Microsoft OneNote is the veteran note-taking app available through the Office productivity suite. With the changing times, it's good to see Microsoft adopting and improving OneNote with more features and cross-platform availability. OneNote's selling point for users has been its unique approach to organizing notes. Unlike competitors like Evernote and Bear Notes, OneNote doesn't rely on tags to find/organize notes in the app. OneNote mimics the traditional notepad style in software.
Contents1. Create a new notebook2. Synchronize Notepad3. Change notebook color4. Share notebook5. Password protect a section in Notebook6. Change the location of the notebook7. Close and delete the notebookStart your OneNote journey
You can create a notebook in OneNote, add different sections to it, and use pages to add notes. This is an efficient way to organize pages in OneNote. The system makes it easy for a user to find a note they are looking for.
You can create as many notebooks as you want in OneNote. The software also lets you add color to a notebook to make it stand out, password protect certain sections, share a notebook, and more.
In this article, we will talk about the top seven OneNote notebook tips and tricks to use it like a pro. Let's start.
As mentioned earlier, OneNote lets you create multiple notebooks for different uses. I mainly create separate notebooks according to the subjects. You can open the OneNote desktop app and open the Notepad section.
Tap "Add Notebook" at the bottom. You can either add a notebook from OneDrive or create a brand new notebook from scratch. Select the "New" option, and you will be prompted to add a title for the notebook. You can also choose from dozens of notebook colors to add a personal touch.
All notebooks appear in the Microsoft OneDrive> OneNote folder. You cannot change the online location of notebooks because OneNote relies on the OneDrive cloud service to sync data across platforms and devices.
Seamless synchronization is not a strong point of Microsoft OneNote. Users often complain about the slow synchronization of notes between devices. You should sync OneNote notebook regularly to ensure newly added data is transferred to OneDrive.
You can open the OneNote notebook menu and right-click on the notebook name (use double-click if you're using OneNote on the Macbook) and select the "Sync this notebook" option. It may seem tedious. You can opt for OneNote keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S for Windows and Command+S shortcut for Mac to sync notebook.
Speaking of OneNote keyboard shortcuts, you should check out our list of OneNote keyboard shortcuts to use the software like a pro.
You can change the OneNote notebook color at any time. To change the notebook color, you can open the OneNote notebook list, right-click the notebook name, and select the notebook color.
OneNote offers a long list of color options. Select a color related to the content of the notebook.
Call it a feature or a limitation, but users can't share a section of a notebook with others. Instead, you can share an entire notebook with others or invite them to make edits.
There are two ways to share a notebook on OneNote. You can open the list of notebooks and right-click on it. There are three options.
The second way to share a notebook is from the notes screen. Open any note in OneNote and tap the Share button in the top right corner. It will let you choose from the options mentioned above and share a PDF version of the notebook.
Unfortunately, there is no direct way to password protect an entire notebook in OneNote. Instead, you can add password protection to a notebook section. Open a notebook and navigate to any section.
Right-click any section and select Password Protect. Add a password and you are ready to use your secret notes.
As I mentioned earlier, you cannot change the default location of OneNote Notebook to OneDrive to another cloud storage. However, you can change the location of the notebook in the OneDrive website or app.
First, you need to open the OneDrive website and navigate to the OneNote folder. Here you will see all the notebooks created in the OneNote app. You can select the notebook you want to move and then select Move from the toolbar above.
Go to the appropriate folder and paste the notepad.
After finishing work on the notebook, you may want to close it for a while. You can open the list of notebooks in OneNote and select the "Close this notebook" option, and it will remove the notebook from OneNote. Do not worry. The notebook is still available on OneDrive. You can open it anytime from the app.
To completely delete a notebook and its data, you must first close the notebook from OneNote. Next, head to OneDrive and navigate to the location of the notebook. Select the notepad and press the delete option in the toolbar above.
OneNote is free and available on all platforms. Of course, cross-platform support comes in handy, making it a viable choice over other popular note-taking options. That said, you can use these tricks to get the most out of OneNote notebooks and master them with our dedicated OneNote tips and tricks article.
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OneNote also offers a PDF function within the application. Read the article below to find the best OneNote PDF tips and tricks.
