Microsoft Releases OneNote as a Free Mac App Store Download

[Brenster]

Premium Evernote user here (iOS/Mac/Web) but interested in seeing how OneNote compares - always liked it on Windows but the lack of a Mac client drove me into Evernote's arms.

Is the OneNote web clipper for Safari on the Apple hosted extensions page, the Mac App Store or elsewhere? Interested in trying it along with Lense but isn't part of the core application cans can't seem to find it on Apple's Extensions page.

 

[Macalway]

From reading the website it seems you can't store anything on your computer's hard drive, only in the cloud, is this true?

I'm not a fan of saving my documents in the cloud.

They all want you to do this now. It's kind of annoying.

 

[Mick-Mac]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this another "free" note application (like EverNote or other offerings from Google) where all of your data is stored in somebody else's cloud and they derive a tidy income data-mining the bejesus out of everything you "give" them? I realize there are people out there who are fine with this - I'm not trying to be judgmental, just seeking clarification.

 

[KidPub]

From my experience, the difference is that Evernote feels like a big pile of information that I have to hunt through each time I need to see something. Onenote's metaphor is more like a traditional tabbed notebook. I'm sure that Evernote has some way to organize information better than I've managed to do it, but I prefer the Onenote approach.

Perry
Bookility

How is this better than Evernote? Honest question. What advantages does it offer?

 

[Michael Goff]

"Yes" he said while drumming his fingers and waiting rather impatiently.

Huh?

 

[iSee]

This was just a mistake in the marketing materials. We're having that text removed now. This is the free version of OneNote for the Mac and will always remain so. In the future we may add as part of the Office for Mac suite some additional premium features (purchased as part of your purchase of the suite). This free app store version will always be free.

David Rasmussen [Microsoft]

Is this the official MS statement?

Anyway, sounds good. I'll give it a shot because I have not really found the perfect note-taking app yet.

 

[Cougarcat]

Everybody claims to like toolbars or tool palates, the Ribbon is just a collection of them.

I wouldn't use the word "collection," as that would imply that they are organized.

Even in its "collapsed" state, the Office 2011 ribbon takes up as much space as the formatting bar in Pages, while displaying useless buttons that I would never use (and in OneNote, it's just blank space!) You can turn it off and just have a toolbar that is almost as compact as the formatting bar, but it appears there are absolutely no UI customization options in OneNote. You are forced to use the ribbon.

 

[ouimetnick]

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? The ribbon interface was introduced back in 2007. The ribbon interface, in all of its forms, is an example of bad UI design. It took a dramatic turn for the worse in Office 2013 because the lack of depth and contrast because much worse in that iteration

What is your point of posting here other that blindly defending Microsoft and their poor UI decisions? I have to work with their stuff every day. Do you have a job in a microsoft "shop"? If not, then your opinion is irrelevant.

If you had read more closely, you would have noticed that my main complain of the Ribbon concept is how Microsoft has arbitrarily grouped unrelated functions under the same tab because of space constraints. That was not a problem with the menu. The menu was hierarchical which meant that functions were grouped by groups and sub groups while everything is flattened into a tab now and it can take more time to find what you are looking for.

Microsoft should offer the user the option to use either a ribbon OR the menu and toolbars. They instead decided for the user which is arrogant.

Sounds like another company that we all know...

 

[Brenster]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this another "free" note application (like EverNote or other offerings from Google) where all of your data is stored in somebody else's cloud and they derive a tidy income data-mining the bejesus out of everything you "give" them? I realize there are people out there who are fine with this - I'm not trying to be judgmental, just seeking clarification.

In Microsoft's case I'm not sure they're data mining (if they are, it's not to the extent of Google et al). I've used OneDrive, formerly SkyDrive, for a couple of years now and have been pretty happy with it - especially the Office web apps.

I suspect Microsoft's intent is to have you not leave their ecosystem and continue to be locked into buying Office or an Office 365 subscription (assuming you were in in the first place). Haven't come across any aggressive hard sell or advertising whilst using OneDrive (SkyDrive) etc.

 

[JerryCards]

Apple and Microsoft should work together like the old days

Steve & Bill

 

[Rigby]

Nice. GUI looks good, and it works well for syncing notes across computers and devices. However, I would also like the option to save notebooks to the local hard drive only like you can in the Office 2013 version for Windows. Not everything has to live in the "cloud".

 

[AppleWarMachine]

I will download it and try it since it's "free" (for a limited time)

 

[SusanK]

I can't believe how negative everyone is on here !

You don't have to use this software you know !

I for one am glad it has been released and it will be great to now use OneNote on my PC and Mac..

Hope this is an indicator that the next version of Office for Mac is also coming soon..

Yes. It's an app available at no charge. We are free to download or not. Choice. It's not being forced on us Apple-style.

 

[codymac]

Huh?

Waiting for a review. Just had a go on a coworker's machine and could not get it to OCR either English or Russian text in an image.

 

[Michael Goff]

Waiting for a review. Just had a go on a coworker's machine and could not get it to OCR either English or Russian text in an image.

Good luck with finding a good review. What exactly would you consider "test driving the UI"?

 

[497902]

Hope Office 2014 will have the same UI, so much closer to the Ribbon interface in Office 2013. The UI of Office 2011 sucks...

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

This is the UK Store description.

In the description...

Right in the highlighted bit, have to expand the description to see.

Thanks, my bad! I was looking on the Microsoft site and the article. Hopefully it remains free, it's a great app.

 

[DavidRas]

Is this the official MS statement?

Anyway, sounds good. I'll give it a shot because I have not really found the perfect note-taking app yet.

Yes it is. I'm the Group Program Manager for OneNote at Microsoft.

 

[springsup]

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? The ribbon interface was introduced back in 2007. The ribbon interface, in all of its forms, is an example of bad UI design. It took a dramatic turn for the worse in Office 2013 because the lack of depth and contrast because much worse in that iteration

What is your point of posting here other that blindly defending Microsoft and their poor UI decisions? I have to work with their stuff every day. Do you have a job in a microsoft "shop"? If not, then your opinion is irrelevant.

If you had read more closely, you would have noticed that my main complain of the Ribbon concept is how Microsoft has arbitrarily grouped unrelated functions under the same tab because of space constraints. That was not a problem with the menu. The menu was hierarchical which meant that functions were grouped by groups and sub groups while everything is flattened into a tab now and it can take more time to find what you are looking for.

Microsoft should offer the user the option to use either a ribbon OR the menu and toolbars. They instead decided for the user which is arrogant.

I disagree entirely.

1. The menu was not scalable.

When Microsoft asked their customers what they wanted in the next version of Office, 7 of the top 10 requests were already in the product. Features simply were not discoverable. I was involved with the Vista/Office 2007 betas, and got to know some of the people behind it quite well; their testing showed that the Ribbon had people using a wider array of feature, requiring less mouse clicks.

The menu was just not scalable - for products as packed as those in Office, it just doesn't work. We've all seen the horror pictures:

Obviously those are exaggerations, but the point they're making is that the menus and toolbars don't scale.

2. The Ribbon is arbitrarily grouped because of limited space

The very opposite is true: the Ribbon is very logically grouped, tabs virtually extend the amount of space available (while contextual tabs mean that you aren't overwhelmed with lots of options you can't use right now), and the Ribbon scales very well to fit the amount of space that is available.

The Ribbon is a big change, but it's a change which is overwhelmingly for the better.

 

[Cougarcat]

Hope Office 2014 will have the same UI, so much closer to the Ribbon interface in Office 2013. The UI of Office 2011 sucks...

The interface in OneNote is way worse than 2011 because you cannot customize it at all. The "view" section in Preferences has one thing, "default zoom level."

 

[Nimrad]

Okay, as an extensive user of OneNote in VMWare Fusion in OS X this is a warm welcome. I'm just hoping they will update with better functionality later on. The functionality literally sucks compared to the windows version atm.

 

[Vulkan]

I dont use Evernote because I have never felt a connection with the application and what its intended to do.

In fact all my note taking is done in notepad or Notes on my iPad sometimes even in iA Writer (it does the job).

As my meetings become more and more complex I have been floating left and right from app to app trying to find something I could call home for this kind of particular task.

I am going to try one note on the Mac to see how it goes, regardless I find any use of comfort with it, I will say this:

If this interface is any indication of how Office for Mac 2014 is going to look, I love it. It's clean and easy to look at.

 

[497902]

you cannot customize it at all.

Last thing I care about... It should look identical for everyone in order to find things at the same place.

 

[Cougarcat]

Last thing I care about... It should look identical for everyone in order to find things at the same place.

This doesn't make any sense at all. How many times do you use a version of OneNote that isn't on your computer?

A forced-ribbon UI is terrible for 11" and 13" MacBooks. It's OK for larger screens (though I still dislike it.) Not all screens and user's needs are created equal.

 

[iSRS]

Is the OneNote web clipper for Safari on the Apple hosted extensions page, the Mac App Store or elsewhere? Interested in trying it along with Lense but isn't part of the core application cans can't seem to find it on Apple's Extensions page.

Same here. Microsoft's web page also was not able to help.

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Premium Evernote user here (iOS/Mac/Web) but interested in seeing how OneNote compares - always liked it on Windows but the lack of a Mac client drove me into Evernote's arms.

Is the OneNote web clipper for Safari on the Apple hosted extensions page, the Mac App Store or elsewhere? Interested in trying it along with Lense but isn't part of the core application cans can't seem to find it on Apple's Extensions page.

Found it on another Apple Blog

https://www.onenote.com/Clipper/OneNote