Collaborating with OneNote 2003

Although not part of any Office 2003 suite, Microsoft's OneNote note-taking software is part of the Office "family" (its official name is Microsoft Office OneNote 2003). How does it fit in? It's all in the name: OneNote is designed to be the "one" place where you store all "notes." The metaphor is the pad of paper that many of us keep on our desks even in this digital age. We use the pad to save messages, jot down notes, brainstorm ideas, record inspirations, make quick to-do lists, and so on. With OneNote, you can do all of that (if you don't have a device for inputting Digital Ink, you can type your notes), but also much more:

• Paste pictures, text, even entire documents

• Import images from a digital camera or scanner

• Record audio or video

• Insert notes and recordings from a Pocket PC or Smartphone

• Share your notes with other people

It's the last of these features that I'll focus on in this chapter. You'll learn how to collaborate by combining OneNote and Outlook, sharing a note-taking session over the Internet, and sharing your notes with other people.

Collaborating with OneNote and Outlook

Of all the Office 2003 programs, OneNote gets along best with Outlook and boasts features that enable you to collaborate not only by sending email messages, but by creating Outlook appointments, contacts, and tasks directly from OneNote. This section shows you how to use these OneNote features.

Sending Email via OneNote

Perhaps the easiest way to collaborate with others using OneNote is to create a page and then email it to another person.

1.	Create the page or pages you want to send.
2.	If you want to send multiple pages from the same section, hold down Ctrl and click the tab of each page.
3.	Select File, Send To, Mail Recipient. (You can also press Ctrl+Shift+E or click in the Standard toolbar.) OneNote opens a message window and displays the page (or pages) in the message body, as shown in Figure 9.12. Figure 9.12. You can send one or more pages via Outlook email.
4.	Fill in the email fields, such as To and Cc.
5.	Click Send a Copy. OneNote sends the email.

OneNote sends the page as a .one file attachment. If the recipient's email program supports HTML, he or she sees the page in the body of the message; if not, the recipient can open the attachment to view the page in OneNote.

If the Recipient Doesn't Have OneNote

If the recipient doesn't have OneNote installed, he or she can still view the page Ink, but not conveniently. That's because OneNote sends the Ink as a series of GIF image attachments, one for each separate Ink object in the page.

Creating Outlook Items

Collaborating with Outlook often involves creating items for appointments, contacts, and tasks. You can create these items based on a note in a OneNote page, where the note is converted to text and stored in the item's Notes section. Here are the steps to follow:

1.	Open the page that contains the note you want to work with.
2.	Select the note or notes you want to include in the new Outlook item. Selecting Notes A quick way to select all the Ink in a note is to position the mouse pointer inside the note and then click the border that appears at the top of the note. To select multiple notes, hold down Ctrl and click the border of each note. Alternatively, click and drag the mouse over the notes you want to select.
3.	Select Tools, Create Outlook Item, and then select one of the following commands: Create Outlook AppointmentSelect this command to create a new appointment item. You can also select this item by pressing Alt+Shift+A or by clicking in the Standard toolbar. Create Outlook ContactSelect this command to create a new contact item. You can also select this item by pressing Ctrl+Shift+C or by clicking in the Standard toolbar. Create an Outlook TaskSelect this command to create a new task item. You can also select this item by pressing Ctrl+Shift+K or by clicking in the Standard toolbar.
4.	Switch to the new Outlook item and fill in the rest of the data, as required.

Inserting the Details of an Outlook Meeting

Typing notes during a meeting can be problematic because the noise of the typing is often distracting. A much better solution is to write the notes by hand, which is not only quieter, but gives you more freedom to construct the notes any way you want. OneNote's freeform structure is excellent for handwriting notes during a meeting. To get the page off to a great start, you can import the meeting details from Outlook, whether you've called the meeting yourself or have been invited by someone else. Here's how it's done:

1.	Open or create the page where you want the meeting details to appear.
2.	Select Insert, Outlook Meeting Details, or click in the Standard toolbar. OneNote prompts you to select the meeting details.
3.	Select the date on which the meeting occurs and then click the meeting.
4.	Click Insert Details. OneNote inserts the meeting subject, data and location, attendees, and notes, as shown in Figure 9.13. Figure 9.13. You can insert the details of an Outlook meeting in a OneNote page.

Sharing a Note-Taking Session

For true OneNote collaboration, you need to start or join a shared note-taking session. This is one of the most exciting features added to OneNote 2003 Service Pack 1, so be sure you download and install the service pack before continuing.

In a shared note-taking session, OneNote sets up a network or Internet address for the session, and invited participants use that address to access the session (entering a password, if necessary). The participants then take turns adding ink to a note in real-time.

The next few sections give you the details on starting, joining, and working in a shared note-taking session.

Starting a Shared Session

If you want to administer a shared note-taking session, you need to start the session and then invite others to join. Here are the steps to follow to get the session started:

1.	Select File, Share with Others to display the Share with Others task pane.
2.	Click Start a Session. The Start Shared Session task pane appears.
3.	Type a password into the Session Password text box.
4.	Select the pages you want to share. To share multiple pages, hold down Ctrl and click each page tab.
5.	Click Start Shared Session.

After OneNote starts the session, it displays the Current Shared Session task pane. To invite one or more participants to join the session, follow these steps:

1.	Click the Invite Participants button. OneNote creates a new email message, as shown in Figure 9.14. Figure 9.14. When you click Invite Participants, OneNote constructs an email message similar to the one shown here.
2.	Add the recipients and any other email data you require.
3.	Click Send.

Note that the email message includes two IP addresses: one for participants joining via your local area network and one for participants joining via the Internet.

Getting Address Information

You can view the session addresses at any time by clicking the Shared Address Information button in the Current Shared Session task pane.

Joining a Shared Session

If you receive an invitation to join a shared note-taking session, you can use either of two methods to join the session:

• Open the Shared Session Invitation attachment that comes with the email.

• In OneNote, select File, Share with Others to display the Share with Others task pane, and then click Join a Session. Type the Shared Session Address and the Session Password, and then click Join Session. (If you don't know the password, contact the session administrator to get it.)

Unblocking OneNote

The first time you attempt to join a shared session, the Windows Firewall may appear to let you know that it's blocking OneNote. Click Unblock to let the session continue.

Working in a Shared Session

When the session is up and running, the Current Shared Session task pane shows you the names of the participants, as shown in Figure 9.15. In most sessions, each participant can add notes at will. If you're the session administrator and you want to be the only person who can make notes, scroll down to the bottom of the Current Shared Session task pane and deactivate the Allow Participants to Edit check box.

Figure 9.15. A shared note-taking session with a couple of participants.

When you're done with a session, you can leave at any time by clicking the Leave Shared Session button.

Sharing Notes with Other People

Rather than working with other users in real-time using a shared note-taking session, you may prefer to allow other people to work with your notes at any time:

• If the other users have OneNote 2003 Service Pack 1, you can move the section to a shared network folder or a SharePoint site.

• If the other users don't have OneNote, you can publish the section to a web page or Word document on a shared network folder or SharePoint site.

The rest of this chapter takes you through these two scenarios.

Moving Notes to a Shared Network Folder

OneNote 2003 with Service Pack 1 gives you the capability to move a section to a shared network folder. Other users with OneNote 2003 SP1 can then open the section and use it as though it is part of their own notebook.

To move a section to a shared network folder, follow these steps:

1.	Select File, Share with Others to display the Share with Others task pane.
2.	Click the Browse and Move To button. The Save As dialog box appears.
3.	Open a shared network folder or SharePoint document library and then click Save. OneNote asks if you want to create an email message with a link to the shared file.
4.	Click Yes to create the email, or click No to bypass the email.
5.	If you elected to send an email, fill in the message details and then click Send.

As you can see in Figure 9.16, the section tab now displays a shortcut icon. That's because you actually moved the section to the shared network folder, so the tab in your notebook is just a shortcut to the saved section.

Figure 9.16. When you save notes on your network, your version of the section becomes a shortcut to the saved file.

To access the shared notes, follow these steps:

1.	Select File, Open, Section (or press Ctrl+O). The File Open dialog box appears.
2.	Open the shared network folder or SharePoint document library that contains the OneNote file.
3.	Click the OneNote file and then click Open.

Allowing Another User to Edit the Section

Shared notes are editable by only one person at a time. You can tell if you have permission to edit the notes by looking at the OneNote title bar: if you don't see (Read-Only), you can make changes to the section. To allow the other user to edit the notes, you can transfer permission by right-clicking the section tab and then clicking Allow Others to Edit.

Publishing to a Shared Network Folder

If you want to share your notes with another user who doesn't have OneNote 2003 Service Pack 1, you can publish the notes to a shared network folder or SharePoint library using a web page or Word document format. Here's how it's done:

1.	Select the page or pages you want to publish.
2.	Select File, Publish Pages. The Publish dialog box appears.
3.	Open a shared network folder or SharePoint document library.
4.	Use the Save as Type list to select the file format: Single File Web Page or Microsoft Word Document.
5.	Click Publish.

From Here

• For the details on the other Office collaboration features, see Chapter 7, "Working as a Team: Collaborating with Other Users."

• You can also collaborate by publishing documents to the Web. See Chapter 8, "Office Without Borders: Using Office Documents on the Web."

• Security is an important collaboration issue. In Chapter 14, see the section "Using File Passwords and Encryption."