Many of you have been trying out the Microsoft OneNote 2010 Beta since its release last week and I hope you’ve been enjoying the test drive. One of the main questions that we've repeatedly been asked is whether or not OneNote 2010 has native support for the “Send to OneNote” print driver on 64-bit Windows. The answer is yes! (Read answers to many other Frequently Asked Questions about OneNote 2010 Beta on our new OneNote 2010 Beta Documentation site.)
That said, if you’re sticking with the released version of OneNote 2007 for now and you’re using it on a 64-bit edition of Windows 7 or Windows Vista, I’m happy to share the good news that Microsoft Program Manager David Rasmussen has released an update to his 64-bit Windows print driver for OneNote 2007. (To read about the previous release, click here.)
Version 1.1 of David’s “XPS2OneNote” print driver fixes a number of issues that some people had on the 64-bit edition of Windows 7. This new version also adds the option to print to a single page or to print each page to a separate sub page (a frequently requested feature). In addition, you can now more easily scale printouts to a custom size.
Read David’s latest blog post for more information and for the link to the free download. And please be sure to read the instructions before installing and using the new version.
As before, David took personal time away from work to develop this latest version, so if you try this solution and it meets your needs, please consider leaving David some positive feedback about his efforts.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Depending on its complexity, Beta software typically offers little (if any) documentation. Too much can change during and after the Beta testing phase, and it takes a long time to put together a complete set of Help content.
For OneNote 2010 Beta, we’re trying something a bit different. There’s been such an unprecedented interest in OneNote, we’ve decided to post drafts of some of our documentation over the coming weeks and months to help you come up to speed with the new version and to give you an opportunity to comment on this Help content. I’m happy to announce the immediate availability of our new OneNote 2010 Beta Documentation site. If you frequently use the Help system in Office applications, please consider reviewing our Beta documentation and participate in the feedback process. It’s a great opportunity to help us deliver a great set of OneNote 2010 documentation.
You can simply browse to this site whenever you want, or you can press the F1 key in the OneNote 2010 Beta client to open it. A few articles are already available and we’re doing our best to strike the right balance between old and new features. Again, your feedback counts, so please let us know what features you most want to know about.
There are two special articles that I hope you’ll take a look at:
- Frequently Asked Questions This living document will be updated frequently with common questions that we’re receiving about the OneNote 2010 Beta, about the Office 2010 Beta in general, and also about the Beta Documentation web site. Please have a look at this article now and again to catch up on important news.
- Documentation Request If there are any OneNote 2010 Beta features, tasks, or scenarios that you could use some help with, post a comment on the site to suggest documentation opportunities. We’ll definitely look at such requests when deciding in what order new OneNote 2010 documentation will be written and released.
Thanks for trying out the OneNote 2010 Beta. A lot of people here have worked very hard to make it great and we really appreciate all of you checking it out and helping us test it.
By the way, if you’re not participating in the Beta, there’s no need to feel left out. We have plenty of free OneNote 2007 documentation and training materials available on the Office Online site — including Help articles, overviews, training courses, templates, and video demos.
Here are some OneNote 2007 shortcuts for you:
The wait is over! This morning at the 2009 Professional Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft formally announced the public availability of the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta, which includes Microsoft OneNote 2010.
Try out Office 2010 for free!
Visit http://www.microsoft.com/2010 to download the Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Beta.
This is a fully-functioning version of Office 2010 that includes pre-release versions of the following programs:
- Access 2010
- Excel 2010
- InfoPath 2010
- OneNote 2010
- Outlook 2010
- PowerPoint 2010
- Publisher 2010
- Word 2010
Please make sure that your computer is able to run the Office 2010 Beta. Click here to view the system requirements.
Some important reminders about Beta software in general
“Beta” is a nickname for software which has passed a significant internal stage of software development and is being made available to a larger community of users for testing purposes. A Beta release allows real-world users to try out the software on a variety of computer systems and configuration environments and provide feedback about any issues or malfunctions that they may find in the software.
The Beta release cycle is also a time when you can give us early feedback about what you like about the new software, what your favorite new features are, and so on. A lot of hard work has gone into a product before it reaches a Beta release and positive feedback is just as much appreciated.
If you haven’t participated in a public Beta before, please understand the risks that are commonly assumed of and associated with Beta-level software releases. Because it is still undergoing testing, Beta software can be unstable and could potentially cause crashes or data loss. If you cannot install the Office 2010 Beta on a separate computer for safe testing purposes and you still want to test-drive the software on your main PC, please be sure to completely back up your computer and all files that you care about. If you’re using Windows 7, click here to learn how to back up your hard drive.
We’re very excited about this release and are proud of the hard work that has gone into these products, but final testing has only just begun. As with all Beta products, please understand that the Office 2010 Beta is not covered by Microsoft Technical Support and provides only limited (if any) finalized documentation. You should not rely on Beta software to do mission-critical work.
What you should know about the OneNote 2010 Beta
To enable many of its new features, OneNote 2010 uses a newer file format for saving notebooks than previous versions. However, we have preserved the old OneNote 2007 file format so that you can keep using notebooks saved in the older format and share them with people who don’t yet have OneNote 2010 Beta.
When you create any new notebooks with OneNote 2010, they will be automatically saved in the new OneNote 2010 file format. This format is required for many of the new OneNote 2010 features to work — including math equations, linked note-taking, multi-level subpages, versioning, and the Recycle Bin. Using the OneNote 2010 notebook format also lets you share your notebooks on the Web, so they can be viewed and edited in a Web browser (please note that this feature is not yet enabled in the OneNote 2010 Beta).
If you are running the OneNote 2010 Beta on your main PC on which you store your real OneNote 2007 notebooks, upgrading to the new format is not recommended unless you have reliable backups of these notebooks. Please see my previous warnings about Beta software in this blog post. However, if you’re using OneNote 2010 Beta on a test computer, or you’re working with dummy notebooks, do feel free to try out the notebook creation and conversion features!
To check which file format a notebook is saved in, do either of the following in OneNote 2010 Beta:
- Open a notebook, and then look at the title bar of the OneNote application window. If [Compatibility Mode] is shown next to the notebook name, then the notebook is saved in the older OneNote 2007 format.
- Right-click a notebook’s icon on the Navigation bar (by default, on the far left of the canvas), and then click Properties. In the Notebook Properties dialog box, note the Default Format to see what format the notebook is saved in.
If you have additional questions about the Office 2010 Beta and how it can co-exist with your existing installation of Office 2007 programs, please be sure to check out the Frequently Asked Questions on our Web site (carefully read through the links in the section titled "Microsoft Office 2010 Beta”). If your question isn’t answered in the FAQ, please post a comment and I’ll do my best to research the answer for you.
Join the conversation!
Have you tried the Office 2010 Beta? How do you like the new version of OneNote? As always, please feel free to post your comments here. I’d love to hear your first impressions about OneNote 2010 and learn about the features you have questions about.
Also, be sure to check out our official OneNote fan page on Facebook, where you can connect and compare notes (so to speak) with other Beta testers.
Thanks for giving the Office 2010 Beta try. I hope you like the new improvements!
Today, Windows 7 finally arrives in stores. In my personal opinion, it’s Microsoft’s best-ever operating system.
I’m not saying this because I work at Microsoft. I’m saying it because I’ve been personally using and thoroughly testing Windows 7 ever since its early builds were made available. The improvements that Windows 7 offers over its predecessor, Windows Vista, are plentiful, and the industry’s collective praise for them has been difficult to miss.
Though I must admit that I’ve personally had only very few issues with my various Vista computers at work and at home, I’ve sure had many an earful from my friends and family about it. Thankfully, with the arrival of Windows 7, we can usher in a new era of personal computing. I’m very happy about the immensely positive buzz about Windows 7 because it’s truly well-deserved. Hats off to the Windows 7 team. A job well done, guys!
As Windows 7 hits the stores today, I wanted to share a few tips about using OneNote 2007 on a Windows 7 PC. Whether you’re planning to upgrade now or later, I hope some of you will find this information useful.
Does OneNote 2007 run on Windows 7?
I’ve been asked this question quite a bit since the Windows 7 Beta and Release Candidate were released for public testing. Now that the final version of Windows 7 has been released, let me officially confirm that OneNote 2007 runs great on Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate Edition. (I have not personally tested it on Windows 7 Starter Edition, so if anyone out there is running that, please share your experience by posting a comment here.)
The higher the edition that you purchase and install, the more functionality will be available to you in Windows 7. Wikipedia has posted an article with details about what’s included in each edition, so be sure to take a look before you make a purchase.
32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7... why should I care?
Feature-based editions aside, Windows 7 also comes in two different technical flavors — a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version. Up until recently, nearly all computers in the world ran 32-bit operating systems. Windows Vista Ultimate was the first edition of Windows to come with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, the latter for early adopters who could afford the then-costly hardware. Over the past year, mainstream PCs have gotten much more powerful and have begun to sell with considerable higher amounts of system memory, and more and more of these machines came with 64-bit Windows Vista pre-installed.
As of today, October 22, 2009, stores such as Best Buy as well as online retailers like Amazon, Dell, Alienware, HP, Gateway, and others will sell almost all of their PCs with a 64-bit version of Windows 7 pre-installed. This is because only 64-bit versions of Windows can take full advantage of higher amounts of system memory. If your computer comes with 4GB RAM or more, it’s a good idea to use a 64-bit version of Windows.
(If you can stomach a lot of geeky technical jargon, you can learn more about 64-bit computing over at Wikipedia. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!)
Does OneNote 2007 have any issues on a 64-bit version of Windows?
While OneNote 2007 works nearly as great on 64-bit versions Windows as it does on 32-bit versions, there is one notable exception: OneNote 2007 is a 32-bit application and its popular “Send to OneNote” print driver feature was not designed to run on a 64-bit operating system, no matter what version or edition.
A quick glance at the OneNote 2007 box spine confirms this:
Back when OneNote 2007 was first developed, there was a technical reason why this could not be supported. It wasn’t much of an issue then, mainly because most everybody was happily running a 32-bit version operating system like Windows XP or Windows Vista. Now that 64-bit computing has reached the mainstream at the same time as the popularity of OneNote is at an all-time high, this single feature limitation is something to be aware of.
If you’ve been using OneNote 2007 for a while and you’ve fallen in love with the Send to OneNote feature, then you may want to either opt for the 32-bit version of Windows 7 or try the Send to OneNote 2007 print driver solution for 64-bit Windows workaround that I previously documented here on my blog. Note that if you purchase Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate Edition, you’ll get both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions in one package, which means you can always opt to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7 in a few months when the 64-bit versions of Microsoft Office 2010 programs will be released.
You can stay informed of development news, feature details, and eventual availability of OneNote 2010 by joining our Facebook group.
Now, let’s have a look at revealing a couple of useful OneNote 2007 features in Windows 7.
Unhide and use the OneNote 2007 taskbar icon on Windows 7
If you previously ran OneNote 2007 on any edition of Windows XP or Windows Vista, you may have never even noticed the so-called “OneNote 2007 Screen Clipper and Launcher,” a small startup program that keeps the OneNote icon in the notification area of the Windows taskbar active. In the later Service Packs on Windows XP and in all editions of Windows Vista, icons that appeared in the notification area would eventually and automatically disappear from view, as it was assumed that they would clutter up the Windows task bar. Rightfully so, because most programs place needless icons there, many of which have little (if any) functionality.
However, in the case of OneNote 2007, the little icon in the notification area is actually quite useful. It provides easy shortcuts to launch the OneNote program window, or perform any number of tasks without starting OneNote itself — including opening a new Side Note, starting an audio recording, creating a screen clipping, and setting the user’s preferences for controlling the functionality of the icon.
Like its predecessors, Windows 7 helps you reduce taskbar clutter by hiding passive icons. However, whether or not you already knew about the OneNote taskbar icon before today, the following procedure will restore the OneNote 2007 Screen Clipper and Launcher back where it belongs. Give it a try!
If you haven’t already done so, install OneNote 2007 on Windows 7, and then follow these steps:
- In Windows 7, click the Start button, click All Programs, and then click to expand both the Microsoft Office folder and the Startup folder.
Here, you should see the regular Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 icon in the Microsoft Office folder. This is the main program icon for OneNote 2007. Whenever you click this icon, OneNote starts.
You should also see the OneNote 2007 Screen Clipper and Launcher icon in the Startup folder. This is the little program that provides quick access to OneNote functionality from the notification area of the Windows taskbar.
- On the Windows 7 taskbar, click the small upwards-facing triangle icon (to the left of the clock on the far right side of the taskbar).
This will reveal any hidden icons in the notification area.
- In the popup window that appears, look for the small OneNote icon.
Although you can right-click the OneNote taskbar icon here and use its features, the extra click to unhide it each time can become cumbersome. Let’s permanently unhide it.
- At the bottom of the popup window, click Customize.
- In the window that appears, you can modify the OneNote notification icon. In the drop-down menu next to Microsoft Office OneNote Quick Launcher, select Show icon and notifications, and then click OK.
- Now the OneNote Screen Clipper and Launcher features are available by right-clicking the small OneNote icon that now appears near the clock on the Windows 7 taskbar.
While the icon is active, you can also use the Windows key shortcuts that are shown on this menu.
Whatever command is listed in bold text on this menu is the command that will execute whenever you left-click the OneNote taskbar icon.
The default setting for clicking the icon is to open a new Side Note (watch this video demo to learn more about this great OneNote feature), but you can replace this behavior with any of the other commands that you may use more frequently.
To learn how to change the settings for the icon, read Set the default action for the OneNote taskbar icon.
Unhide the Send to OneNote button in Internet Explorer 8
Windows 7 comes with the free Internet Explorer 8 Web browser. I understand and respect that users all over the world are free to choose alternate Web browsers, but I wanted to point out that Internet Explorer 8 has a very nice OneNote integration feature that you may not have known about. Because Internet Explorer also hides icon clutter, it’s easy to miss this feature. Thankfully, a few simple steps is all it takes to make this discoverable.
The following procedure only works on 32-bit versions of Windows, for the reasons mentioned earlier in this blog post.
If you haven’t already done so, install OneNote 2007 on Windows 7, and then follow these steps:
- Launch Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7 and maximize the browser window.
- Near the far top right corner of the browser window, click the chevron symbol ( » ) on the toolbar to reveal the hidden Send to OneNote button.
Although you can right-click the Send to OneNote button here to send the contents of the current Web page directly to OneNote, the extra click to unhide it each time can become cumbersome. Let’s permanently unhide it.
- On the Internet Explorer taskbar (under the Search box), right-click in a blank spot near the left side of the Home icon.
- On the menu that appears, click to toggle (in this case, un-check) the Lock the Toolbars command.
When you have done this, a toolbar handle (a vertical dotted line) will appear near the left side of the Home toolbar icon.
- Click and drag the toolbar handle towards the left and watch the chevron symbol ( » ) on the toolbar disappear once you have fully revealed the hidden Send to OneNote and Research buttons.
Now you can easily click the Send to OneNote button whenever you want to send a Web page directly into your OneNote notebook.
Some Web pages are formatted in ways that change their appearance outside of a Web browser. If this happens with a Web page that you want to import into your notes, you can capture information as a screen clipping instead of sending the whole page to OneNote.
As always, your feedback is welcome. I’d love to hear your impressions of Windows 7 and about your experiences with using OneNote 2007 together with Windows 7. I hope you’ll enjoy the combination as much as I am.
For as long as I’ve worked on the OneNote team here at Microsoft, I’ve never grown tired of hearing from real-life customers who sometimes take the time to tell us their stories about how technology and Microsoft Office products have changed and improved their lives.
This month, it’s my distinct pleasure to introduce Bruce A. Olson, a trial attorney and nationally recognized legal technologist. Bruce is the president of ONLAW Trial Technologies, LLC, a consulting firm offering trial technology, eDiscovery, and computer forensic services. He is AV rated, Board Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and the co-author of The Electronic Evidence and Discovery Handbook: Forms, Checklists and Guidelines, published by the American Bar Association. Bruce received the prestigious “TechnoLawyer of the Year 2002” Award, was Chair of the ABA TechShow 2004, Vice Chair of the ABA TechShow 2003, and served on the TechShow Board of Directors from 2000 through 2004.
Bruce wrote the following article to offer a personal account of how he came to discover and ultimately rely on OneNote in his professional life. Even if you’re not a lawyer yourself, this glimpse into how a professional uses OneNote in everyday life is sure to inspire ideas for using OneNote in your own line of work. Bruce’s article will soon be available on the Office Online site as well, but I’m posting it here on Nota Bene in order to provide you with larger screenshots (click any of the images below to zoom to the larger versions).
The trial lawyer’s electronic notebook
By Bruce A. Olson
My opposing counsel kept looking at me with obvious envy as I made my argument to the judge why certain key evidence should be excluded from the trial we were involved in. I could tell from the look on the attorney’s face that he was puzzled how I could refer to portions of the record, prior witness testimony, exhibits, case law, and a brief that I had previously submitted, all without a single piece of paper in front of me. The only thing I used was my laptop and a mouse. He sat at a table with loose papers piled haphazardly, manila folders strewn about, and a Bankers Box on the floor, stuffed to overflowing.
When my opponent was speaking, he spent as much time shuffling through his papers and folders as he did addressing the court. Eventually, his disorganization began to annoy the judge. At one point he simply could not find the case he was looking for. He begged the court’s indulgence and promised he would provide the case reference later, after he’d had an opportunity to reorganize his file during a break. The judge was not amused, was not willing to wait, and ruled against him.
Later during the break, the attorney came up to me and asked how I could do it. “You did the same thing during depositions,” he said to me. “How can you possibly have all those different parts of a case file organized in one place and viewable on your laptop screen?” I told him the solution was a good scanner and Microsoft OneNote 2007. I promised that when we were finished presenting the case and waiting for the jury to return their verdict, I would demonstrate how to conduct a paperless trial by using OneNote.
I was first exposed to OneNote when I received a complimentary license of what was then a brand-new product at the ABA TechShow. After I returned home and began to play with the product, I realized I had found a tool that had been an important missing link in my technology portfolio. I was already a technology power user. For many years I had scanned all incoming documents and loaded them and all internally generated documents into a litigation support program.
This kind of database program offers powerful ways to slice and dice information and to rapidly locate documents, photographs, and other electronic files. I’d also been an early adopter of trial presentation technology. This allowed me to take a document or picture, put it in front of a jury on a large screen or monitor, and highlight and annotate it just as John Madden does during Monday Night Football. However, none of these products, as sophisticated as they were, really gave me the equivalent of an electronic trial notebook. I needed an electronic legal pad, a place where I could easily organize my thoughts, create outlines of questions, create scripts for witness interrogations, and otherwise organize myself for either a deposition or a trial. I realized immediately as I played with my first version of OneNote 2003 that I could now create the electronic trial notebook I’d wanted. When OneNote 2007 became available, things only continued to improve.
Most trial lawyers organize themselves for trial in one of two ways — the “Bankers Box with manila folders” method or the “ring binder with colored tabs” method. Early in my career, I was ambivalent about the choices. Then I saw someone drop a four-inch wide ring binder on the courtroom floor. Several days worth of preparation went flying around the room, with no possibility of pulling it back together before the judge was ready to start. From then on, until I discovered OneNote, I was a “Bankers Box with manila folders” kind of guy. Because of this, the transition to OneNote was pretty simple. In many ways, what I saw on my screen in OneNote mimicked what I saw in the box and in the manila folders. However, if you happen to be a ring-binder person, don’t worry. The transition to OneNote will be just as easy for you.
What makes OneNote such an ideal candidate for an electronic trial notebook? First, when you open it, the opening screen looks like a blank page on a paper tablet. If you prefer, you can even download a free template from the Office Online Web site to make your OneNote notebook pages look like a traditional, yellow legal pad. The legal pad is the most basic of all attorneys’ tools, and this template can make even diehard traditionalists comfortable. I prefer starting with a nice blank white page. Once you open the program, just click the File menu, point to New, and then select Notebook. Then just follow the prompts in the wizard to create a new notebook:
Each notebook contains all of the materials that you’ll need for your case. You can create multiple cases and carry them all with you on your laptop when you go on the road. Also, OneNote has a collaboration feature that allows multiple users to work together on one case, with the ability to synchronize everyone’s work when desired.
After you create a case, you create sections that are like the manila folders in the Bankers Box method of organization.
In fact, each new section defaults to a tabbed manila folder view running across the top of the workspace. If you look at the pages in the section, it’s just like looking at pages in the manila folders in your traditional file. Using sections in OneNote, I can organize my entire case in the same way I always did. I normally have a separate section for pretrial motions and motions in limine. I have one section for each party’s opening statement. I then add a section for each witness. Finally, I add sections for exhibits, jury instructions, special verdict forms, and closing arguments. I can also color-code the tabs at the top for easy navigation.
I typically color all of my witness folders the same color. I use a different color for the witnesses called by the other parties as well as for their opening and closing statements. Each section then contains the type of materials you would ordinarily have in your paper file, just in electronic form.
It’s easy to add information to a section. An important feature is the ability to blind type anywhere you want on a page. It means you don’t have to be a master of a word-processing program to use OneNote. Just place your cursor wherever you want it on the page and start typing. This is just like being able to write a note anywhere on your legal pad. OneNote also supports handwriting recognition, so even if you can’t type, you can use this program with a Tablet PC or with an inexpensive tablet input device like a Wacom Bamboo to handwrite your notes.
To speed things up, I use voice-activated dictation, so I just place my cursor where I want the note and start talking into my headset. I let the voice-activated dictation program do the rest. As you write your notes, you create individual objects that are like text boxes. These can easily be dragged to change the order, copied and pasted to a different spot on the page, or even pasted to a page in a different section. The same is true for photos, screen captures, multipage documents, and other types of objects you might add to a section.
If you can print out a document on your computer, you can just as easily send it to OneNote. This functionality makes the program easy to use by someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with litigation software programs. All you need to do is make sure the items you want in your case are scanned into a folder somewhere on your local drive so you can easily find them. Open the item you want copied to the section in OneNote, and then open the Print dialog box and select Send to OneNote 2007 as your printer.
The selected item will be printed to the page you have open in OneNote, with the cursor position determining the insertion point. You can print the whole thing or just selected pages. After you determine the parameters of the print job, just click OK. This works ideally for printing photographs, documents and exhibits, legal motions and briefs, jury instructions, special verdicts, and all the other types of documents that typically make up a legal file. You can print from Microsoft Office programs, but you can also print from other Windows programs, including Adobe Acrobat. PDF files are not a problem in OneNote.
While even a low-tech lawyer can use OneNote successfully, this doesn’t mean a high-tech lawyer would want to look elsewhere. OneNote works successfully with all of the major litigation support programs typically in use. Thus, you can have a huge case in a litigation support database and use the sophisticated search tools to find the subset of documents you are interested in discussing with a given witness. You then print the documents to the witness folder or section, and they are ready for use in OneNote.
Alternatively, and particularly if you are using an online repository type of program where you are accessing images by using a browser, you can use the OneNote Screen Clipping feature to grab a copy of an image. You can also print to OneNote the different types of reports that are typically generated from the spreadsheet view of the litigation support program. Since you can also blind type at any spot on the page, it is simple to send a number of exhibits to a witness folder first and then go back and develop your outline for questioning the witness. Just insert the text next to the exhibit in the location you prefer. Once things are on the page, you can rearrange by dragging or by cutting and pasting, using the typical shortcuts that every user of Microsoft products knows how to use.
In addition to the print to OneNote function, you can use the Screen Clipping tool to get information on the page.
This tool is ideal for capturing Web pages and other information gleaned from the Internet. It works just as well as a way to capture selected portions of a document when you don’t want to print the whole thing. It’s particularly useful for grabbing selected questions and answers from a deposition transcript, or for grabbing selected quotes from a reported case.
To see how this all works in practice, assume you have a document that might be tricky to have admitted into evidence. You want to set up a script for yourself to follow so you take all the necessary steps to get the document admitted without objection. You can set up your line of questioning in the following way: First, create a section for the witness you want to use to introduce the document. Then, open the document in its native application. Assume it is a two-page PDF that you’ve placed in a folder on your desktop. Print the entire document to OneNote, so it’s now located on the OneNote page in the appropriate section.
Place your cursor above the first page of the document and start typing reminders of the types of questions you need to ask the witness to lay a general foundation for the admissibility of the document. Assume further that you have a hearsay problem with a statement on page two of the document. Insert a note between the first and second pages to remind yourself to address the hearsay problem before you try to have the witness read the statement in front of the jury. Highlight the troublesome statement by using the yellow highlighter from the OneNote annotation tools so it’s easy to reference.
Assume further that you expect the witness to lie and deny that he ever wrote the document. Therefore, be sure to check his deposition transcript in advance, and find the section where he previously admitted that he wrote the document and made the statement in question. Use the Screen Clipping tool in OneNote to copy the questions and answers that relate to this admission, and paste them below the second page of the document. Now you will be prepared to impeach the witness with a prior inconsistent statement if he lies under oath at trial.
Assume you also have one of those stickler judges who requires you to cite the evidence code by number rather than by a general description of the rule in question. Use the Screen Clipping tool to grab a copy of the specific procedural rule from the electronic version of your court rules or procedural statutes. For good measure, grab a couple of quotes from cases in which it was ruled that the type of statement you’re trying to get admitted should be treated as an exception to the hearsay rule. If you want the full cases instead, print them to OneNote and then highlight and underline the important sections that relate to your argument with the annotation tools.
You’ve now pulled together all the pieces from your case file that you’ll need to get this particular item into evidence over any objection the other side might raise. Everything is located in one place, and you didn’t use a single piece of paper apart from printing the actual exhibit you intend to offer at trial. You won’t need to rummage around at counsel table trying to find the manila folder with the case law in it or the deposition transcript or the exhibit. Your line of questioning will be clear, concise, and focused on the witness rather than on the piles of materials.
These basic techniques can be adapted to address all of the typical functions a trial lawyer encounters during trial. Because OneNote is so simple to use, anyone should be able to use these techniques with a minimum of time invested in learning how to use the program. After you have the basics down, you can adapt the ways you use the program to fit your style. Keep in mind that it’s just as useful at depositions or motion hearings as it is at trial. In a sense, wherever you use a legal pad, you should consider using OneNote.
We all know that organization is the key to success at trial. Being organized is important, but appearing organized is also important. There is an intangible benefit to using OneNote at trial. If the judge and jury see you working coolly and calmly from a laptop, never struggling to find what you need, and seemingly able to adapt quickly on the fly, they will begin to give you and your case extra credibility. At least that is what my opponent told me after I’d shown him how to try a case in OneNote: “Bruce, you’ve made a convert out of me. As soon as I get back to the office I’m going to learn how to use OneNote. Be prepared. Next time I’ll match you on the battlefield!”
Game developer Bungie is one of the biggest names in the computer and console gaming market. The Kirkland, Washington company has 140 employees and is best known for its trilogy of Halo games, which are among the most successful video game titles ever released. The most recent installment — Halo 3: ODST — currently holds the #1 sales rank in Amazon.com’s Video Games category.
The development cycle at Bungie is quite long, with a new game released once every three years on average. During development, Bungie developers and designers gather and generate large volumes of ancillary materials during the pre-production phase, including text-based materials such as brainstorming notes, static visual materials that include character and landscape sketches, and even audio and video clips to help guide creative development. They also find inspiration in many places, including interesting images, graphics, and other media on the Web.
Traditionally, designers and programmers stored these bits of inspiration in different formats and locations. Without a centralized repository, sharing this information with colleagues might involve exchanging multiple e-mails, walking to another office, or putting files onto a shared network drive. Some materials are captured on whiteboards or bulletin boards; in some cases, whiteboards have even been sprayed with fixative and set aside to preserve their contents.
At the end of the development cycle, the company has traditionally needed to hire a temporary worker for several weeks to gather the production materials, scan in the production imagery, and organize it all into physical binders for archival purposes.
Because collaboration is such an important part of the game development process, Bungie wanted to find a way to more efficiently store all of its production materials, while simultaneously improving communication among development team members. “We wanted a way to share assets and information electronically and easily,” says Curtis Creamer, Senior Producer and Design Manager at Bungie. “We were working in an old paradigm, and we felt it was time to go digital.”
Any solution had to accommodate the different types of workers that compose a development team, and this shaped the company’s decision-making. “We have both artists and programmers on our team, and they tend to approach things in very different ways,” says Creamer. “The first thing we looked at was a wiki-based solution, and after a lot of investigation, we decided it was too technically complicated for a non-programmer, like a designer or artist, to quickly and easily get something up and running.”
As the difficulties with the wiki-based repository became apparent, Bungie began exploring other options for aggregating production materials and discovered that a promising solution was already installed on the company’s computers. Bungie was using Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, which includes the OneNote 2007 note-taking program. “I had used an earlier version of OneNote years before, but just as a place to jot down notes,” explains Creamer. “But that experience gave me an introduction to some of the program’s other cool capabilities, like being able to drop an audio file into a page of notes, so I started looking into it more.”
Creamer experimented further with OneNote 2007, and he discovered that it had become a much more robust program since his first experience with the earlier version. “At first, I just shared a notebook out on a server and started playing with it,” explains Creamer. “It ended up being a good solution and we stuck with it. We didn’t have to do any customization, and since we already used the Microsoft Office suite, we could use OneNote 2007 at basically zero extra cost for us. It was like a free bonus with software we already had!”
Bungie found that its staff quickly became proficient with OneNote. No training was needed because everyone was able to get up and running by just using it. As more employees became familiar with OneNote 2007, its use increased to the point where it became the standard repository for all production materials. “Among other things, it’s become the official place where we keep our design documents and concept imagery,” says Creamer. “All of our lead designers are keeping iterations of their designs in the shared workbook.”
Bungie users have taken advantage of the variety of options for accessing and working with a common repository that are available in OneNote 2007. “We generally use it as a shared workbook that lives on one of our internal servers,” says Creamer. “Employees access it through their workstations at their desks, through Windows-based laptops, and even on Intel-based Macintosh laptops that have Windows installed. People can also access the workbook remotely from home, or they can take content offline with them and then sync up when they return to the office.”
While most team members were quickly won over by the features of the OneNote 2007 solution, a few employees were reluctant to embrace it at first. “We definitely had some die-hard wiki fanatics who were skeptical,” notes Creamer. “The thing that eventually won everyone over was the fact that it performed very well, that information was updated on the fly, and that it was super easy to get things in and out of the workbook.”
The Bungie team also appreciated the fact that OneNote 2007 had features that appealed to both artistic and technical users. “OneNote 2007 has a number of features that separate it from a word-processing document or a wiki,” says Christopher Barrett, Art Director at Bungie. “As an artist, I love the fact that you can drop in an image, drag it around, and put it where you want to without fighting formatting imposed by the program. That makes sense to an artist’s brain. I also love the screen clipping feature that makes it quick and easy to grab an image off of a Web site. That’s really helpful.”
Use of OneNote 2007 continues to evolve and grow over time at Bungie, as staff members become more familiar with the product and aware of its full capabilities. “Now that we understand what we use it for and how we want to use it, we’re being more directed in what we’re doing with it,” says Barrett.
To learn more about the benefits that OneNote 2007 brings to Bungie, check out the rest of this case study.
To learn more about what OneNote 2007 can do for you, start with our What is OneNote? video demo, or view any of our other demos that are available for free on Office Online.
You may remember me first mentioning my colleague Joannie Stangeland back in the spring, when she decided to launch a podcast-style “how-to” video series called A Writer’s Guide to Microsoft Office. At first glance, this might have seemed like a run-of-the-mill video series, but Joannie decided to experiment with what we here in Office call “narrow-casting” — making content extremely specific to a particular audience or user group.
The idea is simple: Even though some people in a particular community won’t care about the narrow and targeted subject matter, those to whom it speaks directly will ultimately get more out of the content. Think of it as a different take on the saying, “We’re speaking the same language.” In Joannie’s case, the intended audience was fellow writers, editors, and poets like herself.
In the traditional online Help systems (a.k.a. the online documentation) for each Microsoft Office program, the content we author and publish on the Office Online Web site is generally intended for the broadest possible audience in hopes of assisting as many people as possible. As you may suspect, this approach has its pros and cons. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you probably already know that I personally much prefer detail and substance over general, “one size fits all” content.
While Joannie writes all of the episodes in her Writer’s Guide series herself, she commissioned me to do the filming and editing, as well as some of the related tasks (music, titles, encoding, and so on.). Her very first episode was dedicated entirely to OneNote 2007. Since then, we’ve switched to high definition to allow our viewers to see the screen capture segments more clearly, and we left Joannie’s office behind in search of more interesting venues that serve as the backdrop for the live introductions and episode conclusions. You may have seen some of the recent episodes from Richard Hugo House in Seattle, a popular place where writers and editors from the Pacific Northwest gather daily to immerse themselves in their craft.
In late August, we received permission to film the next few episodes of the series at the Montford Press, a magnificent, privately held letterpress studio in West Seattle. Its proprietor, Carl Montford, is a lovely and learned man, who seemed to enjoy spending the day with us nearly as much as we enjoyed seeing all of the treasures that he had collected over the years. For a self-confessed typeface nerd like me, who has been geeking out on all things type since long before there was ever talk of “fonts,” I felt like a kid in a candy store in Carl’s studio. Just like art school takes care to pass on to modern students all of the old-fashioned ink-and-paint wisdom of the great masters, the sort of equipment and tools that we found in Carl’s studio still manage to inspire and influence the ways that our modern, computer-based printing and publishing solutions work and evolve. While I personally enjoy the many conveniences of the computer programs that I use (OneNote in particular), I still have a deep appreciation for seeing beautiful, inked letterforms press down on heavy paper to create a unique impression than can last through the centuries.
Joannie and I just published the very first episode from our Montford Press shoot. Although its “how-to” portion focuses mainly on line spacing techniques in Microsoft Word, I did want to mention it here on my OneNote blog because, as she often does, Joannie gives OneNote 2007 a prominent shout-out.
Have a look, if it interests you:
You can watch all of the podcast episodes that Joannie and I have produced so far on our YouTube playlist.
Joannie loves OneNote as much as I do, and she uses it daily to get her ideas and creative writing out of her head and onto the page. Whatever your own profession or personal aspirations, Joannie’s Writer’s Guide series does a nice job of showing off how OneNote can be used with the other Office programs to make your life easier. The cool thing about narrow-casting is that its themed content doesn’t necessarily have to speak to you directly; much of the time, the how-to knowledge that it shares is universally useful.
The real question is: What do you think of “narrow-casting”? Do you like the idea? If so, what kinds of themes and series would you be interested in seeing? OneNote for students? Teachers? Lawyers? Physicians? Tablet PC users? Do only professions make good content themes or is there another kind of audience segment in the OneNote community that might benefit from content narrow-casting? Please post a comment to make a suggestion or to share your thoughts and ideas. If you don’t like the idea of narrow-casting, I would like to know your reasons for that, too.
Though I receive a lot of mail from my readers each month (I’m sorry that time does not always permit me to respond to each message, but I promise I do read them all!), I’d really love it if you would share your thoughts out here in the open. Your observations and ideas might just help another reader, just like they help me! ;)
As always, thanks for dropping by for a visit — and thanks for using OneNote!
Summer’s nearly over. Students and teachers have begun preparing for their long march back into their classrooms.
Over the years, many students and teachers who already rely on OneNote in school have told us that they wish OneNote 2007 were standard issue in every classroom. The word about OneNote’s many benefits in school has traveled fast, but a lot of people in education still have no idea just how well OneNote is suited to daily use — inside and outside of the classroom.
For those of you who are taking OneNote to school for the first time, here are some of the free back-to-school resources that are currently available on Office Online:
OneNote & Office for Students
The entire first part of the Office at School: For Students site is dedicated to OneNote 2007. Check out how an MIT grad student uses OneNote in the classroom, learn how you can use OneNote with the Cornell note-taking method (a free template is provided to help you get started), watch a demo or two to discover new features you may not have tried out yet, and be sure to check out the many student-oriented templates you can download for free. OneNote integrates nicely with some of the other Microsoft Office programs, so be sure to browse through the rest of our student site, too. Are you a student who’s looking for more ideas and resources to help you in the classroom and in your studies? Post a comment with specifics here on my blog and I’ll do my best to help you find them!
OneNote & Office for Teachers
The Office at School: For Teachers site is less application-specific and focuses more on the many tasks a teacher must tackle to track their own work and to help students succeed. If you’re a teacher and you’re new to OneNote, start by reading “Teachers: It’s OneNote to the rescue!” It’s a first-hand account of how an instructor integrated OneNote 2007 into her classroom. Next, take a look at the many OneNote and Office templates that are available for free. Teachers are uniquely suited to make OneNote succeed in the classroom by using it themselves and also by demonstrating to students creative ways of using this versatile program for all kinds of schoolwork and research. Are you a teacher who’s looking for more ideas about using OneNote in the classroom? Post a comment with specifics here on my blog and I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction.
OneNote & Office for Parents
The Office at School: For Parents site doesn’t focus on programs and templates so much as it offers great advice for how to deal with school-related work and activities. However, OneNote 2007 is the perfect companion for parents to help them track everything from To Do lists, appointments, club activities, homework research, shopping lists for class and lab supplies, and everything else in-between. If you’re a parent who’s never far away from a laptop or a cell phone, OneNote 2007 is the perfect companion to help you manage a busy family life. You can even share notebooks among family members. Check out all of the great resources for parents that the site has to offer. Are you a parent who’s not sure how OneNote could help organize your life? Post a question here on my blog and I’ll do my best to answer it.
Additional OneNote resources for learning
Got your own site, article, or blog post to share? Post a comment with a pointer so that other readers can see it!
Don’t yet have OneNote? Try it out for free!
If you see something on any of the sites I’ve linked to in this post, but you’re not quite sure if OneNote is for you, click here to download the OneNote 2007 trial version. You can use and evaluate the full product free for 60 days. During the trial period, no feature is limited or disabled.
Back-to-school deals on OneNote
OneNote 2007 is available in a stand-alone edition, but it’s also bundled with the popular Office 2007 Home & Student Edition — a great value if you’re on a budget.
Here are just some of the many places where you can get a great back-to-school deal on Office 2007:
- Office Online Store
Special back-to-school pricing in effect until September 5, 2009.
- Amazon.com
Compare prices from Amazon.com and various Amazon.com-based sellers.
- Best Buy
Save money when purchasing Office 2007 Home & Student Edition with a new Windows PC.
Ah, Facebook. You either love it or hate it, right?
Well, now there’s another reason to love it. Microsoft OneNote now has its very own fan page on Facebook, which means you now have an easier way to get free tips about your favorite program, share ideas about the ways you use OneNote, and get answers to OneNote-related questions that you’ve always wanted to ask.
The nice thing about joining the OneNote fan page is that it integrates nicely with Facebook’s existing news feed and notification system. You can choose to see Help & How-to tips in your Facebook news feed automatically or read them only when you want to. Similarly, if you post something on the fan page, you can choose to be notified whenever someone responds to you.
Here’s a quick walkthrough of how the Microsoft OneNote fan page on Facebook works:
Join the OneNote fan page (it’s free!)
If you already have a Facebook account, sign in, and then follow these simple steps:
- Visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Microsoft-OneNote/109445870147.
- Near the top of the page, click the Become a Fan button.
Browse through OneNote wall posts
Once you’ve joined the Microsoft OneNote fan page on Facebook, you can begin browsing for posts right away.
To switch the default view to the page wall, click the Wall tab on the top navigation bar near the OneNote logo:
You can now see all of the wall posts by the administrator and by other OneNote users just like you. Wall posts are shown in chronological order and the newest posts appear near the top of the page.
Don’t be shy and join the conversation! Reply to an existing wall post that interests you, or make your own post to start a new discussion or to share something with the other members.
Hide automatic OneNote fan page updates
Depending on when you join the OneNote fan page, you’ll probably see automatic updates in your Facebook news feed within a few days. If you like seeing these updates, you don’t need to do anything else. Check out the ones that sound interesting and ignore the ones that you don’t care about on any particular day.
If you don’t want automatic OneNote fan page updates to appear in your news feed, you can easily disable them by following these steps:
- While signed in to your Facebook account, go to the Facebook home page at http://www.facebook.com/.
- Scroll through your Facebook news feed (the center column of your home page) and find any one of the OneNote fan page updates that have appeared.
- Move the mouse pointer over the OneNote post until you see a Hide link show up near the right side of the post.
- When you move the mouse pointer over the Hide link, it becomes a button. Click it.
- On the mini-menu that appears below the Hide button, click Hide Microsoft OneNote.
Facebook will briefly display a yellow confirmation box, informing you that OneNote updates will now be hidden from view.
Here’s a brief animation that shows the steps in the previous procedure:
While OneNote fan page updates are hidden from view in your Facebook news feed, you can still visit the Microsoft OneNote fan page at any time by entering Microsoft OneNote into the Search box near the top of any Facebook page and then clicking the search result. It’s a fast way to return to the fan page whenever you want to check for updates on your own.
Restore hidden OneNote fan page updates
If you previously disabled OneNote fan page updates from your Facebook news feed and you’ve changed your mind about seeing automatic updates, you can easily restore them by following these steps:
- While signed in to your Facebook account, go to the Facebook home page at http://www.facebook.com/.
- Scroll to the very end of your Facebook news feed (the center column of your home page) until you see the navigation bar in the page footer:
- Click the Edit Options link.
- Near the top of the Hidden from News Feed popup dialog box, click the Pages link.
- Scroll down until you see Microsoft OneNote, and then click the Add to News Feed button.
When you have completed these steps, you will once again see automatic Microsoft OneNote fan page notifications in your Facebook news feed.
Interact with others — share what you know!
Remember, don’t be shy and participate by posting replies and your own info on the fan page wall! It’s just a conversation with like-minded people who enjoy and rely on OneNote in similar ways as you.
While it’s okay to lurk for a while and watch for tips that can help you out in your daily work, please do consider sharing some of your own tips with others by posting a reply to someone else’s question or by making a wall post that shares interesting OneNote tips and techniques that you’ve discovered. For example, did you devise your own filing system with OneNote? Share it! Have you discovered a great way to use OneNote for research? Tell the other fans! It’s a great way to get feedback about ideas and undocumented ways of using OneNote.
Of course, I encourage my valued readers to do the same right here on my OneNote blog. ;) Your comments are always welcome and appreciated, so please let me know if you found this information useful.
If you’ve used any Windows program for a while, you’re likely to have figured out some of its keyboard shortcuts by now. Keyboard shortcuts are the combinations of special keystrokes that can give you much quicker access to commands than if you were to click through the long trail of menus, toolbars, and other parts of the user interface. Many of the basic shortcut key combinations work consistently across all Windows programs, which means you won’t have to learn different ones when switching from one program to the next and performing the same task.
What’s in it for you?
Computers were supposed to save us time, right? Keyboard shortcuts can be incredible time-savers, so the short amount of time it takes to learn them is time well spent.
Surprisingly, not everyone gives keyboard shortcuts their due attention. Hardly a month goes by when I don’t hear somebody say that they’re “too busy” to learn a time-saver or two. The irony of that probably isn’t lost on anyone.
The truth is, we’ll always claim to be “too busy” for a lot of things that could really help us. For many, it’s simply an excuse to stick with what they know, or to slog through a task just to get it done, even if it’s the hard way. But imagine learning just a half-dozen keystrokes that could shave away more and more wasted time from all of the repetitive tasks that you perform every day. Over the span of a week or a month, the time you save can add up very quickly!
Discover keyboard shortcuts in OneNote menus
The easiest way to learn the most common keyboard shortcuts in OneNote 2007 is to look them up in the menus. For example, simply opening the Edit menu will show you its available keyboard shortcuts (outlined in red below) right next to each menu command:
Some menu commands (such as the Snap to Grid command shown here) do not have keyboard shortcuts available. In most cases, this is because the commands in question are designed to be used infrequently.
Discover keyboard shortcuts in OneNote ScreenTips
You can also choose to display available keyboard shortcuts in the ScreenTips that appear when you mouse over buttons on the toolbar. Note that this is an optional setting, which means that you must first tell OneNote that you want to see keyboard shortcuts in your ScreenTips.
Here’s what ScreenTips on the toolbar look like before and after you enable their keyboard shortcut display:
To turn on keyboard shortcuts in ScreenTips, follow these steps:
- In OneNote 2007, move the mouse pointer over any toolbar button and then right-click it to display the shortcut menu:
- On the shortcut menu, click the Customize command.
- In the Customize dialog box that opens, make sure that the Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips box is checked:
You must also have the Show ScreenTips on toolbars box checked, as shown here.
How to use keyboard shortcuts
I’ve seen many people immediately give up on trying out keyboard shortcuts because “they didn’t seem to work right.” This can happen when there’s no immediate, visible result to using the shortcut command (for example, when copying a selection of text, the command won’t seem to do anything until you actually paste the selection somewhere else). In this case, think through the completion of the greater task and then see if you get the result you expected. If not, try it with a different selection or on a different page in your notebook and start over.
If none of the keyboard shortcuts seem to work, make sure you only type the keys that are part of the command. For example, when you see “CTRL+C” documented as the shortcut for the Copy command, note that the “+” sign isn’t actually typed as part of the keystroke sequence. The “+” symbol merely indicates that you should press the surrounding keys simultaneously. So, “CTRL+C” means holding down the CTRL key and then pressing the C key on your keyboard. When you let go of both keys, the command is executed in the same way as if you clicked the Copy command on the Edit menu.
Some keyboard shortcuts consist of more than two key sequences. For example, to insert a new column to the left in a table, the keyboard shortcut sequence is CTRL+ALT+E. Here again, neither “+” symbol is to be used. Hold down the CTRL key, then hold down the ALT key, and then press E. When you let go of all three keys, the command is executed.
Don’t be afraid to experiment!
If you make a mistake while trying out keyboard shortcuts, you can always use the Undo command (on the Edit menu) to go back to the way things were before the last thing you tried. This is useful whenever you try out a keyboard shortcut that did not give you the result you expected.
The Undo command has its own keyboard shortcut! You can press CTRL+Z to undo the last action, whatever it was. Try practicing this until you get used to it: On any page in your OneNote notebook, type some random text anywhere, and then press CTRL+Z. The text you just typed will disappear as if you never typed it. Note that you can step backwards multiple times, if needed, by using the Undo command repeatedly. If you go back too far, using the Redo command (CTRL+Y) will let you step forward again.
Look up all of the keyboard shortcuts in OneNote
Not all keyboard shortcuts are discoverable in the user interface. On the Office Online Web site, where my fellow tech writers and editors publish all of the free “Help & How-to” content for each Microsoft Office program, you can look up all of the keyboard shortcuts available for the various Office 2007 programs that you use, including OneNote.
For example, here’s what the reference article for the keyboard shortcuts in OneNote 2007 looks like:
(Click here to view the full OneNote keyboard shortcuts reference article on Office Online.)
The information in this reference article is organized by several categories — from the standard Office-wide features, whose shortcuts are the same across all Office programs, to the specific features areas whose keyboard shortcuts apply specifically to the OneNote 2007 interface.
As you scroll through the main category headings (shown in orange), you can click the “+” symbol next to each sub-category whose list of shortcuts you want to view:
Clicking the “+” symbol next to a sub-category expands the full table of shortcuts for that section.
If you know (or guess) that a specific keyboard shortcut exists for a particular OneNote feature, you can use your Web browser’s “Find on Page” feature to quickly look up a particular keyboard shortcut in the reference charts. To do this, you must first expand all of the subcategories in the reference article you are looking at. Don’t worry; you won’t have to click dozens of these one-by-one. There’s an easier way.
Near the top of the article, click the “Show All” link to expand all sections at once:
Once all of the reference sections in the article have been expanded, press CTRL+F in your Web browser to bring up the “Find on Page” search box, which is built into Windows Internet Explorer and Firefox (check your Web browser’s documentation for details):
Now just type a word or phrase describing a OneNote feature or user interface element that you want to find (for example, “side note”), and then press ENTER. If one or more matches are found, scroll through the highlighted results in the text by clicking Next. This is an easy way to discover all of the keyboard shortcuts associated with your particular search term.
If you’re not having any luck with your search right away, try again by entering a different word or phrase.
Quick access to the keyboard shortcuts in OneNote
If you forget to bookmark the reference article for OneNote keyboard shortcuts, you can easily recall it from the Help menu, which is located at the far right of the menu bar in the OneNote 2007 program window:
Make sure you are connected to the Internet to see the most up-to-date version of the article.
Please post your feedback!
Was this walkthrough useful to you? Have you experimented with keyboard shortcuts in OneNote? If so, what are your favorites? Are there any features for which you wish we had keyboard shortcuts? Have you discovered any shortcuts that aren’t documented in the reference article? Post a comment here and let me know!
Lastly, I’m always interested in your feedback about OneNote (and Office) documentation. If you think there’s a better way to document keyboard shortcuts, I would love to hear your ideas!
The newest episode of the video series A Writer’s Guide to Microsoft Office — created by my colleague Joannie Stangeland and produced by yours truly — is now available. As did her premiere episode, Joannie’s latest video shines the spotlight on OneNote 2007, which she uses together with Outlook 2007 to track writing contests and writing submission deadlines.
Joannie modestly claims that hers is a very low-tech approach to tracking her writing work. But really, it’s just another great example of how easy it is to do real-life tasks in OneNote without a lot of up-front work or overhead. No matter what the task, OneNote adapts to the way you like to work. It doesn’t matter if you are the world’s most organized and methodical person or the kind who can’t remember where you put the car keys five minutes ago. (Okay, now... if OneNote could only help with that last example!)
Here’s the newest episode in its entirey. (To watch it in full-size HD format, click here!)
If you use OneNote and the other Office 2007 programs, you’re sure to pick up a lot of useful tips while watching Joannie’s entire series, even if you don't write fiction or poetry in your spare time.
Watch other episodes in this video series:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CB4DC3A0A9FB5A2E
Visit Joannie’s blog:
http://poe-query.blogspot.com
Watch other Office 2007 videos produced by my team here at work:
http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficeOnlineVideos
As always, your comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated. Let me know what type of content you find most useful in learning and mastering a program like OneNote, and what format(s) you prefer — written articles, short videos, Web-based training courses, slide shows, how-to blog posts, or step-by-step tutorials.
If you missed the big Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview announcement last week, you might not have heard about some of the exciting new and improved features that are in store for OneNote 2010.
To get a sneak peek at some of these, check out this video, hosted by my colleague Ayça Yuksel:
For those of you who want more details, my colleague David Rasmussen, the Group Program Manager on the OneNote product team, has put together this list of new & improved features that are planned for OneNote 2010. Nice job, David!
New and shiny things always get a lot of attention, but don’t worry — we have no intention of ending our support for OneNote 2007, the version you’re using right now. Office 2010 is still a long way’s away, and there’s a lot left to share about the great features in OneNote 2007. Stay tuned for more detailed feature walkthroughs, more best practices, more quick tips that you can try out on your lunch break, and more content updates and free templates from Office Online.
Got trouble with a particular OneNote 2007 feature or task? Drop me a line with specifics and I’ll consider your question for a possible feature walkthrough in a future blog post. Fair warning: I get a lot of mail, so please understand if I’m unable to respond personally to your message. Even if you don’t hear back from me, I promise I read each and every message I get here. :)
Meanwhile, feel free to post your comments and reactions to our OneNote 2010 announcement. I hope you’re as excited about the planned improvements as I am!
Back in January of this year, I provided shortcuts to the newest calendar templates for your OneNote 2007 notebooks. Since then, the Templates team at Office Online has been busy creating more free templates for you to download — including a full spectrum of customizable 2009 calendars and even a couple of early designs for next year.
Here are the direct links to these calendars:
As always, keep in mind that our free, ready-made templates can be easily customized to suit your personal needs and preferences. If a particular template doesn’t quite appeal to you, download it and use it as a starting point (it’s usually much easier to customize something than to start from scratch). You can then change the colors, fonts, layout, and any other formatting choices. When you’re done making changes, you can save your creation as a new custom template and apply it to new pages in your notebook.
To learn how to customize templates in OneNote, watch this video:
Watch now: Take the work out of note-taking with OneNote templates!
Aside from single page OneNote templates, you can also create section templates (a template of a section containing one or more pages) and notebook templates (a template of a notebook containing one or more sections) in OneNote. To do this, click the Save As command when you're all done with your design work, and then choose the “OneNote Single File Package (*.onepkg)” option as the file type:
Be sure to select the appropriate Page Range before saving the package (choose Current Section to save your selection as a section template or choose Current Notebook to save your selection as a notebook template).
The OneNote package file format lets you easily install your custom template creations on multiple computers. You can also use this method to share your template creations and designs with your friends, family, co-workers, or classmates. Recipients of OneNote 2007 package files need only double-click such files to install a template onto their own computer.
If you’ve personally created some useful OneNote templates that you'd like to share with other readers, feel free to post a link to your download location as a comment!
Ever wanted to convey to your friends, family, or co-workers what’s so great about OneNote?
This entertaining new video cuts to the chase: It’s the sharing!
Pass it on! ;)
Okay... to be fair to our Marketing folks, the truth is out there:
It’s always been out there. This is what you see printed on the spine label of any Office 2007 retail package that contains OneNote 2007. You can read this label if you happen to hold an actual product box in your hand at your local Office Depot or Staples. But how many of us still buy software in a brick-and-mortar store? What if you buy it online or it came preinstalled on your computer? What if you downloaded the OneNote trial version and then converted it to the full license? Chances are, unless you enjoy hunting down and reading fine print as a hobby, you probably never saw the advisory. And even though this information was also disclosed on our Web site, it’s probably just as unlikely that you saw it there.
Hands down, the “Send to OneNote 2007” print driver feature has become one of OneNote’s most popular features. It works as an extension to the printing system built into Windows. But instead of pressing ink onto paper in a real printer, it lets any application on your computer send (“print”) information directly to the electronic pages of your OneNote notebooks:
This is magical. In addition to saving a ton of paper, you can do many convenient things with this option, such as printing presentation handouts from PowerPoint directly into OneNote without using a single drop of ink, and then annotating and taking notes on your presentation right there in your notebook. (Never done this? See it in action in this video demo, inspired by former Microsoft business division president Jeff Raikes.) Think of it as a “reverse import,” which gives you more control over how you can send stuff into OneNote. The thing is, once you start to appreciate this feature, you’ll never want to give it up.
Back in 2004, when we began working on Office 2007, true 64-bit operating systems were still only a tiny blip on the collective tech radar and entirely absent from the consumer mainstream. What a difference a few years has made! Most national PC retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Sony, Gateway, HP, Dell, Alienware, and others now routinely preinstall 64-bit versions of Windows on their computers. The “Ultimate” edition of Windows Vista already contains both the 32-bit and the 64-bit DVDs in the same retail package for those customers that want to eventually upgrade. OneNote users who have been doing just that have been left wondering what the hell happened to the OneNote print driver they’ve grown to love. And no amount of fine print on the box was going to tip them off.
I’m very pleased to announce that my esteemed colleague David Rasmussen, the Principal Group Program Manager here on the OneNote team, has developed a solution to the conundrum. It allows users of 64-bit versions of Windows Vista (all editions) and also of the Windows 7 Beta to use the Send to OneNote 2007 print driver functionality on their systems.
First, make sure you’re running a 64-bit version of Windows by performing a quick and simple verification check on your computer.
To do this, follow these steps:
- In Windows Vista (or Windows 7 Beta), click the Start button on the Windows task bar.
- On the right side of the Start menu, right-click the word Computer and then click Properties on the shortcut menu that appears.
- In the System window that appears, scroll down to the “System” section and note the “System Type” indicated there:
• If the operating system type shown is 32-bit, you do not need the OneNote print driver fix mentioned in this post.
• If the operating system type shown is 64-bit, keep reading.
When you’ve made certain that your computer is indeed running a 64-bit version of Windows, head on over to David’s blog to learn how to download and install his solution.
Please note that this is not an official fix, which means that no technical support can be offered for this download. Some of you may still encounter issues, depending on your particular system configuration. For most of you, however, David’s solution should restore one of your favorite OneNote features. Many thanks to David for working diligently towards a solution and making it available for the benefit of OneNote fans everywhere.
If you do happen to run into issues while testing this solution, have general questions, or just want to leave David some well-deserved kudos, please be sure to leave him direct feedback by posting a comment on his blog.
A couple of things in closing:
- If you’re running a 32-bit version of Windows XP or Windows Vista and the Send to OneNote 2007 print driver feature appears to have stopped working, please see OneNote Program Manager Daniel Escapa’s September 12, 2008 blog post about a separate, unrelated situation that may have been caused by a particular update for Microsoft Office 2007 for a limited number of users.
- If you want to read a brief history of why a 64-bit version of the OneNote print driver has been challenging to develop, you can read David Rasmussen’s April 21, 2008 blog post for an explanation of what’s involved. (He has since updated this archived post with a link to the new solution he just posted.)
I hope many of you will benefit from David’s solution. Please remember... keep the conversation going! Talk to us on our blogs and let us know how you use OneNote, what you love about it, and what you’d like to see in future versions.
