I’m a huge fan of Microsoft OneNote since a few years back and I use it to store anything about everything. It all started 10 years ago with a simple Notepad document in which i kept all important notes; such as programming tips, important Urls etc. When OneNote came I felt that I was a few years behind :-)

The new Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 (beta 2) is such a nice upgrade to the 2003 version. The most interesting things I found after using it for a day is:

  • Easier to sketch using the new shapes - creating sketches using non-tablet laptop was a mess
  • The nice integration with Outlook - and yes it works with Outlook 2003. Read more about it in Chris Pratley’s OneNote Blog.
  • The new and improved left navigation - moving between notebooks (top-level sections) and section was very inefficient in the 2003 version
  • Tables! Yes! Now you can create tables in your pages!

But, it’s a beta and there are some annoying things:

  • There seems to be some loss of data when importing your old Notebooks, espescially text that has been copied from a website. Make sure to backup your Notebook folder, because the upgrade is not reversible.
  • The background images/themes on imported Notebooks disappear and the background is by default white. So pages that have white text or sketches can be hard to read..

Now it’s time to get some more of the Office 2007 beta programs…