Creating a link to a OneNote page on the desktop

One of the blogs I linked to is gone, so I decided I should update the directions for those folks that want to create a shortcut to a OneNote page and drop it on the desktop. It's not that hard but does require one little trick, so here goes.

First, right click the page tab of the page you want to link. Select Copy link to page.

Now start notepad and paste into it.

When you do this, you will see 2 links got put on the clipboard. (There will only be one if your notebook is stored on your local hard drive). The first link starts with https:// and the second starts with onenote:https://

This is the tricky bit. The first link is just a regular hyperlink that will open in a browser. If we click it (assume we can click it in notepad), the browser will start and open the page in the web client. Nothing special here.

The second link is the one we want, though. That uses the onenote: protocol, and if we (could) click it, OneNote would open and navigate to that page.

For the page I want to link, I see this when I paste to notepad:

https://skydrive.live.com/edit.aspx/Documents2/Personal%20^5Web^6?cid=MYCID&id=documents?&wd=target%28Unfiled%20Notes.one%7cF4EB9B3A-5AAE-481B-93CD-0C602DED96DF%2fTyler%20winning%7c83F5F5C2-C9A9-4F11-A113-6F559C44A703%2f%29

onenote:https://d.docs-df.live.net/MYCID/Documents2/Personal%20(Web)/Unfiled%20Notes.one#Tyler%20winning&section-id={F4EB9B3A-5AAE-481B-93CD-0C602DED96DF}&page-id={83F5F5C2-C9A9-4F11-A113-6F559C44A703}&end

So what I want to do is copy that second link. So I just select all that text and copy.

Now I right click on my desktop and select New | Shortcut, like this:

clip_image001

Where it asks for the location of the item, I paste the onenote: uri

clip_image002

Then I give it a name. I'll name it the same as the page name in OneNote - Tyler Winning. When I finish, I get this shortcut on my desktop:

clip_image003

And when I click it, OneNote will go to that page.

Nifty little trick.

If I don't care about starting OneNote and just want a link for the browser, I can just paste the link from the page without going through notepad. That will use the first url which in this case is the https:// link, and it will open that page in a browser. Also, the icon will be a browser icon for the shortcut, not the OneNote icon.

This pretty much puts you on the track to being a OneNote power user, too, so I encourage you to jump in and give it a try.

Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,

John