Administrative Assistant / Secretary: Using Microsoft OneNote

What Is Microsoft OneNote?
Microsoft OneNote is a powerful note-taking tool that provides you with a digital notebook for storing all your notes and information. It can be extremely useful to an administrative assistant who takes notes at meetings and then needs to be able to quickly find those notes again in the future. OneNote has a powerful search capability that makes it easy to quickly find your information.
Unlike a word processor like Microsoft Word, or an email system like Microsoft Outlook, OneNote lets you gather and organize text, pictures, digital handwriting, audio, video, and websites. All of your notes and information are organized into digital notebooks.
For example, you could use OneNote to store scanned images of handwritten notes taken during a meeting along with an audio file you record at the meeting using a digital recorder. You can also type your notes directly into OneNote and create separate notebooks for each project. Figure 24-1 shows the features of a page in OneNote.
When OneNote is installed, it links with both your other Microsoft Office applications and Internet Explorer. Documents you have created in Word or Excel can easily be imported into OneNote. If you find a website that you need to store in your notes, you can quickly save it by clicking the OneNote icon on Internet Explorer’s toolbar.

Creating a Notebook
To create a new OneNote notebook, follow these steps:
1. Open OneNote and click the File menu.
2. From the File menu, select NEW.
3. In the Store Notebook On section, select the place where you would like to store the notebook. Normally, you will store your notes on your computer, but you can also store your notes in your SkyDrive.
4. In the Name box, give your notebook a name.
5. In the Location box, browse to the location on your computer where you would like to store your notes.
6. Click CREATE NOTEBOOK.

Microsoft OneNote features and functions.



Using OneNote Templates
Microsoft OneNote has a variety of built-in templates that you can use to get started. To find and apply a template to a new page in OneNote, follow these steps:
1. Open OneNote and open a notebook or section where you want to add a page.
2. Click the INSERT tab.
3. Select PAGE TEMPLATES from the Insert ribbon bar, then click PAGE TEMPLATES from the menu.
4. In the Templates pane, expand the template category for the type of template you want. For example, select BUSINESS.
5. Select one of the templates from the list and view the changes automatically on the notebook page. If you don’t like the look of a particular template, click another one until you are satisfied.

Adding Pages or Notes
To insert a new page, in the pages tabs list, just click NEW PAGE.
To add notes to a page, click anywhere on the page and just start typing. OneNote creates a textbox for each block of text you type. You move the textboxes around to organize your notes as if they were sticky notes on your desktop.

Saving a Notebook
Microsoft OneNote will automatically save your work as you take notes whenever you switch to another page or another section or close a page or section. There is no need to save your notes manually.

Printing a Page of Notes
To print a page of notes, click the File menu and then select PRINT. You can see what your notes will look like on paper if you select PRINT PREVIEW.