Create Sections and Section Groups with Macros

June 27, 2017

Macros were able to create pages and page content which makes it very easy to generate lots of pages like the Diary Pages macro which creates a page for each day in a month or the Daily Manager Log macro which can create a page for each day in a whole year. However until now Macros didn't have the ability to create section group/section hierarchies, which are very important units of organization in larger notebooks.

With an update today, Onetastic Macros can now create new sections and section groups in notebooks and other section groups. This can be done with InsertObject function which is already used for creating pages and page content. The object type passed to the function can now be "Section" or "SectionGroup" and the parent object can be a notebook or a section group object.

Following is an example of creating a section group/section hierarchy in the current notebook. You can also download this sample macro here: Sample Create Section Hierarchy.

$notebook = GetCurrentNotebook() $SGDocs = InsertObject($notebook, "SectionGroup", -1) $SGDocs.name = "Macro Documentation" InsertObject($SGDocs, "Section", -1).name = "Getting Started" $SGFunctions = InsertObject($SGDocs, "SectionGroup", -1) $SGFunctions.name = "Functions" InsertObject($SGFunctions, "Section", -1).name = "Array Functions" InsertObject($SGFunctions, "Section", -1).name = "DateTime Functions" InsertObject($SGFunctions, "Section", -1).name = "Dialog Box Functions" InsertObject($SGFunctions, "Section", -1).name = "Macro Execution Functions" InsertObject($SGFunctions, "Section", -1).name = "Object Functions" InsertObject($SGFunctions, "Section", -1).name = "String Functions" $SGOperators = InsertObject($SGDocs, "SectionGroup", -1) $SGOperators.name = "Operators" InsertObject($SGOperators, "Section", -1).name = "Arithmetic Operators" InsertObject($SGOperators, "Section", -1).name = "Assignment Operators" InsertObject($SGOperators, "Section", -1).name = "Comparison Operators" InsertObject($SGOperators, "Section", -1).name = "Logical Operators" InsertObject($SGOperators, "Section", -1).name = "String Concatenation Operator" InsertObject($SGOperators, "Section", -1).name = "Ternary Operator"

Macro Updates

Following macros in Macroland are updated:

Search & Replace

Added option to search in selected pages in the current section. Useful if you want to search and replace only in certain pages in the current section.

Extract highlighted Text

Added option to extract highlighted text in Current Section, Current Section Group, Current Notebook, and All Notebooks. The results are displayed in a new page (if the scope is not current page), grouped by section > page and links are provided for each of the highlighted text.

Sort Pages

Updated to sort numerically if page names start with numbers like 1, 2 etc. This correctly puts a section named 10... after sections named 1... through 9...

Search & Replace in Hyperlinks

Added option to do case insensitive search

Weekly Planner

Added option to pick Monday vs. Sunday as the first day of the week as well as ability to pick a range of weeks or a specific week in the future

New Macros

Several new macros have been added to Macroland since the last update. Check them out:

Sample Create Section Hierarchy

Creates a sample section group/section hierarchy

Proofing Language -> Swedish

Sets the proofing language on selected text to Swedish

Select Between First two Heading 1

Selects all content between the first and the second Heading 1 styled paragraphs in the current page

Format Numbers

Applies specific formatting to all numbers in the selection or the current page

Append Date to Title (dd.mm.yy)

Modifies the page title to append the date in DD.MM.YY format

Comments

Omer Atay - 2017-08-15

gamiclea: This would happen if there is already a section group with the same name. Since you can't have two section groups (or sections) with the same name in a notebook, updating the name fails and the section group gets a generated name, a unique identifier.

gamiclea - 2017-08-14

I tried running the sample create section hierarchy macro but am running into problems with the following command in the script:
$SGDocs.name = "Macro Documentation"
What I'm getting is that the name doesn't take...and it issues an "invalid name" error. The section group ends up with a system generated title with a name like the following:
{357E9D36-9EC0-48E1-AAD0-9AC792E2B7EE}

What am I missing here?

Omer Atay - 2017-07-14

Mikecharles261: No such feature at this point in Onetastic.

wone: Email support@getonetastic.com for troubleshooting your installation.

Show more comments (11 more)

wone - 2017-07-14

it doesn't work on my computer
it's windows 7 64bit using one note2016
it does not appear on the note after install

Mikecharles261 - 2017-07-12

Good morning. The ability to scan documents directly into oneNote is a very important part of our business productivity. I can't understate how important it is for our business to have this capability. I think Microsoft has made a big mistake by not incorporating this feature into the 2016 version of OneNote. The OfficeLens work-around is not acceptable. Has the Onetastic community invented a way to scan documents directly into OneNote 2016? Thank you. Bill

Mark P - 2017-07-11

Hello Omer. Thank you for that info and your great product. I use it every day! I was excited to see a folder there that I am missing. However, it contained the following file: New Section 1.one (On 6-26-2017).one but when I clicked it, it created a new section with that name in the open sections notebook but there was no data, just an untitled page. Any thoughts?
Thanks again.

Omer Atay - 2017-07-10

Mark P: Sounds like you should contact OneNote support. You could check your local backups from File > Info > Open Backups on the right side.

Mark P - 2017-07-10

I have a serious problem. I can’t find about 25 sections and probably 300 pages of notes in Onenote 2016 (MSO 16.0.8201.2101 32 bit) which I may have deleted. I was moving onenote folders (from a subfolder to a top folder) and merging sections. After the merge was successful, I hit delete of the old section. There was also a Windows 10 update between the time I did this and when I realized they were missing.
Questions: Are they permanently deleted? If not, where are those deleted files? Can they be recovered?
I can see them greyed out in the notebook but “There aren’t any sections here” is displayed. I need these for my job.
I have a cloud back up (IDrive) which archives up to 10 previous back ups. During my first restore, I was able to see this file tree but there was an issue with it taking too long to prepare the file list. I contacted their online support and the restore with the file tree was stopped by a support person when he took over remote control of my PC. Unfortunately, now I cannot find any of those files anywhere on my PC or the cloud.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Mark

Omer Atay - 2017-07-06

GMJR: E-mail support@getonetastic.com so that we can troubleshoot

GMJR - 2017-07-06

Downloaded version today as I have had it in the past and it Is great. ONetastic does not appear in the ribbon, I downloaded the free version. Since I 've had it in the past, is it because my trial period is over?

Laura Chapman - 2017-07-05

The latest version does not seem to install. I ran it as the Administrator. Thanks.

arjun - 2017-07-01

my onecalender has frozen when I selected to start the week from monday instead of sunday, help or an update would be appreciated

Omer Atay - 2017-06-29

XDF: No, unfortunately no way to do this via macros.

XDF - 2017-06-29

I am looking for a macro to insert a picture taken to a specific spot in a page. The scenario is: I am watching a presentation and taking notes with One Note on a Surface Pro. I want to be able to tap the insertion point of the picture, bring up the camera (ideal would be Office Lens), take the picture, and have it inserted directly into the page.
Is there already a macro for this? I tried but could not find. Is it hard to write one to do this task?
Thanks
Alex

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Create Sections and Section Groups with Macros

Macro Updates

New Macros

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