I've been using OneNote as my primary "lab notebook" and note-taking program for a few years now. In my opinion it beats Evernote in visual/formatting ability, but it's quite a bit slower and clunkier in some situations, and syncing isn't as reliable as Evernote in my experience. So if all your notes are just text, and you don't like to add a lot of pictures, highlighting, etc., it might be overkill for you (in which Evernote would would be a great choice).
This post is a running list of tips and things I've found counter-intuitive, and frequently-used keyboard shortcuts and tricks I've come to rely on in OneNote. It's a reference for myself as much as for you.
1) Tables:
Tables in OneNote are clunky. They don't operate by the same rules as tables in Word or Excel. For example:
- To add a new row, you hit enter from the start of the row within a cell (rather than going to the end of row outside the cell like you do in Word).
- Alternatively, you right click > Table > Insert to add a row (unless you have the table formatting ribbon open).
- Row/column highlighting: Rather than highlighting just text within the cell (as you up-arrow holding shift), when you get to the first row (last of your selection) the selection jumps out of the table and highlights everything on the page. So you have to highlight to the second to row, and then arrow left (or ctrl+home) to get the last row. Kind of clunky if you're moving a lot around and used to Word tables.
- You can create a table by just hitting tab (instead of space after a word or phase, which will put that word or phase in the first cell).
Overall, I've found that OneNote tables are nice for very small tables (a few rows or a few columns) where you don't care if the formatting is perfect (i.e., you just want to tabularize it to make it clearer for note-taking or checking things off). But I wouldn't try doing detailed formatting in these, or expect functionality like Excel tables (or even word). The most recent version incorporates Excel tables, but you have to "convert" it to Excel, and it didn't interface well with the rest of the page the one time I tried that. It's also not backward compatible if you have an older version on another computer. However, this does let you sort, which you couldn't do the older versions.
2) Grouping content:
The structure: The first thing to know is that the structure goes like this:
Notebook > Section > Page > Subpage. You can also put section groups and subgroups in there, too. Pages are the only thing you can write on (but you can title the other things). For web-access, I find the groups and subgroups to be kind of clunky.
Syncing: If you work on one machine, it probably doesn't matter how you organize, but if you're on a lot of machines it can.
If you have multiple notebooks, you have to download each to every new computer separately. If you want the flexibility of choosing which notes go where, then many notebooks is for you. If you want everything to sync easily, and setup on a new computer or mobile to be easy, then fewer notebooks is better.
Naming notebooks and sections: Note that changing the name of a notebook is tricky. Once you make it (with the primary online anyway) the name is fixed. If you change the name on your computer, it won't change on the other computers that sync. It will still sync, but it will have the original name. This way, they are NOT like folders. Naming and renaming sections and pages doesn't work this way.
Sorting: Sections and pages cannot be sorted alphabetically without a special Power Toy. However, section groups will be sorted alpha by default. Notebooks will not be sorted alpha either. So keep that in mind since it can be a lot of work to keep things in order if you use alpha sort.
3) Working with the page itself
- Images and drawing: It's neat that you can copy a screen cap or image, paste it to your page and then draw on it (particularly if you use a table). However, the ink you add (highlights, pen, etc) don't follow the image. You can't even group those objects you drew with the original image object so that they move together. This means that if you then add text or anything before it, the image you copied will move down (just like in a Word doc), but the drawn objects will stay where they are as if they are physically attached to the background of the page. This baffles me b/c I can't see any reason someone would want it and it makes it impractical for note taking.
- OneNote can do math and recognize Latex equations. These aren't dynamic though. It will convert "1+1=" to 2. That's convenient, but also irritating if just want to show "1+1". This can be turned off, or if you just "undo" (ctrl+z) you get 1+1 back. All the latex equations I've tried work (e.g., \y_i becomes "y sub i" and \alpha becomes the alpha symbol), but I don't do too many equations and haven't tried anything too complex. You then have Office equation objects that you can edit, but you can't get the Latex code version (i.e., what you typed in) back if you like editing that way. Note, this function works in Word, too. And I think in Excel
- When you copy and paste text from a website it automatically copies the URL too, cutting out one step. Only irritating if you're copying a lot from one site in multiple steps and don't want the URL each time.
- Page hyperlinks are the best! Just highlight the page or section you want to link to in your current page and right click. Pick "link to page/section", Then paste that in in your new page. You can make yourself a mini "web page" or set of reference materials this way. I'm organizing my stat references and code this way, setting it up "like a webpage" but in OneNote and it's pretty convenient to setup and use.
4) Keyboard shortcuts and other Office conventions:
- Although some conventions aren't like Word, many are, so KB shortcuts for font, etc. work like word.
- You can change indent/outdent for bullets with tab and backspace, which is really convenient. Or you can you can still use Word's (ctrl+alt+ao and ctrl+alt+ai).
5) Tweaks
See this site: http://www.onenotepowertoys.com/
6) Things that can really mess you up
If you're syncing to OneDrive, then changing notebook names on your local machine only changes them on that machine. They won't be changed on other machines, and the actual notebook file name won't change (the name you see in OneNote is really just a label, not a file name). If I want to change the name (even the display name), my habit has become to a) make sure the notebook is synced, close the notebook, change the names in OneDrive, and then download it to OneNote on my computer.
