The Unknown OneNote Guy's Blog

I maintain more than a few blogs based on various technologies. Some are actually read! All the blogs including this blog provides a web-based editing experience. These editing tools are Ok but they just cannot compare to a rich client editing scenario.

When I started this blog, I did so using OneNote 12, probably beta 2 version. I have tried Livewriter the MS blogging tool. It does a good job but it just did not provide the same writing experience as OneNote. My blog posts are part of my collection of information contained and organized in OneNote as sections and pages. Another benefit using OneNote for a blogging tool is spell check. OneNote like other Office products will provide "real-time" spell check whereas the version of Livewriter I used did not. Seeing all my misspelings:) appear with red squiggly lines is a big benefit because I can not spell.

The problem with blogging from OneNote 2007 is that it relies on Word 2007 to actually connect and push to the blog. Not a big deal, but not a great experience. Currently I create a new page under my OneNote blogging section and create my post. Once finished I then copy to NotePad. This will clean out any style tags and provide me with clean text only copy. Then it is off to the web-based blog editor where verify how it looks and tweak anything like links and images. It is truly a manual process but for some reason it is still a better fit then working out of Word or Livewriter.

So here lies opportunity, one that I can't help but think is already being addressed by the community. With the Xml-based apis for OneNote 2007 I believe it is entirely possible to create a OneNote 2007 MetaBlogAPI add in where I can go directly from OneNote 2007 to most blog by the touch of a button! If no one is moving in this direction well then lets join up and create a CodePlex site for this and have at it.

The second opportunity is that OneNote 14 should include this as a feature, similar to Word 2007. Blog postings are simply another bit of information. I go through a similar publishing process, from thought or idea to finished product on a blog site as I do with say a requirements doc. Given the choice I would like to see OneNote become the MS Blog Editor of choice…

Now that this is finished I will cut to NotePad and paste to Blogger.

Labels: I think O14 should...

Robert Bogue, SharPoint MVP, is getting into OneNote. Check out Robert's short blog post on Article: More Effective Requirements Gathering with Microsoft OneNote.

Labels: Someone Gets It...