Microsoft OneNote

OneNote provides a large suite of utilities, perfect for gathering your multimedia notes. A great feature is optical character recognition, allowing you to transcribe editable text from an image. OneNote’s slogan is “The digital note-taking app for your devices.” 

With similar functionality to Evernote, OneNote and has improved dramatically in the last few years. You can access it from any device and save pictures, handwrite notes, scan documents, clip web pages, or type notes. 

Over the last decade or so, I've tried dozens of note-taking apps and strategies - from using plain text files or good old paper notebooks to powerful tools like Notability. It's the digital notebook that lets you take notes any way you want.

The first step to getting started with OneNote, naturally, is to go grab the free app at https://www.onenote.com/. OneNote is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. There's also an online version and a Windows 10 App version that's more touch-friendly than the desktop version and also simpler.

Generally, each note feels like a paper note. Click anywhere on your page and you can start typing, drag images and file attachments, insert multimedia, or add to-do-lists. The program offers remarkable flexibility, especially for users accustomed to using Microsoft Office as they can take advantage of the app’s ribbon-style toolbar.

The best feature in OneNote is its automatic syncing with Microsoft’s OneNote cloud-storage platform. This is great for serious business users as you can access your notes from anywhere, and from any web-enabled device.

If you use Microsoft Office, a major benefit for OneNote is that you probably already have it, and it the user experience is similar to tools you already use. It also integrates seamlessly with the Office apps – you can embed Excel tables, Word docs, etc. without any problems. The only issue is that it doesn’t work as well on non-Microsoft platforms. The functionality on macOS, iOS, and Android is limited.

OneNote is free and included with Office 365. Similar to Evernote, notes that are created with a business Office 365 account will remain with the business account if an employee leaves.

Further Reading

Handwriting to Text Apps

You can download Microsoft OneNote on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the Microsoft OneNote app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.