The first way to work around these limitations are to store all of the notes for a given project or effort within their own dedicated OneNote folder. Given this current set of limitations, how can you structure your OneNote content best? search for all instances of ‘Marketing’ in notes that have been updated in the last 7 days).

And this is on top of fact that OneNote will not let you combine search terms (no ‘AND’ in text or tag search) or combine search terms with other parameters (e.g. So depending on what type of content you are looking for, you may be limited by different search capabilities within OneNote. In that function, you can choose to limit the results by selecting from all of the following options: Lastly, there is the Find Tags function (discussed in the “ Using OneNote Tags” article on this blog). Meanwhile, the Recent Edits function (also on the History tab) will initially let you narrow your results by all of the following options:Īnd once you have selected a time period, the list of Recent Edits can be further narrowed by selecting from among the following options: For example, the Search function (via the Search box) will let you limit the search results by the following criteria (in OneNote 20, which are the versions I have access to):īut the Find by Author search (which is accessed only via special button under the History tab) will only let you limit the search by: The reasoning behind both of these recommendations has to do with limitations of the OneNote search and tag functions, and the fact that these functions are spread out across multiple access points within OneNote. The Mystery of the Many OneNote Search Functions Specifically, using one notebook per project or effort and defining a reusable folder structure that enables you to best leverage OneNote’s searching and tagging functions.

This post will explore OneNote’s various search functions and discuss two ways you can structure your OneNote content to take advantage of its strengths while working around its limitations. I think it’s a fantastic tool for business analysts, but it definitely has its quarks and limitations. If it’s not obvious from my prior posts on this subject, I’m a fan of Microsoft OneNote. Thoughts on Leveraging OneNote Folder Structure for Searchability and Business Analysis

Onenote examples