Have you ever dreamed of a tool that helps you take care of all your important data and thus enables you to remain organized? If yes, Microsoft’s OneNote is for you. It has many sections, hierarchies of pages, notebooks and much more that take care of everything perfectly. Let us see how the tool helps you stay organized.
Hierarchy 1: Pages and Outlines
There is a big white space which is a page that has a field at the top to give the page name. You can enter anything in the page including an outline, paragraphs and sub-paragraphs. It is possible to make the sub-paragraphs collapsible. This is the hierarchy within a page. Similarly, you can make hierarchy of multiple pages.
Hierarchy 2: Sections and section groups
All the pages come under a section. Clicking the tabs near the top of the OneNote window helps you go to different sections. You can create and update sections and change the order of the sections. Another feature is to group multiple sections into a section group.
Hierarchy 3: Creating and managing notebooks
A OneNote notebook is like a folder with multiple files. The tool has a default notebook to keep all your data. But, you can go to the next level by making additional notebooks. OneNote lets you open multiple notebooks at the same time.
Search for information
OneNote has a search field above the page pane in the top right. On selecting All Notebooks, the tool searches for the search word in all open notebooks. To narrow the search, you can opt to search only in the current section, section group or notebook.
Checkmarks, tabs, bullets and numbers
There are checkmarks which turn your page into a to-do list. These are called To Do Tags. To create a to-do list, select To Do from Home ribbon. You can click on the checkboxes to checkmark them. OneNote also offers features like bullets and numbers similar to those in Word.
Quick Notes
OneNote has a feature called Quick Notes that lets you type something random like a phone number or an idea. Just press WIN-N and a little window pops up for you to type. When you are done, just close it. To retrieve it, pull down the Notebook menu and you will get Quick Notes at the bottom. Selecting that takes you to the Unfiled Notes section in the Personal notebook. You can find the recent quick note as the section’s last page.
Internal and external links
Using Links, you can link to another page of your notebook or another page in a different notebook. Enclose the page name in double square brackets and it becomes a link. To link to a different notebook, select the link text and press CTRL+K. This takes you to a dialog box which lists other pages to link. You can even add an internet link using Link dialog box.
Encryption
You can protect a OneNote section using password with 128-bit AES encryption. Right-click the section’s tab and select Password Protect This Section. You may then click the Set Password and enter the password.
Share your notes
It is possible to share your notes with family members and colleagues if the notebooks are stored on OneDrive. Select File>Share and click Share with People. Enter an email address in the field and check Require user to sign in before accessing document. At last, click Share.
OneNote is a powerful tool whether you wish to use a mobile device or PC. The key lies in understanding the tool first and then using it optimally.
