Copy and Paste to OneNote (AutoHotKey script)

Julian Knight — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:05:00 +0000

After yesterdays OneNote tool post, I thought I’d do another while I think about it.

Another annoyance of OneNote is it’s lack of control over pasting information from the clipboard. I’ve raised a suggestion with MS to improve this; you can see my comment in the newsgroup.

To ease things a little if you need to copy and paste lots of stuff to OneNote, here is an AutoHotKey script to help. You need to assign this to a hot-key and have OneNote open in the background. Select something and press the hot-key and it will be pasted (using the current default paste option as this cannot be controlled) into the current note in OneNote.

AutoHotKey Script to copy pre-selected stuff from the currently active window
; to the currently open note in OneNote
;
; Usage: #include in your main AutoHotKey.ahk assigned to a hot key
; Limitations:
; 1) OneNote must be open - maybe change this in the future so that content goes to a new unfiled note
; 2) Doesn't swap back to original application
;
; Author: Julian Knight, http://www.knightnet.org.uk/contact.htm
; Version: 2009-04-01 v1.0

; We need a partial title match but we will also reset to previous setting
oldTitleMatchMode := A_TitleMatchMode
SetTitleMatchMode, 2

; Settings
winTitlePart := " - Microsoft Office OneNote" ; Partial title of ON windows

; Copy currently selected stuff
SendPlay, ^c ; Use sendplay to avoid unexpected interactions with Win key

; If OneNote is not started, give up
IfWinExist, %winTitlePart%
{
 ; Save the currently active window title
 WinGetTitle, actWin, A

 ; If OneNote is not active, activate it now
 IfWinNotActive, %winTitlePart%
 WinActivate, %winTitlePart%

 ; Check again, if ON active then paste else error
 IfWinActive, %winTitlePart%
 {
 ; Paste to ON &amp; Add some blank lines
 SendPlay, ^v`r ; Use sendplay to avoid unexpected interactions with Win key
 ; Switch window back to previously active
 WinActivate, %actWin%
 }
 else
 MsgBox, Could not activate OneNote window.

} else
 MsgBox, Can't find ON [%winTitlePart%]

SetTitleMatchMode, %oldTitleMatchMode%
return

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Setting list item gaps in Microsoft OneNote (AutoHotKey script)

Julian Knight — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:58:00 +0000

Although I like Microsoft OneNote and use it continuously, it does have a few failings. One of these is the inability to set the default styles and layout for text. In particular, when you create a new paragraph or list entry in OneNote, the default – non-changeable – setting is to have no white space between the paragraphs. This is very poor design and makes more than a small amount of text quite unreadable. I’ve raised this with Microsoft but who knows if or when it might be sorted. In the mean time, I need a far quicker way of changing this. Currently, I’ve had to:

Select the container with the text I want to format
Use the menu to show the List Task Pane ([alt]o/L)
Mouse click on the text box to change (you cannot tab into it)
Change the 0.00 pt default to something like the 6.00 pt that I prefer
Close the List Task Pane Not nice! Having determined that there is nothing clever that can be done in OneNote, I decided that the old standy “AutoHotKey” would be useful. So I’ve created a script for AutoHotKey that will change the inter-list gap for the currently selected container.

OK, so it’s a bit rough-and-ready but it does save a whole lot of time. I’ve got this in my default AHK script so it is loaded whenever I log in and is activated with [win]z.

Technorati : AutoHotKey, Configuration, Development, Microsoft, Office, OneNote, Scripting Diigo Tag Search : AutoHotKey, Configuration, Development, Microsoft, Office, OneNote, Scripting

AutoHotKey on Much Ado About IT

Copy and Paste to OneNote (AutoHotKey script)

Setting list item gaps in Microsoft OneNote (AutoHotKey script)