If you are a Microsoft Office user, then you know that OneNote 2010 is a great note-taking application. If you are a OneNote 2007 user, then it is time to move over to OneNote 2010. OneNote 2010 is much more powerful than OneNote 2007. For example, OneNote 2010 can hold up to 1GB of data, whereas OneNote 2007 can only hold up to 500KB of data. Additionally, OneNote 2010 has many new features that are not available in One Note 2007. For example, One Note 2010 can now be used as a personal assistant for your work and school tasks. If you are an Office 365 subscriber or have an Office 365 subscription through your employer, then moving over to One Note 2010 is a great decision. If you are not an Office 365 subscriber or have an Office 365 subscription through your employer, then the decision is not so clear-cut. However, if you want to use the full power of One Note 2010 on your computer at home, then the move over is definitely worth making!
Convert your OneNote Notebooks to 2007 Format
If you open a notebook from OneNote 2010 in OneNote 2007, you may see this warning informing you that the notebook was created in a newer version of OneNote and cannot be opened.
To make your 2010 notebooks compatible with OneNote 2007, you need to convert them inside OneNote 2010. In OneNote 2010, open the File menu; this should open to the Info tab by default. Select the Settings button beside the notebook you want to use in OneNote 2007, and select Properties.
In the properties dialog, click “Convert to 2007”.
You may see a warning that some formatting, content, and history that is incompatible with OneNote 2007 will be removed. Click Ok to continue.
OneNote will automatically convert everything in this notebook to 2007 format. If your notebook is very large, this may take a few minutes.
Once the conversion is completed, you can re-open the properties dialog to see the change. The format is listed as OneNote 2007 format, and you have the option to convert to 2010. Your 2007 formatted notebook is still fully usable in OneNote 2010, but you may not be able to use some of the newer features in it.
Now that your notebook is in 2007 format, you can share it with OneNote 2007 users. Here’s our notebook, the OneNote 2010 guide, open in OneNote 2007 after the conversion.
Conclusion
OneNote can be a great collaboration tool, and with this simple trick you can collaborate with those using older versions of OneNote. Additionally, if you are currently running Office 2010 beta but plan to switch back to Office 2007 when the beta expires, then make sure to do this to any new notebooks you’ve created so you can still use them.
