All About Microsoft’s OneNote

Summary: Microsoft’s OneNote is one of the most underutilized programs out there. Dave Hodgdon and Steve Ripper from Portsmouth Computer Group discuss the applications of OneNote and how it compares and contrasts to a word processor. Listen or read more to find out about Microsoft’s OneNote.

Mike:  Hi, it’s Tech Tuesday. We know it’s Tuesday, but it’s Tech Tuesday, which casts a whole different viewpoint on what Tuesday’s because I love to have the guys in from PCGiT, Portsmouth Computer Group, a world class IT service and customer service with a convenient office in Portsmouth. Check out their website pcgit.com. Dave and Steve are in the studio with us this morning, all part of Tech Tuesday. I mean Tuesday is a whole different thing, Dave, when it’s Tech Tuesday.

Dave: It’s great to just see us on Tech Tuesday. It lights up your day.

Mike:  I love to see you guys. It lights up my day.

Steve: It just gets the day started. It gets the day with that LCD glow.

Mike:  I know, I know that. I’m all for it. I love it. Honestly and seriously, no pun intended, no comedy here, no jokes, I’ve learned a lot from you guys over the last few months. It’s been great.

Steve: You’ll forget it all in another month or two, but that’s okay.

Dave: We’re going to do a quiz soon.

Mike:  I am not good with pop quizzes. Oh, did I hate that when I came into school on that morning and the teacher said, “Pop quiz.” I said, “No.”

Dave: Not ready for that one.

Microsoft OneNote Basics

Mike:  All right, so today we’re going to talk a little bit about something called OneNote. All right Steve, what is OneNote. Is that a word processing program?

Steve: It is. So, what’s changed in word processing in like the last 25 years? Almost nothing, right? Word hasn’t changed, everybody uses Word, but OneNote is like a word processor only super, super amped. Like one that’s easier to use for people. If you think about when you went to school, whatever age you were you had notebooks, you flipped a page. You had notes. You might have a section here for biology, you might have had a section there for history, so why do we all stand in front of a word processor and scroll the big white page? There’s no way to organize anything.

So, word processors are for creating a document. I’ve got to send you a document, I’ve got to send you a legal document. But OneNote is a program so you can keep all your data. You can make tabs. Flip the page, do a new section, you can flip the page back if you want to add new data. It’s really great. It’s probably one of the newest, greatest innovations that Microsoft has done in their programs and no one uses it. No one uses it.

Mike:  This is a Microsoft product, that right?

Steve: Absolutely.

Dave: Oh yeah, as Steve just pointed out, it is one of the least used and . . .

Mike:  Why is . . . people just don’t know about it or what?

Dave: I think we’re old school. Once I started using it a few years ago, it’s just a great way to share tasks with my admin, it’s a great way to collaborate with people you’re working on certain content and as Steve said, the tabs are the key.

Mike:  So, are you saying that I should really get rid of my Smith Corona typewriter?

Dave: You’ve got to, either that or Word Perfect or DOS, you’ve got to do something.

Mike:  I’ve got to tell you, Dave, I was so excited when the first, I call them computer typewriters, came out where you actually could store so many characters in the typewriter. Remember how cool that was? This was before computers. You could put your whole resume or a document or a letter. It saves up to 100,000 or 10,000 characters. I said, “Wow, this is cool.” Then you press one button and it prints the whole thing out.

Dave: We should go back to that, huh?

Steve: We should.

Dave: It’s simple.

Mike:  I think we should go back to that.

Steve: But that’s the answer to your question. People get into the, it’s a rut, of like Word and Excel. That’s just what they use and they don’t think about what other ways could I use in terms of a word processor. I say, “OneNote.” They go, “What’s that? I use Word. We have all our Word docs.” It’s like, “Well, try this.”

How OneNote Complements Word Processing

Mike:  So, is this something you guys recommend to businesses to have?

Dave: Absolutely.

Mike:  I mean the OneNote as opposed to the regular word processing?

Dave: Well, you still need your word processing, but OneNote is a great way to collaborate. So, depending on what you’re doing with a particular person or a group, you’re sharing ideas that you’re putting information there together and you’re working on it together. I have found it very effective with my peer group that I work with. I find it very advantageous with my admin instead of just emailing, emailing. You kind of lose track of what’s going on. So, as Steve mentioned the tabs, you have your tabs for a specific task.

Mike:  What’s the real advantage of this? I’m trying to visualize the real advantage of this over another word processing.

Steve: So, think of it this way, Mike, if I sent you a Word document in an email. In that Word document, had maybe a couple of things about the radio show you’re going to do next Thursday and then maybe there’s also a section on catering for the show and maybe another section on where that radio show’s going to be. If I send you that Word document, how do you find the one section you want to read? It’s a pain. You have to scroll down or maybe use the find feature and then type in ‘lunch’ or ‘location’. Then it scrolls down cumbersomely through the Word doc.

If I sent you a OneNote of a notebook that had everything that I had already put together about what’s happening in that radio show next Thursday, you would just . . .

So, for those out listening, what does OneNote look like? It looks, on the screen, just like a notebook. It’s got tabs. It actually shows, it’s got pages of a notebook. So, if I sent you that, Mike, when you opened it up, there’d be a whole tab that said location and you could just click on that tab and it would flip right to there. In that location specter, I’d have all kinds of notes that said where you’ve got to go, why we’re doing it there in the gymnasium, there’s no heat, whatever.

You can flip. So it’s really way better for me to just show you that and have you operate within there for the data that you need as opposed to just hitting the scroll wheel in Word and trying to find, hopefully I bolded it and made it easier for you to find but those days are over.

Mike:  Trying to find it, yeah. Steve sent me 15 pages. I’m trying to find one little document.

Dave: I find it almost like a table of contents. It’s just easier to follow the tabs and it’s specifically to the main topic that you want to get to. Then if I want, Steve could send something to me, I could be on that tab and I could add content too. So, he says, “You need to do this.” I’m going to reply, it’s almost like a check off. So, you’re working together. It’s like the old piece of paper and emailing back and forth you lose track.

Steve: That’s the other part about OneNote. It’s designed, unlike Word, Word was designed back in the early 90s, OneNote’s been designed to actually go on your devices. So, if you think about that notebook thing I just explained, think about it on your iPad or your tablet. So, you already have a tablet in your lap and you can literally flip the pages.

Mike:  You’re just swiping.

Steve: Exactly. So, it makes more sense. Then it’s really designed for sharing. It wants to actually have me, I wouldn’t actually send you the OneNote, those days are kind of gone too. I would probably just share my OneNote to you so that you would click the link on whatever device you have, whether it’s your phone, whether it’s your tablet, whether it’s your iPad or your PC or your laptop, whatever it is. Then when you went into it, you could then read the sections I told you about and if you needed to make changes. “Hey, you have me coming in at 8. I need to come at 9.” You could just go in and edit that one section and everyone would be able to find your edits very easily.

Mike:  So, it looks the same though as a regular Microsoft Word program?

Steve: Inside each page, it’s a word processor. You can do everything within the page that you normally can, fonts, sizes, colors, changing it, spellcheck and everything else. But the actual look and feel of it, looks like a notebook. So, it’s more intuitive, there’s that word intuitive, where you can just flip with pages, as opposed to scrolling with your finger down. That’s really one of the biggest changes. They looked at a word processor and said, “What do we need to change it so that it goes on modern devices in the way modern people work.”

Mike:  Dave, how have you used the OneNote? In your experience?

Dave: One thing’s when people send me stuff, one of the tabs is money. So, when it comes to a budget and I need to approve it, I go to the last tab and I hope I can read it. But as I mentioned earlier with my admin, that we work together on certain stuff. I need you to order this, I need you to get these invitations out. So instead of emails going back and forth, we’re working on a list.

One of the big areas I use it, I’m part of this peer group and there’s 10 of us around the country. We are constantly sharing information and updating each other and challenging each other, so as we go during the course of the year, that content’s available to go back to. What we said last year. So, it works very well.

Mike:  Any final thoughts on OneNote?

Steve: It’s great for training too. If you wanted to put a document together that trains somebody on how to do something in your office, in OneNote you’re going to actually have the tabs, could be chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. So, you could go back to your employees and go, just like in school back in the day, “I need everyone to be up to chapter two by next Wednesday.” Everybody has a clear idea when they open up OneNote, from the tabs, what chapter, where they need to stop and where they need to start the week after that. So, it’s great for things like that as well.

Mike:  Interesting.

OneNote is Free and Part of Microsoft Suite

Dave: And it’s free. It’s part of your Microsoft Suite.

Mike:  Oh, it is?

Dave: So, whether you’re using your Microsoft Office or you’re on 365, OneNote is a component of that.

Mike:  So, you can just download it or update it or you have to get a disk for it, you have to buy it, or you say it’s free but . . .

Steve: So, it’s part of Office, the latest versions of Office. If you have the latest versions of Office, Office 2013, Office 2016, it’s part of it. It’s also, if you’re on Office 365, you have the web version of OneNote, so you just log into the page, there it is. Of course, there’s an app. Everything has an app. It has an app as well. So, on your iPhones, on your Android tablets, you can just go in and get the OneNote app.

Mike:  Sounds good.

Dave: Try it out. Put your Christmas list on it. Share it with your loved one, you’re going back and forth what you like.

Mike:  By the way I wanted to let you know, that Time is announcing their Person or Man or Woman of the Year today and the three of us are not on the final list.

Dave: I hope it’s not [crosstalk].

Mike:  I’m very disappointed. I thought you guys would definitely be. You’re at the top.

Steve: How is Time not aware of Tech Tuesday? I don’t understand that.

Mike:  I don’t know and I’m going to call the publishers of Time and let them have it. Thank you, Dave, thank you Steve. Pcgit.com, check it out and check out OneNote for great information gathering and sharing today. It’s all part of Tech Tuesday. Portsmouth Computer Group, great offices in Dover and in Portsmouth.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Steve.

Steve: Our pleasure.

Dave: Thanks Mike.

Mike:  Merry Christmas to you.

Steve: Merry Christmas Mike.

Mike:  I guess we’ll see you in the new year.

Dave: New year.

Steve: 2019.

Dave: We’ll come here Christmas and New Year’s. We’ll talk Tech Tuesday.

Mike:  I’ll just show you how to put the on switch on and I’ll show you how to [crosstalk]

Dave: I’m here by myself.

Mike:  That sounds good to me.