Mastering Microsoft OneNote 2016 Made Easy Training Tutorial

When you start OneNote for the first time, the program opens a sample notebook called Personal. In the future when you start the application, the notebook you worked on last will open instead. The OneNote storage structure resembles that of a tabbed notebook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Title Bar is the bar that runs across the top of the window. The name of the notebook page that you are working on will be displayed here. At the right end of the Title Bar are three buttons in a button group: “Minimize,” “Maximize/Restore Down,” and “Close,” respectively. These buttons affect the display of the application window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The main tool available for you to use in OneNote is the Ribbon. This object allows you to perform all of the commands available in the program. The Ribbon is divided into tabs and within these tabs are different groups of commands. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The “File” tab within the Ribbon replaces the functionality of the older “File” menu in earlier versions of OneNote. You can click the “File” tab in the Ribbon to open a view of the file called the “Backstage View.” In this view, you can perform all of your file management functions. This includes opening, printing, and sharing notebooks. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Quick Access toolbar is located above the Ribbon, by default. However, you can also place it below the Ribbon, if desired, by clicking the “Customize Quick Access Toolbar” button at the right end of the toolbar and then selecting the “Show Below the Ribbon” command. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When viewing your notebook pages, scroll bars will appear both vertically and horizontally along the right and bottom sides of your notebook page whenever the content extends beyond your screen display. They have arrows at each end that point in the direction in which they will scroll the page when you click them. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Mini Toolbar contains several frequently-used formatting commands, such as “Font,” “Font Size,” “Font Color,” “Bold,” “Italics,” “Bullets,” and “Numbering.” When you select text within a notebook page and hold your mouse pointer over it, you will see a small toolbar appear next to the selection. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote installs a default notebook containing information about OneNote and examples of the types of information you can collect, store and share in OneNote. Also by default, OneNote will open the notebook you were working on when you last closed the program. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create multiple notebooks in OneNote. For example, you might create one notebook for work and one for home. To create a new notebook, click the “File” tab in the Ribbon to open the Backstage View and then click the “New” command at the left side of the screen. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote notebooks can contain sections, section groups, pages, and even subpages. How you choose to use these items is completely up to you and depends on the nature of the information you are collecting and your personal organizational style. You, and others if you are sharing the notebook, must be able to easily locate the information you have stored to effectively use OneNote. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Subpages are simply pages you create and insert into your notebook’s organizational structure so that they are related to a broader page. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can store virtually any type of electronic information in a notebook, including text, graphics, photos, web pages, audio clips, video clips, Excel spreadsheets and hyperlinks. When you insert content into your notebook pages, each piece of information exists within a note container. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Quick Notes is a holding area for content that you haven’t yet put into an organizational structure and also for content that you send to OneNote from other programs. Therefore, a Quick Note is not attached to any particular notebook, section or page. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Typing a new note into OneNote is just one option for getting content into a OneNote notebook. Existing content from other sources (such as the web or Microsoft Word or Excel) can be copied or cut and pasted into your notebook. You will have some different paste options that we will examine as well. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Another option for adding content to your OneNote pages is to take a screen clipping. You can use the Screen Clipping tool to capture an image of anything that is visible on your computer screen and then insert it into a OneNote page. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can insert pictures saved to your computer into your OneNote pages. To do this, display the OneNote page into which you want to insert an image. Click the “Insert” tab in the Ribbon and then select the “Pictures” button in the “Images” button group to display the “Insert Picture” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote allows you to insert many other types of files, such as audio and video files. The process for inserting both audio and video files into your OneNote pages is the same. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote 2016 for Windows now allows you to insert and embed video from an online source, such as YouTube or Vimeo, directly in a page. Learn this and more during this lecture.

One exciting feature of OneNote is the ability to record both audio and video files while taking notes in your notebook at the same time. The audio or video file will be stored on your page and any notes you take will be time coded in the clip for easy reference. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can also add other types of files into OneNote for easy access later. For example, you might have a Word document that you want to insert without having to copy and paste all of the information out of the Word document directly into OneNote. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote 2013 first introduced the embed feature to support Microsoft Excel files. You can attach just about any computer file to your notebooks, which stores a copy of the file in your notebook. You can also create or embed an Excel spreadsheet in a OneNote notebook and see content previews from your notebook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote provides an “Equation Editor” to assist you in entering mathematical equations into your notebook pages. To enter an equation, first navigate to the page and click in the area where you want to insert the equation. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Another way to gather information in your notebooks is to send it directly to OneNote from its destination source. For example, if you have content in Microsoft Word or that you come across on the internet, you can send that information directly to OneNote without having to go through the steps of copying and pasting, etc. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In OneNote, you can apply formatting to the text you add to your pages. In order to apply formatting to text within a note, first click into the text within the container on the page and then select the text to which you want to apply text formatting or click the container’s top edge to select all the text in the container. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote can automatically apply simple bullets and numbering to the lists in your notebook pages as you type. You could also simply type your list, select it, and then apply bullets or numbering afterward. You can also change the appearance of the bullets and numbers that you use. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote provides you with the ability to quickly identify and correct misspelled words in your notes. The “Spelling” feature works by identifying words in your notes that it thinks are misspelled and then comparing the words within the note to an internal dictionary. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can customize many features of the “Spelling” tool. You can view the “Proofing” options for Microsoft OneNote by clicking the “File” tab in the Ribbon, then clicking the “Options” command and then selecting the “Proofing” category from the option category list at the left side of the window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you use Microsoft Outlook’s calendar features, you’ll be glad to know that OneNote and Outlook are integrated well together. For example, you can use OneNote to track meetings and events that you keep in your Outlook calendar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Another feature of the integration between Microsoft OneNote and Outlook is the ability to send notebook pages directly from OneNote through Microsoft Outlook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

As you are taking notes in OneNote, you can assign and send tasks directly to the “Tasks” section of Microsoft Outlook. For example, if you were taking notes in a meeting and a task you will have to accomplish in the future comes up, you can send the task directly to Outlook from the OneNote application. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Tables are a great way to help organize the information in your OneNote pages. A table in OneNote is essentially a container for information. It consists of a series of intersecting vertical columns and horizontal rows, creating “cells” where information is stored. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Once you have created a table in OneNote, you may find that you want make changes to the number of columns and rows in the table. To make adjustments to your table, first click inside of the table and then select the “Layout” tab of the “Table Tools” contextual tab in the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can manually adjust the width of any of the columns in your table, or even of the table itself. Hover your mouse over the right edge of the table until your cursor turns into a double-sided arrow. When it does, click and drag to the right to expand the width of the table and release your mouse in the desired location. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Once you create a table in OneNote, you may find that you want to move the table (or even contents of the table) around on the notebook page. If you want to move the entire table to a new location, just select the table by hovering your mouse over the top edge of the note container that contains the table until your mouse turns into a four-sided arrow. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can use Pen Mode in OneNote to activate and use a stylus pen with a touch-enabled tablet or  PC to insert drawings and hand-written notes into your notebook pages. To use Pen Mode, first select the “Draw” tab in the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

There are several tools available to format the hand-written notes and drawings you create in OneNote. To format your objects, you must first select them. Click the “Type” button in the “Tools” group on the “Draw” tab of the Ribbon to switch to that mode. As you move your mouse, it will look like an I-beam. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can add or remove note space in OneNote. You can use this in conjunction with the writing tools to add space between written paragraph notes where you can then add content. You can also use it to create space within typed notes, as well. Learn this and more during this lecture.

One of the great features of OneNote is its ability to convert handwritten notes into type, as though they had been typed on a keyboard. Learn this and more during this lecture.

There are a number of different options to help organize the OneNote interface and also provide you with more room to view active pages, when needed. To give yourself more workspace in OneNote pages, you can click the “Full Page View” button, which looks like a diagonal double-pointed arrow shown in the upper-right corner of the “Content” pane just to the left of the Page Tabs Bar, to hide everything other than the “Content” pane. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To view the contents of separate notebooks simultaneously, or view separate sections of the same notebook at once, you can use OneNote’s “New Window” feature. This feature lets you open one window of the OneNote application side-by-side with another window. Each window can show different contents. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To find content in your notebooks, click into the “Search” field above the Page Tabs Bar. The default search range will search for content in “All Notebooks.” However, you can click the drop-down arrow to the right of the “Search” field and select one of the other search ranges to narrow the search results. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote’s “Wiki Linking” feature allows you to create links in your notebooks to other notebooks, pages or sections in a notebook, like hyperlinks in a webpage. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Tagging is a feature that helps you keep your content organized and easy to locate. Tags are a visual way to identify content within categories. Tags help you organize content, remember tasks or locate content based on the tags attached to it. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Earlier in the course, we looked at sections and what we can do with them. Let’s take a closer look at customizing the sections of our Notebook. You can easily create a new section by clicking the “Create a New Section” tab in the Notebook Header. The name of the tab will be highlighted. Type a new name and press the “Enter” key on your keyboard. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Another organizational technique available in OneNote is the use of Section Groups. You can create a group of sections that are kept separate from the rest of the notebook. Section Groups appear in the Notebook Header along with other sections, but the icon looks like three small section tabs stacked upon one another. Learn this and more during this lecture.

OneNote provides several templates that you can apply to your pages that help you stay organized, create visual interest and even add continuity to your notebook pages. It’s important to know that templates can only be applied to new, blank pages and not to existing pages with content. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create your own templates from pages you create or from existing templates that you modify. To create a new template, navigate to the page that you want to use to create the template. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set a default template for each section in a notebook, which can be helpful by adding continuity to pages within a section. When you do, each new page that is created in that section will use that template, by default. The default you select will apply to that section only. Learn this and more during this lecture.