I love OneNote. There are just so many things you can use it for: recipes, shopping lists, meal ideas, checklists, contact information, blogs, research, call logs, receipts, procedures, drawings, audio/video recordings, mind-mapping, web clippings, screenshots, scanned documents, project management, gift ideas, etc. I found it rather challenging to come up with just 10 cool features to stay within the top ten theme. There just might be another list of 10 more cool features of OneNote in the near future. For now, I present to you my first top ten list of some of the coolest features of Microsoft OneNote.
- It's Now FREE on All Devices!
This is fantastic as it easily allows OneNote to dominate over its nearest competitor Evernote. Paired with the 15-30GB of free space you get with OneDrive, you have a solution that absolutely beats the pants off of Evernote's offerings.
- Onetastic for OneNote
FREE multi-purpose add-in for OneNote, created by one of the OneNote developers. Tons of macros. A couple of my favorite things is the ability to sort (notebooks, pages, and sections), and the OneCalendar tool.
Integration with Outlook
I love being able to email an entire page from a notebook to someone by simply clicking on one button. On the flip-side, I also love being able to click a single button in Outlook to copy an email into a notebook. Handy for things like copying an email you received from your mom with a recipe you want to save. You can also track details of your meetings you have scheduled in Outlook.
- Audio/Video Recording
This is probably one of those overlooked features, but it really is so cool and handy. Whenever I demonstrate this to someone, they kind of have an "aha!" moment. I like using it to record meetings. If you type notes during the recording, it auto-magically hyperlinks your text to the specific time in the recording. It is seriously more handy than you realize.
- Real-time Collaboration
Your notebook must be saved in either OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint for this feature. My department has its own OneNote notebook in SharePoint with all sorts of documentation, procedures, tips, tricks, etc. It's constantly updated by each of us, and we see edits from each other instantly. I also use this feature to collaborate on shopping lists and meal ideas with my wife. She can be at the store while I update the shopping list on her iPhone in realtime. I'll then see when she checks it off the list.
- The OneNote Engineering is Awesome
They made this music video. Be warned; it's catchy.
- Global Search
I have anywhere from 3 - 10 notebooks opened and can be in the middle of working in any one of them when all of a sudden I need to search for something. Pressing CTRL+E instantly brings your cursor to the top right of your screen and allows you to search for a word or phrase across ALL of your opened notebooks. You don't need to bother with navigating to the appropriate notebook first. This is a huge time saver. Pressing CTRL+F will limit the search to just the active page.
- OCR (Optical Character Recognition) from Images
This is a pretty great feature. OneNote is able to index text from most screenshots and photos that you add and make it searchable with CTRL+E or CTRL+F.
- Mobile App
The mobile app allows you to access all of your notebooks on-the-go, no matter if they are in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint. My wife and I use it this way most of the time when keeping our shopping lists and meal ideas updated. You'll have the ability to create new pages, create checklists, add photos or audio recordings, and more.
- Integration with Other Apps
One of my most favorite integrations OneNote has is with IFTTT (If this, then that). IFTTT has what it calls recipes. There are recipes to automate things like save any Facebook photo that you're tagged in into a OneNote notebook. Or, save photos you've liked on Instagram automatically into a notebook. Another good one is a recipe that turns OneNote into a make-shift RSS reader.