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Microsoft OneNote Tips: 10 Cool Ways to Use OneNote

Designed like a digital notebook, Microsoft OneNote is a place to create, collect, store, and find notes. It’s a great program for organizing pieces of information that might not easily fit into the structure of one of the other Office programs. And, when you store laptops on your network or in the cloud, you can access your data from multiple devices and even share it with others.

What can go in OneNote?

With OneNote, you can organize notes by sections and pages in notebooks. These notes may include:

  • documents

  • Email

  • Chores

  • Web pages and other hyperlinks

  • Images, drawings and media

  • Impressions

  • Data from other Office programs

OneNote Suggestions: content you can easily insert

OneNote is a very flexible application that can contain a wide range of content. You are not limited by page size or a linear structure. The Insert Ribbon tab gives you some ideas about the type of items you can easily insert into OneNote. Let’s explore these OneNote tips and more.

  1. Record audio or video: No need to use your smartphone to record meeting notes or event videos. Just capture a video or audio recording directly into OneNote. It is also easy to trim the recording and play the audio or video.
  2. File Print: Want to capture an impression without scanning a file or creating a PDF? From any Office program, simply choose Send to OneNote as the printer option. From this option, you can specify the name of the notebook, the section, and the page where you want to capture the impression. You can also insert a hard copy directly from OneNote.
  3. Attached file: When a hard copy is not needed, add an attachment instead. The file can be opened directly from OneNote, even though the attachment doesn’t link to the source file which may have been updated.
  4. hyperlinks: Your OneNote notebooks can also store links to web pages, email addresses, or files on your network.
  5. Tables and spreadsheets: When your notes require a more structured look or even calculations, add a table or spreadsheet to a notebook page. OneNote even supports equations and symbols for more detailed entries.
  6. Date and time stamps: As you create notes, adding a date and/or time stamp helps document your comments and additions, especially when you share notebooks with others.
  7. Tags, tasks and to-dos: Organize your notes as action items by assigning tags to individual notes or items. A tag marks an item with a tag such as to-do item, important item, or question. You’ll find these options on the Home Ribbon tab or use keyboard shortcuts like [Ctrl]+1 for To Do for marking a note. Labels are searchable in notebooks so they can be easily located. To follow up, check a to-do tag when it’s complete, or send to Outlook to create an Outlook task.
  8. Custom Pages: Although you don’t need a rigid page structure in OneNote, you may find it easier to work with some pages by changing the appearance of the page. On the View Ribbon tab, change the page color, choose from a variety of ruled lines, or change the size and layout of your page view.
  9. Drawings: Using a touchscreen device or laptop and a stylus, you can also create freehand shapes and drawings in a wide range of colors and widths. You’ll find these options on the Draw Ribbon tab. If you don’t have a touch screen or stylus, OneNote also supports drawing with a mouse. At least if you’re a better artist than me!
  10. Ink to text or ink to math: Similar to the drawing tools, you can create freehand text in your notes. If your handwriting is legible, choose the Ink to Text feature to convert your handwriting to text.

Explore these OneNote tips to expand the variety of ways you can create, capture, and edit important content in your OneNote notebooks.

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