Notes, OneNote and Org Mode

[Updated 2018-11; my understanding of org-mode has improved]

OneNote

Roughly: A OneNote Notebook has Sections, and Pages within the section. Editing the notes in a page feels similar to editing a simple Word document.

Org Mode

Roughly: org-mode is a renowned organisation tool, which is built on top of Emacs.
org files are plaintext, with notes structured using a “heading”. In addition to marked-up content, each heading can have tags, key-value properties, and sub-headings associated with it.

Comparisons

• Both are free (as in “free-beer”).
  • org-mode is licensed under GPL, so it’s “free as in free speech”.
• OneNote is much simpler to use out of the box, compared to org-mode:
  • Usage and discovering what OneNote can do is easier out-of-the-box.
  • OneNote is much easier to sync OneNote notebooks between multiple devices (desktops, tablets, phones).
  • org-mode is a part of Emacs. Which is itself a great tool but is also not necessarily to pick up and use out of the box.
    • For what it’s worth, there are distributions of Emacs which make it easier to pick up and use out of the box (compared to an unconfigured Emacs).
    • For what it’s worth, since “org mode” is a set of features implemented for a plaintext file format, it’s possible for non-Emacs editors to have “org mode”s.
• Sharing and collaborating:
  • OneNote puts heavy emphasis on cloud-service. Sharing a OneNote document is as straightforward as getting a link to share with them. Collaborating is also simple, as changes are synced.
  • org-mode is a plaintext file. This allows for different solutions depending on the capabilities and requirements involved. (e.g. I’d be surprised if any long-lasting org-mode file weren’t under version control or in a DropBox/etc. folder).
• Notes format:
  • simple notes (prose, or simple lists, hyperlinks, various markup) are as good in either format.
  • OneNote is much better for very visual notes. e.g. OneNote supports tablets/pens; as well as diagrams. (Similar how ‘visual’ MS Powerpoint can be).
    • It is possible to get images/diagrams in org-mode, though. But it’s not as simple out of the box
  • org-mode’s emphasis on headings allows for much greater flexibility. But it’s not very clear how to effectively make use of this when first looking at org-mode.
• For task management:
  • org-mode excels as a system for organising where it’s not always clear what’s a note (to be referenced later) or a task (to be reminded of / done).
  • OneNote’s support for this is extremely rudimentary. (e.g. checkboxes beside a bullet-point).
    • OneNote 2016 (which is different than OneNote for Windows 10) had support for integration with Outlook Tasks. And people who love Outlook love Outlook.
• Search:
  • OneNote’s searching is very primitive. e.g. matching words
    • You can link to a different part of the notebook.
    • OneNote 2016 did have “tags”. This is “coming soon” to OneNote.
  • org-mode is great at this.
    • Because org-mode’s note structure is a hierarchy of headings, and different meta-data (tags, properties) can be attached to each heading, org-mode is able to provide a variety of ways to “see what you want to see”.
      • e.g. show the headings from all the note files which are scheduled for upcoming day(s). (An “agenda”).
      • e.g. show the headings which have state “TODO” and have the tag @work.

Recommended Use Cases

org-mode is a much more sophisticated tool, with a much harder learning curve than org-mode. The added complexity provides a rich set of features for making use of notes in org-mode.

org-mode’s complexity can also be justified like this: - if you’re writing notes, maybe you want to add some tasks to do - if you have tasks to do, you might want to schedule this on a calendar - it’s also probable you’ll want to make notes from your appointments or tasks.

If you have the time to learn it, I’d recommend org-mode as the better tool, in cases: - notes don’t need multiple collaborators.
or all collaborators are willing to set up a way to sync the same set of notes. - you can spare some time to learn a few features of org-mode - your note-taking workflow doesn’t need PowerPoint-style visual note-taking, nor tablet-input.

OneNote and org-mode are both excellent tools. OneNote has a simpler set of features. Simpler means easier to use; but here it also means “more limited”.
If you’ve not used either, I’d start with OneNote and consider org-mode.

Links to org-mode Manual for Some Features OneNote Lacks

• Agenda Views https://orgmode.org/manual/Agenda-views.html
  • I’d say this is the main thing which makes org-mode so much more powerful than OneNote (and other tools).
• org-mode’s Babel https://orgmode.org/manual/Working-with-source-code.html
  • This is programmer-oriented, but if org-mode is a killer feature of emacs; babel is a killer feature of org-mode.
  • I like using Babel for ledger-cli journals.
• Column View https://orgmode.org/manual/Using-column-view.html
  • A more concise way for viewing a sequence of headings and their properties. (This is like JIRA’s query results view; the equivalent org-mode view would have tasks/issues/tickets as headings).
• Document Exporting https://orgmode.org/manual/Exporting.html
  • Personally I’ve not made use of this. It may be useful for exporting to icalendar, LaTeX/PDF, HTML, beamer.
• Time Management https://orgmode.org/manual/Dates-and-times.html
  • org-mode has a dauntingly large set of features related to date/time. This relates to using org-mode as a calendar, as well as time tracking.