Re: MS OneNote uses for tech comm

[Gregory P Sweet <gps03 -at- health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us>]

Hi Nancy,

I use OneNote quite extensively for all my projects. Though most of my
projects are synchronous learning with a bit of self-paced learning thrown
in here and there at this point. I still do a fair bit of tech documents to
support those training efforts, mostly user documentation and help systems.
Essentially OneNote has replaced the spiral bound notebook for me.

The major benefits of One Note for me are that it includes good drawing
tools and it works on our network.

I've tried Evernote in the past, and see all the benefits of using it
(cloud based, on any device, etc.) but its insistence on maintaining an
Internet connection and the government proxy server I sit behind all day do
not play nicely together and after loosing 30-40 minutes worth of work a
few times because Evernote could no longer negotiate the proxy -- I gave up
on it for work. I use it for personal projects but have noticed that the
Android app has become less than useful, it that it makes it very difficult
to edit notes.  With OneNote I have no such problems and can save notebooks
to a network share or our secure extranet, so I guess I have fog-based
notes, not really up in the cloud and sometimes obscured, but usually
available.

Evernote's online tools did not include drawing tools when I was trying it
out (and as already stated the desktop app won't work on our network). I
use a Wacom Cintiq 21UX do a great deal of sketching to design and deliver
my courses. I have a notebook template that I use to design my synchronous
classes that includes tabs and pages for all of the worksheets and
checklists I use to develop a course as well as space for general notes --
all stuff I used to do on paper. For self-pace learning I include
storyboarding and scripting tabs.

And since I work with a pen display I typically keep a scratch pad open to
jot down phone messages or capture the other various bits of information
that typically occupy the tiny bits of paper strewn about so many other
desktops.

Recently we used OneNote to create a collaborative review of how our secure
extranet performs on iPad. It was dead simple to set up a notebook on a
shared directory and assign everyone a page to capture their notes and
observations. Which was then easily compiled into a Word doc to make our
final report.

-Greg

techwr-l-bounces+gps03=health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com wrote on
01/10/2012 09:50:16 AM:

> From: Nancy Allison <maker -at- verizon -dot- net>
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Date: 01/10/2012 09:50 AM
> Subject: MS OneNote uses for tech comm
> Sent by: techwr-l-bounces+gps03=health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
>    Hi, all.
>
>    I am writing a book review about OneNote for the Techwr-l web site.
I'm
>    trying it out myself on a current tech pubs project and am wondering
if
>    anyone else is using it for tech pubs, or any other purpose for that
>    matter.
>
>    If you are, I'd love to know what features you find most useful.
>
>    How is it a better resource than a combination of Word (especially the
>    outlining function) and Outlook?
>
>    Or, if you've tried it and found it didn't meet your needs, I'd love
to
>    hear about that, too.
>
>    Thanks for any and all comments.
>
>    --Nancy
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