Sunday, October 04, 2015

How To Share Microsoft OneNote Across Devices

I happen to be one of those people who embraces IT and its uses in every day life, for example taking notes. For me, traditional note-taking using pen and paper is not only inefficient but also not supporting forest conservation (unlike using electronic devices where you can simply delete or undo a typo).

These are some of the awesome things about taking notes using iPad or good ol' laptop:

1. Use less paper, contributes to cost-saving
2. You can edit your notes later by using 'Copy+Paste' function instead of copying and re-writing your notes (saves time!)
3. With different choice of writing tool (pen, pencil, paintbrush, highlighter) in a notes app / software, you don't even have to worry about forgetting to bring a pen to a meeting!
4. You can even search your notes even those you took months ago without breaking a sweat!

There are plenty of note-taking apps out there, but the one that I like the most is none other than Microsoft OneNote:



OneNote is available across platforms and even on iOS

Even though Apple recently released an improved version of Notes, it still can't beat Microsoft OneNote in terms of looks and functions. OneNote looks very much like the traditional notebook complete with colored tabs for different sections. You can even add pages in each section so your notes will appear more organized and structured:

OneNote looks a lot like traditional paper notebook

There's a lot of things you can do using OneNote, like making checklists, creating reminders, saving web links for later reference, saving images (great for recipe / idea books!), do sketches, and many more! Simply put, there are endless possibilities with OneNote. Even more interesting, you can share your notebook with others so everyone can jot down their ideas and collaborate online on real-time. It's a great collaboration tool but this is something that I haven't really explored.

 

Since I use my iPad mini a lot during meetings, I am really grateful of the idea that OneNote can be synced across devices. There's only one snag - since my office network blocks OneDrive - Personal (it only allows access the company's SharePoint drive, I can only sync my OneNote if I bring my laptop home and use my own WiFi.

 

That is certainly not efficient if I have to refer to two different notebooks, so I decided to move my notebook on OneNote from my OneDrive  - Personal to the Company's OneDrive for Business / SharePoint.

 

What I have to do after that is to send the link to my company's email address, and then open the notebook from the link on my iPad once I'm logged on to my office network.

 

Moving OneNote is surprisingly tedious - you can't just copy and paste or move the whole notebook to the new location. This is basically the steps that I had to do to move my notebook:

1. Create a new file in my OneDrive for Business folder through OneNote (New > Other Web Locations > OneDrive for Business folder
2. Open the notebook that needs to be copied
3. Right-click each section and select 'Move or Copy...'
4. Wait for it to finish copying, repeat until every section is copied.
5. After the notebook has been uploaded on the new location, share the notebook by clicking on 'Invite People'.
6. Type company's email address and you will receive a link in your email
7. Open the link on your iPad, and then choose option to open in OneNote apps

Moving my notebook to OneDrive for Business

Copy in progress

 

I tried those steps and found that it works :) So basically I don't have to worry about outdated versions of notebook since it is totally synced between the notebook on my laptop and the one on my iPad.

 

So what's your favourite note-taking apps? Do share in the Comment section :)