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Microsoft OneNote Reviews

4.6 (1,793) Write a Review!

About Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is a fully functional digital note taking application which can be used to organize, share and collaborate on ideas.

Learn more about Microsoft OneNote

Pros:

Like the rest of Microsoft Office, OneNote has a ton of features and integration with existing Microsoft software, making going between programs like excel and word nearly seamless.

Cons:

Once you build that “universe,” it can become very complicated to navigate. Sometimes I forget how I got to the place I originally set up and it can be frustrating.

Microsoft OneNote ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
4.5
Customer Service
4.3
Features
4.5
Value for Money
4.5

Likelihood to recommend

8.6/10

Microsoft OneNote has an overall rating of 4.6 out 5 stars based on 1,793 user reviews on Capterra.

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Mohammad
Mohammad
Technical Office Engineer in Kuwait
Verified LinkedIn User
Civil Engineering, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

OneNote drives productivity among our project team with its incredible note-taking experience.

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: I'm quite satisfied with the overall functionality & the work management achieved thanks to OneNote's robust data-handling & collaboration capabilities. Furthermore, the software pioneers in its flexible note-sharing options where notes can either be shared as files of different formats or as accessible links. That said, I'm gaining a whole lot of features from an out-of-the-box free-of-charge software is more than enough reason to compel any user to at least give it a try.

Pros:

OneNote is like a virtual whiteboard that collectively stores our ideas, tasks & file attachments of our current & accomplished construction projects in a singular platform accessible anywhere across any device. The user interface is generally butter-smooth & works amazingly well in split-screen mode on my Galaxy Note 20 Ultra phone using the S-Pen to jot notes & drag photos & files from the file manager or gallery to the OneNote application. It's a productivity-centric utility that's practically indispensable for my daily tasks.

Cons:

As of the 22H2 Windows 10 update on my laptop, I've started noticing notes take a bit longer to synchronize my work in order to resume collaboration with the project team. I hope this gets resolved in a future software update on Windows. The mobile & web versions work great though.

Antonio
Antonio
Senior Solutions Engineer in Italy
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Digital notebook

4.0 2 years ago

Comments: It is good. When you have a product that does what promise to do, you cannot be unhappy. The product is also flexible. Different from other products, it enables efficient collaboration: you can easily share notes to your colleagues and maintain always the historical data.

Pros:

The facility to take notes and share with other people is the selling point of the product. If you need a tool for doing that, OneNote is the right one. You can also organize simply your notes, write documents and add pictures/external content (the possibility to add media is another important feature to consider in the product). You can divide your notes/documents in sections/pages, this helps on searching for what you need. For example, you can have an entire section dedicated to a specific customer, in this section having the notes organized by date.

Cons:

There are no particular pain points. I heard some complaints about the navigation but it follows the standard of other Microsoft products. I would only improve the search feature, in particular from a look and feel perspective.

Anonymous reviewer
E-Learning, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Perfect but not beautiful

4.0 2 weeks ago New

Comments: OneNote is likely one of the best note-taking applications available. It is simple, easy to use, and highly intuitive. You can categorize your notes into three levels. Editing is straightforward, and there's no need for manual saving, as everything is saved automatically. It's available on Windows, Android, and iPhone.

Pros:

Simple and intuitive interface. Multiplatform usage. Easy to use and light. Instant access on Windows computer because a shortcut is always visible on taskbar.

Cons:

Not possible to remove Onenote shortcut from Windows task bar. Interface is too simple.

Jean-Michel
Projects Manager in France
Market Research, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

It gets the job done, with disastrous ergonomics, but fulfills its mission

3.0 7 months ago

Comments: We are a small team that needs to take notes to keep various information over time on a multitude of small projects. And we do not have a significant budget for this, if at all. OneNote was suggested by a colleague, it faced resistance to adoption from many, but in the end, it does these three basic tasks very well: taking notes, keeping them, and allowing them to be quickly retrieved.

Pros:

Its integration with Windows, and its almost free nature make it a tool immediately available to collaborators within our IT fleet. Everyone knows how to use Microsoft Office, so everyone knows how to use OneNote. It archives note-taking very well, allows for document retention without cluttering the entire screen, and has a basic search tool.

Cons:

There are several online tools that are much more attractive in terms of design. However, OneNote still does its job very well: allowing you to take notes, keep them, and find them easily. However, creating dependencies between notes and collaboration is not smooth at all. Other online alternatives do much better. But they require subscribing to plans, while OneNote is integrated into Windows for everyone.

Robert
Data Analyst in Romania
Industrial Automation, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Reliable note taking and task management app

5.0 3 months ago

Pros:

As a note taking app I find OneNote more useful and with more features than other apps. I used to use Evernote, but there were to many restrictions and not too many options for notes categorization. With OneNote one has not only the Notebook entity, but also the sections within each Notebook and the pages within each section. This tree structure on 3 levels allows for a quite flexible approach when it comes to notes categorization. Another critical feature is the Search function: allowing to search across all notebooks and pages. As for task management, I find OneNote easier to use to store my to do's with additional info (text and images). This is very useful when working on individual projects and not having to switch to other apps. OneNote can work as a mood board, note taking, task management, reminders, even password management (you can password protect a particular section)

Cons:

The sync process could benefit from some improvements: as in the notebooks to be created by default in OneDrive or SharePoint. There are scenarios where the notebooks are created locally, then in order to sync one needs to put it manually on OneDrive or SharePoint.

Athene
Owner-CEO in Luxembourg
Consumer Services, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Everyone needs to use it!

4.0 2 months ago

Comments: Overall OneNote is a great tool to use for project management. I use this almost every day for tracking my team’s tasks, projects and to-dos, and I love that you can easily integrate it with other Microsoft tools like Excel/Word/Teams etc . I have recommended it to multiple colleagues even for organizing the workload and tasks of external partners and consultants, and it’s working great!

Pros:

This is a very easy to use and versatile tool. It’s very intuitive to use, you can incorporate easily different elements like text/images/drawings etc, and you can link everything back to microsoft office or Teams amazingly!

Cons:

Some more advanced tools for organization could be useful. I am missing the tagging option for the files I am collaborating with people from my company.

Reynaldo
Network Specialist in Mexico
Automotive, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Excellent app to store notes

5.0 3 months ago

Comments: Is a great tool to store all your notes, can manage them in sections to have all organized

Pros:

Can store all the notes there and can view edit or create on smartphone with the app

Cons:

At the moment everithing is working good, i like it.

Tom
Site Acquisition Specialist in US
Wireless, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Alternatives Considered:

OneNote is a Game Changer

5.0 3 months ago

Comments: OneNote has revolutionized the way I organize and manage information. Its intuitive interface, flexible canvas, and powerful features have made it an indispensable tool in both my personal and professional life. Whether I'm capturing fleeting thoughts, collaborating on projects, or simply keeping track of my daily to-dos, OneNote consistently proves to be a reliable and versatile companion. Its seamless integration with other Microsoft products further enhances its value, making it a true productivity powerhouse. OneNote is not just a note-taking app; it's a digital workspace that empowers me to be more organized, efficient, and creative.

Pros:

OneNote is my digital sanctuary for organizing thoughts, ideas, and information. Its flexible canvas allows me to seamlessly capture notes, clippings, images, and even audio recordings in a way that feels natural and intuitive. The ability to create multiple notebooks and sections keeps everything neatly organized, while the powerful search function ensures that I can always find what I need. Whether I'm brainstorming for a project, taking lecture notes, or simply jotting down a quick reminder, OneNote is my go-to tool. The ability to collaborate with others in real-time is a game-changer, making it an essential tool for both personal and professional use. OneNote is not just a note-taking app, it's a productivity powerhouse that has become an indispensable part of my daily workflow.

Cons:

Sometimes it takes a bit long to upload onto my desktop.

Ian
Mechanical Engineer in US
Construction, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Engineering with Microsoft One Note

5.0 3 months ago

Comments: Very positive. It keeps me organized and all my thoughts in one place. I get coworkers coming up and asking me what I am using for note taking quite frequently.

Pros:

Great product for taking notes and staying organized at work. I love how it syncs across my Microsoft account to my phone.

Cons:

Unclear how to integrate handwriting when working on a laptop.

Gabriel
Licensed Medicare Sales Agent in US
Insurance, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Microsoft One note

5.0 2 months ago New

Pros:

Allows yo to store notes digitally without any hassle.

Cons:

No complaints regarding Microsoft Onenote.

Erin
Sr. Account Manager in US
Medical Devices, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

OneNote - Unified Resource

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: Overall, using OneNote for our team document/process library has been helpful because it's a central place for a wide variety of information and documents that were formerly in many different places. It can sometimes be tricky to decide how to organize the notebooks because there are so many section and page options, and sometimes content is relevant to more than one section - however, the search function is usually quite reliable.

Pros:

The search features of OneNote are very useful. I like using OneNote for my meeting notes, as they are easily searchable and I can organize them in various ways. It's also nice to use OneNote for our team process manual/helpful notes/new hire checklists/etc. We use OneNote as a centralized document library because it is easy to search and share content.

Cons:

We run into frequent sync issues with shared notebooks, so it can be challenging to know if all team members are seeing the same content. Not sure if this is a PC issue, a security issue or a OneNote issue - our IT help desk offers various solutions that work for some users but not for others. It would be nice if the sync error notification was more obvious to let you know you're viewing outdated content.

Drew
Project Control Analyst in US
Defense & Space, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Microsoft OneNote Review

5.0 11 months ago

Pros:

Great for taking notes, especially in a work environment. If it is integrated to your Microsoft Outlook email it is easy to transfer over meetings and notes between the two. You can also flag tasks that you need to follow up on in OneNote and then that will transfer to your To Do list in your Microsoft Outlook. You can easily search your notes using a few keywords and you can tag your notes and search them that way. The way you can breakout your notebooks into sections and those sections into pages really makes organizing your notes easy. You can also create templates that let you easily format your pages. Overall this is my go to note taking app both for personal use and work use.

Cons:

You need to buy the whole Microsoft office to use OneNote to it's full potential.

Betsy
Owner in US
Photography, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Not my favorite for note compilation

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: I used it for managing email templates, project notes, and the like. I didn't like having to sync with my other devices and having things be changed in two places = sync issues.

Pros:

it comes with office 365, so I used it...as it was already on all the computers I had. I didn't have to install another piece of software or pay for another subscription.

Cons:

Your data is stored in a clunky "onenotes" notebook file -- and it is (or was?) difficuly to sync to other devices

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Hospital & Health Care, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Great for meeting minutes and action items

5.0 8 months ago

Comments: It is reliable, easy to use and share, and is a favorite collaboration tool among employees.

Pros:

It was easy to use and for employees to collaborate with. It is great to organize meeting notes and to-do tasks/action items. Especially since you can make multiple tabs and subpages.

Cons:

It was a little clunky when trying to move OneNote files from one location to another, especially with OneNote files stored in Microsoft SharePoint. We had issues a view times with issues merging changes when many people were editing at once and ended up with lost pages in the document. Also there is no way to recover just a single page if deleted.

André
André
System Administrator in Brazil
Verified LinkedIn User
Chemicals, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

A perfect substitute for your old Notepad

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: On my business side, it is a way to organize all my tasks, users, passwords, network paths, serial numbers, servers names, it is easy to find the information that I want, the idea of notes works very well on the business side. Therefore, I use it on my personal life as well, to organize my grocery shopping, some budgets, stocks price, passwords and users from portals, sites. It is a secure tool provided by Microsoft.

Pros:

Easy to use, has very good functionalities, it is totally integrated with the Microsoft Office programs, are the information are stored on the cloud, I can edit something on my computer and continue it on my mobile or tablet.

Cons:

It is not so easy to use on the beggining, till you get the idea of create "notes" inside it, I know a lot of people which did not migrate to this tool because of this.

Brittany
BHPH and Collections Manager in US
Automotive, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

The BEST find yet!

5.0 10 months ago

Comments: It's been awesome! If you are needing software that keeps track of notes, documents, photos, emails, appointments, etc --- this is your software!

Pros:

I like that you can use many sections, you can merge sections, you can attach calendar appointments, emails, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, and much more. It has been a saving grace in the collections department. So easy to use and I highly recommend to everyone I talk to. I stumbled upon OneNote by accidentally clicking on it instead of Word. When I started to play around with it, I realized that it was exactly what I needed for the many accounts I manage.

Cons:

I wish it was an option to have a page within two sections that updates itself.

Richard
Remote Assistant in US
Machinery, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

My favorite software of all time

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: In spite of the storage restrictions, OneNote is still my absolute favorite tool for document management, note-taking, and data storage. While other programs like Evernote or Google Keep provide similar services, OneNote definitely stands above the competition in almost every way imaginable.

Pros:

I love everything about Microsoft OneNote, but I especially use it for the purpose of document management. Any information I find across the internet or elsewhere always ends up within OneNote. There's not a piece a of information I can't somehow incorporate into OneNote.

Cons:

My main issue with OneNote is the fact that it's storage is dependent upon OneDrive's storage space. This leads to OneNote being maxed out if my OneDrive is completely full, or if you only have a free version of OneDrive which only allows 5GB of storage.

ADRIAN
Barrister Attorney in UK
Law Practice, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Outstanding Way of Organising Notes and So Much More

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Amazing piece of software that I have used for over then years. I have multiple note books for work and personal material and I can access this across platforms - Windows and Mac as well as different devices. I could not be without OneNote!

Pros:

Microsoft OneNote provides the ability to handle multiple notebooks and pages with ease. It is great to be able to use the software cross platform and on any device - laptop, iPhone etc. Best of all it’s free with a purchase of Office.

Cons:

No facility to set reminders for tasks.

Lex
Lex
Owner in Canada
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Not my first choice

4.0 3 years ago

Comments: I need to concede, that at the outset I had numerous issues getting myself set up with one note, however from that point forward, it has been an outright lifeline. The entirety of my archives are in one region, I can get to them from each PC I own and Id need to say I use it regular, I in a real sense couldn't abandon utilizing this program.

Pros:

Microsoft OneNote is loaded with numerous highlights that go past taking notes; it likewise gives you a few different ways to change pictures over to message. For instance, the OCR instrument permits you to snap a photo of an archive, business card, flyer or whiteboard, then, at that point extricate that content. You would then be able to save that content in OneNote, Microsoft Word or Standpoint. OCR's productivity relies upon a few elements. These incorporate picture quality, the intricacy of the characters it is examining and the intelligibility of the transcribed notes. So consistently make a point to twofold check in the event that it perceives everything effectively. Regardless of whether OCR doesn't get each letter, it is as yet a vital life hack, particularly for organizations and entrepreneurs.

Cons:

Matching up can take some time , Unacceptable portable application, Average web cutting augmentation

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Insurance, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Take the first step to a cleaner, less cluttered life.

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: OneNote is one of the most popular note-taking apps on the market, and for good reason. It offers a robust feature set, a wide variety of integrations with other Microsoft services and web services, and it’s free.
The app has been around for years and received several updates over time.
However, OneNote’s biggest update in recent memory arrived in 2018 with the release of Microsoft 365 — an updated version of Office 365 that includes all the latest features from the company’s productivity suite. With this new version, OneNote got a makeover and now looks more modern than ever before. It also brought a lot of new features to the table that make it even better than before.

Pros:

It gives you an easy way to keep all your notes in one place. It’s available on every device, so you can access your notes no matter where you are. You can organize your notes any way that makes sense to you—by topic, date or even tags, like #work or #personal.

Cons:

Lack of Customization - It's not possible to customize any of your notes or notebooks in OneNote which can make it difficult if you want something more advanced than what it offers out of the box. Microsoft OneNote doesn't have any open APIs or integrations with third-party apps like Evernote does.

Jessica
Teacher in Canada
Primary/Secondary Education, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Powerful digital notebook for teachers and students

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: As mentioned, OneNote is an exceptional digital notebook resource for educators, making it easy to curate course materials, organize them into sections (or units), and share them with colleagues and students. The application is easy to use, and the onboarding learning curve is quite friendly - most of the features are intuitive. There are so many additional functions that more advanced users can explore to customize their notebooks. Especially with stylus functionality, OneNote replaces paper course materials as an interactive digital notebook that students can edit and keep forever without worrying about losing any paper. This has become an essential teaching tool for me as an educator and my preferred notetaking tool as a student.

Pros:

OneNote is an amazing digital notebook for teachers and students. Teachers can create a living course workbook filled with learning resources, including diagrams, videos, and links to online sources. They can also create worksheets directly in OneNote or import an existing Word or PDF document into the notebook that students can edit. One of the best features of OneNote is how smoothly it works with tablets and tablet laptops. With a stylus, students can write and draw in their OneNote notebooks, making it feel like a paper notebook. OneNote also includes a suite of drawing tools that make it easy to draw and label diagrams and even graphs for math. The Class Notebook add-in makes it an even more powerful tool for teachers to manage their classes. A teacher can quickly look into each of their students' notebooks to assess work and leave feedback. Students can sync their OneNote notebooks and receive feedback immediately. With Teams, entire OneNote notebooks can be easily shared between colleagues, and collaboration is seamless.

Cons:

The current OneNote desktop app no longer offers the ability to export pages as .one files, which makes it more difficult to send or attach individual pages. Rather, sharing can only be done through links, which sometimes run into challenges with sharing settings and others not being able to open the page. The inability to rename students at the teacher level also makes the "Review Work" function a bit less user-friendly when teachers try to mark them in alphabetical order. Finally, I would love to see more integration possibilities with other learning management systems.

Claude Real
Business analyst and Graphic Designer in Canada
Graphic Design, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Good Notes taking tool but must be use carefully

4.0 last year

Comments: Excellent note tool for personal use.

Pros:

Great note taking tool with great features to personalize the note. Also the features to link the files to the notes is awesome. The tool as a great integration with Microsoft Teams.

Cons:

There is so much features in that tool that using it in a company can create operation issues because some users have a tendancy of using it to almost replace word, excel and even sometime Planner and SharePoint list and create conflict in processes internally. If you allow access to use for users, I recommend that internal trainings and monitoring of the tool be applied.

Francesco
Professor in Italy
Higher Education, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Replacement for blackboard

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: I use OneNote to lecture, using hand writing to match note taking pace of students. We think that for physics note taking and home reviewing them is an essential step in learning as it stimulates immediate questioning if something is not understood. Projecting the screen affords for large class rooms. Changing colors, moving sketches around works well, notes can then be turned into pdf or edited to produce better hand out. I use finite size sheets to distribute notes, during the lecture I use a continuous sheet.
The notebook is on OneDrive and is available in different devices, which is sometimes useful.
Overall this made a change from blackboard and chalk, and when remote lecturing came due to pandemics I did not change lecture habits.
These habits might look old fashioned but for some subjects that require reasoning, sketches, math, numerical computations, comparison with graphs, I feel these are necessary and OneNote gives a good support

Pros:

Handwriting with a Microsoft Surface and its pen is easy, erasing is natural, select and move also. You can color your handwriting afterwards. For lecturing you can enlarge what you wrote, or pick up a detail of a sketch. I use it with small squares, which help writing in an orderly way. Printing can be of a single sheet, a section or more. The vey few times I went into a crash, recovery was fast and essentially no data was lost, all essential in a lecture.

Cons:

Sometimes, quite rarely, the whole sheet moves, it probably depends on how you approach your hand before positioning for writing, this might be something inherent to pen tablets. In older versions the management of the sheet format (finite size vs infinite) was easier.

Mohd
Technical Consultant in Canada
Real Estate, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

A centralized location for all your notes

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: Currently, I used OneNote to organized my meeting's notes and to attach them into an email so it's easy for me to send it to my colleagues. This is sometimes very useful when you are in hurry and wanted to inform what are the points were discussed in the meeting. Secondly, it is also very convenient to use it on all the platforms whether I wanna use it on my phone or my computer. I am exploring more ways as this is a powerful tool and has very few limitations which make it value for money.

Pros:

it gives you the ability to create your notes as you create on a physical notebook, moreover, this notebook can be accessed from anywhere as long as you have access to the internet. The most unique part of OneNote is you can add multimedia and create your documents as much presentable as want. These documents can also be shared with others like your friends or colleagues, it would make this software as a one-stop solution for most of the writing and editing of your notes. I used many older versions of OneNote and then after upgrading to new versions of OneNote I came to know that your older note will not get erased. you can also use OneNote app for your smartphones which makes easier to modify your changes or to view any documents on the go.

Cons:

One thing I would ever want in OneNote is the integration between various platforms, Currently, Onenote allows you to create notes or documents to share it with only OneNote users, whereas if I want to share it with Evernote users it will not give me an option for that. Moreover, I can not even import Evernote's documents notes into OneNote or vice versa. There are other ways through which you can do it but for that one has to download a migration tool. The security is also one of the issues which I always take into consideration when creating any personal note where I wanted it to be encrypted with a password. There should be some ways into OneNote where you can have a personal space which can be used for those secure documents.

Yvon Gabriel
Freelancer in Philippines
Computer Software, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Honest review about Microsoft OneNote (1 1/2 years of experience)

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: Overall, my life would be unrecognizable without One Note! It's changed the game for overall company performance, and everyone in my organization utilizes Microsoft OneNote for note recording and task management. This program has been really valuable to me because it includes various capabilities that make my work simpler, such as note management and project management. It is also a pretty simple piece of software to use and sync. It is also beneficial to businesses of all sizes.

Pros:

I enjoy that I can use OneNote on any of my devices. So, if I don't have my laptop with me because I'm away from the workplace, I may use my smartphone. My team also appreciates the ability to communicate comments with one another for progress reports and team notes. One note allowed me to effortlessly insert images, sounds, and movies from many formats into the software. The program also included a time stamp and copyright information to ensure that due credit was given to the appropriate sources. The application enabled a straightforward and entertaining presentation of facts.

Cons:

The loss of knowledge was one of the most aggravating elements of this service. Annual program changes would result in the loss of data from the previous version to the upgraded version. I worked with IT personnel, who couldn't figure out why my old data wouldn't transfer to the new upgraded version. This resulted in a loss of productivity since I had to remember data and certain information was no longer available.