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DROE Tool now supports EverNote, and much more!July 16 2008

I just released a new version of the Daily Record of Events (DROE) note taking tool.  This release adds support for EverNote and text-based DROE files, as well as enhancements for the OneNote DROE.

From the README file, here is a summary of what changed in v0.4 (Beta). For complete details, download the README file. To get your own copy of the tool, see the Downloads page.

• NEW FEATURE: Added support for a completely text-based DROE without the need for OneNote. This includes a quick edit window.
• NEW FEATURE: Added support for EverNote… DROE Tool can send text notes to EverNote using EverNote’s auto-import feature
• NEW FEATURE: The amount of white space between notes is now configurable in the INI file.
• NEW FEATURE: “Clip Mode” causes any selected text to be clipped and included in the DROE entry. For OneNote DROE files, selected images are also sent to the DROE.
• NEW FEATURE: WIN+LeftArrow now summons a new control panel that makes it easy to update settings in the INI file and reload the tool.
• Bug fix: Fixed issue with cursor bein

Handwriting Recognition in OneNote 2007? Well, kinda…March 30 2008

In my post on EverNote vs. OneNote, I mentioned handwriting recognition as one of the shortcomings in OneNote. I also mentioned that the implementation in EverNote is a bit disappointing as well because it uses a “shotgun” word approach. By that I mean that EverNote sets up an XML database of sorts where many possible words (most of them completely wrong) are attached to each handwritten word. If you search on any of those words, it will come up as a hit on that part of the image. You may be initially impressed when it magically finds the correct word when you search on that word, but the excitement fades when you realize lots of other words that aren’t even close will match as well. As I mentioned before, I do give the EverNote team a lot of credit for even attempting this, it’s just not quite good enough yet to be useful.

Having said that, the EverNote implementation did give me an interesting idea. Even though I capture a good percentage of my notes electronically using the DROE Tool, I still find it impossible to move away from handwritten notes entirely. There are too many situations where I either don’t have my laptop, or it’s not convenient or polite to use it. (I’m also too cheap to invest in a fancy image capture pen or tablet PC.) So here is my poor man’s solution…

I scan my hand-written Daily

Setting up OneNote 2007 for GTDMarch 20 2008

As I promised earlier in my post on “Bending OneNote and Outlook to Fit my GTD System“, here are the setup details for OneNote 2007 along with some screen shots. For each of the screen shots, you can click on the image to open it full-size.

The options panel is accessed from the “Tools” menu in OneNote. The options are divided up into several Categories. I’ll walk through the changes that are important for my setup, and you may find other areas that you will want to tweak as well. Experimentation is usually better than the help menu when it comes to figuring out what some of these settings do.

On the Display tab, I prefer to have the page tabs and navigation tabs appear on the left. I also like the note containers visible since it makes it easier to see when you’ve accidentally split a note, or when you’re trying to grab text to copy or move it.

On the Save tab, the main thing you want to change is the location of the Unfiled notes section. Get rid of the separate section and have it point directly at your “@DOING” secti

Send PDF Files to EverNoteMarch 15 2008

As I mentioned in my EverNote vs. OneNote post, one of the key weaknesses of EverNote is its inability to handle PDF files. To get around that, I created a script to send the content of PDF files to EverNote as JPEG images. This is in the form of an Outlook VBA macro. I used it to quickly capture hand-written notes scanned into my office copier/scanner. The notes would arrive via email in an attached PDF file.

To use the script, you must set up an Outlook rule to trigger based on the mail address of your copier/scanner. The script then saves the attachment to a folder of your choice (edit path below), then calls Ghostscript to generate a JPEG file for each page. Note that since I already had PDF995 installed, I just used the Ghostscript executables that come bundled with that tool. You can install the PDF995 tool and edit the path in the VBA script below to point to those executables… or you can probably find or compile a standalone version. By the way, PDF995 is an excellent free tool and does a fantastic job distilling content into PDF files.

The last pre-requisite is setting up the >> READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY >>

DROE Tool Now Supports OutlookJanuary 21 2008

I just posted an update to my Daily Record of Events (DROE) Tool, please check out the Downloads page. Version 0.3 adds some additional shortcuts for fast Outlook task and message creation, as well as easy creation of PigPog tasks. (Note that the Outlook shortcuts have only been tested on Outlook 2003). Version 0.3 also fixes an ugly bug that blocked the time/date stamp from working in Windows Vista.

Here are the details from the latest README file:

This is a configurable tool built using AutoHotkey. It gives you a handy shortcut to quickly open OneNote, jump to the top of your Daily Record of Events (DROE) page, insert a time stamp, and begin capturing thoughts before they slip out of your head. The tool replaces the standard Sidenote shortcut (Win-N) with the new function. You can still open OneNote in full/normal mode using Win-Shift-N. Note that the tool is a compiled executable, so you do not need AutoHotkey installed to use it.

In addition to the OneNote shortcuts, the DROE Tool also provides some handy Outlook shortcuts. You can now use CTRL-SHIFT-M and CTRL-SHIFT-K from anywhere to create a new Outlook Email Message