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I took my OneNote stuff into OrgMode because I think there is a higher risk of OneNote being an unreadable format in the future and/or the service being turned

I took my OneNote stuff into OrgMode because I think there is a higher risk of OneNote being an unreadable format in the future and/or the service being turned off.

preek 11y ago
This is exactly why I moved from Evernote to org-mode. I've been a paying user for years with thousands of notes - also important legal documents. Right now, the experience was pretty good, but how will it be in 10-40 years? I'm not going to store everything on paper, as well, just to make sure. The org-mode experience is better, yet totally future proof, because it's just flat text files.
- rys 11y ago
  How did you handle importing binary data you had in Evernote into org-mode? I've got a bunch of PDFs, images and other non-text data in my Evernote workbooks that I'd need to take care of.
  - preek 11y ago
    This is a very good question! When you come up with a great answer, shoot me a mail! I actually moved everything that is important for the very long time by hand and started creating everything that's new in org-mode. So, yeah, there's still thousands of notes in Evernote and sometime I get back to them, but those times will become fewer and fewer in time. I'd pay for a tool that converts the EN XML to a proper org-mode file. Even better if I could do that on a regular basis, because EN still rocks most for capturing paper into an OCR'ed PDF.
  - MarcScott 11y ago
    I used to keep lots of stuff in Evernote, and when I switched to org-mode, I did an HTML export from Evernote and then wrote an awful Python script to convert the HTML to org-mode. I'm pretty sure all the binary data appears as links in the exported html.
    - preek 11y ago
      Would you be so kind as to share this Python script? I'd be happy to give it a shot^^
      - MarcScott 11y ago
        Sorry, not got it any more. It was a one-time use thing as once I was done with Evernote, I was done for good. It was pretty specific to my use case anyway - as most of the content was tabulated student data.
        preek 11y ago
        Very well, then. Thanks for taking the time to respond anyway and for making thoughtful comments on your use case of org-mode, I appreciate your comments a lot!
      - shoover 11y ago
        Try pandoc -f html -t org-mode.
  - groks 11y ago
    org-mode has the concept of attachments which you can use for pdfs, images etc. http://orgmode.org/manual/Attachments.html http://orgmode.org/manual/Attachments.html
sz4kerto 11y ago
OneNote stores the notebooks in simple files -- sharing is done through Onedrive. It's very-very unlikely that suddenly and without warning Microsoft 1) encodes your notebooks in some unreadable format 2) stops the service.
- eggy 11y ago
  I am no stranger to Emacs or Org-mode, but with an iPad, Sony touch notebook, and an Android phone, I like using my pen inputs for quick drawings or notes vs. simply typing in Org-mode. Org-mode and Emacs are very cool though, once you use them for a while, but I usually stay in Emacs and fool around too much with tons of other stuff!
- walkingolof 11y ago
  Is it worth the hassle and uncertainty ? I guess that depends on what you store in the files, my UTF-8 encoded text files read by org-mode, is easily readable and information can be extracted without (almost) any effort. Since I store my diary, ideas, manuscripts, cv's, contacts, meeting notes and a myriad of other things, I cant simply trust anything else with the data. I've seen many cases with distraught persons realizing all their treasured data is locked into a obsolete format on a obsolete machine that just crashed.
  - eggy 11y ago
    I generate PDFs of my important OneNote notebooks, and I backup the file. It is not a complicated file format to have to worry about not having access to it for the data in future. Plain text is great and simple, but no drawings, mindmaps, photos, vector art, etc... which I can use in OneNote. My note-taking, journaling is more rich with the multimedia content. I used to use a TiddlyWiki, but I love using my Sony Vaio Flip 15 and pen to doodle, handwrite, or make lists.
- yvdriess 11y ago
  I would not be surprised, they have done both in the past.
type0 11y ago
Yeah, that's why org-mode is so great, it's future proof. My dream format would be a mix between org-mode and asciidoc.
mmel 11y ago
It's a valid point, but due to accessing notes from various browsers, desktop operating systems, android phones and iPads, OneNote just makes it easier for me and how I take notes in my current computing environment compared to emacs. I tried syncing Org-Mode notes to my phone with https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.matburt.mobileorg https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.matburt.mobi... for a while, but that still didn't fix all my use cases.

I took my OneNote stuff into OrgMode because I think there is a higher risk of OneNote being an unreadable format in the future and/or the service being turned off.

preek 11y ago

This is exactly why I moved from Evernote to org-mode. I've been a paying user for years with thousands of notes - also important legal documents. Right now, the experience was pretty good, but how will it be in 10-40 years? I'm not going to store everything on paper, as well, just to make sure. The org-mode experience is better, yet totally future proof, because it's just flat text files.

rys 11y ago
How did you handle importing binary data you had in Evernote into org-mode? I've got a bunch of PDFs, images and other non-text data in my Evernote workbooks that I'd need to take care of.
- preek 11y ago
  This is a very good question! When you come up with a great answer, shoot me a mail! I actually moved everything that is important for the very long time by hand and started creating everything that's new in org-mode. So, yeah, there's still thousands of notes in Evernote and sometime I get back to them, but those times will become fewer and fewer in time. I'd pay for a tool that converts the EN XML to a proper org-mode file. Even better if I could do that on a regular basis, because EN still rocks most for capturing paper into an OCR'ed PDF.
- MarcScott 11y ago
  I used to keep lots of stuff in Evernote, and when I switched to org-mode, I did an HTML export from Evernote and then wrote an awful Python script to convert the HTML to org-mode. I'm pretty sure all the binary data appears as links in the exported html.
  - preek 11y ago
    Would you be so kind as to share this Python script? I'd be happy to give it a shot^^
    - MarcScott 11y ago
      Sorry, not got it any more. It was a one-time use thing as once I was done with Evernote, I was done for good. It was pretty specific to my use case anyway - as most of the content was tabulated student data.
      - preek 11y ago
        Very well, then. Thanks for taking the time to respond anyway and for making thoughtful comments on your use case of org-mode, I appreciate your comments a lot!
    - shoover 11y ago
      Try pandoc -f html -t org-mode.
- groks 11y ago
  org-mode has the concept of attachments which you can use for pdfs, images etc. http://orgmode.org/manual/Attachments.html http://orgmode.org/manual/Attachments.html

sz4kerto 11y ago

OneNote stores the notebooks in simple files -- sharing is done through Onedrive. It's very-very unlikely that suddenly and without warning Microsoft 1) encodes your notebooks in some unreadable format 2) stops the service.

eggy 11y ago
I am no stranger to Emacs or Org-mode, but with an iPad, Sony touch notebook, and an Android phone, I like using my pen inputs for quick drawings or notes vs. simply typing in Org-mode. Org-mode and Emacs are very cool though, once you use them for a while, but I usually stay in Emacs and fool around too much with tons of other stuff!
walkingolof 11y ago
Is it worth the hassle and uncertainty ? I guess that depends on what you store in the files, my UTF-8 encoded text files read by org-mode, is easily readable and information can be extracted without (almost) any effort. Since I store my diary, ideas, manuscripts, cv's, contacts, meeting notes and a myriad of other things, I cant simply trust anything else with the data. I've seen many cases with distraught persons realizing all their treasured data is locked into a obsolete format on a obsolete machine that just crashed.
- eggy 11y ago
  I generate PDFs of my important OneNote notebooks, and I backup the file. It is not a complicated file format to have to worry about not having access to it for the data in future. Plain text is great and simple, but no drawings, mindmaps, photos, vector art, etc... which I can use in OneNote. My note-taking, journaling is more rich with the multimedia content. I used to use a TiddlyWiki, but I love using my Sony Vaio Flip 15 and pen to doodle, handwrite, or make lists.
yvdriess 11y ago
I would not be surprised, they have done both in the past.

type0 11y ago

Yeah, that's why org-mode is so great, it's future proof. My dream format would be a mix between org-mode and asciidoc.

mmel 11y ago

It's a valid point, but due to accessing notes from various browsers, desktop operating systems, android phones and iPads, OneNote just makes it easier for me and how I take notes in my current computing environment compared to emacs. I tried syncing Org-Mode notes to my phone with https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.matburt.mobileorg https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.matburt.mobi... for a while, but that still didn't fix all my use cases.