Why OneNote Is Much More Than One Note

As you browse through the different suites that make up Microsoft (MS) Office, you'll see that there's an application proving popular with the suites that is gaining credit with computer users.

You might find it's an easy decision to make when it comes to buying the best Office package for your needs. For home use and for studying, then it's probable you'll opt for the aptly named Office Home and Student. The software included sees you writing reports, pulling together data via Excel and making presentations with PowerPoint.

If you need a bit of help organising your emails, keeping in touch with colleagues and organising calendars then Home and Business may be your preferred options, because it includes Outlook. To get professional looking advertising materials and to build databases, as well as benefit from all the other applications mentioned then Office Professional may be a good fit for your needs. The type of applications included in your chosen suite is part of the package for good reason, as MS believe they are the programmes you'll use most.

However, there's one MS invention that makes up part of all the other suites described here and that's OneNote. This is likely to be the case as it's considered an essential component to computer packages by many. Initially it may appear that the programme is there to just help you make notes during meetings, but this is one element within its myriad functions - albeit a popular one.

OneNote is designed to assist you in jotting down your thoughts, but it also helps you to organise these ideas, find them and share them with others. An example of this would be if you've recently put together a PowerPoint presentation and you're doing some editing to get it as good as possible. Instead of jotting down your potential improvements within one document, OneNote can link your text to the slides that you're currently viewing.

Rather than having all this information in one place and referring to it and the slide separately, you're able to find the exact slide and the possible improvements quickly and easily. Helping you to organise your notes is a major function of the software and even if they're not linked to slides, you still have great control over what goes where. For example, in order to find specific text you've written, it's possible to tag certain phrases so they are highlighted, which can help you find them.

Following this, you're free to use the integrated drop and drag features to reorganise your notebooks and keep all the important data together. The application can also be linked to Outlook, so if there are any new tasks resulting from the meeting then these can be shared with your colleagues. Quite often at a meeting most attendees will have some input and this can be more easily shared and recorded via the application.

The programme gives you the opportunity to create a shared notebook which everybody concerned has access to. This helps to keep all the thoughts on the subject together so they can be instantly viewed. If more research needs to be carried out then the software also proves handy.

This is because you're able to keep it open when viewing web pages for information. There's an additional drop and drag function that sees you pulling in all kinds of files to record them and refer back at a later date.