Office_user said:
I want to understand the purpose of grouping pages and creating
section groups.
I know how to perform the task steps, but don't understand why I
may use this function? in whih context? what is the advantage?
OneNote 2007 offers very good features for organizing one's work.
So it also offers the structures for storing the information the user
collects in most sophisticated patterns.
1.) The main thing is "notebooks".
Each notebook is like a folder or a spiral binder lying on your
(physical) desktop or just like a TimeSystems or "Franklin" binder you
carry around.
In order to not have it "all in one" unsorted and difficult to use, you
would separate things by sorting the individual pages holding the
information and grouping them after subjects and/or dates. That's what
the so-called "Organizers" are used for.
That's where in a physical folder/binder "tabbed pages" are used.
They show where certain parts of the whole set of pages holding
information are located and allow for accessing the topic/date where to
find the info.
In OneNote "sections" just mean the *part* of the binder/folder where
grouped/sorted information (held on pages) is located.
2.) In the sections there are *pages*.
These are the major place of storing the information.
If the information is complex, one may need additional structures.
If a certain topic needs additional sub-topics - f.e. if "Pets" needs
to be further divided into "Dogs", "Cats", "Birds", "Other" - one would
use "subpages" of the page "Pets".
If in ON one has been started with a rather flat structure (f.e. with a
page "Pets"), one can later add a page "Dogs" as a subpage initiallly.
But one can also create a normal page "Dogs" and then make it a subpage
of "Pets" later.
2.) "Sections" are the main/normal distinction/separation of notebooks.
The standard structure is:
(1) Notebook
(2) - Section
(3) - Page
(4) - Subpage
But information may be really complex and one may need addtional
differentiation of the basic structures.
Therefore ON has an *additional* level for sorting things, the "Section
Groups".
In additon to the basic scheme there is "Section Group" as an additional
level above the "Sections":
(1) Notebook
(2) - Section Group
(3) - Section
(4) - Page
(5) - Subpage
This additional level offers a way to meet the complexity found in real
life.
It is most practical to use this additional level, especially as in the
User Interface of ON the "Section Groups" in the "Navigation Pane" can
be "collapsed" and "unfolded" just as one needs it.
3.) You ask on "why" to use these structures.
Well, it's easy enough:
Information is only usable if one *finds* what one is looking for <gbg>.
And the best way to make information retrievable (apart from all
"googling") is an *organized* way of storing the objects holding
information.
And therefore OneNote offers several levels for organizing the
information.
Not "having it all in one sack" but having things organized in
*structured* patterns is of tremendous value.
Hope this may help to understand the basics.
If any further questions, pls ask
Rainald
