How to create and organize notes with Microsoft OneNote and seamlessly manage all your projects from one app
- You can organize your notes for work, school, and home with Microsoft's OneNote program.
- OneNote lets you create multiple notebooks, pages, and sections to organize your notes in.
OneNote is a Microsoft program that's like a virtual planner, legal pad, and three-ring binder all rolled into one. It helps keep your thoughts and ideas orderly, categorized, and easily accessible.
To get the most out of OneNote, you'll want a good grasp on how to create and edit its pages, sections, and notes features.
Here's how you can get started organizing your notes with OneNote to take full advantage of the program's organization-oriented interface.
How to organize notes with Microsoft OneNote
You can create multiple hyper-organized notebooks to track different aspects of one project, or create a single broadly themed notebook to track all of your school, work, and personal projects in one place.
How to create a notebook in OneNote
However you decide to organize your notes is up to you, and whatever you decide, you'll get started by creating a notebook.
To create a notebook, open OneNote and navigate to "File," then select "New Notebook..."
You can leave your other notebooks open in OneNote while editing another notebook, or creating a new notebook.Emma Witman/Business Insider - Choose a notebook color, name your notebook, and then click "Create." You will always save your notebook in OneDrive, in order to support OneNote's synching mechanism.
How to create and edit sections in OneNote
The next organizational tier within OneNote is sections, which you add and edit for your notebooks.
- When you create a new notebook, the first section will automatically be created for you, and named "New Section 1." You can rename the section by right-clicking and selecting "Rename."
- You can also right-click to delete a section, and OneNote will double-check that you're sure before deletion, so that you don't accidentally lose anything.
To add another section, click "Add section" at the bottom left of the screen. You can rename a new section right away.
How to create and edit pages in OneNote
Similar to how a notebook automatically creates a first section, a section will automatically spawn its first page.
The page name will default to "Untitled Page" until you start adding notes or a header to the page. You can also right-click and add a name of your choosing to the page, rather than stick with the automatic title based on the contents of the page.
How to create and edit subpages in OneNote
Then, there's an even smaller organizational unit in OneNote: the subpage.
A subpage will be beneath a page, but slightly indented. Right-click on an existing page and select "Make Subpage" to make this change to the visual format.
How to create and edit notes in OneNote
Finally, there's the namesake "note" aspect of OneNote.
Clicking anywhere on the page will create your first note.
You can tap anywhere on the page to create your first note.Emma Witman/Business Insider - To edit an existing note, simply click near the text to highlight its text box and make edits.
To create a new, independent note, click far away on the page from the existing note.
If you reach a point where you want to remove a notebook you no longer need, and reduce clutter in OneNote, you can right-click on the notebook and select "Close This Notebook."
For a more permanent removal, you'll need to find and delete the notebook in OneDrive or on your computer.
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