Use Microsoft One Note

We’ve all had call at some point to take down notes, and often this is done in a bit of a rush on the nearest piece of paper to hand. Trying to read the note later when it has been hastily scribbled on the back of a bus ticket, or even from a small notepad, can sometimes be frustrating.

If you’re involved in a group, project or academic studies, cross-referencing notes to make sure you don’t miss anything important is a logistical challenge of its own.

Well, help may be at hand from Microsoft One Note. In this article we’ll explain what it does and how it works. One Note is part of the Home and Student version of Office 2007).

With One Note you can type notes, scan paper copies of documents or handwritten notes and store links to web pages, images and video clips, adding annotations if needed. People with tablet PCs (a type of laptop with a touch-sensitive screen) can also scribble notes on the screen so they can be stored.
Best of all, all the notes and other information for a project is gathered in one place, making it simple to cross-reference and find what you’re looking for.

Getting started
People who don’t have the Home and Student version of Office but want to test out the software can download Microsoft’s 60-day free trial at here.

The focus for all activity using One Note is the Notepad, which is comprised of sections that sit along the top of your screen as tabs. You can add as many tabs as you like and each one holds blank pages where you can type notes or paste information, video, audio clips, spreadsheets, to-do lists and images in the same way you would in a word processor.

Predefined tabs include Personal Information, which lets you store website account details. To keep this safe, the program lets you protect this information with a password.

To do this, click on the File menu on the toolbar and then the ‘Password Protect this Section’ option. This will bring up a menu on the right hand side of the screen. Click the Set Password button to display a pop-up box where you enter a password. Once you have done this, you will be asked for the password every time you open the password protected tab. It is important to note that if you lose or forget your password then you might have a problem as One Note does not give any options to retrieve it.