"Insert link to file"- where did this go?

Anonymous
2013-02-06T22:04:23+00:00

I'm an attorney, and I created a great litigation and trial-management system using only OneNote.  We put it to use in a large "mass action" case with over fifty plaintiffs and tens of thousands of exhibits.  The system allowed us to completely outmaneuver the plaintiffs at trial, and we were able to line up exhibits, deposition citations, and both direct and cross examination questions from a single program.   We all credit a great deal of our defense verdict to the system.

The key feature that let us build the various pages for trial quickly was the ability to drag and drop exhibit pdfs into the onenote pages as links to files.  Due to the sheer volume of exhibits, as well as the ease of using tables, links were far more effective than inserting the files directly, and certainly more effective than inserting printouts. 

With OneNote 2013, this mission-critical feature appears to be missing.  I can only insert the file, or insert a printout.  I don't want to do either- I want to insert a link.  I know that I can insert links using the manual "insert link" function, but that is slower and more error prone than the simplicity of the previous versions.  Am I missing a key option to trigger?  Or is this a missing feature from OneNote 2013?  If the latter, I suspect we will stick with 2010....

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-12T16:08:31+00:00

    That's a clever method of importing the links.  I will give it a shot.  The table formatting is definitely useful within our system.

    That said, and this latter part is addressed to the ON team, when will this comparatively simple feature be reinstated in this program?  I first asked the question in February.  Six months later, zero updates on whether it will be added, and zero change in the options.  And, if this doesn't change, zero reason for our firm to switch to ON 2013 from 2010.  The omission of this feature really is that much of a deal breaker.  And it still baffles me as to why it was removed.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-12T05:26:25+00:00

    I just tried selecting a bunch of files in a directory and choosing "Copy To Path" - dropped these into Excel, no problem with extra quotes.  Use the Hyperlink function in Excel to make links you can copy over to OneNote - or again, first copy them to Word, where you can remove the table formatting if you want.

    Tip: In Excel, the file paths you've copied over from the file directory will be in a column. Copy these over to another column and use "Find/Replace" to remove the file path that precedes the file name. Presto, you now have nicely-formatted file names for the Hyperlink function.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-12T04:14:51+00:00

    I just want to say that I think it is unfortunate and baffling that the drag-to-link function has been disabled for OneNote 2013. I have a lot of goodwill for this application and for its developers, but this "feature claw-back" has a huge impact on its usefulness and leaves me apprehensive about what other features may have been rescinded in the 2013 version.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-12T04:08:52+00:00

    Here's one technique that will work with importing hyperlinks to OneNote 2013, and is actually better than the drag-and-drop method we had enjoyed through 2010, before that feature apparently got withdrawn...

    I use this to drop in a large number of nicely-formatted links at one time into OneNote:

    1. Import into Excel the file paths of the files you wish to link, as well as the file names. You can do this easily with a free utility like "Karen's Directory Printer": http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp

    Karen's utility will spit out a text file that you can import into Excel.

    1. Use Excel's "Hyperlink" function to make links out of the file paths and file names you've just imported.  Note that this actually is better than importing directly for Explorer, because with the Hyperlink function, you can easily format the links to show only the file names, not the full path. Cleaner.
    2. You can then copy the file links in Excel and paste them into OneNote 2013. OneNote will put them into a one-column table; if you don't want this, paste the links into Word first... I tried it with 2013 just now and it did not paste my link into a table cell. I do know that 2013 has a "Convert Table To Text" command under the "Table Tools" Layout context menu, "Data" section.

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-07-12T09:25:30+00:00

    I know both are not as simple as the original feature and sound backwards. Sorry, as I said I will check with the team.

    Agreed, this change is completely backward. I would love to again be able to drag a file onto the OneNote page and insert a link to the file. Simple as that.

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