Hi. Today we’re going to be walking through how to use OneNote, as well as highlighting some of the most helpful tools and features. OneNote is a free note-taking app. I like to think of it as a three-ring binder, one where you can keep your thoughts, notes, and documents organized, and easily share and collaborate with others. Let’s get started. There are two different ways you can get OneNote. First, you can head to OneNote.com and use it on the web entirely for free. You can also install the app. You might already have it with Microsoft 365, but if not, you can download it for free at the following address. You can install it on Windows, Mac, as well as your phone. In this video, I’ll be using the version that you can install on your PC. I’m opening a new location for Elizabeth’s Candy Company, and I want to set up a notebook to help organize all my work and make it easy for my team to collaborate. So, let’s get started with the fun stuff and create a new notebook. Once you’ve downloaded OneNote and have it open, select the Notebooks tab, then select Add Notebook next to the plus sign. It will first ask you where you want to save your new notebook. You can choose to save it on OneDrive, which will allow you to access your notebook from anywhere with an internet connection. Or you can save it directly to your PC. I’m going to save to my OneDrive. It will then ask you to create a notebook name. You can change this name at any time, then select Create Notebook. It will then ask you if you want to invite any other people to join your notebook. We’re going to walk through this step later on, so for now I’m going to select Not Now. You can have multiple notebooks linked to your Microsoft account and toggle between them at any time. For example, you may have a notebook for work, school, or personal use. To create multiple notebooks, just repeat the previous step, and you will see a list of your notebooks in this dropdown tab. The most important thing when starting your notebook is creating a framework that is easy for you to navigate. Think of OneNote as a three-ring binder with tabs. You will have sections and then pages within those sections. Since we are setting up this notebook to help me with the new Candy Company store location, let’s create some sections that should help me with organization. You can create a new section by clicking the plus sign to the right of your notebook, or by using the shortcut keys Ctrl plus T on your keyboard. Then name your section. Once you’ve created a section, you can then add pages within it on the right-hand side. Go ahead and click Add Page. You can then name your page. For example, if I want each one of my pages within my Meeting Notes section to be a different date, I could do, and then name subsequent pages with the dates of those meetings. There is no limit to the amount of pages that you can have within a section. You can change the color of your section tabs by right-clicking and selecting Section Color. You also have the option to password protect individual sections, but we’ll go into this later. If you have used OneNote in the past, you may have noticed that the tabs are now horizontal as opposed to vertical. You have the option to adjust your view by clicking on the View tab up above. Then select Tabs Layout. You can choose to use the horizontal tabs or switch to vertical. Pick whichever one is most appealing to you. If you choose to use a vertical view, you may find the option of using Section Groups as helpful. Although you can create Section Groups with both tab layouts. I like Section Groups because it groups like with like. For example, if I want to create a Section Group to list all of my vendors, I can create the Section Group and then create a vendor list within it. I can then rename each section for one of my vendors. You can have as many sections as you wish within your Section Group and then add pages within each one of those sections. You can then minimize that Section Group when you’re not actively using it, which could help with your organizational layout. Play around with your notebook to see what works best for you. Now that we have some sections created, let’s begin adding content to our notebook. I have some notes that I took during my last meeting that I’m pasting under this new Note section of my notebook. You have a few options when you take notes in OneNote. You could type on your keyboard, use your stylus or finger in order to write, or you could click on the Dictate button under the Home tab, and OneNote will type out anything it hears. You can also use the Transcribe feature if you have multiple people in a meeting, and you want to have OneNote isolate and then type what each speaker says. You could check out our channel for a video on just these two features. If you don’t want to use a blank page in order to type your notes, you can use one of OneNote’s templates. If I go ahead here to Add a Page, I can then go up to the Insert tab, select Page Templates, and they have an assortment of templates that you can use, including ones for notetaking, simple to-do lists, or ones that offer more of an artistic touch. You could go ahead and play with these to see what might work best for you. One of the most useful features of notetaking in OneNote is adding tags to your notes. Adding tags allow you to more easily navigate your notebook. Going back to the notes that I pasted earlier, I’m going to add tags to some of my notes. Go into the Home tab and then scrolling to the right into the Tags area. OneNote has pre-populated some of the most helpful tags, including Remember for Later, Question, Important, and of course, your To-Do List. You’ll notice that each tag has a keyboard shortcut, so if you’re using these often, they’re helpful to memorize. Let’s go ahead and highlight things that I need to remember for later. Things that might be important for me to remember, and questions that I’m going to need to follow up on. Tags can be especially helpful when you’re closing your notebook and coming back at a later time. At any point, you can scroll up to the Tags area and select Find Tags. This allows you to search for your tags within your notebook. You see here that it’s broken up by Important, Questions, and Remember for Later. You can search for your tags in the entire notebook, certain groups, or sections. You can also search by timeframe if you want to narrow your tags down. And if you click on one of these tags, it will take you directly to that area of the notebook. Another helpful feature is adding a link within your notebook. If you have something that you want to link, you can right-click and select Link or press Ctrl plus K on your keyboard. You can either link it to an external website address or you can connect it to content within your notebook. This can be helpful if you want to reference another section or page. And you can easily toggle back and forth. Since this store is going to take a lot of work to put together, I’m going to want to create multiple to-do lists throughout my OneNote. Luckily, it’s pretty simple to do. If I go to my to-do list page that I created earlier, I can then scroll up to Tags and select the to-do tag. This will start my to-do list. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl plus 1. You can have as many to-do lists as you want throughout your OneNote. You can also have as many items as you want on each to-do list. As you complete your items, you can then select the box to check them off. Similar to how we searched for tags previously, you can scroll up to find tags. It will then show you the items on your various to-do lists. And then it will show you which ones have been checked off and which ones still need your attention. As we look at the different types of tags that you can use within your OneNote, I also want to show you how you can create a custom tag. Let’s go back to my original Meeting Notes page. Since there’s a lot of information that I’m going to need to send to my team, I want to create a tag for that. Up here under Tag, you can select Customize Tags and either modify an existing one or create a brand new one. In my case, I’m going to name my tag Send to Team and then select a custom symbol. You can also choose a custom font or highlight color. You can then highlight any information you want with your new tag. Now that we’ve looked at some helpful note-taking features, it’s time for me to move on and create a new section. One of the things I need to do in order to prepare for the opening of my new store is to create an interior design layout. And I’m going to use some of OneNote’s drawing functions to do that. Up here on the Drawing tab, you’re going to have a variety of ways in which you can do that. The first thing that I’m going to do under the Drawing tab is to move to a full-page view in order to see my drawing better. Now, one thing to note about me is that I have very little artistic talent. And, well, you’ll see in just a moment. You have a few options when it comes to drawing. You can use various pen features, highlighters, and even a laser pointer. Now, you can also draw with touch. This allows you to use your mouse or your finger on your screen in order to draw. You’ll notice here I’m going to begin drawing the interior layout of my store, beginning with a counter, some shelving, and some tables in the middle. You’ll see here that I definitely bring the rough to rough sketches. But luckily OneNote can help me a bit. I’m going to go ahead and undo what I just did, and then select the Automatic Shapes function. Now, when I draw my counter a little wobbly woozy, OneNote will automatically adjust that for me into a much more good-looking shape. It will also align them pretty closely, and at least bring your rough sketches a little bit more artistic flair. For those of you with more artistic talent than myself, OneNote provides you with a variety of backgrounds in which you can use in order to help you draw, including rule lines and grid lines. There’s also a ruler function. OneNote also provides a similar function that we used in the shapes for writing. First, let me go ahead and redo the formatting here. Turn off my ruler, and then let’s say I want to write while I draw. Here I’m going to write that these are shelves. Again, you can see my handwriting with my mouse has something to be desired as well. But if I go ahead and select any writing here on the page, I can then click on Ink to Text, and suddenly my chicken scratches look a lot better. You can then format that and make it look quite lovely. Another interesting function is called Ink to Math, and that can also be found under the Draw tab. Let’s say that I want to make a note that I need four shelving units on each side of my wall. So, I’m going to go ahead and have OneNote take my chicken scratches and make it into a much more pleasing thing to look at. Once you have an equation inserted within your OneNote, you then have the Equation tab open up. This allows you to select a whole variety of symbols and also allows you to have a whole bunch of pre-populated structures in order for you to use. Now, let’s go back to my tabs and move on. In order to get out of the full page, I can go here to the View tab and unselect Full Page. But while I’m here, let’s take a quick look at another helpful feature called Switch Background. If you’re taking notes in a meeting, and perhaps you don’t want your screen to be so bright, clicking on Switch Background will change your background screen to black. Likewise, if you’re drawing like I just was, and you want things to pop a bit more and show others, this could be a helpful feature. Now, let’s get out of full page and go back to my tabs. I have some market research that I’ve already completed on one of my competitors, the Kevin Cookie Company. And I want to go ahead and insert that document within my notebook. If you have any files that you want to insert, select the Insert tab, and then click on the paper clip. Once you’ve located your file, press Insert. You’re then given two options, Attach File or Insert Printout. If you select Attach File, then it will include an attachment. When opened, it will take you outside of OneNote in order for you to review the document. If you want to see your document directly within your OneNote, you have another option. Go back to the paper clip, find your document, and select Insert Printout. This will then insert your document directly within your OneNote for you to view. One of the most helpful features of OneNote is the ability to share your notebook and collaborate with others. To share your notebook, go to the purple Share button on the upper right-hand corner. You can either email a copy of a page that you’re working on, or you can share your entire notebook. You can enter the user’s email address that you wish to share it with, or create a custom link that you can then copy and send in an email or text message. You have two options when sharing your notebook. You can either allow the end user to edit and make changes to your OneNote, or they can simply view your notebook without making any changes. If you do choose to allow others to have editing permissions, you can then review the history of the edits that are made under the History tab. You can sort by recent edits, by author if you’re sharing your notebook with multiple people, and you can also go back to previous page versions. If you’re choosing to share your notebook with others, you can go ahead and add a password to specific sections that you might not want others to have access to. Right-click on the section that you want protected, and click on Password Protect this section. You can then set a password, or remove a password. This is a helpful feature if you don’t want to share notes from private meetings, or financial documents, or protected personal information. I still have a lot of work to do in order to get my new location for Elizabeth’s Candy Company up and started, but having an organized and functional notebook will be very helpful. If you found this video helpful, please subscribe to our channel. And also, check out our other helpful videos on OneNote. I’ll see you next time.