OneNote vs. Microsoft Word 2011 (Mac)

[golfenstate]

I've been using Word 2011 for my Macbook w/ the Notebook Layout view for several years. Looks like a clean notepad, it automatically indents w/ different icons, and the audio recording feature lets me listen on a particular "section" of my notes wherever I'm typing in the doc so that I can quickly listen in on wherever I need to.

However, I've seen a couple students using OneNote on the Mac as well. Are there any differences? Which of the programs do you use and why?

Thanks.

[BVest]

I've been using Word 2011 for my Macbook w/ the Notebook Layout view for several years. Looks like a clean notepad, it automatically indents w/ different icons, and the audio recording feature lets me listen on a particular "section" of my notes wherever I'm typing in the doc so that I can quickly listen in on wherever I need to.

However, I've seen a couple students using OneNote on the Mac as well. Are there any differences? Which of the programs do you use and why?

Thanks.

Word on Outline View for me. I don't like the separate pages of Notebook view.

[politics89]

I use Onenote mainly because it automatically backs up to the cloud and if your computer crashes (like mine did this semester) you're all set.

[Yardbird]

I use Onenote mainly because it automatically backs up to the cloud and if your computer crashes (like mine did this semester) you're all set.

Any office program can be set to back up to the cloud with dropbox. I will only add that onenote is useful for tagging, but otherwise doesn't have any added benefit over word. I take class notes in onenote and outline in word.

[vuthy]

I use Onenote mainly because it automatically backs up to the cloud and if your computer crashes (like mine did this semester) you're all set.

Any office program can be set to back up to the cloud with dropbox. I will only add that onenote is useful for tagging, but otherwise doesn't have any added benefit over word. I take class notes in onenote and outline in word.

This is actually the one big problem about OneNote for Mac: it can't be backed up to anything other than Microsoft's cloud (OneDrive or whatever it's called). I like a lot of things about OneNote, but the fact that I can't save things either locally or to a second cloud is a dealbreaker. (You can email each individual page to yourself, or save them as PDFs, but that's ridiculous.)

Mind you, Evernote has its own problems on Mac too. You can't reorder the note pages (except by going in and changing the date/time created to get it to move up or down). Plus no decrease indent key is stupid. And you can't directly backup to Dropbox, just like OneNote. But the export feature is at least a little quicker than doing it a page at a time.

Bottom line -- if someone knows of a Mac program that (1) lists pages in a column view for easy access (like OneNote or Evernote), and (2) can be directly backed up to Dropbox, please let me know.

[LePeanut]

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[BVest]

I don't use One/EverNote, so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by column view, but Word (which I use in Outline View for notes) allows page thumbnails and also allows a document map. Both have their drawbacks... I haven't figured out how to scale the thumbnails up, and the document map is most useful if you make sure to take your notes down to body text rather than header text at some point.

Bottom line -- if someone knows of a Mac program that (1) lists pages in a column view for easy access (like OneNote or Evernote), and (2) can be directly backed up to Dropbox, please let me know.

[vuthy]

I don't use One/EverNote, so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by column view, but Word (which I use in Outline View for notes) allows page thumbnails and also allows a document map. Both have their drawbacks... I haven't figured out how to scale the thumbnails up, and the document map is most useful if you make sure to take your notes down to body text rather than header text at some point.

Thanks. That's a little different. In OneNote and EverNote, there's a column list of each "note." So if you're like me, and put notes for each case in a new note (all within a given class "notebook"), it's great b/c you can jump from one case to another in a single click. In Word, the column sidebar lists each new heading, which probably works for some people but doesn't match how I do my notes.

EverNote really would be perfect except for those two (incredibly annoying) problems: the lack of a decrease indent/reverse tab key, and not being able to reorder the notes).

[kay2016]

I've switched to OneNote this school year but don't love it.

I liked the Notebook view because of the automatic indenting and stuff and haven't figured out a way to make that happen in OneNote -- but maybe I just don't know what I'm doing.