Hey reddit! We are the OneNote team at Microsoft. We have had a really fun week with the release of OneNote for Mac, a free version of OneNote Windows, OneNote Clipper, [email protected], Office Lens, and partner apps with a brand new OneNote service and API. We're here to answer questions for the next 4 hours (starting at noon Eastern).

Our goals:

☑ Make sure everyone knows about all of the awesomeness that is OneNote

☑ Mythbusting any preconceptions about OneNote

☑ Have fun!

We'd also love for you to try out all of our (free!) clients at onenote.com.

First question from us: list every platform that OneNote is available upon!

Here's a video of us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXV5FM053N4

-edit-

A little shout-out: At 3:30 PT, we'll be at the Microsoft Store in Bellevue with tons of giveaways, free donuts, and lots of gadgets. Come stop by!

Update: 12:04 PT: we are finishing up. Thanks a bunch to everyone for your questions & comments. Please tell your friends about OneNote. Some people on the team are going to keep replying but most of us have to get back to fixing bugs and making features.

Here are some closing picture we wanted to share: http://i.imgur.com/FuVrW76.jpg http://imgur.com/cOqS9lr

http://imgur.com/a/MlGIz

Thanks again!

Comments: 946 • Responses: 78  • Date: 

beaverburgular76 karma

What makes OneNote better than Evernote?

MSOneNote228 karma

The Evernote guys have certainly done some cool stuff in the past. But we think there are a number of advantages to OneNote over Evernote:

1.) Generally people tell us that our editing experience and the quality of it is much better than Evernote. We'd agree.

2.) In OneNote you can type or add notes anywhere you want on the page. It's much more flexible. Like a piece of paper. Lots of people tell us how valuable and important that is.

3.) Shared notebooks are awesome in OneNote compared to Evernote. Because multiple people can actually edit the same page at the same time (if you try this in Evernote, last writer wins and the other person just loses their changes). Lots of people in teams and companies use them for awesome Wikis. We know a number of game development companies for example that use OneNote to keep in all their game development ideas, story line ideas, sketches, and lots of images on ideas for in game art. There are also lots of school classrooms that use Shared OneNote notebooks for teachers and students to work on content together. Families use them to share notebooks for all their household stuff. Pharmaceutical companies use them for their teams with all their drug research notebooks and so on. Shared notebooks in OneNote are awesome.

4.) You can use OneNote free offline synced to your devices at any time (on plane, in a coffee shop or classroom with bad internet connection, wherever). For Evernote you have to pay for their premium service to use it offline.

5.) If you have a tablet with a pen (like a Surface Pro) then inking in OneNote is pretty awesome. And lots of people love printing documents into OneNote and taking notes on them and so on.

6.) With the OneNote free version you get 7GB of free storage on OneDrive. Evernote's free version has a 60MB per month upload limit. You'd have to max out Evernote's storage every month (and get the associated error message blocking you) for a DECADE to get to the 7GB of storage that OneNote offers from day one. So it's over a decades worth of Evernote storage. We've heard of people who've tried things like digitizing their recipes in Evernote, they inserted just 10 pictures and we're already bumping up against their limits. We don't think you should be blocked like that. If you want to store your entire recipe collection in the first month you use OneNote you can.

7.) If you want to pay for the premium version of Evernote it's $45 a year, and you get some basic features like offline support that we think are basics you should get for free. By comparison for $69 a year you can get a Personal subscription to Office 365. That entitles you to use all the Office applications (including Word, Excel, PPT) on a PC or Mac and tablet and phone. It gives you an additional 20GB of OneDrive storage space. 60 minutes of Skype to phone minutes, and more. Which do you think is better value?

I could go on of course. :-)

-- David Rasmussen

Zijien70 karma

When is Clippy coming back?

MSOneNote79 karma

This is Ankur -

We're keeping a close eye on the whitehouse petition. Feature request number 1? I think so!

taveanator45 karma

What's a good source for tips and tricks to make the most use out of One Note?

MSOneNote67 karma

If you use OneNote 2013 my favorite tips are included in this blog post: http://blogs.office.com/2013/11/12/top-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-onenote/ Biased because I wrote it ;)

-Nicole

MSOneNote35 karma

Nick here. OneNote actually has a lot of keyboard shortcuts that can speed up your work. Check it out!

ninja edit- didn't like my wording.

2pete38 karma

Was there any specific event or policy change that led to OneNote's release as freeware? Did it just feel like the right time to do it?

MSOneNote55 karma

We've actually been planning it for a while. As we released apps for more platforms we knew we wanted to always have a free version available for people so there was no barrier to getting started with and using OneNote. It took a while to work out the details for all platforms, what features we still want to charge for (we are still in the business of making money), and work on the actual releases, and we wanted to announce that plan along with releasing lots of cool stuff like we did on Monday. We've been planning it for over a year.

-- David Rasmussen

catch22milo21 karma

we are still in the business of making money

Something about hearing this from a Microsoft employee made me giggle a bit.

MSOneNote66 karma

Well we do like to get paid, and we want to be around for many years to come. We've tended to notice that companies that don't make money don't last very long, and that would make us sad. But we think OneNote is awesome, and want to make sure anyone who wants to use it can. We think enough people and businesses have reasons to pay for the premium features (e.g. business usage against SharePoint) that we'll do fine.

And I don't really want to become a socks salesmen...

--David Rasmussen

jicheu8 karma

You are wrong. Business socks are a growing business...

MSOneNote7 karma

Tim here.

I wear the same pair of socks everyday! Plus a STTNG captain's outfit. (I wash them every night).

bitshoptyler36 karma

TL;DR and question summary at the end.

Hi, thanks for such a great product! I've used OneNote for years, started on a tablet PC from about 2007 (no touchscreen, just a questionably accurate stylus.) It was great then, and has only gotten better since. I tell everybody I know to use OneNote, but often find they've never heard of it, or don't know what it can actually do.

This brings me to my main point. Why is there such a horrible lack of knowledge about OneNote? It seems everybody who should know about it doesn't, or knows some about it, but not enough to convince them to switch. I think if more people knew what OneNote could do, there would be no problem converting most people over from whatever they use now (e.g. Evernote + some task lists and document apps.)

Does Microsoft have plans to market or advertise OneNote to more people? I feel that aside from Excel, and even accounting for it in most cases, OneNote is the best Office application out there, but it's very under-represented, and almost unknown. Even in education, one of the biggest potential applications for OneNote, it is still virtually unknown. I've met many students who don't know about OneNote, or if they do, don't know of many of the capabilities it has, especially in audio tie-ins and handwriting recognition.

In addition to advertising and general marketing, will there be a push to get OneNote out to students, to build up a body of people already using it that will be moving into the workforce? It's what was done with Office in general, why not emphasize the note-taking features of OneNote, and how easily it can be used and integrated into schools? Getting institutional involvement would be even better, if there was a way to promote OneNote through schools (i.e. give free trials/copies, teach people how to use it, etc.)

TL;DR So to summarize: 1) does the OneNote team, or Microsoft in general have any plans for better marketing OneNote. 2) Are there any plans to market OneNote to students or schools, and educate people on using it so that they might be more convinced to use OneNote in the future (i.e. in a professional environment.)

Edit: Some formatting, changed a few sentences around. It was written on mobile, so a few mistakes.

MSOneNote40 karma

This is Ari. As the new product marketer on OneNote, I can answer a strong YES to both #1 and #2. We have a lot of investment from our new CEO in the student audience, with OneNote being one great example of where we can make a difference in their lives. You may even see some big commercials in the near future :) Personally, I am a recent college graduate and very passionate about getting the word out, even in a "grassroots" way with students and their schools. For example, we are working with Microsoft Stores to drive awareness and train people on OneNote. I would love to hear your ideas for how we can get more people using OneNote!

gr3ml1n30 karma

With the introduction of more powerful and bigger phones, can we see OneNote advancing and evolving anytime soon on Windows Phone platform?

MSOneNote20 karma

This is Dan...yes we want to continue advancing and evolving on all of our platforms. What in particular would you like to see? Any other features or ideas?

jigarshah8430 karma

Password-protected Notebooks/Sections/Pages!

MSOneNote27 karma

This is Dan...great suggestions please keep them coming! Some of these we can look into these for future updates.

Yeah more formatting is totally on our radar and with the larger phones it is pretty important.

And same with the password protect, that is something we are looking into.

gr3ml1n27 karma

More formatting options, and drawing support. I'm gladly using it on a daily basics, but it still needs some more features. Pretty please? :)

windowsphoneguy25 karma

drawing support

yes please.

MSOneNote32 karma

This is Dan...finger painting?

MSOneNote30 karma

We wanted to make sure all of your reddit folks knew about some IFTTT recipes which plug in OneNote & reddit together: https://ifttt.com/recipes/150458-save-upvoted-reddits-to-onenote Please try it out! -James

Squeebee00728 karma

Hi guys, first of all thanks for all the good work.

Feature suggestion: I like to record meetings with OneNote from my Windows Phone while taking notes by hand. I do hope to move to a Surface Pro and take my notes directly into OneNote, but what I'd really like is auto transcriptions.

It would be awesome to record a meeting with my phone, go back to my desk and choose to auto-transcribe the recording. From there I would be able to see a box with all the transcript, click text to hear what was said in the recording, correct it by hand where I need to, etc.

Now I know it wouldn't necessarily be a particularly good transcript, but it would enable me to find the right place in the recording relatively quick.

Doesn't need to be real-time, I'm happy to wait while it processes later on my desktop (conveniently synced there by OneDrive of course).

What do you think?

MSOneNote23 karma

I think that is an excellent idea! Thanks for sharing :)

-Nicole

MSOneNote21 karma

Hey thanks, great suggestion - Transcription would be a fun feature. Our Windows desktop version already does the thing where you can follow along with your notes from audio recordings - Gareth

Degeyter25 karma

Can multiple users edit a OneNote page like they can with a Word document in Office 2013?

Would be great for group projects.

MSOneNote59 karma

Yes! Multiple users can edit the same notebook. Unlike Word there is no save button. You edit in real-time, watch people type if you are into that type of thing.

-Nicole

MSOneNote14 karma

This is Dan..please try it out, you can get started by going to OneNote.com and then just share it and try it out.

CoffeeGrabber24 karma

As much as I love OneNote, will there be a Mac version which works with a notebook hosted somewhere else than Onedrive? Like as part of the next Office for Mac? We use OneNote at the office but don't want the notebook we use to be stored somewhere in any cloud solution.

MSOneNote22 karma

Hey, this is Anav. We're so happy to hear you love OneNote. In addition to OneDrive, we are working on SharePoint and O365 / OneDrive for Business support. We need that for our own day to day work as well :)

MSOneNote17 karma

We do intend to support SharePoint servers on your own premises if you don't want to use any cloud storage. Or for those who are okay with cloud storage that's under their control as a business (rather than individual personal accounts like OneDrive) we also intend to support Office 365 SharePoint online and OneDrive for Business.

primordia20 karma

Will we ever be able to collapse subpages that are three levels deep to two levels deep, rather than collapsing everything to one level deep?

e.g.

Foo
   Bar
     Baz1
     Baz2
   Bar
     Baz1
     Baz2

Selectively collapse to

Foo
   Bar
   Bar

not "Collapse all subpages" to

Foo

MSOneNote5 karma

What type of content would that be helpful for?

-Nicole

Dawnafterdusk20 karma

A OneNote 2007 user here, quite keen on the improved OneDrive integration, is it safe to install the free OneNote 2013 alongside?

MSOneNote18 karma

Hi, this is Chris. Yes! You can install both side by side. Let us know how you like it.

MSOneNote3 karma

Tim here. Yes! David and Nicole answered yes to this in response to another person's question.

frank7943019 karma

How long will it be free?

MSOneNote43 karma

Forever! We intend to have a free version on all platforms forever. That's the plan. We will have premium features for users who buy an Office 365 subscription or one of the Office suites. For example if you want to use OneNote for business against SharePoint or Office 365, that will be a paid feature, and some other features like version history. But the vast bulk of features will be free. Everything in the Mac app we just launched will continue to be free. And we intend to keep improving the free products with regular updates. (There was some confusion caused by the description text on our original Mac store post because it said "Free for a limited time", that was just a bug as it went through editing… sorry about that, we've fixed it). - David Rasmussen

1800k0014 karma

Sort of related to OneNote. as there will be a free version and one with a premium feature set that goes with the office suite or 365, do you know if there are plans to dump the retail suite and go completely 365 and subscription?

MSOneNote8 karma

No current plans to do that.

-- David Rasmussen

arttic0018 karma

Will there be a day when OneNote will be on Linux?

MSOneNote22 karma

This is Tim

Well, we're on Android, which is sort of the same right? ... but you're asking for desktop Linux. The decisions for platforms tend to revolve around what our prospective users are using - so if LOTS of schools switched to Ubuntu or something we'd make a port. My gut feel is that if we ever -did- release a Linux port, it'd be specific to one popular distro (since we need to make absolutely sure that we don't corrupt people's data).

carpeaqua17 karma

Really happy with the Mac app. I wrote up my thoughts on it yesterday.

I've got plenty of feature requests, but my biggest concern is that the app won't see frequent updates given the time between major Office updates on the Mac.

Is this something you guys hope to change? OneNote for Mac is a really good 1.0, but I don't wanna wait until 2018 for 2.0.

MSOneNote14 karma

Nick here. Thanks for your write-up! I just read the Mac App portion of it, and your insight is super helpful.

Please let us know your feature requests! We're all working super hard to get you regular updates to the app - don't worry, it won't take that long!

carpeaqua7 karma

What's the best method to send feedback to you guys?

MSOneNote11 karma

For the next couple hours - here works.

We also track blog post comments, submit feedback on onenote.com, answers.microsoft.com, twitter (@msonenote), facebook.com/onenote

MSOneNote7 karma

Steven here. We loved your blog post! Thanks!

To answer your question - we will be updating all of our clients frequently moving forward. We've updated the Windows Store, iOS, and Android versions multiple times in the last 9 months and don't plan on stopping. The Mac version will be focused on just as much as the others!

filchermcurr16 karma

Yay! I absolutely love and adore OneNote, especially now that it's native to OS X. I can finally get rid of that virtual machine that I keep just for OneNote. So thank you! I do have some annoying questions that "cleverly" disguise feature suggestions...

Is it possible to change the default font in the mac version?

Can you disable viewing who edited what?

Is it planned to allow storing notebooks offline instead of all in OneDrive?

Speaking of OneDrive, does the free version of OneNote have any syncing limitations? Can you only sync so much data per month?

Relatedly, how big can your notebooks get? Could they expand to be as large as your OneDrive without incident?

Oh, and I notice different background (like grid paper) show up correctly, but I can't seem to apply it to new notes. Is that available now and I'm too dumb to find it or will it be in a future version?

Is there a place we can post suggestions / ideas for the team without hijacking an AMA and feeling bad?

MSOneNote13 karma

Hi, this is Anav. To your question about changing default font, no that's not available in the current version. You can change the font from the Ribbon option in the current page. Is the default font option important to you? what font do you typically use?

MSOneNote9 karma

And no limits on what you can sync per month. You can have up to 7GB of storage free on OneDrive. Which if you're used to a 60MB per month limit a decade of storage at that rate. And you can use it all whenever you want. If you want to digitize your entire recipe book in one month you can (and in a decade who knows.... the free storage we offer might be even larger... :-). And you can always buy more OneDrive storage if you want pretty cheaply.

-- David Rasmussen

netowp14 karma

I's been about 6 years since I'm using OneNote almost everyday. I have to say I can't live without it. OneNote is now part of my professional, personal and academic life.

But I have some complains and suggestions. One is about OneNote Clipper. This feature is OK, but in today's world we don't need OK software, we need great software. I really need "native" plugins for Chrome and so other people need for IE, Firefox and Safari. Look at Evernote. It's a great OneNote alternative that already has it for years!

The key to OneNote success is: companion apps. Launch plugins for every browser, an app focuses just on receipts, another one focuses on bibliographic references, and so on.

You guys have already started with Office Lens, which is an awesome companion app!

MSOneNote5 karma

Awesome that OneNote is part of your everyday life - it is for me as well :) Thanks for your feedback on the clipper. Providing the clipper as 'native' plugins as you mention is definitely something on our radar. - Gordon

KaiWaelder13 karma

As a heavy user of OneNote I would like to have OneNote installed in all devices. Its recently done and I'm really happy about the free version for Windows. However I noticed that OneNote is avaliable for iPad users but sadly not for Android tablet (Android version is only for phone and not optimized for tablet!). I would really like to know what's your plan about launching the android tablet optimized version of onenote. (and dont forget the pen function! Even better with pressure sensitivity!) I have a Samsung Note 10.1 and the experience using onenote on this tablet is not as expected!

MSOneNote17 karma

Thanks for the feedback. The Android phone version does work on Android tablets, but we're working on making it more optimized for tablet. Stay tuned. :-) -- David Rasmussen

Degeyter12 karma

OneNote+Pen digitiser is a godly combination, any chance the surface 3 will get an upgraded digitiser?

There's really nothing else in the price range with the same quality available.

MSOneNote32 karma

This is Tim.

If you have any information on the Surface 3, I'd love to hear it. We're in a different tent and usually don't get info on the new Surfaces until after Mary Jo Foley and The Verge get them. >:[

bunchofsage14 karma

Maybe MS should think of opening a super tent then with the both of you. The Surface is the ideal device for promoting OneNote afaik. It should work hand in hand

MSOneNote19 karma

Tim is kind of joking. We do actually work with the Surface guys really closely... but of course it is under super top secret confidentiality and we can't share anything about their awesome cool new devices they have in the labs (I can just say they're awesome... :-)

-- David Rasmussen

Degeyter5 karma

Haha then let me follow up- what devices with pens do you guys like to use with OneNote?

Windows handwriting recognition is impossibly good, you must take advantage of it!

MSOneNote2 karma

The Surface Pro is a pretty awesome inking device. Another favorite is the Lenovo Tablet 2. And the Asus VivoTab Note 8 is pretty great for inking too. And we do take advantage of handwriting recognition in the desktop version (you can search for your notes etc.).

-- David Rasmussen

Degeyter12 karma

I love OneNote on my windows phone - but one annoying feature is that when you take a note using a verbal command (through a headphone microphone) it turns the screen on.

This renders voice commands pretty useless as you have to take the phone out of your pocket anyway - any chance of changing this in future?

MSOneNote13 karma

This is Dan...that is interesting, I didn't remember it turning on the screen. I will have to ask around and get a bluetooth device to see if it turns the screen. Thanks for the feedback....

alphaorionis12 karma

Thanks for the awesome program! Love your work.

What's your favorite hidden feature or shortcut?

MSOneNote23 karma

My favorites shortcut keys are: Ctrl-. makes a bullet Ctrl-/ makes a number lists Ctrl-1 makes a to do list

And the best of all Alt-Shift-Left/Right arrow indents and outdents. And Alt-Shift-Up/Down for moving items up or down in the list.

-- David Rasmussen

alphaorionis5 karma

Love those! I use them all the time - thanks for the intuitive shortcuts.

What do you tend to use OneNote for in your everyday use?

MSOneNote6 karma

I use it for all my craft projects

MSOneNote2 karma

I use it for just about everything! We use it for work and have lots of shared team notebooks (in fact just about every team at Microsoft does now). I use it for personal stuff and share a notebook with my wife that contains our plans for vacations, activities and school stuff for our kid, plans for a home renovation we did. I keep information in there on my hobbies like cycling and info on bike rides and bike maintenance and so on. And I use it for lists for everything!

-- David Rasmussen

MSOneNote18 karma

Thank you! My favorite feature is in OneNote 2013: screen clipping. On Windows 7 & 8 (Windows button + S) on Windows 8.1 (Windows Button + Shift + S)

-Nicole

MSOneNote16 karma

My most used is Ctrl-Alt-1,2,3 for different heading styles - Gareth

MSOneNote5 karma

My favorite is using Ctrl+Alt+Arrows or Cmd+Option+Arrows to move paragraphs around. It lets you super quickly rearrange your thoughts. Super useful for prioritizing lists.

-Guy

nok4us11 karma

why can't i open password protected note sections on my windows phone 8? is this a limitation and will it change/updated soon?

MSOneNote4 karma

We're definitely looking at supporting that in the future. Just a function of time to get it there (so many great requests from people we're working through).

-- David Rasmussen

MSOneNote4 karma

This is Dan...good suggestion and something we can look into for future updates. This is something I know a few people have been wanting this, is it...do you have a lot of notes that you password protect?

neo8208711 karma

Is there any way to transfer notes from Evernote into OneNote on Mac? Also, are you planning to add the ability to insert documents and recordings? This is a really important feature for me as I use it to keep track of lectures and notes.

I can't tell you how happy I was to see a version for Mac! OneNote got me through undergrad and was the only software that I truly missed when I purchased a Mac!

MSOneNote15 karma

This is Dan...right now we don't have a way to insert items but it is something we are looking into for a future release. What in particular would you like? Just inserting or inserting something like a PDF to annotate on? As for converting from Evernote that is really interesting, we don't have anything yet but I did see this online: http://www.mobilenoter.com/Evernote

Glad you are excited please give a rating and keep the feedback coming!

ill_take_the_case9 karma

Is there a way for text to line up with the lines if I choose the notebook display option? It's really bugging to get it all lined up manually.

MSOneNote7 karma

Sorry, there's not :-(

It works well if you write with a stylus though!

-Guy

PleasantInsanity8 karma

I'm in grad school and I use OneNote (desktop version (Office Professional Plus 2013) when making the notes, Windows 8 app when reviewing them) for all my classes and I love not having to get new notebooks or print any powerpoints!

However, I sometimes get frustrated because I can't type out chemical reactions in a way that makes sense (for example, remaking something like the gluconeogenesis pathway). In those cases, I want to be able to write it out instead of use a screen clipping (I retain better that way).

Are there any plans to throw a bone to people like me? Or am I an idiot and I can do this easily? You guys are awesome!

MSOneNote4 karma

Thank you! You are awesome I looked at the chemical reaction and you would need some awesome education to understand that.

I am not sure what you are looking you can write stuff with Ink (your stylus) and we have equations support but I don't know if you full fill your needs (Insert -> Equations).

-Nicole

subi548 karma

Hi. Thank you for your hard work. Love OneNote. 1. Are you planning for a ios7 interface for iPad? 2. Are there any new features coming up for desktop(Windows)? Can you tell us about any of them to get us excited? Thank you.

MSOneNote16 karma

This is T.J., I'm a developer for OneNote on iOS.

We're continuing to work on updates for both iPad and iPhone. Our next update will be built to support iOS7 and fit in great with the rest of the OS.

MSOneNote15 karma

YaY! We are working on updating all our clients. We can't talk in specifics about what is coming when. Well I guess I could but I love my job to much to risk it.

-Nicole

Oddsson8 karma

Will one note for mac feature equations at some point in the future! This is an amazing feature and I would love to see it on my mac as well!

MSOneNote5 karma

This is Anav. Thanks for the feedback, we appreciate learning what folks would like to see added to OneNote for Mac. I'm curious to learn more how you use equations?

gr3ml1n8 karma

How does OneNote make money if it becomes free for everyone. Also, today I showcased the OneNote application to my school, and soon probably it will become basic app for every computer in the school and teachers will start using it. I'm really glad for this so thank you!

MSOneNote4 karma

I wrote some more detail above. Short version. We'll always have free apps for all platforms. We'll have premium features for people who've purchased the Office suite or Office 365 subscriptions. For example, if you want to use them against SharePoint servers for business that will require the paid version.

thesteak7 karma

What is the most (technically) difficult feature to work on for OneNote?

MSOneNote3 karma

Sync & Storage in my opinion.

-Nicole

MSOneNote4 karma

For me it is working on all of the different platforms, and UI, the Apple HIG, Windows Phone UX, Windows, OSX, etc that is what I find most difficult.
-Dan

ingi0m4r6 karma

We need the radium in OneNote for phablets!

http://i.imgur.com/GqdSIQt.jpg

MSOneNote5 karma

Radium phablet! That would be rad! :-) Might not pass FCC certification though...

But seriously, assuming you're talking about the UI, we're certainly looking at bringing more goodness to large phones.

-- David Rasmussen

iravgupta6 karma

Is there a plan to enhance the clipper to include more specialized clipping features?

MSOneNote4 karma

Hey - thanks for your question. What sort of features are you wanting to see in the clipper? - Gordon

sprayedice6 karma

Hi rahoo. Working hard or hardly working? Har har. :p

MSOneNote5 karma

Hi -rahoo

Mc2sand3s6 karma

I'm a PC user but have no idea what one note is or does. How will it benefit me?

MSOneNote11 karma

Hey, this is Liz. OneNote is an application to help you keep track of everything in your life. You can keep track of to-dos, students can use it to take class notes, or families and groups can have a shared notebook to keep track of things. And you can get OneNote on all of your devices so you'll have your notes with you wherever you go! You can learn more at www.onenote.com :)

Malatok6 karma

Firstly, I want to thank you guys for releasing OneNote for Mac.

No joke, it made my entire day to load up OneNote on the Mac Mini at work and be able to add notes to my notes from my Windows machine at home :D.

So thank you.

Question!

I read on the internets that the OneNote team is very much start-up like. How true would you say this is?

Also, I noticed that one thing that OneNote does differently from Evernote is how you can copy/paste web html into the program. Evernote mostly keeps the formatting the same, but OneNote does not.

I believe you guys have gotten around this with the awesome web clipper (which works really well). But I was wondering if it's planned to make copy and pasting from the web more accurate?

And lastly: What made you guys want to work on OneNote at Microsoft? How hard was it to get started?

Ninja-Edit: I can speel hurr hurr

MSOneNote5 karma

I haven't worked at a start-up so I can't compare the experience. Does the internets say something specific?

Thanks for the feedback! We are working on improving all our clients.

I joined the OneNote team a few years ago. I wanted to work on OneNote for a two reasons: it is an awesome product that users (including me love) and more importantly the awesome people on the team. My advice pick a job based on the people first and then product and your position on the team.

-Nicole

hawk_eye_126 karma

I would like to connect the OneNote for Mac app with my company's Office 365 account. It doesn't seem like I can connect to it. Is this possible? OneNote is perfect for business situations that I am in.

MSOneNote7 karma

Not yet unfortunately. We want this too. We are working on this.

-Nicole

atbd5 karma

Hi, I have never used any app like OneNote and I am a bit lost. Does anyone know a good tutorial to get started?

MSOneNote5 karma

Nick here. You should try it out! Here's a link to our Quick Start Guide. Hope it helps :)

Degeyter5 karma

Has there ever been a feature that you wanted to add to OneNote but have been unable to for technical reasons (or otherwise)?

MSOneNote11 karma

This is Avneesh.

I've been looking at incorporating time travel into OneNote, but haven't quite got it working yet.

MSOneNote2 karma

Yes! But that's why we work at Microsoft, we love the challenge. -Chris

luxtabula4 karma

Good job on the Office Lens app for Windows Phone. Will OneNote for Windows Phone be getting an update when Windows Phone 8.1 is released?

MSOneNote4 karma

No specific comments on future releases. But OneNote on Windows Phone ships as part of each release of Windows Phone, so you can expect it to come out with Windows Phone 8.1.

-- David Rasmussen

dashingdays4 karma

In OneNote for WP8, when you tap in the date region below the title, it scrolls all the way to the bottom. Will you guys be making a way to toggle this behavior per note?

MSOneNote6 karma

This is Dan...wow this is interesting and I was just trying it out. I think this is something we didn't totally intend. When you tap on the top of the page by your content then we place the cursor/IP there so you can prepend more content. If you tap right on the date/time then it seems to append and put the IP on the bottom. I think we should have just had the tapping on the date/time not do anything. Thanks for mentioning this and we can look into this for the future. Otherwise I think just tap a little lower and that would work.

milkshakeiu4 karma

Who do you have winning the NCAA Tournament?

MSOneNote8 karma

This is Avneesh.

As the official bracketologist for the OneNote team, I currently project Florida and Arizona in the title game, with Florida cutting down the nets at the end of the game. final score of 81-74.

MSOneNote4 karma

This is Dan...Michigan Go Blue!!!!

savingpvtbryan3 karma

Are you guys the same team as the OneDrive people? Under what division are you guys under? The Office Team?

MSOneNote6 karma

This is Tim

Everything here is named One-something now! It's super confusing. I think everyone else is trying to horn in on our awesomeness.

tl/dr; no, we're in Office.

MSOneNote6 karma

This is Dan...we are the OneNote team but we are part of Office and work closely with OneDrive and a bunch of other groups across the company. But we bleed purple...

inexion3 karma

hi guys, i just got a surface pro 2. enjoying onenote so far, but for the love of god please add export as pdf to the 'app' version of onenote. this should not be a 'pro' only feature. please tell me this is coming.

windowsphoneguy2 karma

Why don't you use the desktop version?

inexion2 karma

Because I'm using it on a surface....there are two versions, the app and pro. The app is way faster to use and write on, is less bloated and bug free and syncing is kind of a nightmare between the two. So I stick with the app version when taking notes.

MSOneNote6 karma

This is great input. We're continuing to work on improving the Windows store app version of OneNote which is really optimized for tablets. This is an example something we'll look into soon. Agreed we want that version to be great on tablets because it's optimized for touch.

And I don't think we'd make it a 'pro' only feature...

-- David Rasmussen

THE_ANGRY_CATHOLIC2 karma

What's your opinion of competitors like Evernote and Simplenote?

MSOneNote4 karma

This is Ari, it's Ever SO Simple, there is only One Note that matters.

phenolate2 karma

I see how you're pushing OneDrive use with OneNote, but it's hard to understand how this will compete with the Evernote ecosystem. Since you're a bit late to the game, the question will be what type of beer did you bring to make-up for it?

MSOneNote7 karma

This is Tim

I can only drink gluten-free beers, like Tolerance, Omission, and Red Bridge. Dragon's Gold was really good, if a bit hoppy, but Red Bridge really priced them out of the market :[ which is sad since Dragon's Gold was there first.

As were we. Evernote is the new guys :D

MSOneNote2 karma

You choose the beer. We'll be there. ;-p