Newsletter Archives
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Longstanding feature requests, and their status
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By Mary Branscombe
We’ve been waiting a long time for the OneNote features promised in 2019.
I asked Microsoft to tell us what’s coming when.
The very first time I heard about OneNote, at a press briefing for Office 2003, I saw how useful it would be — but there were also some things that I thought wouldn’t work. I went over to talk to Microsoft’s Chris Pratley and spent the next 20 minutes trapping him in a corner between the wall and the lunch table, making suggestions and asking for changes, before a PR person tactfully extracted him.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.22.0, 2023-05-29).
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My favorite OneNote tricks
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By Mary Branscombe
Once you get all your useful information into OneNote, there are some ways to make things go faster.
For a long time, one of the most common feature requests for OneNote was already in the product — being able to have more than one window open at once. It just wasn’t easy to find. There are useful tricks like that in OneNote. Here are my favorites.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.17.0, 2023-04-24).
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What’s wrong with OneNote — and what you can fix
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By Mary Branscombe
OneNote is one of my favorite applications — but one that frustrates me far too often.
It’s not me or you — it’s OneNote. Here’s a quick rundown of the annoying things that are just too hard (or downright impossible) to use, and some tips about how you can make those annoyances less so.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.13.0, 2023-03-27).
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Why sharing in OneNote isn’t easy, and how to fix it
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By Mary Branscombe
It will get simpler eventually, but for now you must plan ahead and double-check which account you’re using.
OneNote automatically syncs all the notes you create between all the devices you use it on — and those don’t have to be only your own devices. You can share notebooks with other people and — as long as they’re stored somewhere they can connect to — they can see and update the information in OneNote. The same goes for your own multiple Microsoft accounts, such as work and personal; you can get access to your notes from both.
But there are a few quirks to the way sharing works in OneNote that can trip you up if you’re not clear about how it works. There are also some long-standing frustrations and limitations that we’re still waiting to see fixed.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.08.0, 2023-02-20).
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Getting everything you care about into OneNote
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By Mary Branscombe
OneNote becomes increasingly useful as you put more and more of your information into it, and there are many other ways to do that besides typing or using copy and paste.
Last time, I looked at why you might want to pull different kinds of information into OneNote. There are lots of tools in OneNote itself for doing that, as well as browser extensions and third-party services that can help.
You can also do many of these things in the Windows 10 OneNote app, but because that won’t be getting new features, I will discuss only how to do them in the desktop OneNote app.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.50.0, 2022-12-12).
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Why would you use OneNote at all?
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By Mary Branscombe
If you’ve never seen the point of a digital shoebox for notes, here are some ways of putting OneNote to use that could change your mind.
From the feedback I get when I talk about OneNote, it’s clear that there are plenty of devoted fans and heavy users out there. But I also get questions asking why you should use OneNote, and what it’s good at.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.47.0, 2022-11-21).
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Only Microsoft could make getting to one OneNote this confusing
ISSUE 19.45 • 2022-11-07 ONENOTE
By Mary Branscombe
OneNote for Windows 10 isn’t gone yet — but things are getting simpler.
Well, maybe a little.
As I’ve explained before, the OneNote app that came with Windows 10 will be going away; it’s getting replaced by an updated version of the desktop OneNote program. Microsoft recently took the next step toward that end by removing the OneNote for Windows 10 app from the Microsoft Store and replacing it with the desktop app, now called simply “OneNote.”
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.45.0, 2022-11-07).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter. -
How to fix the most common OneNote sync problems
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By Mary Branscombe
If OneNote stops moving your notes around properly, you can usually get it unstuck with these steps.
Last time, we looked at how OneNote sync works and how to fix basic problems (What to do when OneNote won’t sync, 2022-09-19). However, there are some common sync problems where you need to dig a little deeper or do some extra work yourself.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.43.0, 2022-10-24).