Calendar templates for OneNote
I found another blog here which showcases templates for different applications in Office. It's called (in the most straightforward naming manner I can imagine) the Template Blog and they posted some updated for year 2008 calendars at https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=CT102633041033&av=TPL000&ofcresset=1.
The OneNote team in general gets frequent request for templates for calendars, and this update should be useful. Also check out Josh Einstein's calendar powertoy at https://www.onenotepowertoys.com/2007/03/25/josh-einsteins-onenote-calendar/. It's pretty slick.
I can't just leave it at this, though. Since I'm a tester, I can't just accept the freebies for what they are and move on. I feel compelled to try them all to"verify they work as expected". They all did work, but some of them had a few minor "problems" I noticed.
If you open the topmost calendar from the list (https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102473601033.aspx?pid=CT101425391033) and look carefully at the date created data below the January 2008 title, you can see the date the template was created in 2007. This is the design of the template, though, so does not count as a "bug."
Next, there is an extra row of boxes for the dates along the bottom. That gives a total of six rows to hold the monthly data in week format. A little quick scribbling on paper should show that having 6 rows to hold all the week's data in a month is sometimes necessary, so the sixth week is explainable. I'm not sure why the extra blank week is included every month, though. I suppose it's easier to have a meta-template with all six weeks to modify as needed for any given month, and if I were creating the template, that is an efficient step I would take. Plus, if I print these calendars later, they will all be the same size on the paper. I like that, and the tester in me says "That's not a bug either."
Once I downloaded the template, the template was installed to OneNote and a new page for January 2008 was created in my current section. This bothered me for two reasons. One, I do not like to "open" files when I download them - I generally put them in my Download folder and come back to them later. The automatic invoke was a little surprising. I installed the Office Download Active X control and will look at it to see if it causes the document downloaded to be opened automatically (I'm almost certain it does - I just need to verify). And I did not like the January page being opened. It's March as I write this, so March should have been opened.
The last item I noticed was the image on the download page of the website. It shows OneNote 2003. There is nothing wrong with OneNote 2003 (great product, and it was the main reason I wanted to come to the OneNote team initially): it's just jarring to see that UI on the web page. I'm so used to the current UI that I had almost forgotten how large the title area was in OneNote 2003.
If you get really jazzed with templates, you can, from time to time, submit your own at https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/recent.aspx. We have a community portal and there are hundreds of templates for all the Office applications already uploaded. Right now, it is closed for submissions (thanks for pointing that out, Kathy!).
Questions, concerns, comments and criticism always welcome,
John