[J-Met]

The King of e-Notetaking: OneNote

By: JEAN-MARC METRAILLER, MACINSIDERS

This article is a bit of a continuation of Chad’s earlier article on Laptops in Class. I recommend reading his article before you read this one. It can be found here: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=1714 1

In Chad’s article, the advantages and disadvantages of laptop vs. hand-written notes are weighed. Now I'd like to talk about a great notetaking program I've been using and have particularly enjoyed. I recently purchased Microsoft OneNote 2003….a must-have program if you wish to take notes in class with a laptop.

I know many people who try to use their word processor to take notes…this is what I originally thought I would have to do. However I learned that OneNote is a much better program: specifically designed for note taking.

The best thing about Microsoft OneNote can be described in one word: organisation. With OneNote, you can divide your notebook into folders, subfolders, sections, pages, and even sub pages...and each page you write even shows the time and date you wrote it. All of your subjects organised efficiently into one program!

The second best advantage of Microsoft OneNote vs. a word processor is the easy formatting and layout of your page. If you want to rearrange notes in a word processor, you have to insert text boxes, remove borders, put text into the text boxes, etc. etc. But with OneNote it’s as easy as clicking anywhere on the page and start typing. Once your done, it automatically puts your block of text into a moveable object so you can rearrange your note with ease. You can see from my screenshot, its easy as pie to write text wherever you want, draw diagrams with your mouse, and highlight whatever you want to move it around on the page!

For you artistic and super organised people, you can also customize the stationary for your notes, giving yourself a “Blue Bubbles” background, or opening up a “to-do list” pre-formatted note. OneNote even has pre-made lecture note formats. (though I find them fairly useless)

One of my personal favourite aspects of Microsoft OneNote is its ability to capture and insert things from other programs. Want to put your prof’s PowerPoint into OneNote and add your own comments to it? No problem! OneNote can open any Microsoft office document and save it as an image within your note.

You can even use OneNote as an easy screen shot tool. Want to add some info from Wikipedia to you lecture note? Its as easy as clicking on you OneNote Icon on your taskbar and clicking “create screen clipping.” Check it out, OneNote even sources your screen clipping for you!

Some other useful features:

• OneNote automatically saves as you type, so no lost files if your computer crashes in the middle of a lecture!
• The search tool allows you to search your entire notebook for specific words or phrases. No more rifling through sheets upon sheets of paper!
• If you’re a really intense student and have the hardware, you can take audio or video clips of your professor and embed them into your notes.
• If you have a tablet PC, you can set OneNote to automatically save your handwriting as computer text which allows you to search your own handwriting for key words.

Disadvantages:

• If you're a math/engineering/science student, it’s very hard to write in formulas with your mouse. This, however, is not a problem if you have a tablet PC.
• There is a way to use Microsoft Equation Editor to create an equation piece by piece in Word, and paste it into OneNote, but believe me: By the time you record one equation this way, your prof will be halfway done the lecture!

Overview:

First of all, OneNote does work best with tablet PC's, but it is also very useful with regular laptops. For diagrams and formulas, it is good to have a tablet, but for generic note writing and simple diagrams that are easy to draw with a mouse (like the smily faces in my example), OneNote works excellent on regular laptops and I still find it very useful.

Basically, I think OneNote is awesome and I recommend it to all students who are using a laptop to take notes, and for you arts students who will never see a formula in your whole university career, you should worship OneNote

OneNote 2003 can be purchased for around $50 from amazon, http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-OneNote-2003-Old-Version/dp/B0000AZJVG

and if you want the newer version, OneNote 2007, it can be purchased for about $70 from amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000HCZ8EY/ref=dp_olp_2

Talk to me if you have any questions about this program, or if you need more info on how to aquire it, I may be able to help you out.

[smiley12]

OneNote is amazing!!!! It is the easiest way to take notes on your laptop!
Also if you're looking to purchase it, I would suggest going to MacMicro in Titles Bookstore. They offer a student discount. I think I got my copy of OneNote from them at about $25.

[J-Met]

Ya, Titles has amazing deals for students. My friend got a reg $400 copy of a bunch of microsoft office stuff for under $100.

[samantha__]

Awesome article! I think that One-Note is one of those gems that no one really knows about; Microsoft needs to advertise it more!

I personally think I like the fact that you can type anywhere on the screen, instead of having to find where you left off. Also I love how it saves automatically.. which is especially helpful when your laptop dies on you in class

[ferreinm]

That is amazing. I can't believe I've never even heard of this! great article!!!

[feonateresa]

This sounds amazing, I'll definitely try it out.

[MacEng]

I have never heard of this before!

Thanks!

[Leraison]

I'd never heard of it before but realized I had a copy with Office 2007! Installed it right away and started experimenting. Thanks a lot JMet!

[ferreinm]

So is this like a Microsoft Word sort of deal or is like a random independent program/

[.:callen:.]

I couldn't survive without OneNote during the school year! Everyone has to try it, especially the social sciences/humanities people.

I especially like how you can send powerpoint presentations to print into OneNote, then you can take notes along beside as the prof goes through them.

OneNote is seriously amazing.

[samantha__]

Originally Posted by callender

I especially like how you can send powerpoint presentations to print into OneNote, then you can take notes along beside as the prof goes through them.

:O So thats how people were doing it! LOL. Ive been trying to figure out how people were doing that. Thanks

[feonateresa]

Originally Posted by ferreinm

So is this like a Microsoft Word sort of deal or is like a random independent program/

It is Microsoft Office OneNote. I looked it up and it's part of the Office package. I downloaded the 2007 trial, but I don't think you can do much with it yet. It's surprising because not many people know about this, and resort to using Word or another Microsoft product. =P

I'm waiting to purchase it at Mac for cheap. =)

[woodlawngirl]

i just found this on my laptop, i never knew i had it
now all i have to figure our is how to use it!
looks awsome though

[KaylaMarie]

That sounds amazing! I just found it on my lap top too...I must learn how to use it before starting classes!

[smiley12]

Everyone who has OneNote on their laptop should make sure they have the full version and not the trial version. It turns out I only had the trial version to start off with and it stopped working on me after a few weeks of steady use :(