Microsoft Office apps are great right out of the box, but there are plenty of ways to hack and optimize them for even greater productivity. 10 Easy Microsoft Word Hacks. Everyone can do. It's time we had a document to work with. Every little tip learned along the way helps. How about ten more hacks for your daily productivity? Read more . One way for serious enthusiasts to bend Office to their will is through macros:sets of instructions that you can execute with a single click.
You might think that macros are just for Excel 4 Mistakes You Can Avoid Programming Excel Macros With VBA 4 Mistakes You Can Avoid Programming Excel Macros With VBA Simple code and macros are the keys to Microsoft Excel's superpowers. Even non-programmers can easily add impressive functionality to their spreadsheets with Virtual Basics for Applications (VBA). Avoid These Beginner Programming Mistakes! Read More You can take your OneNote experience to the next level. The only OneNote guide you'll ever need The only OneNote guide you'll ever need OneNote is a powerful note-taking app. It is cross-platform and well integrated with Microsoft Office. Read this guide to become a OneNote pro! Read More
We're going to achieve macro ninja status using Onetastic, a feature-rich OneNote plugin. You'll need to choose which version to download based on whether you have the 32-bit or 64-bit version of OneNote installed. This is independent of a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows, so you need to confirm which one you're using.
Open OneNote and visit File> Account , then click the About OneNote button on the right side. At the top of this window, you'll see purple text that says either 32-bit or 64-bit . Head over to the Onetastic download page and choose the appropriate version for your installation. Unzip the file, open the executable, and Onetastic installs in no time.
Once you've installed it, open OneNote and you'll see new options for Onetastic on the right side of Home Ribbon tab Since we're interested in the macros on the right side of the list, you can click on Settings then Show in a separate tab send these buttons to a new Macros tab on the ribbon.
You can click New Macro to start creating your own Excel keyboard shortcuts the easy way How to make your own Excel keyboard shortcuts the easy way Looking to make Excel your own? These are the best ways to create custom keyboard shortcuts. Read More Browse them through the Download macros tab or visit the Macroland website. Let's take a look at the best macros you can download right now.
Onetastic is free to get started, and includes your core features like OneCalendar, custom styles, and pinning pages and sections to the desktop. Macros are only available during a free trial period, but are based on usage, not time. So if you only use a few macros from time to time, chances are you can use the service for free. Once the end of the trial period approaches, you will see a warning that you need to upgrade to the Pro license for $15.
With a Pro subscription, you get access to all the macros that were available at the time of your purchase, as well as any debuts in the next 365 days. So if you buy Pro today, you can download and use whatever macros are released in the next year forever. Any macros released after one year will require another Pro license to use.
Check out the pricing page for more details.
You don't have to write a line of code to start increasing your OneNote productivity with macros. Here are the best available from Macroland at the time of writing. To install one, just download it and open it to add it to your Macros tab.
A simple macro, but super useful. Sometimes you have a bunch of pages that are out of order and you need to sort them out quickly. This macro sorts all the pages in your current section in ascending or descending alphabetical order. It also maintains subpages under its parents and classifies them as well.
Download - Sort Pages Macro
If you're using OneNote to write a wiki or guide, you probably need a table of contents (TOC). You can easily generate one using this macro, which adds a new page with the content of your current section. the Fast mode is fast but it won't work if you rename pages, while Elastic mod will correctly link to renamed pages at the cost of speed.
For a larger scope, try the similar TOC in the current notebook.
Download - TOC in current section macro
Those who like to chart their months will love this one. The Insert Monthly Calendar macro does exactly what you'd expect:choose a year, a month, and the first day of the week, and you have an instant calendar on your page.
Download - Insert monthly calendar macro
While you can add a line in other Office programs simply by typing multiple hyphens, there's no easy way to do it in OneNote. This macro fixes that by giving you quick access to a long horizontal line. It's not too exciting, but it's better to hold down the underscore key for several seconds.!
Download - Insert horizontal line macro
It's hard to believe that OneNote doesn't have the Find and Replace feature like so many other apps. Microsoft's help page on this topic suggests that you use the Ctrl + F shortcut and paste each occurrence of a word to replace it. This would be a complete waste of time if the word appeared more than once, so you'll definitely want this macro.
Simply provide a word you want to replace and the text you want to replace it with. Then choose the scope of the search and whether to match the case, and you're all set. Much better than replacing it manually.
Download - Find and replace macro
Depending on what you're using OneNote for 12 Ways to Run Your Life Like a Boss with OneNote 12 Ways to Run Your Life Like a Boss with OneNote OneNote can be your one-stop shop for everything from organizing information, through managing of projects, To keep a diary. Here are a dozen ways you can use OneNote. Read More You might want to find pages that are old and need an update, for example. There is a macro to help with that. You can sort a section or an entire notebook, and sort by date created or last modified.
Download - Sort pages by date macro
Collaborating with OneNote Using Microsoft OneNote for Project Management Using Microsoft OneNote for Project Management OneNote is the ideal collaboration tool for managing simple projects in small teams. And it is absolutely free. See how OneNote can help get your projects off the ground! Read More When this is the case, it is useful to see which pages have recently changed. Whether you want to make sure someone is making changes where they're supposed to or you just want to remember what you were editing recently, try this macro.
Download - Recent macro edits
Microsoft Word has a built-in word counter, but OneNote does not. You can always copy and paste your page into a free word count tool, but this macro makes it faster. Seeing how much content you have in OneNote can mean taking notes like a famous scientist!
Download - Word count macro
Caps Lock is a huge pain. You almost never need to type in uppercase, and only trigger it by mistake. If you haven't reassigned that key to something more useful, you may find yourself typing entire sentences with all caps before you realize you're in.
Instead of pasting the text into an online converter, this macro allows you to quickly convert selected text to lowercase. This is a quick way to fix an annoying error.
Download - Lowercase macro
After using OneNote for a while, you might get stuck on all your notebooks, section groups, and pages. You don't want to get lost in your own notebooks, so using this macro allows you to quickly find your way around. Launch it and you'll get a nice trail trail of your current location.
Download - Where am I macro
OneNote already has 12 Tips for Taking Better Notes with Microsoft OneNote 12 Tips for Taking Better Notes with Microsoft OneNote These 12 tips show you how to take better notes in MIcrosoft OneNote. Today, digital note taking is as much about the skill as it is about the tool. Read More If that's not enough for you, check out the hundreds of other options in Macroland, create your own, or even edit someone else's macro to fit your own needs. Chances are if you want to do it, it's possible with a macro. Start automating these time-consuming tasks through macros and you'll save time!
To protect yourself from the dark side of macros, see how they're used to create Word malware.
Do you use macros to enhance your OneNote experience? Please share your favorites with us by leaving a comment!
