"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
    2013-02-07T00:48:24+00:00

    Thank you for the prompt response.  I'm glad to hear you are going to ask about this missing feature.  It's a big one to me, and I suspect to others as well. 

    I do have an issue with your first workaround.  When you hit "copy as path" for a file, there are quotes that are automatically inserted.  Pasting the path with quotes is not recognized by OneNote as a valid address- the quotes must be removed manually.  I have yet to figure out how to remove the quotes from the default "copy as path" option. 

    Again, though, thank you for your help.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-10T16:05:18+00:00

    The loss of this feature drives many OneNote-users crazy and forced me to go back to OneNote2010. It is incredible that Microsoft REMOVES a feature many users rely on. Professional Product Management looks completely different. And even more incredible is that the feature isn't even back in OneNote2016 ...  If I was the owner of the company, I would remove the responsible managers. Causing severe anger and frustration to the customers is the least thing a reasonable company should allows.

    Here is the best workaround I found (works at least for OneNote2016):

    1. You drag the file to OneNote and embed it.
    2. You right click on the embedded file and choose Copy link to original
    3. You paste this link in OneNote
    4. You delete the embedded file

    4 steps instead of one... But it is still faster than all the other workarounds I saw.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-11T17:54:19+00:00

    This is not nearly as convenient as dragging and dropping to create a link.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-05-16T15:41:33+00:00

    I agree !

    Bernd

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-05-15T20:40:24+00:00

    True... but it seems to fork/duplicate the document.  If you open an embedded file and look at the location of it - you'll find it is in a temporary folder.  This is terrible - because if I want to update the file - I have to be careful to scoot back to the original, and not update the embedded copy.

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