OneNote

OneNote Topics Covered

The OneNote Environment

  • Display or hide the ribbon- by default the ribbon is collapsed, click any ribbon tab to display its commands. Keep it open, click the small pin icon near the lower right.

  • Notebooks – organize information, notes, research, reference materials; start with one or more. Click the notebook icon to see all of your open notebooks.

  • Sections – help you organize notes by topics or areas for each notebook.

  • Pages – create as many as needed within each section. Click Add Page to insert a new page.

  • Use the Search Box – find anything in your notebooks, or press Ctrl + E.

Screenshot of OneNote screen and menu options. There are purple squares with black text and lines pointing to specific areas on the screen. In the top left, there is text that reads QUick Access Toolbar and points to the purple ribbon across the top of the screen. To the right, there is text that reads Explore the ribbon. See what OneNote can do by clicking the ribbon tabs and exploring available tools. This points to the options within the ribbon header. Those options are Home, Insert, History, Review, View, and Layout. To the right, the next box says Discover contextual commands. Select any part of a table or an inserted recording to reveal additional tabs. This box points to the Layout header. The next box to the right says Get help with OneNote. Click the question mark icon to learn how to use OneNote. This box points to a question mark icon in the top right. To the right, the next box is Share your notes with others. Give other people permission to view or edit your notebooks. This line points to the Sign in link text in the top right of the screen. Along the left-hand side, there is a purple box that says Notebooks List. Click the notebook name to switch between notebooks or click the pin icon to keep the Notebooks pane open. This box points to the Notebooks link in the middle section of the left side of the screen. Below that box is another that says Select or move paragraphs. Click or drag the gripper to the left of a note to select or move it, or right-click for more options. This box points to a gray dot next to a note called Hotel & Flight Info. In the center of the screenshot, there are three purple boxes. The first one is to the right of the middle of the screenshot. The box says Notebook Selections. Click these tabs to switch between sections in the current notebook. The box points to three tabs at the top left of the content area that are gray, yellow, and purple. Below this box is another box that says Resize Note Containers. Drag the edge to make notes fit the page or drag the entire frame to move it elsewhere. The box points to a thin gray line underneath the text that reads Hotel & Flight Info. The next box is below the Resize Note Containers box. This box says Type anywhere on a page. OneNote's flexible canvas isn't constrained in the ways that other apps are. This box points to the bottom of the bottom of the Hotel & Flight Info box. The last series of boxes are on the right side of the screen. The first one is Control the ribbon. Click the pin icon to keep the ribbon displayed, or hide it again by clicking the arrow. This box points to the gray header with menu options at the top of the screen below the purple ribbon. Below the control the ribbon box, there is a box that says Instantly find everything. Search the current page or all notebooks at once and navigate the results with ease. This points to a search box underneath the gray menu bar. The next box below Instantly find everything says Notebook Pages. Click these tabs to switch between pages in the current notebook section. This box points to a gray sidebar on the right side of the screen.

BackStage View

From the File tab, open, create, share, and print your notes. Account Settings can also be changed here as well.

Screenshot of the Backstage View within OneNote. Down the left side is a purple vertical menu. At the top of the purple menu, there is a circle with a white outline and an arrow pointing left. Below that, the options are Info, New, Open, Print, Share, Export, Send, Account, Options. To the right, there is a gray background. The header is Notebook Information. Below that, there is a white square with a blue book icon and text that reads Settings. To the right of that, there is text that says My Stuff. Below that is a white rectangle with a URL in it. Below the white rectangle, there is the silhouette of a person with a green checkmark and text that says Invite people to this notebook. To the right of that, there is text that reads View Notebook. Below the first white box, there is another white box with a darker blue book and text that reads Settings. To the right, the text reads Training Notes. Below that is a white rectangle with a URL in it. Below the white rectangle, there is the silhouette of a person with a green checkmark and text that says Invite people to this notebook. To the right of that, there is text that reads View Notebook. Below the second white box, there is a third white box with a lighter blue book icon with text that says Settings. To the right, it says Support Settings. Below that is a white rectangle with a URL in it. Below the white rectangle, there is the silhouette of a person with a green checkmark and text that says Invite people to this notebook. To the right of that, there is text that reads View Notebook. Below the third white square is a fourth white square that has a yellow book and the title, Settings. To the right, there is text that reads Assistive Technology. Below that is a white rectangle with a URL in it. Below the white rectangle, there is the silhouette of a person with a green checkmark and text that says Invite people to this notebook. To the right of that, there is text that reads View Notebook. In the top right, there are two white boxes. The first white box has a green circle with two white arrows and text that says View Sync Status. The second white box has two overlapping files and text that reads Open Backups.

Create a New Notebook

  1. Create a New Notebook- from the File tab, click on New, and select a location to store your notebook; SkyDrive, Computer, and Add a Place.

  2. Open a Notebook-from the File tab, click on Open, select the notebook, and click on Open.

Screenshot of the New Notebook options in OneNote. Down the left-hand side, there is a vertical purple bar with menu options in white. The options are Info, New, Open, Print, Share, Export, Send, Account, and Options. To the right, there is a gray background. At the top of the screen and on top of the gray background, there is a header that says New Notebook. Below that, there are four icons with text to the right. The first icon has two blue overlapping clouds with text that says OneDrive. Below that, there is an icon of a computer monitor with text that says This PC. Below that, there is a green plus icon with text that says Add a Place. Below that, there is a yellow folder icon with text that says Browse. To the right of the four icons, there is a yellow folder with text that says Browse. Below that, there is text that says Recent Folders: you have no recent folders. Below that is a white box with a yellow folder and text that says Browse.

Notes Page Environment

The work surface, where you collect notes, files, and links within a notebook.

A. Notebook title

B. Section tabs

C. Page tab

D. New Page

E. Page title

F. Note container

Screenshot of OneNote Notebook screen. There are letters "A" through "F" on the screenshot. The "A" letter is next to text that says Training Notes in the left-hand Notebooks menu. The "B" letter points to a purple tab in the middle of the screen that says Adobe 10 week course Acrobat. The "C" letter points to Sharing Permissions in the right-hand menu . The "D" icon points to an icon of a plus sign in a circle and text that says Add Page in the top right corner of the content area. The "E" icon points to text that reads Sharing permissions at the top of the content area. The "F" icon points to text that says Choose what others can do with your file or folder in the the content area.

Sections

To help organize your notebook(s) you will certainly add sections as you use the application on a regular basis. Create sections by a topic, class, project, customers, patients, students, and if unsure of the proper location use the Unfiled Notes section.

  • Add a new section, right-click on a section and select New Section from the drop-down menu. Or from the

section tab area, click on the Create a New Section button +.

  • Add a new section group, right-click on a section and

select New Section Group from the drop-down menu.

To add sections to the new group, click and drag section(s) onto the group.

  • Rename a section, double-click on a section tab and enter name.

  • Change color of a section tab, right-click on the section (tab), select Section Color, and choose from the menu

  • Delete a section, right-click on the section (tab), select Delete, and click on Yes.

Screenshot of OneNote Sections options. There is a gray bar across the top. In the top right, there are diamond-shaped icons. Below that, there are tabs that read Online- accessible documents (with a red background), Smart Pens (with a blue background), and Software (with a purple background). To the right of the last tab, there is a thin line icon and a black triangle pointing down. The thin line icon is selected and a window is open. The options in the menu are Rename, Export (with a purple floppy disk icon), Delete (with a black "x" icon), Move or Copy (with a white notebook icon with a blue arrow), Merge into Another Section (with two overlapping page icons), Copy Link to Section (with a white document icon and a blue link icon), New Section (with a blue rectangle-tab icon), New Section Group (with yellow, green, and blue rectangle-tab icons), Password Protect This Section (with a yellow lock icon), and Section Color with a black triangle to the right.

Pages

One or more pages are contained within a section; pages hold notes, links, tags, and content. The pages pane is located on the right side of the screen.

  • Add a new page, click on the New Page button.

  • Add a new page template, from the Insert tab click on the Page Templates button.

  • Add a new subpage, select the page that will have the subpage appear beneath it, from the drop down arrow, and select New Subpage.

Notes

Within the work area, the content is displayed when a page is selected. Each page contains header information, text entered in this area becomes the page title.

Screenshot of the OneNote layout. At the top of the screenshot, there is a red horizontal line. Below that, there is header text that says Outlook 2010-New Interface. There is a red arrow with text that says Header Information that points to the header text. Below the header text is smaller text that reads Tuesday, April 19, 2011 9:18 AM. Below that there is a gray horizontal line. In the middle of the gray line, there is a red square with a line pointing to red text that says Click and drag to move note to another location on the page. At the furthest right point of the line, there is a red circle with a red line that points to text that says Click and drag to resize the note. Below the gray bar, there is a square outlined box with text. To the left of all of the text, there is a red vertical line that connects to the red horizontal line at the top creating a 90 angle.

Working with Text

Adding text – click on the page and enter text. OneNote frames the text within a container. Containers can be moved, resized, split one text container into two, and cut or copy and paste to another page

Screenshot of a page that has a thin red vertical line down the left side and thin blue horizontal lines down the page to make it look like a notebook page. There is a blue outlined box with the following text in it. Click and type, all notes are entered into a frame/container. Click outside the container and it disappears. Containers can be moved and repositioned on the page. You can have many containers on a page.

Formatting notes – font, size, color and other text effects will add emphasis. All of these commands are within the Home tab. To start a numbered list, type a 1 and press enter to automatically number all of the items in the list.

Tagging Notes – the use of the Tag command will include a note with an icon that indicates a specific type of note allowing you to display a Tag Summary list of tagged notes that are similar.

  • From the Home tab, within the Tags group, and select a tag from the drop down list.

  • From the Home tab, within the Tags group, and click on the Find Tags button . The Tag Summary task pane will display a list of tagged notes.


Apply a style- add organization to text for longer notes.

  • From the Home tab, within the Styles Group, and select a style from the drop down list.

Adding Content

Embedding a file to OneNote for reference is another way to add content. An efficient way when working in OneNote to find information from a file is by inserting a link on a note page, you can also drag and drop images and/or files onto an OneNote page, as well as embedding a printout of a selected file.

Printing to OneNote displays the files in color and exactly formatted as if it were being printed on paper. A label along with a link to the location of the file is inserted on the page.

Attach a File

Select the location of the file, from the Insert tab, within the Files group, and click on the File Attachment button. Browse, select the file and click on Insert.

Embed a document – from the Insert tab, within the Files group, and click on the File Printout button. Browse, select the file and click on Insert. An embedded file cannot be edited, right-click on the document and select Copy Text from… and paste text into a note.

Embed an Excel Spreadsheet or a Visio diagram - from the Insert tab, within the Files group, and click on Spreadsheet button. From drop-down menu, select one of the following:

  • Existing Excel Spreadsheet-select worksheet and click Insert.

  • New Excel Spreadsheet- Click Edit and enter your data in Excel

Screenshot of OneNote menu options. Across the top, there is a dark gray bar with white text that says: Home, Insert(gray background), Draw, History, and Review. The Insert option is selected and a window with a gray background is open. The options in the Insert menu are File Printout (with a white page icon that has two black outlined boxes with lines on them), File Attachment (with a black paperclip icon), Spreadsheet (a green square icon with a "X" on top of a document with green cells, there is a black triangle pointing down), and Diagram (with a blue square with a "v" on it on top of a white document icon with diamonds and circles connected with lines.) Below that, there is text that says Files

Capture/Insert a Screenshot

You can quickly and without difficulty take a screen shot and add it to OneNote for future reference.

  • From the Insert tab, within the Images group, and click on the Screen Clip button and click, hold, and drag the mouse over the section of the screen you want to capture. The screen shot will appear in OneNote. In addition, using the paste command allows the screen shot to be added to other applications as well as OneNote.

  • To launch Screen Clipping without having OneNote opened, press the Windows + S keys on your keyboard.

Screenshot of Microsoft Onenote Images options. Across the top there are four icons and black text below. The first text has a purple background and says Screen Clipping (with an icon that has a white document with a dotted black outline, a black camera icon, and a blue plus mark), Pictures (a square with a yellow circle in the top right and a blue mountain in the bottom left with a monitor icon), Online Pictures a square with a yellow circle in the top right and a blue mountain in the bottom left with a blue circle with blue lines on it), Scanned Image (with an icon that looks like a scanner). Below all four icons, there is text that says Images. Below that, there is text that reads Screen Clipping (Windows+S): Take a snapshot of part of your screen and add it to the page. OneNote will hide while you capture webpages, documents, or anything else. FYI OneNote can search for text in screen clippings.

Email Notes

Notes can be emailed directly from OneNote, recipients don’t need OneNote. The notes are placed within the body of the email message.

With the page open, from the Home Tab, within the Email group, click on E-Mail Page. Your email client will launch and the note will appear in the body of the message.

Screenshot of Outlook new email window. Three are the regular menu options across the top (FILE with a black background, MESSAGE, INSERT, OPTIONS, FORMAT TEXT, REVIEW, and ADOBE PDF). The Message option is selected. below that is the From, To, CC, Subject, and Attached lines. Below that is the message content.

Add Ruled Lines & Page Color

Within a notebook, select the page you want to add Rule Lines.

  • From the View tab, within the Page Setup group, select Rule Lines and click on a preferred rule line option.

Within a notebook, select the page you want to add color.

  • From the View tab, within the Page Setup group, select Page Color, and select a color.

Share a Notebook

Select the Notebook that needs to be shared

  • From the File menu, click on Share.


By default, all Notebooks are stored on the local computer hard drive. Best practice is to change the location and store on Google Drive.

When using educational technology tools, be FERPA aware. To learn more, visit the Registrar's FERPA Guidelines site.