Using OneNote as a daily journal

Question

Hi.

I've recently been upgraded to Office 2010 on my work PC and think it may be time to retire the daily journal I've kept in Word for the last few years. My issue with the Word version is that I previously used macros to create new entries, format text etc, all using a specific template that added a custom toolbar for these tasks. I generally use this to record actions, estimates, include images and tables and occasionally embed data such as Excel or Visio diagrams.

I reckon OneNote should be a better tool for this job but I've not found any easy way to create a new journal entry tagged with the correct date and with space for a title. Ideally I would want to do this automatically or from a trigger. I've tried the "Daily Journal" PowerToy but could not get this to work with OneNote 2010.

Do you have any advice on how to achieve what I am after?

Answer 1

When you click New Page, the page is automatically created with today's date, the current time and a space for the title. Is this what you want or is there more to your template that you want?

Answer 2

Create a notebook called "Journal" and then I would probably make one section per month. Each page would be a day. And like I said, when new page is made, it's automatically timestamped with the current date and time and a space for a title. How entries are ordered is up to you. Pages are just ordered by simply adding the new page to the end of the list and you can drag them into another order at any time.

On the Insert tab, you'll find Page Template options. You can set up a page with stuff to your liking, then go to the Page Template options and choose "Save this page as a template", then finally set "Always use a specific template" to the template you just made.

In the File>Export menu, you have options to export the current page, section or notebook in a variety of formats, including PDF and Word. Finally, don't forget OneNote apps exist for Windows Phone, Android, iOS and online, but use of these apps would require you to have your notebook on SkyDrive.

If I'm understanding you correctly, it seems you don't really need macros here at all as OneNote has the options you want built in. Just set up your template, set it as the template for new pages, then just click "New Page" every day. Here's a good article explaining the template options you have in OneNote 2010.

Answer 3

Thanks for the reply. The next step is, can I follow through the day on the same page with an automatic time stamp or do I have to include the time whenever I add an entry. Also is there a diary format that can be included within each day.

Answer 4

Great suggestion, this is exactly what I was looking for but I was trying to find a template to do it.  This will work perfect!

Answer 5

I'm very new to OneNote so, to be honest, I'm not sure what I need yet. I've kept a journal in Word for years, using macros to automate as much of it as possible and keep a restricted number of style for things like quoted text, tables, code etc.

Entries are organised chronologically and by title and I'd like to emulate that structure, tabs for months and entries by date and title. After that I'd like to be able to export a file to PDF for use on other computers and other operating systems.

Any advice on options to structure OneNote to achieve this kind of template would be welcome.