Folks are getting excited about the new OneNote 2010 and I can’t blame them. I’ve said for years that I believe OneNote is one of the best, if not the best, piece of software from Microsoft. Not only will OneNote 2010 be included in all Office 2010 versions, but we know it will be usable over the web and through Windows Live Sync as well. But one question that current OneNote users keep asking is: What happens to the OneNote 2007 data? Can it be used with OneNote 2010? What about data from the new version in old versions?

Dan Escapa from the OneNote team comes to the rescue again with these key points on compatibility:

• OneNote 2010 will fully read & write OneNote 2007 format notebooks, no need to convert a notebook
• There is a new OneNote 2010 format to support new features (such as versions)
• OneNote 2010 can convert notebooks from 2007<–>2010 formats and back

Dan reminds us that if you plan to share OneNote data with 2007 users, you need to convert your 2010 data into the 2007 format before sharing it. Eventually, I’d like to see Microsoft release a converter for OneNote 2007 owners. That would be helpful if they inadvertently get OneNote data in the new format but still have the old software.

• Sync to Cloud (Windows Live): Your notebooks sync and are available anywhere from any machine. Of course, this is in addition to all the existing ways you can sync notebooks — file shares, SharePoint, USB drives, etc.
• OneNote Web App: You can access and edit your entire notebook from a browser. This is even supported on a machine that doesn’t have OneNote installed.
• OneNote Mobile: A more complete OneNote version for Windows Mobile phones. Syncs whole notebooks. Syncs directly to the cloud. No need to tether your device. Richer editing support.

This is especially good news for Windows Mobile users, as the mobile version of OneNote has been very restrictive. This ability to cut the cord for syncing to OneNote Mobile is very good news, indeed. David’s details about the full OneNote to come are promising, and show a lot of improvements will be coming to a notebook near you.

This is big news for OneNote users who previously had to buy a premium Office suite to get it, or pay extra for OneNote. The OneNote Blog gives us the straight scoop:

I thought you all would like to know that OneNote is now included in all Office editions! That means no matter what Office box you buy or what you company purchases OneNote will be on the disc!  I remember when I first started on the team OneNote 2003 was a stand alone version of and even though we were a part of Office but wasn’t in the box.  I would tell people what product I worked on and people would ask “is OneNote in standard?” or “I have pro I don’t see OneNote”.  Then when we found that we were included in the Home & Student and Enterprise editions we were overjoyed and excited to be in the box.  But now I can tell people that no matter what version of Office they buy they will have OneNote!  I feel like we have really come along a long way from a standalone app to being a core part of the Office experience.

The OneNote team is understandably excited about this “promotion” at Microsoft. OneNote is a fantastic application that is not promoted heavily by the folks at Redmond. Maybe this means more people will get exposed to OneNote.

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!

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.

Heading down this path, I tried running OneNote with Windows XP SP2 compatibility and as Admin. Sure enough, I was able to snap these four shots without any issue whatsoever, so I knew I had a workaround. I tested the various combinations of with & without XP compatibility and not as Admin and it turns out that the workaround is simply to run OneNote as Admin.

It really shouldn’t have been this difficult to figure out what the issue was here and quite frankly, the error message was less than helpful. Remember it was: "You can’t press too quickly! We haven’t get the image yet!" Huh?!? In any case, I’m glad to have the functionality back. I’m even taking advantage of the Elevation Sidebar Gadget I found yesterday as a result

. With this “fix”, I can seamlessly insert photos right into OneNote:

Alas, it was not to be. The Vista Device Manager recognizes that I have a USB Webcam, but it doesn’t appear in the "Scanners and Cameras" section of the Control Panel. I’m not able to "install" these cameras in that section either. In OneNote, hitting the Insert, Pictures, From Scanner or Camera does open the dialog box for my camera and even shows a live preview image, but it’s unable to snap the picture. I suspect that’s because the "Select Device" drop-down is blank and unusable, probably because Vista doesn’t show the camera in the "Scanners and Camera" section.

I’ve tried tweaking various settings and even tried different drivers from Vimicro, the camera manufacturer, but no such luck. Every attempt shows an error message. I’m not really any worse off because I can still use the Samsung Camera Play application to snap and save pics, but I’d rather get them in OneNote natively instead of taking the pics, saving them and then inserting them.

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.

Firefox users rejoice! The “Send to OneNote” feature that’s native to Internet Explorer can be replicated in Firefox with the “Clip to OneNote” extension. The extension was originally written for Firefox 1.5 and OneNote 2003, but with some help from other sources, Amit shows how to enable it for Firefox 2.x / 3 and OneNote 2007. You’ll need the original extension installed and then you’ll create two new configuration keys in Firefox. Once done, you’re good to go. Amit has the simple instructions over at Digital Inspiration that provide all the details.Once installed and configured, you’ll have a right-click option in Firefox. Simply highlight any parts of a web page (text, pics and links) and then choose the Clip to OneNote selection in the right-click context menu of Firefox. Anything you’ve highlighted will be sent over to OneNote for later use.