Upgrade StorageMigration to Zotero advice from OneNote
This is a request for how-to, best-practice, and expectations advice. I have not downloaded Zotero yet. Microsoft's retirement of OneNote for Windows 10 forces me to migrate, and Zotero now appears to be my best alternative.
Till now, OneNote for Windows 10 has been where I collect, store, access, modify and sync diverse information in various filetypes on multiple Windows computers that sync through OneDrive. The filetypes most commonly used are Microsoft 365 files, Mathematica notebooks, PDFs, .JPGs, and .MHTML. Less commonly, I use python and R code blocks and TEX files.
Microsoft's replacement OneDrive retains only the collaboration and notetaking features of the retired OneDrive. It does not allow use of arbitrary file attachments that can be opened, edited and saved from the new OneNote platform. That's why I must emigrate.
From reviewing the online Zotero documentation, I think my only losses of functionality will be the infinite canvas display that allows visual arrangement of files I'm working with, the visual display of descriptive information about those files, and the ability to add handwritten notes and recording. Among those, only the infinite canvas is important to me, and I'm resigned to losing that.
Are there OTHER limitations I haven't considered?
Has someone with experience in OneNote for Windows 10 blazed a trail for my migration?
Specifically, will I encounter problems collaborating on files through OneDrive?
Is there a better approach to this than the one implied by my other questions?
Are there some obvious avoidable mistakes someone like me is likely to make in setting up Zotero?
I realize Zotero offers a unified cloud location where the index and the files can be synced, but I'm reluctant to split up my cloud storage. So I plan to keep files contained in Zotero stored on OneDrive. Due to a warning on the Zotero web site, I think I should keep the index for those files stored in the Zotero cloud. I wish that were not necessary.
Till now, OneNote for Windows 10 has been where I collect, store, access, modify and sync diverse information in various filetypes on multiple Windows computers that sync through OneDrive. The filetypes most commonly used are Microsoft 365 files, Mathematica notebooks, PDFs, .JPGs, and .MHTML. Less commonly, I use python and R code blocks and TEX files.
Microsoft's replacement OneDrive retains only the collaboration and notetaking features of the retired OneDrive. It does not allow use of arbitrary file attachments that can be opened, edited and saved from the new OneNote platform. That's why I must emigrate.
From reviewing the online Zotero documentation, I think my only losses of functionality will be the infinite canvas display that allows visual arrangement of files I'm working with, the visual display of descriptive information about those files, and the ability to add handwritten notes and recording. Among those, only the infinite canvas is important to me, and I'm resigned to losing that.
Are there OTHER limitations I haven't considered?
Has someone with experience in OneNote for Windows 10 blazed a trail for my migration?
Specifically, will I encounter problems collaborating on files through OneDrive?
Is there a better approach to this than the one implied by my other questions?
Are there some obvious avoidable mistakes someone like me is likely to make in setting up Zotero?
I realize Zotero offers a unified cloud location where the index and the files can be synced, but I'm reluctant to split up my cloud storage. So I plan to keep files contained in Zotero stored on OneDrive. Due to a warning on the Zotero web site, I think I should keep the index for those files stored in the Zotero cloud. I wish that were not necessary.
There is even an officially documented migration path https://help.obsidian.md/import/onenote
OneNote does allow use of arbitrary file attachments that can be opened, edited and saved from the OneNote platform. I use OneNote for this, and have for many years, and it is fine.
I have been exploring using notes in Zotero but it does not have many of the features that OneNote has (e.g. infinite canvas). I like both for different purposes.
Zotero has great document management features and some note taking whilst OneNote has great note taking features and more basic document management. I use both. Zotero for books, articles, snapshots, some notes/annotations etc and OneNote for note taking in general. I like both.
In the short term you can link notes from one to the other (via links) and that is quite workable.
There are many who seach for the one program that does it all but along that path lies potential angst and pain (just look at r/PKMS to see that).
I believe everything you said about OneNote revision history is correct, but I think you are misinformed about capabilities. If you have reasons for your belief about the replacement for OneNote for Windows 10, please me know. I could be wrong.
From what I've read and experienced, the replacement version can open, edit and save back into OneNote only a few proprietary Microsoft filetypes like Word files. Maybe a few others too. I think there are filetypes that cannot even be opened from within the replacement version, e.g. a Mathematica notebook. And I think other filetypes can be opened but can only be written back into the Windows folder system, not into the encoded OneNote storage format. That was definitely not true of OneNote for Windows 10. I'm confident of that last sentence.
The notetaking and collaboration features in OneNote are not important to me. In my work, I collect, change, create, revise, add and delete many versions of different file types and generate a lot of discarded revisions in the process. So the now-dead OneNote was a great convenience organizing a current set of files to work with and especially by reducing the burden of folder housekeeping that would be worth reducing in my case.
As far as I know from casually reading the Zotero documentation, the only thing I anticipate missing in Zotero is the OneNote infinite canvas that allowed users to sort and tag files into a coherent visual arrangement. That infinite canvas is still part of the replacement version, but that infinite canvas is not too helpful if some of the files on it cannot be easily opened.
Of course, my biggest fear about investing time in Zotero is what I don't know to expect. The next biggest concern is how it well it will synchronize my work among different computers all sharing the same OneDrive account.
From your comments, Zotero seems a better fit for your documentation requirements. You can store any file there with the added benefit of more meta data. Zotero has great PDF and ePub viewers. However, when you open other files it will open in the application that the file extension is associated with.
Explore Zotero with some files to see if it meets your requirements. It is a great application and goes a long way to managing documents and you can use it in innovative ways.
There are other applications like Obsidian, Logseq, Roam etc that might suit.
Wish you well on your journey.
This require maybe to rewrite your notes to Obsidian/LoqSeq, with noticing interesting old/new connections between these notes. Oh, and Obsidian seem to be more suited for long notes/articles (with several plugins to elaborate), and Loqseq seem to be more suited for short notes...
I do virtually all my work with specialty programs for video/audio editing, computer algebra applications, mathematics visualizations, coding, Word documents, python, pdf ink markups, etc.
I was using OneNote for Windows 10 to embed files related to a common task, then cutting and pasting, writing, deleting among several files simultaneously open in different apps, some of which were not Microsoft apps.
I think pcinque is mistaken about OneNote (the replacement for OneNote for Windows 10). I may be wrong. My guess is he uses Microsoft 365 apps and mistakenly thinks other apps work similarly. In my admittedly limited experience, embedded files with some non-Microsoft filetypes do not open from OneNote and some (most that I know of) that do open cannot be saved back into OneNote. Moreover, the replacement OneNote doesn't have "Open With" in the context menu for embedded files. So you are locked into the Windows default app set by you or your administrator. None of those limitations existed in the retired version.
The replacement OneNote may be a nice place to organize reading and reference material. It might be a useable workspace for someone editing with only Microsoft apps. The retired OneNote could be used with all apps I use. I have not found that to be true with its replacement.