Who Needs OneNote and Why

OneNote is designed to function as a digital three-ring binder. With a three-ring binder, you can add and rearrange pages, write on pages, paste clipped articles on a page, or even punch holes in a magazine or report page to add it to the binder. You also can add plastic sleeves that expand the notebook’s versatility, enabling you to include nonpaper materials in the notebook.

OneNote brings the same type of versatility to tracking all sorts of digital information in a centralized location. You can add a variety of information to a OneNote notebook—notes, Outlook tasks, pictures, files, screen clips, audio or video recordings, details about an Outlook meeting, information copied from a Web page, and more. But the best part is that you can see and use all the information at the same time—you don’t have to open multiple files and arrange multiple windows.

These capabilities make OneNote a perfect tool for managing information related to specific projects or clients, research or study subjects, or topical areas of interest. Although OneNote’s versatility can make it useful to anyone, users in the following types of situations will find OneNote an especially valuable tool:

• If you attend many meetings that generate ideas and action items, OneNote can be perfect for tracking them. Because OneNote enables you to organize information quickly and flexibly, you can easily add the notes and tasks you need. You also can jump right to the information you need as a meeting discussion changes.

• If you often handle research projects in which you bring together information from a variety of sources, OneNote provides a great central storage location for statistics, citations, and useful documents.

• If you like to brainstorm or capture ideas about a topic over time, OneNote helps you keep that information together so that the big picture comes together. You can even capture your ideas as an audio recording so that you’re not slowed down by your typing skills.

• If you’re a student and need to keep together notes and information for each class, OneNote enables you to collect all the notes and schedule information that you need to stay prepared.

• If you need to use your notes on multiple computers or share them with other users, OneNote enables you to place a notebook on a shared network location or even a USB thumb drive. In this way, OneNote gives you the opportunity to take your work with you or keep others involved.