OneNote 12 Beta Review Part 1: Installation and First Run
I finally got around to installing OneNote 12 on my computer and here are my first impressions. OneNote 12 is not completely ready for prime time yet and crashes once in a while. The crashes should get resolved as the beta testing program moves forward.
Installation: Installation was very smooth but long. If you have OneNote 2003 or Office 2003, then you can upgrade to OneNote 12 or Office 12 or do a customize the installation. In custom install, you can select which programs to install, if you want to uninstall the old programs, and if you want to send feedback to Microsoft. I choose custom install and installed only OneNote 12 and kept OneNote 2003 in case OneNote 12 didn’t work properly. Below is a screen shot of the “Welcome to OneNote 12″ section.
First Run: OneNote 12 uses a different file format then OneNote 2003. When you first run it, it migrates or can upgrade your old OneNote 2003. Migration makes the files editable in OneNote 2003 and read-only in OneNote 12. Upgrade makes the files editable in OneNote 12 and unreadable in OneNote 2003. Also, all of your old files will be copied and all new files will be created in a new default folder called “OneNote Notebooks” instead of “My Notebook”. Below is a screen shot of from OneNote 12 detailing the “Migration Details.”
OneNote 12 does not have the new “ribbon” interface that Word 12, Excel 12, and PowerPoint 12 use. Instead, it relies on the old toolbar method. I have used Word 12 and the “ribbon” interface is amazing and very simple. After the initial learning period, all the options are intuitive. But, it does take one inch of valuable real estate from your screen. Toolbars requires a fraction of the screen space but can get jumbled. Right now, I don’t see a need for the ribbon interface for OneNote 12 because it doesn’t have many toolbars.
When Office 12 finally does get released, some programs will have the ribbon interface and some won’t. This will require everyone to use two different methods of organization which might create an inconvenience.
