Note-taking Software: OneNote

[DarkeSword]

None of my classmates or teachers here seem to have an with it, as I've never given a "holier than thou" impression when I do it. Even if people did have an issue, that's their problem, because my handwriting is horrible (motor coordination - actually have a disability service for it) and the benefits of being able to easily edit them later and keep them in one place are too good to give up.

An aside: gotta agree there, especially when using Microsoft's OneNote note-taking application.

[Shadow Wolf]

OneNote saved my college career. Now, since I don't know jack about the topic at hand, I'll leave.

[prophetik music]

onenote is possibly the best note software available. i used to use a pen-based writing tablet and transfer later, but that wasn't that good (and they didn't do drivers after windows 98 or 200 or ME, anyways).

[The Pezman]

I've never actually heard of OneNote. I always took notes in Word (which I switched to from OpenOffice after 2007 came out). I looked it up, but it's not clear how it works as opposed to Word or Powerpoint.

[Shadow Wolf]

Basically, the whole program is designed to work like a notebook, so when you fill a page, you create a new one and keep writing. The biggest advantage is that you can click anywhere on the work area and what you type will be put into separate textboxes for each place you click. Then you can take your boxes of text, either during or after a lecture, and drag them around and put arrows between them to create flowcharts, reference rabbit trails without breaking the flow of the main document, throw web addresses in, etc. Basically, it's like a Word document, but you can move all the sections around to make much more sense visually. It's excellent. Anyhow, since we're getting consistently off topic here, should we just make a OneNote thread in OffTop?

[DarkeSword]

SPLIT TO A NEW THREAD

It has a lot of organization and collaboration tools right there at your fingertips. It's a lot like a notebook in that you can put text anywhere (not locked into a top-to-bottom Word document). It makes it easier for drawing flowcharts and diagrams, and it's got collaboration too, so you can have shared whiteboard sessions and stuff. I used it a lot when I was in college and turned a lot of my friends on to it. We used the shared whiteboard a lot during senior project planning sessions. It's very powerful.

[Dhsu]

Wow, that sounds awesome.

Wouldn't have helpd when I was in college though, as I was too paranoid to bring my laptop to class. And also too poor to pay for whatever Microsoft is asking for it.

[Random Hajile]

One Note saved me this semester.

The best part is the tagging items as "Important" and "Definition" then creating a summary chart for tests with all the important topics and definitions. I create 2-3 page study guides that absolutely rape anything the non-one-noters come up with.

All these kids ask me how I never go to class and do so well, I just read the book, use one-note, take adderall and study my study guide

CHA-CHING insta-A.

And not to condone piracy or anything..... but I've never bought office in my life.

[The Pezman]

OKay, gonna bring this back.

1) Any Mac equivalent? NOt a big deal if there isn't, but I'd prefer to not run VMWare every time I'm in class.

2) I haven't used many of the other features of OneNote besides the general idea of putting paragraphs wherever I want them. How do you draw and send whiteboard sessions back and forth? Where can I go to find out more information?

[DarkeSword]

Try Evernote.

As for whiteboards in OneNote, you have to set up a shared workbook or a live sharing session. It's in the Share menu.

[Secret Agent Man]

Note that if you belong to MSDN Academic Alliance you can download OneNote 2003 for free. I wish our university still had the entire Office suite available for $10. Now it's ridiculously expensive still, so I've been using OpenOffice for notes and other word processing needs.