Multiple OneNotes on one computer

S

Safi

I just got OneNote and love it. I would like to use different OneNotes for
different topics. I have a LOT of things to organize and find that one topic
is maximizing the organization of one OneNote.

When I try to pull up a second OneNote (so that one can be for "Hobbies" and
one for "Trading" and so on, it always defaults to the original one that I
have created, and does not open a new document. Word, Excel, Access all allow
multiple documents.

How can I do this? Thanks!!
 
R

Rainald Taesler

Safi said:
I just got OneNote and love it. I would like to use different
OneNotes for different topics. I have a LOT of things to organize
and find that one topic is maximizing the organization of one
OneNote.
Click to expand...

ON simply is great for that.
When I try to pull up a second OneNote (so that one can be for
"Hobbies" and one for "Trading" and so on, it always defaults to
the original one that I have created, and does not open a new
document. Word, Excel, Access all allow multiple documents.
Click to expand...

If you open ON again just another instance comes up which hold what's
open in ON.
This feature comes really fine if one wants to compare things.

But things are really simple:
In OneNote one works with notebooks.
You can create as many notebooks as you need for different purposes.

And the normal way to work just to open all of the notebooks one works
with.
All of the notebooks open are shown in the navigation pane at left side.

Rainald
P.S. Different from other apps one does not close the notebooks. One
just leaves them open. One closes ON as a whole entity when done.
And hen opening ON again, all notebooks loaded and ready for work.
 
R

Rainald Taesler

Ben said:
To create a new notebook, by the way, just click File | New |
Notebook...
Click to expand...

Whom are trying to tell this??

Sometimes I can just only wonder on how you are trying TO DO your job as
an MVP {siiiiigh}

Rainald

 
E

ekseks

Safi,

In your 2nd paragraph you say "When I try to pull up a second OneNote...".

Just so there is no confusion, this would be a 2nd (new) notebook from the
File | New menu as stated by Ben.
 
S

Safi

Team, thanks very much for your excellent and timely responses! I do believe
that ON is missing a valuable attribute by not having multiple ONs available
for one desktop. Currently ON has 3 levels of organization: notebooks,
sections and pages. This could very easily be increased to 4 levels simply by
making multiple ONs available on a desktop. For a product whose primary
attribute is to promote organization, it seems a very logical approach
(unless you would add a fourth level of tabs across the bottom to organize
the pages. Best from my perspective would be to do both:).

You have a unique and awesome product, which I believe could be improved
significantly. I for one would gladly pay for an upgrade to capture these
benefits. I realize there may be technical challenges, but this is unknown to
me.

Thanks for your attention!

Safi
 
J

John Waller

Will multiple Notebooks (hobbies, trading etc) in the same instance of
OneNote not work for you as previously suggested?

Inside each Notebook you can have Section Groups, Sections, Pages and
Sub-pages giving you lots of options for organising information.

Can you give us more idea of what you're trying to organize and how?
 
E

ekseks

To further explain the concept, I always keep between 9 to 11 different
notebooks open at one time. These line up down the left side of the screen.
Wouldn't this give you the "4th level" you are looking for? (Not to mention
the Section Groups, Sections, Pages and Sub-pages as said by John).

Having many notebooks open at one time is a feature in OneNote 2007 that was
not there in 2003 (so I've been told). Are you using the 2007 version? It is
what I use and it is great!!
 
J

John Waller

Having many notebooks open at one time is a feature in OneNote 2007 that
was
not there in 2003 (so I've been told).
Click to expand...

That's correct.

The multiple notebooks feature was introduced in ON2007 following customer
demand.

"One interesting request we've heard with some frequency is support for
multiple notebooks (instead of having just one big notebook with structure
inside it)."

"And that’s the basic organizational story in OneNote 12 (aka 2007) – you
can have multiple notebooks, each of which has its own set of sections, each
of which (just like the first version) has its own set of pages."

http://blogs.msdn.com/owen_braun/archive/2005/09/23/473134.aspx
 
R

Rainald Taesler

Safi said:
Team, thanks very much for your excellent and timely responses! I
do believe that ON is missing a valuable attribute by not having
multiple ONs available for one desktop. Currently ON has 3 levels
of organization: notebooks, sections and pages.
Click to expand...

You overlooked one important level: Section Groups.
This is the next level below the main "notebook level" and a level above
the sections.
And: One can add as many levels as one needs, as section groups can be
*nested* (i.e.: one can create section groups inside a section group).
This way one can create a theoretically endless hierarchy.
This could very
easily be increased to 4 levels simply by making multiple ONs
available on a desktop.
Click to expand...

As said, the fourth level is there and levels can even be extended.
For a product whose primary attribute is
to promote organization, it seems a very logical approach (unless
you would add a fourth level of tabs across the bottom to organize
the pages. Best from my perspective would be to do both:).
Click to expand...
You have a unique and awesome product, which I believe could be
improved significantly. I for one would gladly pay for an upgrade
to capture these benefits. I realize there may be technical
challenges, but this is unknown to me.
Click to expand...

AFAICS there is no need for opening a second instance of ON with
*different* notebooks.
To the contrary this would spoil basic concepts of OneNote.
As said before, ON in many respects is different from apps like Word
which is centered on individual documents. OneNote 2007 just is centered
on having multiple notebooks with their own hierarchy open. The user
interface combines the traditional concepts of MDI (multiple document
interface) and SDI (single document interface) applications and the
designer not take over the concept which MS introduced in the nineties
when they switched from MDI to some kind of mixture.

Still one can make use of opening a second instance of ON (or even
more). This second instance will come up in the same state as the
currently active ON window. But it's easy enough to just navigate to any
wanted notebook and by this have 2 notebooks by side (or overlapping).

Hopefully working with section groups (and nested section groups) will
give you all you might need.

Rainald
 
C

Carmen Gauvin-O'Donnell

Actually, if you mean multiple instances of OneNote, you can do that by
making sure that OneNote is active in the taskbar and then click Ctrl-M to
open an other instance of it. I dod that all the time when dictating from
one place in OneNote into another, for instance.\

Is that what you were looking for?

Carmen
 
R

Rainald Taesler

Carmen said:
Actually, if you mean multiple instances of OneNote, you can do
that by making sure that OneNote is active in the taskbar and then
click Ctrl-M to open an other instance of it. I dod that all the
time when dictating from one place in OneNote into another, for
instance.\

Is that what you were looking for?
Click to expand...

I don't think so.
The OP wants to have multiple instances of ON open with *different*
content.
That's not possible as a second instance is not empty but shows all of
what is open in the current instance of ON.

IMHO the feature the OP is looking for just is not needed.

Rainald
 
S

Safi

Rainald, Carmen, others, thanks much for your help. I am pleased to learn of
the "Ctrl-M" function. I have not been using the section groups (or the
"stacking" of groups"). This certainly takes care of the need for additional
levels of organization. I still like my idea:) but this information will go
a long way.Thanks for your excellent help!!
 
R

Rainald Taesler

Safi said:
Rainald, Carmen, others, thanks much for your help. I am pleased
to learn of the "Ctrl-M" function. I have not been using the
section groups (or the "stacking" of groups"). This certainly takes
care of the need for additional levels of organization. I still
like my idea:) but this information will go a long way.
Click to expand...

I don't think that your wish would make it into a new version of ON.
Thanks for your excellent help!!
Click to expand...

De nada.
Have fun with ON, it's a really great set of instruments.

Rainald
 

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