Why you should switch from Evernote to One Note

It seems like a lot of people choose to use Evernote instead of One Note for organizing/compiling their research. I too had fallen into this mindset. Then one day while I was adding some photos to a note I got a message that made me completely change my mind:

I had gone over the size limit of 25 MB for my note. Now, I like to include all of my organized information for a person in one document. If I didn't then my files would very quickly become a mess. Once I started looking into alternatives to Evernote I very quickly made my decision to switch to One Note. Its important note here that I am a windows user. One Note lacks a lot of functional support for other operating systems since it is made by windows. However, for all you Windows Users out there, this is why you should switch to One Note for all your Genealogy related needs.

#1: Price

This is the real deal breaker in my opinion. Evernote offers 4 tiers: 

• Basic, which is free
• Plus, which costs $34.99 per year
• Premium, which costs $69.99 per year
• Business. which costs $120 per year.

 One Note in comparison has only one tier:

•  One Note, which is free

Need I even say more?

#2: Storage

Now I know what you are thinking; "If One Note is free then doesn't it have less features than the paid versions of Evernote?" The answer is largely no, as you will see in this section and the sections that follow it. The difference in storage was the catalyst for my decision to switch to One Note. First lets take a look at the amount of storage you are allotted for each tier in Evernote:

• Basic: 60 MB in monthly note uploads and 25 MB for a single note
• Plus: 1 GB in monthly note uploads and 50 MB for a single note
• Premium: 10 GB in monthly note uploads and 200 MB for a single note
• Business: 10 GB in monthly personal note uploads, 2 GB per user in monthly business uploads, and  200 MB for a single note

Now to compare that with One Note: Unlimited monthly uploads and Unlimited note size. Really all that limits the amount of data you put into one note is how much your computer can store. 

#3 Features

So, not that we've got Price and Storage covered lets take a look at what each of the apps actually offers. Now right off the bat I will say this: Evernote's web clipper is far better than One Note's. It has more options for what parts of a web page you can save and an advanced annotation tool. However, if this is as unimportant to you as it is to me then I guarantee One Note's capabilities will be far more appealing to you than Evernote's.
Here are the major differences in features:

Interface

This is Evernote's interface. It consists of 3 main columns and 2 rows of options at the top. In my opinion it is cluttered. It has too many options in a single space that make it slower to get to where you need. 

As a comparison here is One Note's interface. You can see it has all the basic tools you need on one screen and cuts the unnecessary things. There is an expandable menu in the top left hand corner that contains what you need to easily search and organize your notes. Its much cleaner with fewer distractions than Evernote, which translates to greater productivity and faster work speeds.

Collaboration

One unique feature in One Note is the ability to easily collaborate and share your documents with others. This is available in Evernote, but only in the paid versions. This feature is incredibly useful for working with other researchers. For instance, have a to do list for a shared tree? Just make one in One Note by inserting checkboxes and share it with your fellow researcher! If they complete a task they can check the box and both of you will see that it has been complete. They can even add their own research or notes into your documents, or annotate your theories with proof that confirms or rejects them. The possibilities are endless!

Full control over Layout

Evernote has an amazing feature where you can type anywhere on the page. Just click and type and it will go where you want it to hassle free, you can even move elements of your note sheet around later. If you have a picture, for instance, you can add a caption or add text on top of the image with just a single simple click.

File Attachments

 In One Note you can attach any type of file you want to your note. Sound, Video, Pictures, PDFs, you name it you can attach it. Combine this with the share function and you can upload gedcoms and share them with your fellow collaborators so they can easily download them. You could also share audio interviews with each other or just use your notes as a place to store the audio you've collected for yourself.

OCR Tools

OCR is short for Optical character recognition. It allows a machine to read the words within an image. Both Evernote and One Note have OCR, but One Note is the only one that lets you actually copy the text inside the image so you can paste it elsewhere. OCR isn't always completely accurate, but sometimes it means the difference between transcribing thousands of words by hand and using a simple copy paste.

Drawing Tools

One Note has a large amount of drawing tools, many of which are unavailable in Evernote. It has Pen tools with a much larger width variance than the ones offered by Evernote and more shapes you can use for annotating. It's lasso select tool also makes selecting and moving the annotations you draw easy.

How to Make the Switch

Luckily its pretty easy to transfer your Evernotes to One Notes. You'll find an importer tool here.

I personally got very good results using the tool. It kept all of my formatting perfectly and looks like I made it naive in One Note. Also, I would recommend downloading the 2013 version of OneNote, even if you have windows 10. it has more features and better exporting options. You can download the 2013 version here.

Is One Note truly better for genealogy than Evernote? Let me know in the comments what you think!