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10 Tips and Tricks That Will Make You a OneNote Ninja

2 minute read

OneNote Yellow

Here’s a bold yet true declaration: OneNote is the most versatile tool in Office 365. Whether you’re a busy parent making a shopping list, a software developer providing notes to a project manager, or a sixth-grade teacher assigning a collaborative class project, OneNote can make your life easier.

We rounded up ten of our favorite OneNote tips that will make you a OneNote ninja in no time!

1. Pull Text Out of Images in OneNote

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The Copy Text from Picture feature in OneNote 2013/2016 allows you to pull the text out from an image onto your clipboard, so you can paste and use the text anywhere.

2. Make and Share Shopping Lists in OneNote

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If you need to get more organized with your shopping lists, OneNote can help. It offers a way to create a shared shopping list using to do tags that makes keeping track of your necessary items easy, even when you’re sharing the responsibility among multiple people.

3. Capture Audio and Video With OneNote

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Did you know you can record audio and video with OneNote–as in, you don’t have to use an external tool and then embed the file into your OneNote page? (Although, of course, you can do that if that is your preference.) The video above will demonstrate how to create both an audio recording and a video recording right from OneNote 2013/2016.

4. Easily Embed an Excel Spreadsheet in OneNote

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OneNote allows you to insert all kinds of information into notebooks, including other Office files. Adding an Excel spreadsheet to your OneNote page is a great way to create a copy of your Excel data to view in OneNote, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between applications.

5. Use OneNote to Take Awesome Meeting Notes

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We’ve already looked at OneNote as a useful tool for creating to-do lists (and shopping lists) and working with other kinds of files. This video tip centers around another way to use OneNote to improve an unavoidable corporate task: meeting minutes.

6. Email Your OneNote Notes Page With One Click

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OneNote makes sharing easy–and not just sharing via OneDrive. Integrated right into the OneNote ribbon is the Email Page button, which instantly creates an email with your notes in the body. As you’ll see in the video above, if you have any associated details like attachments or meeting attendees, OneNote ensures that your email captures those details too.

7. Take Screenshots With OneNote

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OneNote 2013/2016 is the Swiss Army knife of note-taking, able to capture all different types of information and add it to a page. OneNote is not only able to handle images with ease, it can also actually take screenshots or screen clippings to insert into your notes.

8. Link in OneNote: Three Ways

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OneNote 2013/2016 provides multiple ways to add links to to your notebook pages, so you can link to the web, other files, and even other locations in a OneNote notebook. Take a look at the video above to see a demonstration of linking to the web, or follow the link in the heading to see two additional linking methods.

9. Change the Default Font Type and Size in OneNote

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We always recommend changing the default settings of any Office application to your preferences, which can save a lot of time (and annoyance!). In the video above, you’ll see a quick demo of changing the font settings for OneNote 2013/2016.

10. Password-Protect OneNote Sections

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In OneNote 2013/2016, you’re able to password-protect individual sections, so if you’re sharing with colleagues, family members, or students, only those with the set password will be able to access the section.

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