how do I draw straight lines in OneNote

[Out of Hiding]

I'm having a blast using OneNote to help me format my mind-map exercises when
plotting out my work. My handwriting is atrocious, so I'm glad that I can
type text when I need some.

My question is that I'm using OneNote to help me generate flowchart-style
diagrams, and I don't know how to draw straight lines or boxes. At least Word
and Excel have a feature called autoshapes to help in this department. I
thought "snap to grid" might help, but that's only for placing elements into
the page, not drawing boxes.

I'm using a wacom graphics tablet as my input source for drawing boxes. As
I'm not drawing directly on the screen of my laptop it's a challenge to my
hand/eye coordination to watch the screen and draw on the tablet at my side.

Could this become an additional feature or add-in?

 

[flibbertigibbet007]

To answer your subect "Very carefully!"
Seriously, there is a nother post in this newsgroup about some site that had
some nice simple box, line, circle, images, that you can just plop into
onenote.
I'm sure one of the MVPs will tell us about it.
-James

 

[Erik Sojka (MVP)]

The Autoshapes feature and other drawing features found in the Office
programs are not available in the current version of OneNote.

The workaround I use is to draw the boxes/lines/whatever using the pen (a
Tablet PC pen in my case) and later on, when I'm performing my normal
review of my notes, recreate the drawings in Word or Visio. I export the
drawing as a JPG file and then insert it into my note.

"=?Utf-8?B?T3V0IG9mIEhpZGluZw==?=" <Out of
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in

 

[Erik Sojka (MVP)]

I forgot this in my other response.

There are some limited-use shapes on Fred Zimmerman's site:
http://www.wfzimmerman.com/filemgmt/viewcat.php?cid=1

Look for "shapes for brainstorming". The shapes are not true shapes as
you might be used to from Word or Visio. They can only be resized and
stretched.

=?Utf-8?B?ZmxpYmJlcnRpZ2liYmV0MDA3?=

 

[Out of Hiding]

Thanks Erik and James,

You answered my question, but I'm still not satisfied. Not with your
answers, but with the partial implementation of what could be a really cool
tool. OneNote really helps me to organize my thoughts, and it directs my
organizing even while working the way I think. Then we get to the box thing
and my sketches look like crap. :-(

I'm not happy about importing box diagrams from other programs. Also,
Kathryn's shapes work well if I use OneNote for handwritten blobs, but my
intent is to write text in boxes and then draw a box around them. I guess
I'll have to get good at freehand drawing.

When's the 2005 update supposed to happen?

-Tony