July 25, 2010

OneNote 2010 – Syncing And Sharing

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Previously:
OneNote 2010 – Introduction
OneNote 2010 – Outlook Integration

Stick with me. I’m going to describe the feature built into OneNote 2010 that works so well – quietly, seamlessly – that it deserves to be noticed, used, and celebrated.

OneNote 2010 is designed to be used on multiple computers. When you create a notebook, the first option is to store the notebook online. It’s not a requirement but it’s highly recommended.

It doesn’t change your use of OneNote. The program opens and you can use it, regardless of whether you’re online or offline.

But when you’re online (and you’re almost always online), anything you do in the notebook is synced almost instantly to the copy of the notebook stored in the cloud. (If you’re offline, anything done in the notebook is synced the next time you connect.)

And then the magic happens. If you open that notebook on a second computer, changes will be synced back and forth between the computers in real time.

If you’re sharing that notebook with someone else, the two of you can work on it simultaneously and see each other’s additions immediately. There are no restrictions. The two of you can work on the same page at the same time. New material will have a subtle icon to indicate which person added it to the page.

It’s worth noting that OneNote saves everything continuously, automatically, instantly. You never have to remember to save anything in OneNote. It’s saved as you enter it.

This can completely transform the process of collaborating on a project. One consultant put his entire business into shared OneNote notebooks using OneNote 2007; his suggestions would be even easier to implement in the new version.

Before you try putting a notebook online, get your Windows Live ID straightened out. OneNote uses Skydrive to store the online notebooks; you’ll have to be able to log into Skydrive before you work with OneNote’s online features.

The program expects you to store notebooks online. It’s the first choice when you create a new notebook. If you have existing notebooks, click on File / Share for a single-click way to move the notebook online. I created a notebook stored in my Documents folder, then clicked on File / Share. A single click on the “Share Notebook” button moves it online.

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The easiest way to open the online notebook on your second computer is to mail yourself a link to it from the first computer. The URL is shown on the File / Share page, suitable for copying, or you can click “Email Others About the Notebook” and address a message to yourself so you receive it on the second computer. The incoming message will have a link that automatically opens the notebook.

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After your notebooks are online, you can also open them from Skydrive in a web browser – OneNote is one of the Office Web Apps. Like the other Office Web Apps, the online version is functional but poorly designed, with a fatal flaw: there is no way to perform a search in the online notebooks. That makes the online web app mildly interesting if you keep your notebooks obsessively organized, and essentially useless if you don’t know exactly where to look. OneNote is built (brilliantly) around the ability to find things quickly, so I find the lack of online search to be baffling.

Recently I wrote an article about my bitter disappointment with Microsoft’s introduction of various ways to sync files among computers and share documents online. OneNote is the brilliant exception. Put your notebooks online, open them from each of the computers you use regularly, and share notebooks whenever you’re collaborating on a project.

Technical note: in some respects, the notebook syncing resembles what Dropbox does so well to sync files between computers. In this case (and this case only), use Microsoft’s built-in sync instead of Dropbox. That’s the only way to take advantage of the ability to work on notebooks simultaneously from different computers; it won’t work if the notebook is stored in Dropbox.

The OneNote team has delivered a brilliantly designed program, with features that complement the other Office 2010 programs and better online integration that anything else released by Microsoft so far. Pay attention to OneNote and make it part of your daily workflow!

Posted by Bruce Berls | July 25, 2010 11:15 pm | file_sharing, Microsoft, Office, software, web_services, Windows Live
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11 Responses to “OneNote 2010 – Syncing And Sharing”

  1. Microsoft Makes OneNote Available On iPhone For Free | bruceb consulting - news Says:
    January 19th, 2011 at 9:38 am

    [...] OneNote notebooks online  One of the strong points of OneNote 2010 is its ability to store notebooks in the cloud in a seamless way, allowing them to be accessed from multiple computers. The iPhone app opens those online notebooks [...]

  2. Mary Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 10:38 am

    I am trying to use OneNote 2010 to collaborate on documents. We are constantly getting the “This page has changes that could not be merged during synchronization” message.
    The “fix” of copying the page to another page works for a few hours, maybe.
    I must be missing something. Can you collaborate on documents that are in OneNote? By “in OneNote”, I mean that there is an icon which is a link to the document whose path is on one individual’s computer. The OneNote notebook is sharing in SkyDrive.

    When the other person opens OneNote on her computer, she sees the shared notebook, can open it and can open documents in it. The trouble is that after a short while, we get the “changes cannot be merged” message. There aren’t any errors listed in the Synchronization app. Sometimes it’s a file and sometimes it is just a note on a page.

    We are both working on a document in OneNote at the same time. These documents are not saved in a folder on SkyDrive, they are part of a notebook.

    C’mon on, man! Isn’t this what OneNote on SkyDrive is for?

  3. Bruce Berls Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 8:55 pm

    Ouch! Yup, that’s exactly what it’s for. I haven’t run into that problem, so I don’t have any suggestions. Microsoft’s implementation of shared online documents has been so weak that it’s the poster child in my mind for Microsoft’s fading ability to deliver leading edge technology. OneNote was supposed to be the happy exception. Maybe it’s not as exceptional as I was hoping.

    Have you noticed the silence from Microsoft about anything that would improve Skydrive or Office Web Apps? Nothing. Nada.

  4. Doug Says:
    April 27th, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    I’m having the exact same problem, but it happens when I edit a skydrive ON document from my iPhone. I get a sync error on my iPhone, then later on my home computer I get this message. It actually seems to be synchronizing correctly, meaning, the changes I made on the iPhone are there on my home computer too. But they don’t provide any way to fix it. Copying the note is just a kludgy work-around. I noticed the exact same error posted in 2006 for OneNote version 2007. You would think they could have fixed this issue by now.

  5. Erin Says:
    April 30th, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    I have a quick question – if I use the on-line feature, can I also make it save a copy onto my hard drive as a regular back up? If it’s online, where does it save my changes while I’m working on the note while I am offline?

    Thanks!

  6. Bruce Berls Says:
    May 1st, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    Details are a little hazy in my mind but there are two answers:

    Your copy of OneNote autosaves into a local cache on your hard drive, usually in C:Users(username)AppDataLocalMicrosoftOneNote. OneNote then syncs the changes to the online notebook stored in Skydrive.

    You’re not really meant to touch that cache – it’s not impossible, but it’s not intended to be easy. There are some fairly complex instructions here if you ever need to do that in a crisis: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/500-words-into-the-future-10014052/how-to-open-the-onenote-cache-file-10018148/

    However, OneNote is also automatically doing a separate backup of your notebooks to your local hard drive every day. Look under Options / Save & Backup. You’ll see default settings to create a backup copy every day, and save two backups at all times. The backups are stored by default in C:Users(username)AppDataLocalMicrosoftOneNote. You can open them with File / Info / Open Backups. Not bad, eh?

    Bruce

  7. Firas Says:
    December 19th, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    So i just set up OneNote on my iPad this morning and linked with my skydive account happily expecting that I can take notes on the iPad and see them on my Computer when I am at my desk. However anytime I make an edit to any note on the iPad it disappears from the computer; none of the notes/pages show up on the computer “version” even though it syncs properly and also shows the location as the skydive. In fact the computer copy shows that notebook as completely empty even though it was originally created on the computer.

    Any clues?

  8. Bruce Berls Says:
    December 19th, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    Wow. That’s not good. Are you using the new iPad app – the one released a few days ago? The iPad is supposed to be as fully integrated as any other device, syncing changes seamlessly. I haven’t tested it or heard any feedback yet. If you don’t have the new app, it’s in the App store but was a little hard to find a few days ago – I had to scroll to the end of all the apps when I searched for “OneNote” before I spotted it.

    I’m not sure what to tell you except to make sure you have a backup of your data, just in case – syncing problems can destroy data in seconds (not just with OneNote but with any kind of syncing).

  9. Jason Says:
    January 17th, 2012 at 10:39 am

    Sync doesn’t work well with iPhone. If I leave my web-browser on laptop open to OneNote, then try to enter new items from my iPhone, synchronization fails 100% of the time.

    Great concept, but it does not work well. I will look for other solutions.

  10. Josh Says:
    February 6th, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    I am trying to sync OneNote to our internal network. When I send the link to another party (giving them clearance to view the contents of the folder), they just get the previous version of the OneNote notebook and are not able to sync. Is there something that I am missing when saving the notebook?

  11. Bruce Berls Says:
    February 6th, 2012 at 6:02 pm

    I’m not sure. There have been a few times that I’ve been frustrated when OneNote has turned out not to be quite as simple and carefree as I had hoped.

    You might be able to get help from Microsoft. It started offering support for Office products – free to a point, then paid – although it hasn’t publicized it much. Details are here: http://www.brucebnews.com/2011/12/live-tech-support-from-microsoft-answer-desk/

    Good luck!

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