"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
    2015-11-06T21:57:46+00:00

    Well, I will stick with OneNote 2010 then.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-04-17T01:10:22+00:00

    I found a new workaround that even kind of improves upon the missing file link feature.

    Install "Everything" from voidtools.com which is a file indexer and search tool.

    Be sure to check to register the "es" - URL protocol handler during setup.

    create links of the form es:searchterm in your pages to start searches using Everything upon clicking such links.

    I wrote everything up on my blog with some screenshots:

    http://www.atcw.de/blog/2016/MsOneNoteFileLinksWorkaround/

    Have fun with more powerful and resilient file links!

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-04-28T20:52:48+00:00

    All,

    After I upgraded to Windows 10 from Win 7, I lost the Ctrl + 'right click and drag' function to paste the full link of a file into an email.

    My solution is to open the file with Edge and then copy the full link from  address area and then paste into email.

    Hope this will be helpful.

    Lu

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-05-15T04:15:28+00:00

    This is a really good idea (I'm just getting onto this thread in May, 2016), though, as you said, it takes some time if you have several directories with which to work.

    The key slowdown, from a human factors point of view, seems to be "navigate." For me, it seems that, whenever I have to navigate, it really means re-navigate (since I often have the folder/folders with the documents already open in an explorer window), which takes time that adds up to an annoyance.

    I get it that the old fashioned ON 2010 functionality is difficult to replicate in a OneDrive/cloud setting. Why not leave it as a local function only until a cloud implementation can be developed.

    Sometimes, the goal of moving functions to the cloud becomes an end in itself - I've been there myself: when I master something, I start to try to apply it everywhere...

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-05-15T04:24:29+00:00

    What's wrong with having some features work only locally?

    Reminds me of the difference between outlook.com and Outlook the application. No one questions that there's lots more functionality in an Outlook client than through a web browser.

    Imagine if Outlook the client were reduced only to the functionality of outlook.com?

    that would be crazy, and I think the idea that, a priori,  all functionality in OneNote via OneDrive must limit what can be done on OneDrive the application, is short sighted. That could be a few years away, and in the meantime features are eliminated waiting for full implementation in the web versions.

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