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I use OneNote because I have a Windows computer. I like the fact that I can access it from my Android phone, my Windows computer and my iPad. Plus it's totally free. And IMO it has better capabilities when it comes to organizing your notes in notebooks, sections and pages. I also find the tagging better than Evernote's one. And I have less issues when it comes to voice recordings. Evernote tends to reload more often and every time it does this, it seems to stop recording. I have long meetings and that does not work for me. OneNote on the other hand can handle recordings of 1/2 hours without issues.
Wait - since when does OneNote have tagging? Does it really? I mean, lack of tags is one of the major resons I’m not using the otherwise great OneNote. If it has them - please tell me.
Yes it does support Tags.
To use all you need do is tap on the screen where oh wish to add a tag and from the Home section look at the icon at the end (Tags) and select from a number of different tagging options.
It is also mentioned in the Help Support Section
Tag notes in Microsoft OneNote
Tags are a way to categorize and prioritize notes in OneNote. With tags, you can quickly return to important items, remind yourself about action items, or filter on notes you’d like to share with others.
Introducing OneNote
Add To-Do tags to your lists with a simple click, so you can check off and track your progress, even when you switch between your devices on the go. And forget about flipping through pages trying to find something — OneNote puts all of your information at your fingertips with a quick search, no matter where you might have jotted it down.
Ok, so I tried it and found the tags, but here is my dilemma - I don’t see a way to actually search tags from a list or something like that. Sure, you could enter the word from a tag in the search field, but for that you don’t really have to use tags, you could just write words in the document. The point of tags is to use a set of tag words to help you organize your stuff and let the app help you with what those words are. I don’t see the point of tags done in this way (unless you can, at least see a list of those you used - like in Evernote or Bear).
Am I missing something? I haven’t used OneNote a lot, so maybe I’m not seeing some useful option.
I have recently switched from Evernote to OneNote and am very pleased with the change. I think OneNote is an especially strong option if you use the Apple Pencil a lot for taking notes or marking up documents. Unlike Evernote, you can write anywhere in the note or on nearly any document or photo.
I switched years of Evernote notes over to Bear and haven't looked back. Bear is clean and elegant, notes are easy to format, there's a Safari extension and I don't get sync errors between iPad and iMac.
after being an Evernote pro user for years, I recently gave up and now use Google Keep exclusively. All the sync issues are gone. Yes, it is pretty bare bones but for my uses it is much easier to use and I don't end up using it for something that is better on other solutions.
Sorry for the late answer. I was travelling yesterday. Unfortunately I have only my iPad with me and I can't test this functionality with the iOS version of the app. I think that tagging was properly added to the 2016 version of OneNote and I need my laptop to check all of the options. I know that I have generated a page with all tags on notebook level which for me is important because I use separate notebooks for most workshops at work and this way I can check all action items that we have agreed to.
Once I go back I will check how advanced the search via tags option is on my laptop.
I’m doing my annual workflow review at the end of the year, and arrived here. I’ve resisted OneNote for a long time because it doesn’t support drag and drop, but...
It was added as an experimental feature about a week ago!
I’m going to try OneNote for 2018 for client notes etc. At the moment I have things all over the place:
Apple notes for quick bits and bobs
Notability for ‘lecture notes’
Evernote for a digital filing cabinet, gradually replaced by Scanbot+Hazel+folders for better portability and integration
I’m going to try OneNote plus my scanbot/hazel system in 2019 and see if I can save a few quid - I have to buy an o365 license for my work, so not having to pay for Evernote (which I do like, most of the time) will remove a bit of service duplication.
To answer the original question, if Evernote isn’t right for you or you don’t need everything it offers, for most people I think Apple notes is probably an elegant sufficiency. I found that the sync problems are largely gone. The big thing I will use OneNote for that apple doesn’t offer is in-note office file editing and markup; and more extensive text formatting options.
It was added as an experimental feature about a week ago!
I’m going to try OneNote for 2018 for client notes etc. At the moment I have things all over the place:
Apple notes for quick bits and bobs
Notability for ‘lecture notes’
Evernote for a digital filing cabinet, gradually replaced by Scanbot+Hazel+folders for better portability and integration
I’m going to try OneNote plus my scanbot/hazel system in 2019 and see if I can save a few quid - I have to buy an o365 license for my work, so not having to pay for Evernote (which I do like, most of the time) will remove a bit of service duplication.
To answer the original question, if Evernote isn’t right for you or you don’t need everything it offers, for most people I think Apple notes is probably an elegant sufficiency. I found that the sync problems are largely gone. The big thing I will use OneNote for that apple doesn’t offer is in-note office file editing and markup; and more extensive text formatting options.
I really like OneNote and can recommend it - if you find it useful, it’s a great app and Microsoft is reliable and offers quality services (I use their Office 365 service, mostly because of excelent storage pricing in my country for OneDrive). With that said, I think I won’t be using it in the end, because I really, really like to use Tags and I prefer Bear’s tag system.
And the thing I like the most in OneNote (the ability to add images anywhere you tap) I have in Notability which I really like.
So, I’m going to use a complicated combination of apps that works for me. I don’t know if this is good advice, but if you’re like me and collect a lot of reference images, maybe you find it useful.
I will use Bear for a combination of reference images and text. It handles a lot of images well and tagging is excellent.
I will use Notability for big reference collections where I want to freely move around a big poster-like collection of images and zoom. I really wish Notability had tags, but its ability to zoom and pan across a collage of shots is really amazing and great for artists.
Finally, for work and organizing my hectic life, I will use Agenda in combination with the amazing Fantastical (which I use daily). I ran into Agenda recently, it’s a great note-taking app, similar to Bear, but it has the ability to connect to calendar events in a very nice way. I will use this when I don’t want to store reference material, but I need to be reminded of it for the duration of the project.
Bear will be like a vault of material and Agenda will be like a pinboard for current, time-sensitive projects. Finally, Notability will be for large collections of reference photos that I want to view side by side and pan and zoom freely.
This may seem like overkill, but all three apps are really ellegant and well done, work great on the iPad (and iPhones and Macs) and are actually great to separate different workflows and methods I use.
Productivity workflows are very personal and depend on several factors. For example, mine doesn’t work at all if you have to use devices outside Apple’s ecosystem. Still I hope this may give some ideas to people. I love reading about different apps and services people use, so bring it on.
And the thing I like the most in OneNote (the ability to add images anywhere you tap) I have in Notability which I really like.
So, I’m going to use a complicated combination of apps that works for me. I don’t know if this is good advice, but if you’re like me and collect a lot of reference images, maybe you find it useful.
I will use Bear for a combination of reference images and text. It handles a lot of images well and tagging is excellent.
I will use Notability for big reference collections where I want to freely move around a big poster-like collection of images and zoom. I really wish Notability had tags, but its ability to zoom and pan across a collage of shots is really amazing and great for artists.
Finally, for work and organizing my hectic life, I will use Agenda in combination with the amazing Fantastical (which I use daily). I ran into Agenda recently, it’s a great note-taking app, similar to Bear, but it has the ability to connect to calendar events in a very nice way. I will use this when I don’t want to store reference material, but I need to be reminded of it for the duration of the project.
Bear will be like a vault of material and Agenda will be like a pinboard for current, time-sensitive projects. Finally, Notability will be for large collections of reference photos that I want to view side by side and pan and zoom freely.
This may seem like overkill, but all three apps are really ellegant and well done, work great on the iPad (and iPhones and Macs) and are actually great to separate different workflows and methods I use.
Productivity workflows are very personal and depend on several factors. For example, mine doesn’t work at all if you have to use devices outside Apple’s ecosystem. Still I hope this may give some ideas to people. I love reading about different apps and services people use, so bring it on.
Three days later and I'm back to say I can't endorse onenote:
- horrible syncing - errors, stalls, slowdowns - frequently I've picked up my phone to access a note only to find that I have to wait for it to sync before I can see it
- slow startup
- inconsistencies in the UI - I can drag notes between sections but not sections between notebooks
- terrible printing, sharing and exporting options
- half-baked 'tagging'
- weird notebook system where one drive only downloads a URL to my laptop and I have to manage the files in a browser; and new notebooks aren't automatically added to my devices
I'm going back to Evernote and will suck up the cost most likely. As previously, nothing does what it does quite as well (for me)...
Аh sucks that OneNote does not work for you. I managed to copy sections between notebooks, but not moving them. Meaning I had to copy them from one to another and then to delete them from the original one. Luckily I rarely move sections from one notebook to another one.
No export option you are right. Sharing for me is easier. I just share with people by using their email. Even if they don't have OneNote they can still access it via OneDrive in web.
I did not understand the point about the files. Can you eloborate?
Тhanks for sharing! I did not know this! Which version are you using? Is it 2013 or 2016?
Neither 2016 nor 2019 have tags. I've never met OneNote Mac 2013, didn't know there was such a thing.
Ah I see. Sorry, those are Windows versions. Sucks that there is no tagging for Mac.
For reasons best known to Microsoft, the only place to store OneNote notebooks is on Onedrive on the web. They don't sync copies to my laptop - so the only way to delete or manage notebooks is in a browser. That makes no sense to me...
You can "secure" notes with passwords in Apple Notes. Otherwise, you might want to give 1Password a chance.
One reason why I try to limit my use of OneNote on iOS has to do with its continuous and inefficient syncing. I used to use OneNote for the iPad during meetings but the constant syncing ate up the battery. I ended up getting into the habit of putting my iPad in airplane mode during the meeting and then disabling it when the meeting ended to sync to the cloud.
It was too much of a hassle that I only use it occasionally.
Open-source, Markdown, *AND* cross-platform?! Thanks for the pointer to this app!
Yes, I had similar experiences, and it made mincemeat of my data plan too. It’s the opposite of the kind of frictionless approach I want from my notes workflow. It’s evernote or Apple notes this year, probably the former.