Journal: the undervalued notes program
byYes, you heard me. Journal is undervalued. Let’s show a little Journal love today. 
In light of my recent OneNote fun, I had switched to Journal out of need since all I had installed was a broken OneNote beta and Journal. When the beta wouldn’t install again so I could get to my notes, I panicked and installed the OneNote 2007 Beta 2 on another computer in the house, printed all my OneNote notes to Journal, and then copied all the Journal files to my tablet. It was Journal that I finished up my busy week with since I didn’t have time to try to figure out what was going on with my beta of OneNote.
(Later that week I found out there were remnants of the beta refresh even after uninstalling it that not even regular window’s cleaners would remove. I had to use CCleaner to remove the remaining parts before it would reinstall. Anyone who knows the steps of reinstalling the Office 2007 beta knows this took quite a while to do.)
What did I gain from this? Well, I’m still only using Journal. That’s right. This whole Journal thing is working for me. I really thought I’d miss little things about OneNote after using it all semester, especially after using the new OneNote all semester with all the new features. Did I slip and hit my head at some point this week? No, I’m not going crazy, I just realized a few things that are important to a student:
1. Stability
2. Flexibility
3. Familiarity
4. Simplicity
But, Tracy!! What about all the cool things OneNote offers?!? What about audio/video recording, searching those recording, OCR of imported documents, high-tech flagging, notebooks, sections, pages, and subpages, what about the screen clipper?!?
Hm, this might take some convincing, but stay with me!
1. Stability
Journal is to note-taking as Notepad is to word-processing. Barebones, easy, free, already installed and simple. Have you ever had Notepad crash on you? Freeze your computer? Overtake your power supply with 100 processes? No, of course not. It’s complexity is right up there with that MineSweeper game that’s always in the games folder. It has no reason to crash. If the barebones program isn’t stable then there’s something wrong with your computer.
Yes, Journal is more complex than Notepad, but not half, or even a quarter, of what OneNote or GoBinder is. Journal is tested, tried, and true. Even if you use another notes program, Journal is your back-up program, your scratch paper program, your demo ink program because it’s least likely to freeze mid-demo or confuse the person your showing it to (if it’s not your demo program, I highly suggest it). Journal is all these things because it’s small, quiet, and works.
I’ve had GoBinder crash, I’ve had GoBinder 2005 crash, I’ve had OneNote 2003 crash, and I’ve had, as noted, OneNote 2006 really crash. Trust me, it’s not fun waiting for the pen to switch to an eraser as the lecturer continues full speed ahead, or wait the two minutes while your entire notebook reboots. I’ve done this several, several times after using a tablet for almost 3 years in class.
OK, so even IF Journal decides to go crazy, even if you have the worst luck ever and are horrible to your computer and Journal decides to not let you open a file, because Journal doesn’t clump everything together into one program, all you’ve lost is one file, not your entire notebook (but I can’t see a Journal file messing up so bad that you couldn’t ever reopen it). If your big-time program messes, you’re stuck waiting until you have time to fix it before you can look at your notes again. Is that a risk you’re willing to take? Remember Murphy, and remember it will probably happen when you have the most homework due.
2. Flexibility
With all the features OneNote has, the one it lacks is the ability to put two notes pages next to each other. You have to either be on one page or another, no doubling up. If you want to look at three pages, well then you just have to remember what section and folder each page is located. It’s the equivalent of doing your homework in the same notebook you took your notes in. Of course it’s do-able, but I haven’t found a student that doesn’t like a big desk to spread all their papers out on so they have everything in easy reach and can see more than one thing at a time. 
With Journal, you can have your notes open, the homework assignment open, and an blank file you actually work the homework in. Any additional files can easily be opened and tucked away on your toolbar. You can even arrange the files to where one file fills half the screen and the other fills the other half (a personal favorite of mine). Working with multiple Journal pages (as long as they’re separate files) is much easier than working with multiple OneNote pages.
Journal also has discrete pages that print just how you would expect them too. This falls in the realm of flexibility for the simple reason that you may not always work on your tablet. With Journal you can easily go from a file that looks great on your tablet, to a file that looks great on paper or a PDF.
And one final thing on flexibility, unless you want to keep every little piece of paper you wrote from a class you took last year open all the time, you aren’t going to have easy access to previous class notes if you use a program like OneNote or GoBinder. You’ll probably archive all that stuff once you realize how much space everything is taking on your computer (especially with GoBinder) and just keep your current class notes available. On the other hand, if all of your notes are in Journal you can keep a folder called “Finished Class Notes” in your school folder and open “History 101 notes.jnt” just as easy as you can open any other file on your computer. I’m going to print all my old notes to Journal for this very reason because as of right now they’re all stuck in GoBinder and I have to reload everything into the program just to view the notes (along with everything else I saved in that class’s folder).
3. Familiarity
Tablet uber-users, like the many who read this blog, are just going to have to understand that not everyone wants to spend time exploring their new computer and all it can do. Out-of-box experience is important to the consumer and that’s something Journal has the one-up on, at least for now.
No matter what Tablet PC you buy, Journal will be pre-installed. It was probably the first program most of us tablet-users played with when we opened up our first tablet. There isn’t any set-up involved, you don’t have to understand a complex program structure or spend time getting your mind around where everything is. It’s easy, intuitive, and what Word users are use to. Open the program, write something down, give it a name, and save.
Journal wins on the familiarity game because it’s just what a person would expect a digital note-taking solution to be. Now, that doesn’t win it any creativity points, but it does make it more like home. If the average person picked up a spiral notebook, said, “Hey, let’s put this on the computer,” and made a program to mimic the spiral notebook, Journal would be the result. If the average person looked at Word and said, “Hey, let’s make a program like this, except you can write with a pen instead of a keyboard,” Journal would probably be the result.
A student doesn’t have to change how they take notes in order to use Journal. You can argue that OneNote and GoBinder don’t make a student change their style, but you have to go against the structure of the program to do that. Those programs want you to frequently create individual pages. They’re built upon it. If you’ve ever tried to have a really long OneNote page, then you know it’s not too friendly to the one-continuous-lecture style of note-taking because it’s difficult and slow to navigate up and down the page. Journal allows for one long continuous note but still has pages with page numbers and it’s still quick to scroll. It’s just like taking notes into a spiral notebook.
OneNote is great for many many things, but I argue that you have to be willing to change how you take notes in order to use it as a student. For some student’s this isn’t a problem, but many aren’t willing to change this late in the game (assuming you pick up a tablet in college).
4. Simplicity
OK, now what about all that hoopla about the many features I’m missing out on by not using OneNote?
The recording is nice. I can replay a section of the lecture if I have no idea what I was writing in the notes later on, but this whole semester I’ve only used it once even though I’ve pressed the record button every time I start taking notes. If I’m taking detailed enough notes that I can see what was being said at a certain point in the lecture, then I probably don’t need the help anyway, and if I didn’t take detailed notes, then I have to listen to the entire lecture just to hear the material I need.
As a student, I highly suggest not relying on audio recording for help later on. If you really have problems keeping up with a lecturer, just record the lecture using one of those handheld things or a free recording program. You’re going to need to listen to the whole lecture later on, so you might as well have a flexible solution. Recording every lecture just gives you an excuse to daydream or surf the web, thinking, “I can listen to the recording later on if I really need to be paying attention right now.” Well, you won’t, and come test day, you’ll be kicking yourself (says the girl who was kicking herself come test day).
As for OCR, don’t even think you can use it to OCR your whole book. It takes hours just to import the whole book in an organized manner and then you’re stuck because OneNote isn’t good for quickly flipping through pages that are that big in file size. I’ve tried it. Don’t waste your time. Go to your campus computer store, search around on LimeWire or BitTorrent, and find yourself a cheap/free version of Acrobat or Omnipage. You’ll save yourself a lot of time if you’re goal is to have a searchable digital book. For files under 10 pages or so, OneNote works fine, but personally, I don’t usually need to search a file that’s only a few pages long.
So what about these high tech note flags of all shapes and sizes? I never used them. Maybe they just weren’t ready for use in the beta, but they didn’t work that well (if I circled something and flagged it, it just flagged all the individual chunks of things I circled so I’d end up with 12 flags when I just wanted one). Plus, mid lecture I don’t really have time to mess with flags. It’s easier to just underline something. I never had time to review the few flags I did mark, so what good did they really do? This may be just a personal preference, but considering Journal has simple flags of different colors, I can get the same benefit from the Journal flags as I do the OneNote flags. 
Everything else, I just don’t need. If I was doing alright with a pencil and paper taking notes and doing homework, do you really think I need an army of tools at my fingertips to successfully take notes all of a sudden? Not really. Yes, I love having several different pens to write the notes with (found in any notes program) and I love having everything on my computer so I don’t lose anything (also found with any notes program), but seriously, I can still search my notes with Journal, so what else do I need? I’m not diss-ing OneNote as a program, it’s great for many people in many situations, but looking at it from an undergraduate student perspective, it may be a bit of overkill.
Related STPC article: The Journal Spiral
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Refreshingly interesting article Tracy! With all the difficulties I had with GB and OneNote in setting them up to meet my needs I was starting to feel akward in regards with all the rave those programs seem to get from reviewers (GB performance (or lack of) aside…)
It is nice to hear from a respected tablet PC user that she feels the same way as I do. And yes Journal is very useful and usable for a student… Learned it the hard way myself.
Thanks for your point of view.
November 8th, 2006 at 6:33 pmHaha, yah, over the last term, I would find myself keeping Journal handy for the times when GoBinder would lock-up.
But this past term, Journal really found a permanent spot with me as the program that I write up my assignments in. The reason is, as you say, the discrete, visible, and configurable paging.
It would be a pain in GoBinder when things got spread across two pages without me realizing. It was always a guess to when I fully used the page or not.
With Journal, I can see and rest assured that I will get as many pages as I expect from the printer.
November 8th, 2006 at 7:58 pmHooray, I’m not in the minority so far!
November 8th, 2006 at 10:02 pmOneNote is to Journal as Word is to Notepad; therefore, I’ll simply use notepad to create all my lab reports and term papers in Notepad…right?…wrong. Tracy, do you think Word to be a bit of overkill too? OneNote-A-Holic Stability: If OneNote crashes, restore backup. OneNote saves itself about every 30 seconds. Flexibility: Need to see two pages? Click on the window menu and select ‘new window’. Need more than two pages viewed at once, take out your magnifying glass because you won’t see much (assuming only a tablet PC is being used). Don’t want to keep all your notes on your computer and taking up space in OneNote? Save them on a CD. Want past notes out of the way but easily available? Hey, right click on the notebook no longer needed, then click on ‘close notebook’ and it will always be available in your OneNote Notebooks folder by clicking on ‘open notebook’. Open notebooks like any other file type. Familiarity: If being feature rich makes for an unfamiliar method of writing notes, then yes, OneNote will be very unfamiliar. But should you posses the power to tap on the ‘new page’ tab then OneNote is not at all that different from turning to a new sheet of paper and continuing to write. Simplicity: OneNote can be as simple as you make it. During class I’m using ‘full page view’ with only one toolbar. The toolbar is my floating essentials toolbar making available only my yellow highlighter, 3 pens (blue, red, black), and the icon for a new subpage. Subpage instead of new page because I create one primary first page for each lecture followed by subpages. The screen real-estate is incredible using full view and exposing only the essentials in OneNote. OneNote is not overkill if you know how to use…full view. Gosh Tracy, the Tablet PC Gods have handed you an unlucky hand. I can’t recall all the posts you’ve made concerning OneNote crashing on you–may be a bit too much to make an informed post about OneNote. From GoBinder MVP, through Teo-a-holic please give OneNote a break. Mentioning it may be overkill for students reminds me of people that think software such as Word and Acrobat are also bloated. When toolbars can be removed and customized than it’s impossible to have too many tools. Journal is to Notepad…period.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:15 amI figured I’d ruffle your feathers, Frank, since I insulted your holy grail. Also, excuse me for trying several different note-taking solutions. Perhaps the reason I jump around is because I haven’t found one that works how I want it? Nah, couldn’t be…
Yes, I DID use full screen mode. Yes, I did customize my toolbars. Yes, I did open and close notebooks when I needed them.
But, Frank, why do you insist I need to do all these things when by doing all these things I’m simply making OneNote resemble what Journal does narturally?
No, I don’t recommend using Notepad for formal documents, but it’s good to see you have such high esteem of undergraduate lecture notes and homework that you consider them formal documents and equate them to writing term papers. If I’m doing a big research project, OneNote would totally kick Journal’s butt. But if I’m doing homework, all I need is a piece of paper that will print pretty for when I turn it in (I will argure that unlike Notepad vs. Word, Journal creates nicer printed documents than OneNote).
What you’re saying is I should use OneNote because I can. What I’m saying is I don’t need to use OneNote so why should I.
It’s like handing a TI89 to a history major when they just need to do simple math. There’s no reason for it. It will just make their life more complex. Let them use their solar-powered simple calculator if that’s all they need since it’s easier, cheaper, and what they’re use to.
By the way, I use the two page thing all the time. No one’s saying they have to be both on “full page” view. On my 12″ xga screen I can easily see all that I need to see on each page. It’s hard for you to say “you can’t do it” when I just said I do it all the time.
Frank, we all know you’re a super user, comfortable with all things software and hardware. OneNote is awesome for people who like to play with new features that they may or may not need. For the majority of people, OneNote, GoBinder…all those digital filling solutions just aren’t natural to use, and not everyone will want to take the time learn how to take notes using it.
I’M NOT SAYING ONENOTE IS BAD. I’m saying it’s possibly more than some students need which will hinder their productivity.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:04 amHi Tracy!
I got to class early so I decided to check my mail/RSS and found that you had posted something new. I decided to check it out. Hmm writing about the problems with OneNote? Interesting…I love OneNote! I NEVER have any problems with it. I am just going to stick with my program. OneNote has a lot more features than Journal anyways. Well, class starts and everything seems fine. Than all of a sudden…OneNote crashes half way through the lecture. :-(. My tablet freezes up for about 5 minutes while class goes on ahead. When I finally get my tablet back normal, I quickly open up Journal and began taking notes.
I actually really liked taking notes in Journal! I was really surprised. For assignments that I turn in, I usually use 2note. I like how 2note allows me to type text without having to create a new textbook. Although I like both programs, both lack features that I need. One is a spell-check (as you probably noticed from this post hehe). Most note taking programs I have tried do not offer a spell check. This makes it very inconvenient when I am quickly typing notes in class instead of writing them out. Also, I found it difficult to organize my assignments and notes with Journal and 2note. Has anyone tried 2note Pro? What are the differences over the free version? I like how OneNote allows me to create a tabbed notebook. Is this possible with 2note Pro? How do you guys organize with Journal/2note?
Maybe my love of OneNote was overstated a bit. I really would like an alternative but I can’t find what I want. I am thinking about switching back to Word for all of my typed notes and just creating one long file that contains all my notes from the quarter. Than using Journal for notes that are mostly handwritten. Maybe I can convert my Word notes to PDF and create bookmarks in them to mark off different topics for easy access.
Well since my OneNote crashed in class after I had just read your post…I guess this is technical your fault right? Hehe Just kidding. Like always, I really enjoyed your post.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:18 am[...] Tracy Hooten, Tablet PC MVP and editor of http://www.StudentTabletPC.com has written a fantastic article on Journal, and is a definite must read to remind notetakers everywhere why you should take a fresh look at Journal for your notetaking needs. Recently, she had to reinstall OneNote 2007 and could not get access to the beta, and consequently has had to turn to Journal for all of her notetaking. [...]
November 9th, 2006 at 7:55 pmExcellent article, Tracy! Good to see a few new articles popping up on the STPC.
I, for one, would not live without Journal. While the “big” programs like OneNote and GoBinder have all the bells and whistles you could dream of, sometimes it is nice to use something refreshing simple, efficient, and effective. Journal fits those three categories perfectly. While I could not turn solely to Journal for all note-taking and homework needs, I do find that in most scenarios it is simply “good enough.” I think all your points are perfectly valid and must agree entirely!
November 9th, 2006 at 8:48 pmright on! starting this academic year, i went completely paperless. i carry a digital camera and use it on every sheet i receive. my various onenote notebooks- from two academic programs, two classes each- have lots of embedded material. every so often, when a file gets to be too big, onenote refuses to open it. thankfully i can still export to PDF when that happens (but that’s it) and delete the rogue file. but on the days that onenote won’t open, it’s journal i turn to. i scribble there and copy to onenote later. i happen to prefer the continuous page in ON to the discrete pages in journal, and ON is better with text, but it’s great to have journal on those days…i am really hoping the released version of ON 2007 fixes all those nasty bugs, takes up less memory, and doesn’t make my fan run amok.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:56 pmI’ve extolled the simplicity of Journal ever since I got my Gateway Convertible Notebook last year. It is rock solid, allows easy printing, and has perhaps the best “feeling” ink of any TPC software. I thought ON 2003 was okay, but not worth the extra overhead.
I’ve moved on to using TEO 3.0 notes tab(which is built on the Infininote architecture which feels a whole lot like Journal) for most of my note taking because I can tie them to appointments, but if I want to jot down a few quick notes, I still turn to Journal.
A lot of TPC users never even give Journal a try, which is sad. It is a great little program that covers all of the basics of noteaking solidly!
November 10th, 2006 at 6:27 amI tried journal, especially as a part of TOE, but I find that I can’t search within journal files, which can limit me when as I take notes for grad school and for my business and they cross-over on a regular basis. I use google desktop - does the MS search search inside journal docs, or is search somthing that you just miss out on with journal?
November 10th, 2006 at 9:30 amGreat article! I am new to inking with a Samsung Q1 as my first device ever running Tablet Edition. I downloaded the trial of One Note 2003 and reached the end of my 60 days. I am struggling whether to spend $99 on buying this program, especially with Office 2007 just around some corner (hopefully the next corner). I was thinking that for me too Windows Journal seems to meet my needs. Glad to hear that others feel this way too.
November 10th, 2006 at 10:02 amJoe,
I believe that Windows Desktop search does search the ink in Journal files.
November 10th, 2006 at 11:28 amI also just tested plain ol’ Window’s search and it searched my ink in Journal. You can also look in the file menu in Journal and do a quick search. Like OneNote, however, it doesn’t tell you exactly where it is, just that it’s somewhere in a certain file.
November 10th, 2006 at 11:47 amYou know, I’m a big fan of Onenote, and my first reaction was disagreement. After thinking about it a bit, I’ve backed down to qualified disagreement.
I have to admit that Journal is my fall-back program, for times when Onenote 2007 B2TR is misbehaving. And the great thing is that once Onenote has stabilized, I can Select All and Copy in Journal, and paste my notes into Onenote - so Onenote continues to be my overall repository of information.
It’s probably not completely fair to judge Onenote 2007, as it’s a beta. I found Onenote 2003 to be completely stable, I just was too anxious to have the new goodies in 2007 to wait.
I’m using Onenote for work and personal organizer, and I’d hate to lose all of that functionality. I’ve always imagined that Onenote would be ideal (much more so that Journal) for a student. Maybe, though, the work flow of a student doesn’t benefit as much from the extra features. For example, I use the Note flags/tags extensively - always jotting down and flagging some assignment, item to investigate, or Project status info. Then, being able to do a Note Flag summary, and see all of these things to be attended to (even if they were written many days ago on many different pages) is invaluable to me. But maybe, for a student, that just isn’t as valuable?
November 10th, 2006 at 2:54 pmI’m an animator, not a student, but I take a lot of notes in production meetings. I’ve found Journal to be so intuitive and responsive that I actually uninstalled OneNote from my tablet.
I can see how OneNote would appeal to obsessively organized types, but I’ve always been a little more . . . informationally-freeform.
November 10th, 2006 at 3:41 pmYeah!!
I am relatively new (6 mo) to tablets - but journal lets me use the filesystem to organize notes, pdf, assignments, programs, texts and misc. references in one group of folders.
One folder for each class, each topic or whatever. Much more efficient than OneNote.
add the snipping tool, pdf creator, beta office and I am all set…
I have tried OneNote, GoBinder and other add-ins and they all seen to add complexity and a non-natural interface.
November 10th, 2006 at 8:13 pmWhat is the “full screen mode” in OneNote?? I’ve read about it in the above dialogue, but can find it in OneNote 2003. Are you just referring to the fact that you hide the bottom task bar and unlock the top tool bar, and hide the page header, or is there an actual “full screen mode/view” option that I can select from a menue? Can I hide the page numbers on the side, and the tabs on top so I just have paper and a floating tool bar?
November 12th, 2006 at 9:05 amI must agree with Tracy here. Journal is for note-taking in class far better than OneNote. My reasons for making this statement are simple. In one of my classes I get the handouts as PDF documents. These I print to OneNote/Journal. OneNote immediately becomes so sluggish that it is borderlining with unusable. Journal however doesn’t even take a slight performance hit. This is on a 1.73GHz Tecra M4 with 1.5GB RAM, so we’re not talking about a kitten here..
I have been using ON12 up to the B2TR, but as things became more hectic ( end of semester, lots of projects that need to be finished ) OneNote simply failed to deliver while Journal stood up like a champ.
^5 Journal, I say
November 12th, 2006 at 11:08 amI am a college student that also runs a business. I recently went through all of the note taking and organizational tablet pc software that I have bought over the past couple of years highlighting their pros and cons as they apply to my workstyle. I decided to use ON2003 for general note taking and storing information. I use Planplus for Win XP 4 for tasks and schedualing plus printing things like receipts because I could find them by searching unlike in ON when I just see the image. Unfortunantely, ON 2003 lacks the ability to ocr pdfs. To get around that I print a PDF to Journal, annotate it, and then link to the Journal file from Onenote along with a brief description of the contents of the Journal file so that I would be able to find it by searching in ON. I think if there was a program that had the structure of ON with the elimination of text features like formatting, ON would be much simpler and therefore an easier program for most tablet pc users. I was also wondering if there are any companies making add-ins for Journal or programs like Journal but with a few additional features.
November 12th, 2006 at 12:45 pmSorry if I didn’t take the time to read the whole posting, but I just didn’t find it very informative. Sure journal is great for the quick notes and whatnot, but when it comes to organization, OneNote just works.
As for stability, did you think about the fact that you were using the beta? Its called beta for a reason, and while I know Microsoft has a history with crashing, I’ve never had such a problem with OneNote. Another important thing that keeps my usage of Journal to a minimum is that Journal is a cpu hog, and in no time my tablet is running its fan at full speed.
While I’m sure there will always be people on both sides of the fence, OneNote is what I use for class.
November 12th, 2006 at 12:49 pmJournal ? A CPU hog ? I disagree.
Try printing a 100 page PDF to Journal and see how it copes. Scrolling/flipping is no problem.
OneNote barely crawls if put to the same test.
And since I organise my stuff in folders anyway ( being in CS, I get quite a lot more than just PDF files ), OneNote doesn’t add that much more to the equation.
I’m not dissing OneNote, it’s a great program, but it’s much like taking a 18-wheeler to the store when you could have been much faster just using a bike
November 14th, 2006 at 7:12 amI also agree that I find no CPU hog-ness out of Journal. In fact, it’s one of my smallest profile programs.
November 14th, 2006 at 11:40 amWindows Journal or Linux Gournal?…
As I mentioned this morning, I’m again looking at Ubuntu to learn more about Linux, and for starters, I’ve got a multi-boot desktop going with XP, Vista RC2 and Ubuntu 6.10 just for kicks. Although I’ve got this Linux distro on my desktop client, I…
November 14th, 2006 at 12:52 pm[...] Original post by Tracy for Student News Published by November 9th, 2006 in Student News. Tags: Student News. « Bullied Japan student threatens suicide - United Press International Teen Accused Of Stabbing Fellow Student On Bus - KDKA » [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 3:26 amIf you combine ‘Journal’ with the ‘Personal Brain’ software, they give you far more flexibility than ‘One Note’.
To try this, firstly download Personal Brain from http://www.thebrain.com/default.htm?thoughtid=49
Then create a thought in Personal Brain with the name ‘Bill Smith Meeting 28-11-06′. Then double click this thought and you will be given the option of launching a number of programs. Click on Journal and then write your notes and hit save. Personal Brain will automatically save this Journal file note as ‘Bill Smith Meeting 12-11-06′ in the Personal Brain structure.
Personal Brain structures these files and thoughts in the way that your brain works - it is a very cool piece of software. It’s worth checking out the online demo so you get an idea of what it is capable of (especially if you use it in conjunction with Journal and other Tablet PC software).
Would be keen to hear your feedback on this system. I don’t know anyone else who has combined the Journal and Personal Brain software in this way, but it sure works for me!
You can also drag and drop Outlook contacts and appointments etc into the brain structure - as such, it’s a great program for organising your corporate networks as well. Other Microsoft programs and files such as Word can also be dragged into the Personal Brain organiser too.
Best regards,
Jon Dee, Sydney Australia
November 15th, 2006 at 5:26 amI have to agree that Journal is a somewhat superior program for note-taking/homework. I used OneNote 2003 (couldn’t get the ‘07 Beta w/out paying at this point) for a few weeks, and I was really starting to get frustrated with the lack of features. No lasso-select (in ‘07, but still.. seriously, this should’ve been in ‘03), no full screen/minimal UI (in ‘07.. still), and a complicated, memory-hog style usage of system resources really make it difficult to use.
From my few weeks of switching to Journal now, I can say that the only significant advantage OneNote had in my usage pattern was the ability to handle text a bit more smoothly. You don’t have to do the Insert > Text Box, and then Right click > Format to change any settings, as in Journal, because OneNote already has the standard Word text formatting toolbars. I’m not sure why Journal doesn’t have these, but I wish they would incorporate them.
In any case, I do think OneNote is a bit overkill for regular note taking. If Journal had decent text tools, I wouldn’t have a reason to use any other Office program than Excel & Powerpoint - just throw Word & OneNote out the window.
I’ve posted about this on my blog before (see website), if you want to see further reasons for OneNote dissent, search it w/ google (I don’t use categories.. too lazy at the moment).
November 16th, 2006 at 10:14 pmOh.. one other thing I forgot to mention. OneNote really sucks if you have to print anything, because it works on a continuous-page paradigm with no page breaks. This makes it impossible to predict where the page will cut your diagrams in half. The first few weeks, I tried formatting homework I knew I’d have to print by trial and error adding page space and looking at the print preview. This is absolute hell if you edit the document after, then have to readjust it every time. Or if the document is long.
On the other hand, Journal has a simple page system, all numbered, and you can customize the size of the paper easily. I made mine the correct scale to the width of my screen, so that I will have margins on all sides when I print regardless of how close I am to the side of the page in my notes (using a 7.47 x 10″ blank template I made). This makes it so if I go to full screen in portrait mode, I can see the entire page + 2 rows of toolbars at the top + start menu at the bottom. I could never do this with all the complicated UI of OneNote.
November 16th, 2006 at 10:20 pmAt one point you were notes in TE0. How did that work for you in the course of a semester?
November 18th, 2006 at 11:47 amIs there a way to have page numbers print in Journal ?
November 19th, 2006 at 2:28 pmI think the WORST issue with OneNote is the auto-alignment type formatting it does. I take a lot scientific notes (i.e. text + graphs + equations on different parts of the page) and OneNote incessently messes up the lines I write. If I draw a figure to the right, and THEN draw text above or below it, it will often completely scatter the picture I had drawn. Journal however, DOES not have this problem. Does anyone know if there is a way to turn this feature off in One Note? Thhanks!
November 21st, 2006 at 7:36 amYou’ve been in fulltime education too long - and you post shows it
November 24th, 2006 at 11:15 amManny, on the Edit menu, the Snap to Grid selection is supposed to be a toggle. See if that helps.
November 25th, 2006 at 12:34 amWell written, Tracy.
Blogged here: http://www.ericmackonline.com/ica/blogs/emonline.nsf/dx/journal-the-undervalued-notes-program
November 30th, 2006 at 5:10 pmThanks, Eric ^_^.
December 1st, 2006 at 1:31 amI teach engineering and I have to agree with many of your points Tracy. I use OneNote to lecture with (projecting notes), but really, it’s overkill. I already have my notes organized into multiple folders; working with OneNote means I have to duplicate my file organization within one program. Journal, however, allows me to save the individual file into a folder already on my hard drive. And like you, after using OneNote for over a year, I have yet to make any real use of the flags, reminders, etc.
Ironically, I am using a Mac for now. I would love to see Apple produce a tablet.
Keep up the good work.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:26 pmWhy Journal over OneNote? - SIMPLE:
Also:
And let us not forget that there’s Windows Journal Viewer for 100% faithful reproduction of your notes VS where you would need to save to crappy HTML pages with OneNote. (Oh and since Journal (not viewer) is now built into most Vista editions). Journal simply SHINES when you need to share notes with people.
I have used OneNote 2007 B2TC ever since it was released and I’ve never never liked it as much as Journal. Simply because Journal is the lean and clean notetaking program. OneNote is much more suitable for use if you ONLY type and not write with ink. And… when was the last time you’ve used Note Sharing feature in OneNote? (other than to let others mock up your notes)
The problem why Tablet users never give Journal a try is because most new tablets come preinstalled with OneNote. It is also heavily hyped as far as to say “You will get GRADE As simply by using OneNote” pufff…..
In fact, I prefer Journal and Sticky Notes over anything OneNote offers. OneNote is DUPLICATING the role of these programs, and that’s reason enough for me to avoid it. OneNote is trying the do all things but does none of them well (in terms of performance and simplicity).
P.S. And Frank - ever heard of a program called WordPad? It’s pretty full-featured for simple text reports you know… that makes Word and Acrobat BLOATED.
As they say “the best things in life are free”
January 27th, 2007 at 1:42 amJournal vs Onenote vs Agilix?
In journal I have different files for each meeting that I have at work. I have to go to open file and find an old meeting. which is difficult to find.
Which program can help me arrange my meetings on a single display screen where I just click ONCE on the date to open the meeting and see it without having to save and close the old page that i am viewing? (I have to always click yes/no for such window when I try to open a new meeting in journal. Other option is just keep opening so many different windows when I am working with multiple meeting notes).
September 9th, 2008 at 4:28 pm