Found under the “View” menu, this feature allows you to create a window that will stay on top of other applications. For example, you can easily cut and paste data to or from Excel and the data will stay in table format. And of course, the Microsoft products all play nicely with one another. For instance, copying and pasting text from websites in OneNote automatically includes a hyperlink to the source below the text. In addition to using Windows’ built in “snipping tool” to copy an image of a small region of your screen to the clipboard, OneNote has some additional handy features for bringing in data and images.
Here are the most useful tips and tricks I’ve learned to make using the software as convenient as possible in a laboratory setting. For these reasons, as well as many others, Microsoft OneNote has served me well for the two and half years I’ve been using it, and since it’s now available for Mac (download it for free here) most scientists will now be able to take advantage of it. At the same time, the more specialized software often makes assumptions about what kind of information you want to record, which I find cumbersome and limiting.
While lots of companies offer a more specialized lab notebook software, I know at least one person who isn’t able to use their notes because the startup company producing the software went under. As we’ve discussed previously on this blog, there are lots of options for digital lab notebooks, and all come with the enormous benefits of a searchable record of your work that makes sense in a world where all our data are now digital. Over the past few months, I’ve presented two sessions describing the use of Microsoft OneNote as an electronic lab notebook at Harvard. A screen grab of OneNote demonstrating some of the features most useful for lab notebooks, including searching within images.
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