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Microsoft Releases Free Edition of OneNote
yakatz writes "Microsoft announced that OneNote, including the full desktop program, will be free for anyone who wants to use the program. A version of the program for Mac also appeared in the app store yesterday. This means that a native edition of OneNote is available for most platforms (including iPad, iPhone and Android, but not Linux or Blackberry). Microsoft will continue to offer a paid version of OneNote with 'business-oriented' features (including SharePoint support, version history and Outlook integration). The partial rebranding of OneNote also includes some new tools like a program specifically designed to make it easier to take a picture of a whiteboard.
Is this a signal that Microsoft decided that they need to compete with Apple by making their productivity applications free?" (Over at WineHQ, they're looking for a maintainer for their page on OneNote. Anyone running it on a Free operating system? What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?)
Is this a signal that Microsoft decided that they need to compete with Apple by making their productivity applications free?" (Over at WineHQ, they're looking for a maintainer for their page on OneNote. Anyone running it on a Free operating system? What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?)
Jeez, basic tools to use a computer coming with the operating system? Do they have any other genius ideas?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
it's a one time use notepad
Once you use it, onenote.exe deletes itself
"Is this a signal that Microsoft decided that they need to compete with Apple by making their productivity applications free?"
In a word: no.
OneNote is kind of like a heavy-duty yellow sticky program, where you can link everything together incredibly easily. It's one of the best organizational programs out there, for people like writers, etc. I honestly think it's one of the best products MS owns.
is required...
Be or ben't
Does OneNote store my data in someone's cloud, or can I store my data on my computers?
Let's all mindlessly bash Micro$oft!!
I've had no direct experience with OneNote before, but I have used Evernote off and on - in case anyone was wondering which one was more useful, there's a good (though year old) comparison here.
To summarize, since I've been using Evernote already I'll probably stick with that. Sure OneNote is free but even taking the time to really try it out means something.
If anyone else has practical experience with why you would use OneNote over Evernote, I'd love to hear it...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Scrivenger. Specifically FOR writers. It's the perfect OneNote replacement.
They made it free because other competing applications are free. Evernote, for example.
https://www.google.com/#q=onenote
First impressions: How Microsoft's new OneNote stacks up against Evernote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onenote
That was easy.
If I have no idea what it does?
This is an increasing problem with a lot of software advertising. You get a list of advantages and features, and no description of what the product actually does or what you would use it for.
OneNote is one of the most innovative software programs of the last decade and one that I have found particularly useful, as I have been using Windows tablets since 2005. While there have been imitators, none have been able to match it feature-for-feature.
I am unsure of the business logic behind the decision, but this is a big win for consumers, especially since Microsoft is now offering it on third party OS's, although in a much-reduced form.
Microsoft has had some really good ideas since Gates left, like OneNote and the Tablet PC. Their problem has been implementation. Companies like Apple have taken their ideas (like touchscreen smartphones and tablet PCs), repackaged them in a form attractive to the average consumer, and made billions. The fact that MS has so many innovative products that do not sell well speaks to some kind of serious problem within the upper levels of their corporate campus.
Real writers use tablets...clay tablets.
In all seriousness, I never found a suitable program to store all my lab notes that I couldn't do better than just text files.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I must have been using it wrong. When I tried it I found it to be a big disorganized mess.
What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?
This seems pretty thorough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Notice that most of these note-taking and file-synchronization apps all come with their own proprietary built-in solution for storing the data on a server they control. And notice that none of them have an option to enter a SFTP URL to keep the files. This tells you that they aren't in the business of providing a note taking software. They are in the business of data mining your notes.
Once again, you are the product.
If you're looking for libre notebook/organization software, I've never found anything better than Org-Mode. It runs across all major desktop operating systems (via Emacs), and is included with the default distribution of Emacs. I don't think OneNote even comes close to Org's feature set.
So exactly what are "people like writers, etc." ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
It's easily one of the most flexible and IMO best products MS has ever produced. The problem is with the amount the charged for it it becomes almost worthless and it received almost no traction because MS didn't give a rats ass about it. Think evernote without the ever portion but far more flexible and with an office type interface. It's been around for more than a decade, had MS been innovative they would have been evernote, except probably far larger more widespread and in nearly every single enterprise. Instead the product was a redheaded stepchild inside MS.
But it's always been handicapped by MS's policies of not supporting non-windows and all the typical lockout and other games they've played their entire existence. It's because of this, onenote outside small niche's has seen very little uptake and almost no one knows about it.
OneNote is kind of like a heavy-duty yellow sticky program, where you can link everything together incredibly easily.
So how does it compare to GNote (formerly Tomboy Notes), or to Cherrytree, both of which are GPL?
Microsoft products are bloated just like the MS employment of about 70 thousand+ non-programmers. Windows is great at running games and applications for a while but then after month's of use it starts to run sluggish even after cleaning up the cache's, registry, and defragging the drive. Server, exchange, ms sql are the biggest bloats, complicated mess that needs tons of customization to the server and the applications themselves to make them run correctly.
Maybe they're making it free, to get some recognition?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The current Mac OS X similar product is Growly Notes, written by a former Microsoft Word developer who now develops Mac OS X Apps. I use Growly Notes extensively for home and work stuff. I put my status information for my projects, record what I do daily and copy in Specs, emails, pictures, PDFs, etc. You can drag in videos, audio files and documents. The program will sync to other computers running the same software as well. I put my tax information in there which makes it easier to do my taxes. I have college stuff for the kids, hobby project ideas, directions for how to do things, etc. You can encrypt at the notebook or page level and you can do various searches. I've heard from others that One-Note does a lot more. One-Note can sync to the cloud but we don't put work-stuff on the cloud. I don't put a lot of personal and family stuff on the cloud either. You could drag all of your utility bills into One-Note so that you can retrieve them if and when you need them. One Note also has Outlook integration and I think that you can drag in stuff from Microsoft Office documents for live update. At any rate, I'm going to move over to One Note from Growly Notes as I want a product with support from a team and I like that I can put it on Windows and Mac OS X. It will be somewhat of a pain in the neck to migrate my stuff over. BTW, this is a big deal. One-Note was originally designed as a planning and notebook tool for college students. Microsoft bought it and a lot of people found out how useful it is for the workplace.
I liked what I saw co-workers able to do with it and saw potential once I got it figured out so I kept at it. It took me a few weeks to get used to it but once I did, I loved it.
I was part of dozens (20-40) of projects at a time and it was great for keeping all of my notes about each project organized as I went from meeting to meeting. After I left that job (too many meetings) I didn't have a paid version of office. I've been more than happy with substitutes for everything else but have missed OneNote.
on android opera mobile, i go to /. i get beta mess... i find the "or click here" to http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1 ... but as soon as i click an actual headline, im forced to beta version of article.
Who wants to bet that if one carefully reads the EULA for the free edition of OneNote that Microsoft has buried a clause in there that they can data mine all information stored in their Cloud service? Providing the OneNote client and Cloud storage for free would be a bargain given the data bonanza they would have access to: personal contact information, shopping lists, todos, etc.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
I've always been happy with OmniOutliner for this sort of task. I believe it used to be included with Mac OS X since like version 8 or 9 all the way up through around 2006.
Free is too expensive since I don't trust Microsoft to continue to offer the product. One of the big problems is we need to continue having access to our legacy data. When Apple, Google, Microsoft or other companies decide a project is no longer worth supporting we lose access to our data going forward. They are not good about providing legacy support or data conversion.
You entrust your tax information to cloud-based software?
You senor, are either very trusting, or very stupid.
OneNote, AFAICS, is good for one thing: clogging your network with giant loads of crap. I used it at a small company years ago, there were only 6 employees, and a single message grew to retardedly large sizes within a few quoted replies.
The best version of One Note was back in 2003 that on a tablet edition computer you could do handwriting. Why MS decided to be morons and NOT include the handwriting notepad on the ipad version I'll never understand.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Gnote doesn't appear to handle images and other binary data, just text.
CherryTree looks pretty close however. The only feature I see lacking is its search.
OneNote can text-search within images for example, not just the textual notes.
The Outlook integration is pretty nice too, but since that won't be in the free version it looks like, that isn't fair to compare.
It's going to be AWFULLY embarrassing to MS when they find that they cant even GIVE their crap software away! They are also trying to give away Windows 8 and Windows Phone...problem is, people would rather use DOS than either of those products!
http://zim-wiki.org
http://www.dropbox.com
Microsoft-free, but no phone apps.8(.
Hehe rub things out in OneNote, so you can paste porn in there too?
*rimshot*
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
Whether OneNote is wonderfully organized or a big disorganized mess is not a property of OneNote. :)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Lab notebook too. It's similar to evernote.
No code source release, therefore not free.
For quite a while now, most any android app (not Google proprietary extended) will work on new BlackBerry phones. I bet OneNote works right out of the gate.
And still has some nifty features to support pen computing.
Other apps in the space:
Xournal --- more like Microsoft Journal as the name implies (OneNote has more organizational features such as tabs &c.) (see also Jarnal)
Flash --- in its rôle as the tool which succeeds the the pen drawing tool FutureWave SmartSketch ---
Mage Software's InkBook --- (Mac OS X)
EverNote
Treenote, if I'm remembering correctly was quite interesting, but there's a placeholder page for now.
sBook --- (Mac OS X) --- nifty A.I. driven freeform address book which can be used as a general-purpose notetaking tool --- I'm still bummed the Windows version crashed when one tried to write into it on a Tablet PC and wish it had better support for graphics --- opensource: http://simson.net/ref/sbook5/
The odd thing is, I loved Millenium Software's Notebook.app on NeXTstep, but haven't found occasion to buy Circus Ponies' Notebook
Mostly though, I just use Macromedia FreeHand for drawings and am trying InkSeine for notes on a ThinkPad X61 Tablet: http://research.microsoft.com/...
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
It looks like you are supposed to sync your OneNotes through OneDrive. Since OneDrive doesn't work with Windows 8.1, this seems like a deal breaker.
I know you can use a public Microsoft account to log in to 8.1 and use OneDrive. But seriously, who would do that? Need to cancel my Sky..err..OneDrive
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Check out KDE's BasKet.
I'm sure that you can keep a porn diary in OneNote. Approach your habit as you would an academic discipline, and take notes on videos. Annotate your dickpics. Keep a running bibliography of interesting gurls.
And upload the whole bit to microsoft servers so that you can enjoy a seamless experience on phone, tablet, tv, and laptop.
Then start using BasKet (http://basket.kde.org/ not anymore maintained) as it beats OneNote in features and easy of use.
Or writers it is better to get tools like Tomboy or its c++ port called Gnote. Way better for notes than OneNote is.
Absolutely!! - Mod one this up; the most insightful comment until here, AFAICS!
Trouble is, being a 100% FOSS-person, there is no close replacement, sorry. Tomboy is comparatively tomfoolery.
Parent is also right about the prohibitive price. OneNote is the only software that I'd say is unavailable on *nix, that I'd really like to have.
My partner is an academician and for her, this software is a must.
Haha, the article says it will be available on *droid, so I'd have it!? Or the usual test or evaluation version? The article states 'free'; okay, we are in /., and in 2014, so the submitters (editors) are much too young to know what 'free' actually means; so it ought to read FOC instead.
I really hope for this to happen!
I agree; modded parent up. None for you, though :)
never heard of OneNote before. thanks for posting the article.
Add Visio to that pile too. Sadly I've tried all of the FOSS replacements, and all of the web/cloud based ones. Nothing really worked for me quite as well as Visio.
Mozilla should make a OneNote like application that allows users to store their data where they want over Internet using SSHv2 and locally. One person started using OneNote in the office and within a month over 80% of the office is now hooked using it for work and personal (Skydrive integration being popular to pass notes around).
I took a recent college course for fun and about 1/2 the students that had a Windows OS were using OneNote.
Combine a rapidly growing user base with integrated search (M$ snooping thru your notes) and M$ will have A LOT of data (all your digital notes) to target you with ads.
I am surprised Google hasn't launched something similar.
OneNote also indexes audio recordings/files.
If you're recording audio while taking notes, OneNote allows you to start playing the recording by pressing play next to any text in the page. The audio will automatically sync to exactly what was being recorded while you typed that text.
Additionally, OneNote will also highlight the text in sync with the audio, so as you listen to a replay of a lecture, you can see exactly what you were typing at each moment of the lecture.
OneNote is amazingly powerful, and I've found no other program that even comes close. Microsoft may not know operating systems, but there are no substitutes for Excel and OneNote.
At least Microsoft gave a damn about Visio. OneNote was completely neglected. It could have been way more successful than evernote and all the clones had MS embraced it and went multiplatform cloud storage.
It was so carefully mismanaged that you never even knew if it would come with the version of office you were looking at because they frequently didn't even include it in the list of products even when it was included!
You can download the "desktop" client from Microsoft's website but all you get is a 2MB loader that then downloads the remaining 1GB of the program. This makes me wonder two things:
1) Why doesn't Microsoft make an offline installation available for people, since the whole point of the program is to have a note-taking program that can be synced across multiple computers and devices. It would be nice not having to download 1GB on every computer I own (not to mention it would probably do wonders for their own bandwidth)
and
2) Why the hell does a little cloud-synchronized note-taking program take 1 GB of disk space? I mean, I know Office - and Microsoft programs in general - are fabled for their bloat, but this is taking things to extremes. Evernote is 1/10th the size.
You'll end up paying for the cloud storage and my guess is that the OneNote team recognizes that the Evernote team game plan is superior over the long term.
Growly Notes is not cloud-based software. It will sync selected notebooks in your LAN if you wish though. One-Note has online and offline modes. So you can save files in the Cloud if you want to or just locally. BTW, a huge number of people use Cloud-based tax prep services. A huge number of people use H&R Block where you give all of your tax information to a person and there have been cases of identity fraud with (human) tax prep services.
A decent story submission would give you at least an inkling of what something is so that you can determine whether it is even worth your time going to a search engine.
Sure, because "...scanning the OneNote data for monetizing purposes. Why else would they prevent the free OneNote users from storing data on non-Microsoft servers?" and "...preventing you from storing data locally, because you have to pay money and subscribe to their online office offering to get local notebooks." are totally the same thing, right? You didn't claim that they were doing a freemium model, you claimed that they were spying on your data. darrylo didn't say that they *aren't* spying (because honestly, how would anybody know?) but they did say they were doing it to create an incentive toward the paid version. That's not what you said at all, because the key portion of your argument was that they were scanning your data. You didn't even consider the possibility that they were offering the free version as a sort of demo for the paid version, for example.
This has been reading comprehension 101. Thank you for your attention...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
The situation with Visio is scary. There is nothing that works nearly as well as it, and Microsoft has been doing their damnedest to eff it up ever since they acquired it. One of these days they're going to be successful and make it unusable, like they did with Windows 8.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Want cloud-only like this offering? Evernote is around.
Want something great for office management/documentation? Wikipedia's engine is easy to install & far better linked
Best Linux stickies? GNote
When first reading the summary, I wondered what OneNote is/does. Most informative post as to about what One Note does, and adds information about a similar product. Mod this one up if you are going to mod up to +5 Informative for saying "One note is the best products Microsoft has ever made...I use it all the time."
The search is lame; it should be a full-text search, but is instead the steam-driven exact-match text search from the 1980's
I think it's only for Mac, but Growly Notes is a free and good alternative.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
I might have been living under a rock, but I have no idea whatsoever what OneNote is and it is entirely unclear from the submission. Would it be too hard to mention this?
It's a note-taking/sharing/information-capture app along the lines of Evernote, if that helps.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!