In this short video you will learn how to insert Outlook meeting details into your notes in Microsoft OneNote 2010. Published by Business Productivity. Instructor Ulrika Hedlund. Published by Business Productivity.
When you think of a note-taking application, you probably think of a simple text and page solution. OneNote 2016 lets you do more with your notes. It also offers more than one way to take notes. Let us look at how you can take notes in OneNote.
How to enter a text note in OneNote 2016
Even the most simple of notes can take on a new life by accessing through style and format options. You can enter a note on a blank page simply by clicking on it. This opens a text box that you can populate with content. The Home tab houses basic text styles that allow you to change options such as font types, size, and color.
How to use notes for organization in OneNote 2016
How to add meeting details to a note
- Click on the Home tab in the navigation ribbon.
- Click Meeting Details in the Meetings group.
- Select a meeting from the list of today's meetings.
- Select Choose a Meeting from Another Day if it is not listed.
- Click on the desired date.
- Enter your notes on the page.
The details of the meeting are automatically populated onto the page, with the meeting subject becoming the page title and dates, locations and other information organized below.
How to use Quick Notes
Even without having OneNote 2016 open, notetaking is but a couple of clicks away. If you have OneNote installed, you can time-consuming a note window by pressing the Windows key plus N. The window gives you a basic view by default, but you can view the drop-down menu by clicking the more icon (…). This then gives you the same style and format options found in the main OneNote window.If you close the window, you can always find your notes in OneNote, under Quick Notes in the left pane.
How to create a checklist in OneNote 2016
- Click on the Home tab in the navigation ribbon.
- Select To Do in the Tags group. A text box will appear in the page body with a checkbox.
- Type content next to the checkbox.
- Press Enter.
- Repeat until you have composed your checklist.
Use the checkboxes as you normally would, by clicking on them to populate a checkmark. You can also apply the checkbox option to existing content by selecting the group and then clicking To Do, thus applying a checkbox to each item or paragraph.
How to use multimedia for notes in OneNote 2016
How to convert handwriting to text
Depending on what device you access OneNote 2016 with; you may find it easier to take advantage of its handwriting feature. To save you time from trying to decipher your scribbles, you can also convert your handwriting to text.
How to create handwritten notes
- Select Draw from the navigation ribbon.
- Select a pen or marker type from the Tools group.
- Select a color and thickness for the marker or pen.
- Use your mouse, touchpad or stylus to begin writing on the screen.
- Click Erase in the Tools group and draw over the handwriting to erase.
- Select Type from the Tools group
- Click and drag a selection over the handwriting.
- Select Ink to Text in the Convert group.
Your handwritten notes will then be converted to text, in the currently used font. If you have selected a specific color while drawing, OneNote will maintain that selection. If you tried the steps above and were not able to select Ink to Text, you can right-click on the selected note and choose Treat Selected Ink As from the menu, then select Handwriting.
You can also expand the drawing tool section to view Pen mode and then chose Create Handwriting Only to avoid any issues.
How to insert Voice and Video recordings
Are you planning to attend a lecture or conference? Taking notes may prove to be difficult as you try to pay attention. There are recording options that allow you to capture audio and/or video within a page.
- Click on the Insert tab in the navigation ribbon.
- Select Record Audio or Record Video from the Recording group. Multimedia then begins to record.
- Navigate to the Audio & Video – Playback tab in the ribbon.
- View the timer in the Playback group to monitor the progress.
- Press Stop to end the recording.
The recording is then placed in a notes window on the desired page and represented with an icon. Below the icon, you will able to enter text that you can use to describe the recording contents. Additional options are available by clicking on the icon; left click to use a simplified playback menu, right-click to perform commands such as rename, copy or link.
By accessing Audio & Video Settings from the Playback tab, you can change the devices used to capture the multimedia, change rewind options for linked audio and video or even enable word search for recordings. This is remarkably useful as you can then include recordings in keyword searches. This, of course, is highly dependant on the recording quality and requires time to index the audio.
How to use Screen Clipping
You may already be looking at content that you want to include on a OneNote page. Trying to recreate that content, however, may prove to be too difficult or too time-consuming. The Screen Clipping feature allows you to capture an image of the content.
- Click on the Insert tab in the ribbon.
- Click Screen Clipping in the Images group. The screen will blur, and OneNote will remove itself from site temporarily.
- Left-click and drag the selection box until you have encompassed the necessary content.
- Release the left-click to move the copied contents to a OneNote page.
- Click any part of the screen clip edge.
- Drag to resize as needed.
Just like adding other types of media, OneNote will then invite you to annotate below the added content. There is also the possibility that the text in your screen clip will be included in text searches.
Wrapping Up
With OneNote, you can turn nearly any type of content into a note that is effortlessly captured and potentially searchable. This makes your note truly unique and relative. Which methods do you frequently use to take notes? Let us know in the comments.
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Microsoft OneNote is a fantastic, versatile note-taking tool. One of its best features–at least if you're using the Windows version–is page templates. With OneNote templates, you can have a consistent look for all the pages in your notebooks, and can easily replicate notes for things like meeting notes and project overviews.
Here's how to use OneNote templates in Windows, add your own OneNote templates, and make OneNote templates on Mac and Web.
Add a Page From a OneNote Template
The OneNote Templates sidebar lets you quickly select a new page template
OneNote Templates are designed to let you create new notes quickly that already have the design and layout you need, perhaps to write up meeting notes or create a quick to-do list. Instead of creating a blank new note, start out with a template and get to work faster—or, write your notes on a blank page, and add a template later to format your text.
In the OneNote ribbon, click the Insert tab and click the Page Templates button. A new Templates sidebar will open with template categories. Choose the design you would like for your new page. There are class notes templates, meeting notes templates, templates with different backgrounds, and templates to change the page size–you can even make index-card sized pages!
Granted, the decorative templates are pretty cheesy, with stock photos or clipart of books, day planners, and flowers and hearts among the options. However, the business templates can come in handy, since they start you off with an outline and the note sections you need to include.
Grab a recently used template without opening the sidebar
Once you've used a template, it'll show up in the menu under the Page Templates button. Just click the down arrow under that button, and select the template you want to use. That's a simple way to grab a template without having to open the sidebar.
Pro tip: If you'd like to use the same template for all new pages in the current notebook section, click the dropdown box under 'Always use a specific template' in the Page Templates sidebar to choose the template you want.
Create Your Own OneNote Template
Want to make your own OneNote Template, perhaps with your own report outline or with your company logo? You can turn any page or note from OneNote into a template to be applied to new pages.
Simply make a new note with the items you want on the template—or open a note that already has the text you want for a template. Add placeholders for the things that might change, perhaps
DATE
for the date or SUBJECT
for meeting notes. Then open the Templates sidebar again, and click the 'Save current page as a template' link at the bottom. Give your template a name, and you're done.The next time you make a note, you'll find your own OneNote Templates under the My Templates group in the sidebar.
Make OneNote Templates for Mac, Web, and Mobile
Instead of using the Templates sidebar, just make copies of your note templates in OneNote for Mac and Web
OneNote for Windows is the only version that supports templates officially—but you can still make and use your own templates in every other version.
Just make your template note as normal, writing the text and adding the formatting you want to the note. Add as many template notes as you want to that notebook to keep all of your templates together.
Then, on Mac or Web, right-click on your note and select Copy. Go to the notebook where you want to make a new copy of your template note, right-click again, and select Paste (or, on Mac, select Copy Page to… the first time you right-click, then choose where to put a new copy of the notes). That'll give you a full copy of your note in your standard notebook—and will leave your template note ready for use again next time.
A similar trick works in OneNote's mobile apps. Open a notebook with your template notes in it, tap the Edit button at the top, and select the note you want to make a copy of. Then tap the copy icon at the bottom (looks like a box with an arrow), select Copy, then choose where you want to make a new copy of that note.
It'd be great to have full OneNote templates on Mac, Web, and mobile, but for now this workaround gives you most of the features of templates today.
Download OneNote Templates for Windows
You can find more OneNote templates for Windows online
Want more OneNote templates on your PC? Microsoft includes a handful of useful templates in OneNote, and used to offer free OneNote templates at templates.office.com. That section now seems to only offer templates for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
No worries—you can still find templates elsewhere on the web.
- OneNote Gem is the best place to start. It has a collection of 20+ free OneNote templates, from a 'Things To Do List' to a Cornell Notes template to seven complete notebook templates.
- Want a better meetings or events template? Download a meetings notebook and events template shared on OneDrive. The meetings notebook has sections for team meetings by quarter and pages with agenda, pre-reads, deck, and notes, each with placeholders for meeting details and follow-up action items. The events notebook could help you wrangle all the information you need to organize an event, with sections for attendee materials, presentations, goals and theme, organizer materials, and more with instructions to help you record relevant information for the event.
- If you're a fan of The Bullet Journal system of organizing your tasks and notes, you can grab a template to turn a OneNote notebook into your Bullet Journal, with instructions for the template I wrote up on Lifewire (formerly Mobile Office at About.com).
- This roundup from Brighthub offers more business-focused OneNote templates, most of which are still available for download.
- Want templates that work on Mac, Web, mobile, and Windows? The OneNote Community Notebook's Templates section includes a wide range of simple templates you can copy and use on any edition of OneNote.
Become a OneNote Expert with Zapier
New to OneNote, or looking for more hidden tips? For more ways to use OneNote to stay organized and productive, see our complete Microsoft OneNote tutorial. It covers everything from the OneNote basics you need to make notes and organize your thoughts, along with tips on embedding online content into your notes, writing with a pen in OneNote, using OCR to recognize text in your notes, and much more.
It's the companion guide you need to get the most out of Microsoft's notes app.
Or, keep things simple, and automate OneNote tasks with Zapier, so you can do things like copy Evernote notes to your OneNote notebook or automatically add template OneNote notes for events.
This post was originally published December 21, 2016, and was updated on June 14, 2017 to include new screenshots and tips on creating templates in other OneNote editions.