OneNote has been one of those applications that I’ve been meaning to try for a long time, and never quite got round to it. Now I finally have, and I am so glad!

Lots of software titles are supposed to help make us all work more effectively, get things done more quickly, work smarter and better. Very few applications seem to live up to that billing and become essential, everyday tools for us.

After a very short time working with it, OneNote feels like it will certainly become one of those select few favorite and essential tools. OneNote is already making me feel a whole lot better organized after just a couple of days of using it. And it’s just a joy to work with – its interface is spectacular for notetaking and organizing thoughts and projects.

OneNote 2007 (on the PC) Quick Thoughts:

The things that most strike me about OneNote so far are:

• It is powerful. You can do so much within this app – simple notetaking, add audio / video, pictures, create hyperlinks within your separate notebook sections, move text and other objects around the screen easily with widgets layout. Just about everything you throw into is searchable – your own notes, text from web pages copied into it, text from business cards that you snapped a pic of with your smartphone etc. Its feature list is huge and I am only just setting out on getting to know it.
• You can spend all day in it. Meaning, it’s a great place to get all your thoughts together and keep them well organized – project planning notes, research results, links etc.
• The Notebook-like interface is effective, and it’s elegant. Which is why you can spend all day in it. Many of the things listed in the first bullet could be done in Word or some other app, but most of them are clumsy to work with and not well done. OneNote’s user interface is just superb to work with. The framework of working with Notebooks – for Work, Personal etc, or by project or client etc – and then having sections within each notebook and pages within each section, is easy and intuitive to work with. This sort of interface has been done before (one I recall from way back with a similar sort of concept is Lotus Organizer), but not this well.

OneNote Mobile Quick Thoughts:

I’ve been using OneNote 2007 Beta, and have also installed its OneNote Mobile companion onto my most-used Windows Mobile device (the 8125).

• It’s VERY limited so far . Notetaking with OneNote Mobile is very basic – no better than the in-built Notes program in Windows Mobile. But … it does have easy Soft Menu options for inserting a picture, firing up the camera to take a new pic, or adding a voice note.
• It may lead me to make more use of Voice Notes and camera shots on the 8125 – as you can easily insert these in OneNote Mobile and it will sync the file automatically to the PC, where you can work with them further. This could prove quite handy, having several related pics and voice notes in one central place.
• It could be great – if more of the ‘pretty stuff’ from the desktop version finds it way into OneNote Mobile. The heavy use of tabs in the desktop version is something that could work nicely on a handheld device, where screen real estate is always at a premium.
• Sync works well, but is only one-way. Syncing works fine via ActiveSync, but only goes from device to PC. Hopefully that will change soon.

This is Beta software, so I fully expect that it may cause me some headaches on the desktop and / or my Windows Mobile device. I also hope and expect that features will be added to the OneNote Mobile software even while it remains in beta.

For more information on OneNote 2007 and its mobile companion, have a look at:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/programs/onenote/highlights.mspx

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