ON as a file container

[minimus]

ON has become my sole work place., I now keep many important PDF files on ON
pages. But I am scared of doing this. I am afraid one day ON will loose
these files. For example because I change the location of the page which
contains PDF files. How reasonable is it to keep PDF files embedded in ON?
Now you will advise me to keep backups of PDF files in separate windows
folders but this I don't want to do. The reason is that this is cumbersome.
Each time I inset a PDF on a ON page I need to create a windows folder that
should have a logical name and location. But ON is there exactly to avoid
this. ON is the place for everything and I don't want to create parts of
this everything in other Windows folders. In short, how reliable is ON to
keep office documents such as PDFs or DOCs?

 

[Ben M. Schorr, MVP]

OneNote is the place for information and links. I really don't think it
makes a very good file system for storing documents. What you COULD do,
however, is just create one folder (in your file system, not in OneNote) for
ALL of the PDFs and DOC files and just create links to those files in the
appropriate places in OneNote. Any changes you make within OneNote won't
affect the locations of the PDFs or DOCs and the links should be just fine.

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com/outlook.html
Author: The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/ol4law-amazon

 

[minimus]

OneNote is the place for information and links. I really don't think it
makes a very good file system for storing documents.

ON is the place for everything, as ON developers claim. So what is
everything? pictures, pdfs, docs, text, links,....

What you COULD do, however, is just create one folder (in your file
system, not in OneNote) for ALL of the PDFs and DOC files and just create
links to those files in the appropriate places in OneNote. Any changes
you make within OneNote won't affect the locations of the PDFs or DOCs and
the links should be just fine.

But I do not want to create one folder for everything. That folder will
become a mess for non-ON uses. I have different sections for diverse topics
in ON, from song lyrics to academic articles. I was thinking to embed some
pdfs of academic articles in the academic section and some other pdfs in
other sections. My only fear is that ON will one day loose these documents.
I want to know how ON handles these files. In ON 2010 I do not see these
files in my ON folder at all. So perhaps they are hidden in onenote files.
But I don't know how reliable ON is to keep documents. It claims that it
can, but to what reliability?

 

[Bernd]

-------- Original-Nachricht --------

But I don't know how reliable ON is to keep

That's YOUR problem and will remain your problem.
Do you really believe anyone will give you a guarantee about the
reliability of ON ?

And even then, why should you trust him ?

It is YOUR decision.

Follow the suggestion of Ben Schorr and read between his lines ...

Your argument about PDFs in a dedicated folder
"That folder will become a mess for non-ON uses"
I don't understand. If you embed all your PDFs in ON you cannot use them
outside ON at all.

The only thing to worry about is the path to the PDFs folder, in the
case you want to move them to another computer; to not break the links.

I personally would prefer Schorr's suggestion.

Bernd

 

[Ben M. Schorr, MVP]

ON is the place for everything, as ON developers claim. So what is

everything? pictures, pdfs, docs, text, links,....

I think you're reading too much into the marketing. OneNote is not intended
to be a file system. It's intended to be a filING system. I.e. more of an
index than a repository. Links to documents, great. Lots of embedded
documents, not so great.

Personally I rarely embed documents or files in OneNote. I'll create LINKS
to them and I can create those links to documents in shared network folders
so that other OneNote (or even non-OneNote) users in my company can access
them. Well, to be fair, everybody in my company uses OneNote...but in case
there was somebody who didn't.

Embedding the document in OneNote just needlessly swells the file size of
OneNote and may, if you have a LOT of embedded files, ultimately lead to
performance issues.

Up to you how you want to use it - my advice remains to create one or more
shared folders, put all of your documents and other files in there and then
just create links to those files in OneNote.

Best wishes and aloha,

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com/onenote.htm

 

[minimus]

Thanks Ben!

I think you're reading too much into the marketing. OneNote is not
intended to be a file system. It's intended to be a filING system. I.e.
more of an index than a repository. Links to documents, great. Lots of
embedded documents, not so great.

Personally I rarely embed documents or files in OneNote. I'll create LINKS
to them and I can create those links to documents in shared network
folders so that other OneNote (or even non-OneNote) users in my company
can access them. Well, to be fair, everybody in my company uses
OneNote...but in case there was somebody who didn't.

Embedding the document in OneNote just needlessly swells the file size of
OneNote and may, if you have a LOT of embedded files, ultimately lead to
performance issues.

Up to you how you want to use it - my advice remains to create one or more
shared folders, put all of your documents and other files in there and
then just create links to those files in OneNote.

Best wishes and aloha,

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com/onenote.htm