MS OneNote for Mac OS X

I have been an Evernote user since long before Evernote was trendy. I was among the first 10K users. Evernote has a prominent position in my digital life and many of my workflows.

Yesterday, I downloaded and tried Microsoft OneNote for Mac OS X. Hey, it’s free, so why not. Here are my impressions.

 

OneNote has a very nice interface. If you are an Office user (I’m not), you’ll find the interface very familiar with the ribbon metaphor. There is a lot of flexibility in the creation and content of new notes. You can place a text box anywhere in the note and include various kinds of media.

 

I would think that OneNote could be very useful to anyone who would use it principally for note-taking.

 

 

However, my main use for Evernote is capturing and organizing web content. The browser extension Web Clipper gives a number of options as to what exactly you want to capture and what you can do with it.

 

Unfortunately, OneNote falls woefully short in this regard. You capture a web page using a simple bookmarklet which creates a new page in OneNote consisting of a static ‘screenshot' of the web page which is not editable and contains no live content. Any links are the page are not functional. You cannot select and copy or delete text. Maybe Microsoft will add more capturing features in future versions, but right now it comes up short.

 

OneNote syncs through a MS OneDrive account. My experience was that it was slow updating. Web page captures did not appear in the app for a few minutes. This could be just an early-days glitch.

 

Also, some pages didn’t render very faithfully. The proper positioning of page elements was lost. Be aware as well, that there appears to be no simple way to import your existing Evernote data.

 

At this point, OneNote doesn’t have the extensive integration with other apps to match Evernote, but that will likely improve over time.

 

After these experiences, I didn’t try out much else, because I realized OneNote was not going to work for me. But, that’s me.

 

It’s FREE, so if the issues I noted are not deal-breakers for you download it from the App Store and give it a try.

 

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Extra 2-28-2014: Kingsoft Office for iOS

In October of last year, I shared Kingsoft Office Free 2013,  a no-cost, powerful  Windows alternative to MS Office. Earlier this month, Kingsoft Office released an iOS compatible with for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Kingsoft Office is compatible with and allows you to read and edit Word and PowerPoint documents and has the capability to view Excel files.

 

Kingsoft Office can sync with popular cloud services such as GoogleDrive, Dropbox, and others; transfer documents to other Kingsoft users over Wi-Fi; sync documents opened to your account from either your device or desktop without using any cable connection. File management allows creating folders, copy, move, delete, rename, and save as.

 

 

Kingsoft Office is free from the iTunes App Store. It requires iOS 6.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

 

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Featured: 12-16-2013 Office 365 Education

Office 365 Education provides a school staff, faculty, and students free email, websites, online document editing and storage, IM, and web conferencing.

Office 365 Education lets schools and districts modernize their communications and productivity infrastructure on their terms.They can get needed enterprise-grade communication and productivity services with flexibility.

All Office 365 Education plans include email and calendars, web conferencing, instant messaging, file storage and sharing, team sites, Office Web Apps, privacy, security, and more.

 Watch the Office 365 Educationoverview

Two of the Office 365 Education plans include the latest desktop version of Office. The plans that do not include the desktop version of Office support Office 2010, Office 2007, and Office 2011 for Mac with the latest browsers across your devices using Office Web Apps. You can take advantage of the Office 365 cloud services such as business-class email, HD video conferencing, and file sharing.

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Featured: 10-28-2013 SodaDB

Sodadb is a free online alternative to Microsoft Access, File Maker Pro, and other conventional database software.

Sodadb is a downsized, simplified, but still very powerful online database. Intuitively create an online database quickly, no manual needed.

Add, edit, delete up to 10,000 records in a grid-like interface with inline editing. Sodadb allows an unlimited number of users and unlimited number of databases, only a maximum number of records.

Click on a template to create a new database or design your own. Access your database using a private URL. Easily share your database by simply sending out your secret URL. You can also grant access to your database by adding sub-users and setting rights. Another way to share your database is to embed it in your website.

Upload images or documents to Sodadb and attach them to your records. Existing data can be imported into Sodadb from .csv files. You can export to .txt and .csv.

Sodadb is donationware. If you like it, you are asked to make a donation. You can become a supporter ($3.49 (US)/month), unlocking more functionalities.

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Featured: 6-17-2013 Kingsoft Office Free

Kingsoft Office Free 2013 for Windows provides a no-cost, powerful alternative to the MS Office monolith.

Smaller and faster than most other office suites, Kingsoft Office Free 2013, includes a built-in PDF converter and automatic spell check, as well as an innovative Paragraph Adjustment tool.

Kingsoft Office Free 2013 includes the usual modules for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations:

• Writer provides word and text processing with drag-and-drop paragraph editing, a section tab, support for .doc and .docx.
• Easily create and edit Spreadsheets, a calculator, graphing, and multiple other tools for complex data analysis, export to both .xls and .xlsx extension files.
• Presentation lets you create dynamic slides for speeches and presentations, with Flash, sound and animation effects, and artistic backgrounds.

 Watch a video introduction to Kingsoft Office

In addition to the traditional interface which resembles older versions of MS Office, Kingsoft Office Free 2013 gives you a choice of a new interface similar to the newer versions of Office. You can easily switch between the two versions according to your preference.

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Extra: Excel Surveys on Skydrive [Data]

Microsoft  Office Web Apps, available to those with a SkyDrive account, enables you to create surveys to collect data online. This feature is similar to Google Forms.

To easily collect everyone’s info using Excel surveys in SkyDrive, log into your SkyDrive account and click “Create -> Excel survey”.

Name your survey and the survey designer opens in the Excel Web App. The survey designer lets you add questions, set the type of question (text, multiple choice, date, etc), and move them around. You can also show a default answer or set a question so that a response is required before submitting the survey.

When you're finished building your survey, click “Share Survey”. You will get a link that can be shared by email or otherwise.  Clicking on the link sends users directly to survey, they don’t have to sign in.

Creating a survey in the Excel Web App automatically generates a spreadsheet to store all of the results. Under the Insert tab, “Recommended Charts” will recommend useful visualizations of your data.

Watch a video: Using the Excel Survey Web App on SkyDrive

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Featured: 3/25/2013 Electric Slide [Presenting]

Electric Slide is a free iOS app that lets you wirelessly present your PowerPoint slides, documents, and videos with just your iPhone or iPad.

Show your PowerPoint files and other documents on any web browser, TV, or projector and control it using your device. Since viewers just need your simple Electric Slide URL to follow along, no complicated setup.

How Electric Slide works:

1. Upload files either from your device or via the web

2. Present to the meeting room TV or remote viewers - just provide your simple URL

3. You can also plug directly into a TV or use AirPlay

Even without a live Internet connection, you can present to a TV, projector, Apple TV, or another iOS device.

Electric Slide preserves your PowerPoint transitions, builds, animations, fonts, and formatting, both on your iPhone or iPad as well as any web browser. Many other formats, including Word, PDF, and videos are also supported.

A free Electric Slide account includes:

• 50 Mb storage

• Up to 5 simultaneous live viewers

• Videos up to 60 seconds in length

• Meeting length limited to 90 minutes

• Doesn't expire

Watch a video introduction to Electric Slide

Oddly, Electric Slide does not currently support Keynote presentations. However, I am told this feature is in development. Electric Slide is free from the iTunes App Store.

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COD - 9/24/2012 - CloudOn [Documents]

CloudOn is a free tablet app that lets you work directly in Microsoft Office, edit & store your information online, and share files with your colleagues.

As well as being able to format text, change fonts, and correct  typos, CloudOn enables you to track changes while editing Word documents, use pivot tables and insert formulas in Excel,  present your PowerPoint slides complete with transitions, and more.

Key features of CloudOn:

• You work in the real Microsoft Office.
• CloudOn delivers your Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive files to one place.
• Open email attachments directly in the workspace or send files to anyone, even if they don’t have a CloudOn account.
• Use the file viewer to open and view PDF, PNG, EPS, or virtually any file type.
• CloudOn automatically saves any change you make.Watch a video introduction to CloudOn

CloudOn is available for iPad from the iTunes App Store and from Google Play for Android tablets.

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COD - 8/27/2012 - InstallFree Nexus [Tools]

InstallFree Nexus enables users to access common office applications on almost any device with a user experience optimized to the device.

InstallFree Nexus is a cloud-based platform that enables real-time access to office applications using HTML 4/5, and connects them to cloud-based storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive, and Box.

Users of InstallFree Nexus can access Microsoft Office and/or Libre Office on desktops, laptops,  iPads, Android tablets, and any other device with a modern web browser.

InstallFree Nexus is a solution with no infrastructure to deploy. It is highly scalable, retains user customizations and settings, and is high performance. It is a highly flexible client supporting almost any device with a web browser. It includes device-specific optimizations, as well as being optimized for touch devices.

You can use InstallFree Nexus to share full-featured web-based viewers for your office and other documents, and you can use it to broadcast your application sessions to colleagues in real time.

Watch a video overview of InstallFree Nexus

InstallFree Nexus Includes the word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation components of Libre Office 3 free, and when you sign up, you get a 60-day free trial of MS Office 2010. Adobe Reader X is used to view PDF files, and Paint.net to edit image files.

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iWork.com Upgrades

Apple has announced the availability of a few new features and enhancements to iWork.com.

Keynote '09 presentations can be played back on the web, complete with animations. Share presentations and let viewers experience them with animations, video, hyperlinks, and audio. Play back a presentation on iWork.com using the latest version of Safari on a Mac or PC, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Upload your documents for private online storage and easily access them from anywhere, or share your documents on social networks using a public link. You can now embed presentations seamlessly on a website or blog using the embed code provided by iWork.com.

You must be using the latest version of iWork for Mac to take advantage of these new features on iWork.com. To share a document from Keynote '09, Pages '09, or Numbers '09, choose "Share via iWork.com" from the Share menu.

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Open Office for Kids

Previously, I have posted about Open Office, the free, open-source office suite. Now comes a kid-specific version of this software.

The OpenOffice.org Education Project's goals are to establish a bridge between OpenOffice.org and the world of education. From this was born the project OOo4Kids (OpenOffice for Kids).

OOo4Kids is a lighter version of OpenOffice.org:

• Dedicated to 7-12 year-olds
• Specific adaptations to the world of education
• Works everywhere (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows)
• International / Multilingual

EDge21 Freeware Festival - Open/Neo Office

I'm know among my colleagues as the King of Freeware. The only commercial software I have installed on any of my computers is iWork on my Macs because I love Keynote so much.

I thought this week I'd share several of the best freeware applications available to encourage those of you who are still slaves to the man!

Today's featured applications are the free alternatives to Microsoft Office: OpenOffice and NeoOffice.

OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers and is available in many languages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

By default, all your data is saved in an international open standard format, but it can also read and write files in other common office software formats including MS Office and MS Office 2007. A great feature is one-button PDF generation.

OpenOffice Writer Screenshot

OpenOffice Impress screenshot

Because OpenOffice is one piece of software, everything works consistently between applications. Even the help system is the same. Many people already have documents which have been created using other common office software. OpenOffice can open most of these files with a high degree of accuracy, making implementing OpenOffice very straightforward.

NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications for Mac OS X built on the OpenOffice.org office suite. NeoOffice has integrated dozens of specific Mac features and sports a Mac-like UI. It can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office. NeoOffice offers better stability and more speed in the OS X environment than OpenOffice.

NeoOffice Calc screenshotSee a NeoOffice video demo

Like OpenOffice, NeoOffice is free to download and use.

Free Alternatives to MS Office

Often students begin work on a project in class where they have access to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but when they get home they are not able to continue their work because they don't have these programs on their personal computers.

Here are some free solutions that will resolve that issue. You owe it to your students to make them aware of these alternatives.

Online Options

Google Docs. Google Docs offers word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities. It integrates with most other Google applications like Blogger and Gmail. I'm writing this Blogger post using Google Docs. MS Office documents (*.doc, *.xls, *.ppt) can be imported, as well as Rich Text (*.rtf), plain text (*.txt), and OpenDocument (*.odw, *.ods) and CSV formats. Documents edited and created in Google Docs can be saved and downloaded in MS Office formats as well as HTML and PDF. The appearance of the toolbars and the layout differ a bit from the usual office application appearance, but not so much that it's a problem to be productive quickly. In my opinion, Google Docs seems to be the fastest solution.

Zoho. A full range of office-type tools come from Zoho. In addition to the usual word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation choices, there are tools for note-taking, group collaboration, databases, planner, and more. You can import the MS Office formats plus Open Document format, OpenOffice (*.sxi, *.sxw, *.sxw), CSV, and TSV. Documents can be exported in most of those formats as well as XML, HTML, and PDF. Word processor documents can be exported as MS Office 2007 documents (*.docx). It does not appear that presentations can be exported. I had some problems importing a presentation in PowerPoint format, but the same presentation imported perfectly in OpenDocument format. The toolbars and layout are very similar to the style of MS Office 2003 making the learning curve relatively soft. Zoho Writer documents can be saved and accessed offline using, ironically, Google Gears. Google Docs has yet to implement this feature.

Desktop Options OpenOffice. OpenOffice is a powerful, full-featured, open-source office productivity suite that includes word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, drawing, and equation tools. OpenOffice supports nearly all commonly used document formats including the OpenDocument formats and the new MS Office 2007 formats. Presentations can be exported as Flash video (*.swf) that can be viewed in most web browsers. The customizable interface is very much in the classic MS Office style making it easy to adapt to and use productively. One shortcoming is that in my use, it opens a bit slower than MS Office. OpenOffice comes in Windows, Mac, and Linux flavors. NeoOffice is a version of OpenOffice designed specifically for the Mac.

AbiWord. If you want nothing more than a word processor, AbiWord may be for you. AbiWord is an open-source word processor similar to MS Word both in function and appearance though the icons are much bigger. Most of the common word processor functions are included. It is faster to open and uses less memory than either MS Word or OpenOffice Writer. The document format support is more limited than most of the other solutions.

Hybrid Option. ThinkFree Office. The best of both worlds is what ThinkFree Office tries to deliver with both an online and a desktop suite that sync together. There are word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tools. It has the look and feel of the MS Office suite. It can be used only as an online application or only as a desktop application. The Java-based desktop version requires a small download and installation to your hard drive. Of all the choices presented here, this is the slowest based on my experience. ThinkFree supports the following file formats: MS Word, RTF, Adobe's SVG, plain text, PDF, Excel formats, as well as XML, HTML, CSV (Comma Separated Values), and PowerPoint formats.

This is not an exhaustive list of the free alternatives to Microsoft Office. I have used all of these to some extent. Depending on your specific needs, one or more of the above solutions will probably work for you. Try them out, they're FREE!

Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office

With Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, educators and students can get started, stay organized, and successfully complete high-quality work using the templates and tutorials provided. Educators can also create effective instructional resources, complete administrative tasks, and implement new teaching strategies

Download

Free Office Suite

Microsoft Office is the preeminent suite of office applications with word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tools as well as email. But, it's fairly expensive. The Home & Student Edition of Office 2007 will set you back about $100.

There is a totally FREE alternative. OpenOffice is a multiplatform and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites including the new MSO 2007 docx formats, the product is free to download and use.

If you have been using MS Office and you're not comfortable with the new interface, the OpenOffice interface will be familiar to you. After a few minutes, you should feel right at home.The OpenOffice suite includes tools for word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, drawing, and more.

There's even a version that installs to a USB flash drive and runs from there with no need to install it on your computer.

Compatability Issue

ALERT: There is an issue with MS Office 2007 documents. Although documents created in earlier Office versions are compatible with Office 2007, the reverse is not true. Office 2007 documents saved in the default Office 2007 format are NOT backward compatible with earlier versions of MS Office.

To avoid this problem do the following: Use File - Save As ... and select a file type compatible with earlier versions of MS Office.

Please make your students aware of this issue and its resolution.