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Printing just the selection in OneNote tip

  • Artigo

This question came up in email over the weekend:

 "How do I print the current select of text in OneNote?  Similar to IE."

 Well, the smallest item in you can print OneNote is a page. A suggestion came out to copy and paste into Word or Powerpoint and print from there. The fellow who made this request wanted a powertoy to do this ( it would be possible since the API exposes the selection), but also wanted the powertoy to avoid using Word. His hope was to get a powertoy that did not depend on Word being installed.

 I was thinking about how to do this when I realized that there is a way to use nothing but shortcut keys to complete this task within OneNote. Here's what I came up with:

 Select whatever you want to print

CTRL+C

WIN+N

CTRL+V, CTRL + P

 Essentially, this copies selection the clipboard, creates a new Sidenote, pastes there, then invokes Print.  WIN + N is the “trick” here – we already have a shortcut key to create a new Sidenote, so this makes it easier to use only OneNote to do the printing.

 If that is too many keys to remember, you can use AutoHotKey to reduce this to a single shortcut.

 I was a little curious if this was any faster than using the menu command in IE to similarly print from the browser. My informal testing showed it was about the same time for me to use this versus clicking the menu item in the browser and selecting that menu command. There may be a way to invoke this from the browser with a shortcut key but I don't know what it is if it exists.

 The best powertoy is one that can be avoided. I hope this helps!

 Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,
John

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 18, 2010
    Hey John, I just read your article and it is nice to know that people at Microsoft are so helpful.  I like to be helpful too, so that is why I have created a macro to automate the task you talk about. I think that AutoHotKey is a little less straightforward for my taste.  I actually prefer using JitBit Macro Recorder.  JitBit is free as a lite version, but in order to compile to .exe you have to pay. The task that I automate is the following:
  1.  Switch to window that already has lorem ipsum text, I used Onenote 2010 as an example
  2.  Insert lorem ipsum text
  3.  Select All
  4.  Copy Text
  5.  Paste Text into Onenote
  6.  Send to Default Printer The macro is below in all its glory. DELAY : 781 SWITCH TO WINDOW : Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscin - Microsoft OneNote Mouse : 351 : 245 : LeftButtonDown : 0 : 0 DELAY : 13 Mouse : R359 : R253 : LeftButtonUp : 0 : 0 DELAY : 1612 Keyboard : KeyCode187 : KeyDown DELAY : 57 Keyboard : KeyCode187 : KeyUp DELAY : 784 Keyboard : L : KeyDown DELAY : 94 Keyboard : L : KeyUp DELAY : 106 Keyboard : O : KeyDown DELAY : 117 Keyboard : O : KeyUp DELAY : 312 Keyboard : R : KeyDown DELAY : 165 Keyboard : R : KeyUp DELAY : 271 Keyboard : E : KeyDown DELAY : 145 Keyboard : E : KeyUp DELAY : 13 Keyboard : M : KeyDown DELAY : 164 Keyboard : M : KeyUp DELAY : 307 Keyboard : ShiftRight : KeyDown DELAY : 349 Keyboard : D9 : KeyDown DELAY : 123 Keyboard : D9 : KeyUp DELAY : 160 Keyboard : D0 : KeyDown DELAY : 99 Keyboard : D0 : KeyUp DELAY : 96 Keyboard : ShiftRight : KeyUp DELAY : 332 Keyboard : Return : KeyDown DELAY : 123 Keyboard : Return : KeyUp DELAY : 994 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyDown DELAY : 413 Keyboard : A : KeyDown DELAY : 108 Keyboard : A : KeyUp DELAY : 144 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyUp DELAY : 1782 COMMENT : Omitted Unnecessary WinKey Press DELAY : 1446 Mouse : 665 : 465 : LeftButtonDown : 0 : 0 DELAY : 50 Mouse : R673 : R473 : LeftButtonUp : 0 : 0 DELAY : 4153 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyDown DELAY : 684 Keyboard : C : KeyDown DELAY : 244 Keyboard : C : KeyUp DELAY : 34 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyUp DELAY : 1095 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 496 Keyboard : N : KeyDown DELAY : 150 Keyboard : N : KeyUp DELAY : 67 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyUp DELAY : 3852 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyDown DELAY : 879 Keyboard : V : KeyDown DELAY : 158 Keyboard : V : KeyUp DELAY : 2034 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyUp DELAY : 2662 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyDown DELAY : 581 Keyboard : P : KeyDown DELAY : 161 Keyboard : P : KeyUp DELAY : 66 Keyboard : ControlRight : KeyUp DELAY : 5492 Keyboard : Return : KeyDown DELAY : 108 Keyboard : Return : KeyUp DELAY : 2543 DELAY : 25

Separate Macro for WinKey pressing COMMENT : If you want to add the omitted key press, just close notepad when it opens OPEN FILE : notepad.exe : WAIT FOR : Untitled - Notepad : disappear : 0 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 564 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 31 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 31 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 31 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 31 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 32 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 31 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 32 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 30 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyDown DELAY : 22 Keyboard : LWindows : KeyUp