I've been looking at OneNote 2007. It now seems that OneNote 2007 can
do everything Windows Journal can, and much more.

I know they are different products, and much has been written in the
past comparing OneNote 2003 vs. Journal.

But with OneNote 2007, am I missing something?

In other words, what can Windows Journal do that OneNote 2007 can't
do?

Thanks

I'm not an expert on either, but the basic comparison is similar to Word
vs WordPad

Journal is a free "bundled" app with all (I think) tablet pc's, so that
users can immediately and easily start using the tablet's pen features
and OneNote is a much more complex part of the ms office suite and
priced accordingly although some tablet vendors offer it included in the
purchase price of the tablet.

Assume others will chime in to expand on each one's advantages.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]

In message <uxe5BSs6HHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl>, Robert M. Lincoln
<robert.nospam@americanriver.com> writes
>I've been looking at OneNote 2007. It now seems that OneNote 2007 can
>do everything Windows Journal can, and much more.
>
>I know they are different products, and much has been written in the
>past comparing OneNote 2003 vs. Journal.
>
>But with OneNote 2007, am I missing something?
>
>In other words, what can Windows Journal do that OneNote 2007 can't do?
>
>Thanks
>
>
Robert,

I have never actually used OneNote 2007, only the 2003 version (which I
bought and tried) but I don't think that the issue is one of technical
functionality.

One Note is the electronic version of an "organizer". A binder into
which you can put (pretty much) anything you wish, and then structure
it, sort it, search it and generally keep it all in a controlled and
organised way.

Windows Journal is closer to the electronic equivalent of a simple
notepad. I.e. a set of blank pages held together in some way on which
you can write.

In that a "filofax" has blank sheets of paper within it (along with a
lot of other "stuff"), it is perfectly feasible to use one as a simple
notepad, and if you use an organiser, one section will almost certainly
be your notepad. However if you use it as a notepad as its sole purpose
it is an expensive and over engineered tool (or a designer statement if
its in tooled leather!).

Used for the purpose (and within the paradigm) that the designers had in
mind - the multi-tabbed personal organiser - when they developed it,
OneNote is a very good, flexible and useful tool (or so I am led to
believe! - I have never managed to get on with the basic paradigm on
paper or electronically) .

If on the other hand you prefer to carry a blank notepad around,
scribble notes on it and then file the resulting sheets in whatever
"heap" structure you personally prefer - then I would stick to Journal
(as I do).

The perfect notebook for me is an infinitely extensible package, with a
set of tools to which I can add as new needs arise, and which will keep
all the "stuff" I need in a set of "heaps" that I can structure and
organise in any way I see fit. That is what a tablet does for me.

Adding One Note as a filing paradigm on top of the Tablet costs some
functionality, flexibility and extensibility in exchange for which it
provides an "integration layer". Whether you want to make the trade or
not depends on what you want the computer to do for you.

I personally don't see the need for a secondary "filing" and
"management" structure on top of the one already provided by the
operating system. I much prefer to work with multiple windows open, use
explorer as my (infinitely extendable) filing system, stick notes, files
spreadsheets, SPSS data structures, presentations, PDF's, e-mails and
journal pages as separate files with titles that have meaning (and
versioning) in folders related to the piece of work I am doing. If I
want multiple copies of the same thing, so be it (a file de-duplicator
tool will find the duplicates if I see the need), If I need the same
thing in two places - but only one copy - I drop a shortcut in.

There is nothing that Journal can do that OneNote can't. On the other
hand I can't see anything (that I want or need) that OneNote can do that
my Tablet with all its varied special purpose tools can't do already (OK
searching ink(?) - but that will come, and I normally convert Ink to
Text anyway - I can't read my own handwriting 24 hours after I wrote it
).

I hope this helps.

Regards


--
Peter R Cook

Journal was the "notepad.exe" of Tablet PC's simply designed to be an out of
the box app that demonstrated the power of digital ink. It has not (and most
likely will not) receive a single additional feature since its inception and
comparing it to OneNote is like comparing a Huffy mountain bike to a 2002
WS6 Trans Am. You know, except for the fact that the trans am was
discontinued and OneNote lives on. :)

--
Josh Einstein (Tablet PC MVP)
Einstein Technologies
Tablet Enhancements for Outlook - Try it free: www.tabletoutlook.com


"Robert M. Lincoln" <robert.nospam@americanriver.com> wrote in message
news:uxe5BSs6HHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> I've been looking at OneNote 2007. It now seems that OneNote 2007 can do
> everything Windows Journal can, and much more.
>
> I know they are different products, and much has been written in the past
> comparing OneNote 2003 vs. Journal.
>
> But with OneNote 2007, am I missing something?
>
> In other words, what can Windows Journal do that OneNote 2007 can't do?
>
> Thanks
>
>

"Josh Einstein" wrote:

> Journal was the "notepad.exe" of Tablet PC's simply designed to be an out of
> the box app that demonstrated the power of digital ink. It has not (and most
> likely will not) receive a single additional feature since its inception and
> comparing it to OneNote is like comparing a Huffy mountain bike to a 2002
> WS6 Trans Am. You know, except for the fact that the trans am was
> discontinued and OneNote lives on. :)
>

There are two main reasons I still use Journal:
1 - I teach engineering, and after class, I like to just upload what I've
written in the Tablet to the course web site without having to export it in a
different format. Because Journal has a free viewer and OneNote doesn't, I
know that students will be able to open the Journal files, even if they
cannot annotate them. (Our public labs do not have OneNote, but they do have
the free Journal Reader.)

2 - When I send a PDF or other document to OneNote, it creates one long
OneNote page with all of the pages of the originating document appended one
after the other. If I wanted to print the OneNote page or export it to
another format, the result is ugly page breaks. In Journal, if the document
I'm printing to the Journal Note Writer is 6 pages long, I get a 6 page
Journal document and the page breaks match the orginal document.

Having said that, I have had some trouble with the Journal Note Writer. For
some reason, the PDF generated by PDFLaTeX (a technical document typesetting
app) looks fine as PDF, but looks crappy when I print it to Journal. It looks
ok in OneNote except for what I said in #2.

Myself, I usually annotate PDFs directly with PDF Annotator, but again, this
is not software I can expect our students to have. (I'd use PDF Annotator for
everything, but I'd miss the choices of stationery - lines, grid paper, etc.
- I have in Journal.)

I'd sure love it if there were a clear winner among these three apps so I
wouldn't have to keep this internal debate going in my mind. Maybe someone
has a silver bullet for me?

Thanks!
Sandy Yost

Ok, I just figured out a way around my #2 in the last post. If I go into the
"Send to OneNote 2003" printer properties, I can tell it to make more
graceful page breaks. I'm not sure this is enough to settle the issue for
me...we shall see...

Journal Note Writer? I have no such printer... how do I get it? I do have
Journal...

C.

"syost" <syost@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:629086DC-9ADC-4153-8B6B-14C200940F0F@microsoft.com...
> "Josh Einstein" wrote:
>
>> Journal was the "notepad.exe" of Tablet PC's simply designed to be an out
>> of
>> the box app that demonstrated the power of digital ink. It has not (and
>> most
>> likely will not) receive a single additional feature since its inception
>> and
>> comparing it to OneNote is like comparing a Huffy mountain bike to a 2002
>> WS6 Trans Am. You know, except for the fact that the trans am was
>> discontinued and OneNote lives on. :)
>>
>
> There are two main reasons I still use Journal:
> 1 - I teach engineering, and after class, I like to just upload what I've
> written in the Tablet to the course web site without having to export it
> in a
> different format. Because Journal has a free viewer and OneNote doesn't, I
> know that students will be able to open the Journal files, even if they
> cannot annotate them. (Our public labs do not have OneNote, but they do
> have
> the free Journal Reader.)
>
> 2 - When I send a PDF or other document to OneNote, it creates one long
> OneNote page with all of the pages of the originating document appended
> one
> after the other. If I wanted to print the OneNote page or export it to
> another format, the result is ugly page breaks. In Journal, if the
> document
> I'm printing to the Journal Note Writer is 6 pages long, I get a 6 page
> Journal document and the page breaks match the orginal document.
>
> Having said that, I have had some trouble with the Journal Note Writer.
> For
> some reason, the PDF generated by PDFLaTeX (a technical document
> typesetting
> app) looks fine as PDF, but looks crappy when I print it to Journal. It
> looks
> ok in OneNote except for what I said in #2.
>
> Myself, I usually annotate PDFs directly with PDF Annotator, but again,
> this
> is not software I can expect our students to have. (I'd use PDF Annotator
> for
> everything, but I'd miss the choices of stationery - lines, grid paper,
> etc.
> - I have in Journal.)
>
> I'd sure love it if there were a clear winner among these three apps so I
> wouldn't have to keep this internal debate going in my mind. Maybe someone
> has a silver bullet for me?
>
> Thanks!
> Sandy Yost

"Carmen Gauvin-O'Donnell" wrote:

> Journal Note Writer? I have no such printer... how do I get it? I do have
> Journal...
>
>

Carmen, I don't know what to tell you. As I recall, this was one of my
printer options from the time I took my Toshiba M400 out of the box. I never
installed Journal myself - I think it comes bundled with the XP Tablet
operating system, and I'm assuming that the printer driver is automatically
set up when Journal is installed. If you are using the free Journal viewer, I
would assume that you wouldn't have the capability to print to a Journal
note. However, since you are on the Tablet PC forum, I'm guessing you have a
Tablet, and thus the full version of Journal. Perhaps one of the Microsoft
support staff can help you out.