Programmatically Searching in OneNote 2010

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Handy Programming Tips for Microsoft OneNote 2010: Learn how to search for user specified terms in a Microsoft OneNote 2010 notebook.

Applies to: Excel 2010 | Office 2010 | OneNote 2010

In this article
Add Library References to the Excel Workbook
Add a Standard Module to the Excel Workbook
Add the Code to the Visual Basic Editor
Run the Code
Next Steps

Published:   August 2011

Provided by:    Frank Rice, Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft OneNote 2010 enables you to take and organize notes, include images and web pages, record audio, share your notes with others, and generally keep information from the many parts of your life organized within one simple application. In this topic, you use the GetHierarchy and FindPages methods to search for user specified terms in a notebook. The pages and sections containing the search term is then returned as XML. To complete this task, you must do the following:

  • Add Library References to the Excel Workbook

  • Add a Standard Module to the Excel Workbook

  • Add the Code to the Visual Basic Editor

  • Run the Code

  • Next Steps

Note

To use the code in this topic, you need to run it from a Microsoft Office 2010 host program. These include Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, and Microsoft Word 2010. However, OneNote 2010 is not considered a host program. Excel is used in this topic.

Add Library References to the Excel Workbook

To add references to the workbook

  1. Start Excel 2010.

  2. On the Developer tab, click Visual Basic. This opens the Visual Basic Editor.

    Note

    If you do not see the Developer tab in Excel, click the File tab, and then click Options. In the categories pane, click Customize Ribbon, select Developer, and then click OK.

  3. On the Tools menu, click References.

  4. Scroll to Microsoft OneNote 14.0 Object Library, and then select it.

  5. Next, scroll to Microsoft XML, 6.0, select it, and then click OK.

Add a Standard Module to the Excel Workbook

In this task, you insert a standard module into the Excel workbook.

To add a standard module to the Excel workbook

  • On the Insert menu, click Module. This adds Module1 to the Projects pane on the left side of the Visual Basic Editor.

Add the Code to the Visual Basic Editor

In this task, you add programming code to the Visual Basic Editor.

To add code to the Visual Basic Editor

  1. In the Projects pane, click Module1.

  2. Paste or type the following Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code into the module window.

    Sub SearchTermsInTheFirstNoteBook()
    ' Connect to OneNote 2010
    ' OneNote will be started if it's not running.
    Dim oneNote As OneNote14.Application
    Set oneNote = New OneNote14.Application

    ' Get all of the Notebook nodes.
    Dim nodes As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
    Set nodes = GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes(oneNote)
    If Not nodes Is Nothing Then
        ' Get the first notebook found.
        Dim node As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
        Set node = nodes(0)
        ' Get the ID.
        Dim notebookID As String
        notebookID = node.Attributes.getNamedItem("ID").Text

        ' Ask the user for a string for which to search
        ' with a default search string of "Microsoft".
        Dim searchString As String
        searchString = InputBox$("Enter a search string.", "Search", "Microsoft")

        Dim searchResultsAsXml As String
        ' The FindPages method search a OneNote object (in this example, the first
        ' open Notebook). You provide the search string and the results are
        ' provided as an XML document listing the objects where the search
        ' string is found. You can control whether OneNote searches non-indexed data (this
        ' example passes False). You can also choose whether OneNote enables
        ' the User Interface to show the found items (this example passes False).
        ' This example instructs OneNote to return the XML data in the 2010 schema format.
        oneNote.FindPages notebookID, searchString, searchResultsAsXml, False, False, xs2010

        ' Output the returned XML to the Immediate Window.
        ' If no search items are found, the XML contains the
        ' XML hierarchy data for the searched item.
        Debug.Print searchResultsAsXml
    Else
        MsgBox "OneNote 2010 XML data failed to load."
    End If

End Sub

Private Function GetAttributeValueFromNode(node As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode, attributeName As String) As String
    If node.Attributes.getNamedItem(attributeName) Is Nothing Then
        GetAttributeValueFromNode = "Not found."
    Else
        GetAttributeValueFromNode = node.Attributes.getNamedItem(attributeName).Text
    End If
End Function

Private Function GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes(oneNote As OneNote14.Application) As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList
    ' Get the XML that represents the OneNote notebooks available.
    Dim notebookXml As String
    ' Fill notebookXml with an XML document providing information
    ' about available OneNote notebooks.
    ' To get all the data, provide an empty string
    ' for the bstrStartNodeID parameter.
    oneNote.GetHierarchy "", hsNotebooks, notebookXml, xs2010

    ' Use the MSXML Library to parse the XML.
    Dim doc As MSXML2.DOMDocument
    Set doc = New MSXML2.DOMDocument

    If doc.LoadXML(notebookXml) Then
        Set GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes = doc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("//one:Notebook")
    Else
        Set GetFirstOneNoteNotebookNodes = Nothing
    End If
End Function

    The SearchTermsInTheFirstNoteBook procedure displays a dialog box that prompts you for a search term. It then returns the notebook, pages, and section names where the term was located as XML.

Run the Code

In this task, you run the code.

To run the code

  • In the Visual Basic Editor, press F5 to run the code.

  • Examine the results in the Immediate window.

Next Steps