Microsoft has updated its OneNote Clipper browser add-on, offering users more control over the content they collect from the Web. Once installed, OneNote Clipper integrates with OneNote, allowing users to incorporate their Web surfing discoveries into the company’s cloud-enabled note-taking app.
“Responding to some of the more popular requests from Clipper users, in this update, we’ve added a redesigned user interface, a location picker, intelligence (for clipping just what you need, minus the clutter), and region clipping for Chrome,” Avneesh Kohli, OneNote program manager, said in a statement summarizing the new features. Users will immediately notice a new, more compact interface that competes for less screen real estate.
Despite slimming down, the add-on offers more functionality, according Kohli. Among them is a “more intelligent Clipper.”
Lamenting that most online articles, recipes and product resources “often include clutter that gets in the way of the content you care about most,” Kohli revealed that the new add-on now generates simplified, low-distraction clippings of desired Web content. For Web pages that contain article, recipe or product information, “OneNote Clipper cleans up the page to show you only that content in a neat, organized format, and then shows you a preview,” he said.
Users also now have more of a say in how their Web clippings are organized.
“By far and away, the most popular request from Clipper users was to add more customized clipping location options,” said Kohli. “Previously, all clippings went to your Quick Notes section by default; however, now you can select the notebook and section clippings get sent to.”
Now, the add-on displays a user’s notebooks, including shared notebooks, in a drop-down menu. “Of course, having to select a location for each clipping can be burdensome. That’s why the OneNote Clipper remembers the last notebook and section you clipped to,” said Kohli, describing the added convenience tweak.
Finally, the OneNote Clipper Chrome Extension gains clipping support for a region of the screen. After selecting the associated icon, users can click and drag to capture an area of the browser window.
As part of the company’s mobile and cloud push, the software giant has been steadily enhancing its OneNote software, which is available on most platforms and integrates with other Microsoft services, including OneNote and Office 365.
Earlier this year, Microsoft set its sights on educators and faculty with the back-to-back releases of the OneNote for Teachers online resource and OneNote Staff Notebooks. In October, the company released a OneNote Class Notebook Creator app that enables teachers to manage assignments, streamline test-taking and track their students’ progress.
OneNote is also one of Microsoft’s first moves into the burgeoning wearables software market. On Sept. 16, the company published a free OneNote for Android Wear companion app to the Google Play store. It allows owners of select smartwatches to dictate notes to their wrist-worn wearables and view them on their smartphones using the Android OneNote app.