Microsoft OneNote allows you to easily take notes and keep your school work organized. This page serves as an overview of basic OneNote functionality. At the bottom of the page you will find a video on using OneNote that covers most of these topics.

OneNote organizes your notes by notebook, section, and page.

• Notebooks contain sections.
• Sections contain pages.
• Pages contain your notes.

By effectively using OneNote notebooks, sections, and pages, you will have an easy time keeping your classwork and class notes organized. There are infinite ways to organize your school work. The most important thing is to have some sort of system to keep your work organized and stick to it. The examples covered here are just that: examples. Try to find an organizational method that works for you–it's okay if it is not exactly what is outlined here.

You create notebooks by going to File > New and then giving your new notebook a name. Your new notebook will be created under Documents\Onenote Notebooks by default. Generally, you will want to create one notebook for each of your classes. Give each notebook a name that coincides with its class, such as “A1 Analytic Geometry”, or “B7 Social Studies”.

While in a notebook, click the + tab at the top. This will create a new section and allow you to type in a name for it.

• You can rename sections by right-clicking the section name and clicking “rename”.
• Sections are created under Documents\Onenote Notebooks in a folder with the notebooks name.
• Try to create new sections to divide up portions of your class you may need to reference separately.
  • Example: you may wish to create a new section after each major test so that you can easily separate what notes were taken prior to each test. This is very useful for helping you find what notes you need to study.
  • Example: for English classes you might create a new section of each book you read as well as one for class notes unrelated to the book.

• While in a section, click “+ Add Page” in the panel on the right.
• Pages are named by the title at the top. When you write or type in that area, it becomes the page's name.
• Try to create one page for each topic covered in class so that it is easier to find later.
  • For example, in you math classes you may name pages by what unit you are on in your textbook, such as “5-1 Imaginary Numbers” and “5-2 Square Roots”.
• You can also create sub-pages to break things down further. To do so, right-click on a page and click “Make Subpage”.
  • You can undo this with “Promote Subpage”

• You can take notes in OneNote in one of several ways:
  • Typing
  • Handwriting
  • Inserting documents
  • Taking screen clippings
  • Recording audio
• You will mostly be taking typed and handwritten notes as well as printing documents to OneNote.
• When taking notes in OneNote, you do not need to worry about “saving” your files, as everything is automatically saved.
  • This makes OneNote quite different from other Microsoft Office programs, as they require you to save manually.

• For most classes, handwriting will be the primary way you take your notes.
• Compared to typing your notes, handwriting has these advantages:
• Compared to typing your notes:
  • Handwriting is faster than typing (for most students in most classes).
  • Handwriting is more flexible. It allows you to create diagrams and equations easily.
  • Handwriting is more difficult to convert to text, which makes it hard to search through later.
  • Handwriting is harder to structure into lists, tables, etc.
• To use handwriting, simply take out your tablet pen and draw on the screen.
  • You can change the writing thickness and pen style from the “Draw” menu at the top of OneNote.
  • If your pen does not have an eraser, you can use the one from the “Draw” menu.
• If your tablet pen does not have an eraser, you can delete handwritten text easily in one of two ways:
  1. Hold right-click on your pen, then drag a circle around the text to delete. Once you have the text selected, right click on it and tap “Delete”.
  2. Enable the scratch out gesture by going to File > Options > Advanced, then unchecking the “Disable the scratch-out gesture while inking”. Now you can scratch out text with horizontal lines in order to erase it.

• Typing your notes in OneNote is always available to you.
• Compared to handwriting:
  • Typing is easier to structure and allows you to create neater looking pages.
  • Typing is slower if you are not a good typist.
  • Typing is more difficult to enter diagrams and equations with.

• The strongest advantage of typing your notes is it allows you to create very neat notes that are slightly easier to organize under headings, lists, tables, etc.
• The best way to perform formatting is to do this is using shortcuts.
  • If you hit CTRL + ALT + 1 it will create a level one heading.
  • If you hit CTRL + ALT + 2 it will create a level two heading.
    • This pattern continues on to level six headings.
  • You can quickly create a table by pressing the TAB key after some words. Press TAB for each new cell you want to create, and press ENTER to start a new row.
  • If you type * (asterisk) at the start of a line followed by a space it will create a bulleted list.
    • If you press enter in a list and then tab it will create a sub-list.
    • If you hold SHIFT and press TAB it will go back to the parent list.
  • If you type 1. (1 with a period) followed by a space at the start of a line it will create a numbered list.
    • Numbered lists work the same way as bulleted lists.
• Use different level headings to divide content into easily-digested chunks.

• Your computer is configured with a “Send to OneNote 2013” printer. Whenever you print documents to this printer, OneNote will allow you to insert that document into a page.
• Once you have a printed document on a OneNote page you can take handwritten notes or text notes on it as you please.
• Sometimes teachers will ask you to complete worksheets in OneNote and send them the result.

• Via the “Insert” > “Screen Clipping” tool, you can capture a picture of your screen and save it in your OneNote page.
• This can be handy for saving information from DyKnow, websites, or any content that is difficult to use copy and paste with.

• Your teachers will sometimes require you to submit a page, a section, or your entire notebook to them.
• To export from OneNote:
  • Go to File > Export.
  • On the left, choose whether you want to export the current page, the current section, or the current notebook.
  • On the right, choose the format you want to export in.
    • For pages or sections you will usually want “OneNote 2010-2013 Section”.
    • For notebooks you will usually want “OneNote Package”
    • Some teachers will ask you to use the “Single File Web Page” option.
  • Click “Export”.
  • Choose a folder in which to save the exported document, then click “Save”.
    • You can rename the exported document in the text box next to “Save”.
• Once you have exported from OneNote, you can upload the resulting file to Moodle or email it to your teacher.

View our Microsoft OneNote video guide on YouTube.