release a 64-bit driver for this feature:

64-bit support for the Send-To printer will not becoming until OneNote 14 releases to the public. There are no plans toaddress this with a patch or service pack. So, if you rely upon theSend-To feature in OneNote, I’d recommend sticking with or going backto 32-bit Vista.

So the answer is clear, if this feature is a must for you then don’t even consider 64-bit Windows because Microsoft not only doesn’t have your back but they’ve painted a big, red target on it.

Can’t say that I’ve ever needed to do this, but I can see why some folks might want to view two sections in OneNote side-by-side. It’s actually quite easy and Dan Escapa’s method can be applied to many apps in Microsoft Windows.1. Just click “Window” in the menu and choose “New Window” or CTRL+M; your choice. This will open up OneNote in a second window.2. In your Windows Taskbar, CTRL-click both active OneNote Windows to select them.3. Right-click on one of the OneNote selections in the Taskbar and in the pop-up menu, choose “Show Windows Side by Side”Now you’ll have both OneNote sections sharing an equal portion of the screen so you can cross-check facts, update older notes, or whatever. Steps 2 and 3 above can be applied to any active windows by the way: you always have the option to show active windows side-by-side with this approach.