12 Fantastic OneNote Productivity Tips That Work in 2025

As a recent convert to the awesomeness that is Microsoft's OneNote, I'm sharing some top OneNote productivity tips that actually work!

By Tim TrottWindows Tips and Tricks • July 7, 2013
1,070 words, estimated reading time 4 minutes.
12 Fantastic OneNote Productivity Tips That Work in 2025

As a recent convert to the awesomeness of Microsoft's OneNote, I wanted to share some of OneNote's top productivity tips that work!

OneNote is a productivity tool from Microsoft and is part of the Office Suite. It allows free-form information gathering, thought gathering and organisation. OneNote is designed to replace the traditional notepad and folder filing systems, replacing the notepad with Pages, folder dividers as Sections and lever arch folders as Notebooks.

Here is a selection of productivity tips for OneNote for you to get the most out of the hidden gem in the Microsoft Office suite.

Capture Screenshots with Ease

OneNote lets you capture screenshots or clippings using the Windows Key and Shift and S (Win + Shift + S). This allows you to capture a portion of the screen or the entire screen, which you can easily insert to note, save to disk or copy to the clipboard.

Bonus Tip: You can drag and drop images and text from most applications directly into OneNote without even using the copy and paste commands.

OneNote Productivity Tips
OneNote Productivity Tips

Convert Images to Text with OCR

OneNote has a nifty feature that uses optical character recognition (OCR) to convert text in images to searchable text or even new notes. You can do this by simply right-clicking on an image previously inserted into OneNote.

OCR in OneNote
OCR in OneNote

Annotate Images with Ink

You can easily annotate images attached to notes using "ink", which comes in various marker pens and highlighters. The ink is not stored on the image, so the original image is unmodified.

Bonus Tip: If you have a touch screen and stylus, you can convert handwritten notes using ink to text using the "Ink to Text" command in the Draw toolbar. The handwriting recognition feature of OneNote was pretty good, and I could decipher my scrawlings with minimal errors.

Using Ink in OneNote
Using Ink in OneNote

Create Lists

OneNote allows you to easily create lists of different kinds - bullet points, numerical lists, to-do lists, project lists and more. Creating a to-do list is as easy as typing in the list items, clicking To Do from the tags list, or pressing Ctrl + 1. You can also flag items as important, such as an idea, reminder, book or website to read, and many more.

Lists in OneNote
Lists in OneNote

Highlight Important Text

Although not a feature unique to OneNote, highlighting text is a handy tool for making important sections stand out. For example, you can highlight points that need clarification later, such as calls to action, an important statement, and so on. You can do this by selecting the text and pressing Ctrl + 4 or Ctrl + 5 for yellow and green highlights. You can configure the shortcuts and colours in the application.

Highlighting Text in OneNote
Highlighting Text in OneNote

Creating Tables in OneNote

OneNote probably has the easiest method for creating tables I've seen in a long white. To create a table, create your columns by typing in headings and pressing the tab key after each one. When you're done entering columns, hit enter to start entering rows. Easy as pie!

Bonus Tip: You can sort and reorder rows by dragging them using the icon to the left of the row when the mouse hovers over it.

Creating Tables in OneNote
Creating Tables in OneNote

Take Your Notes with you wherever you go

OneNote seamlessly integrates with Microsoft SkyDrive allowing you to sync notes between the desktop app, Android app or iPhone app and the OneNote web application.

Using a mobile app (or laptop/desktop with a camera or webcam installed), you can also use the camera to insert photographs, video or audio recordings directly. You can convert a photographed document to text using the OneNote OCR feature and create a "cam scanner" tool.

OneNote on Google Play Store
OneNote on Google Play Store

Use Page Templates to Speed Things Up

Unlike other applications in the Office suite, it isn't obvious where templates are stored in OneNote, but once you know where page templates are located, using them for productivity should become a habit.

When creating a new page, a little downward arrow creates a drop-down menu when clicked. From this, you can select "Page Templates", from which you can select one of the many predefined page templates, including business meeting notes, lecture notes with study questions, various to-do lists and many style pages. OneNote also maintains a list of the most recently used templates for quick access in the future.

Page Templates in OneNote
Page Templates in OneNote

OneNote Window Docking

OneNote has a feature whereby you can dock the window to the edge of the screen, and other applications know the new limits of the screen when maximising them. This means that OneNote can act as a "global sidebar".

This feature can be activated using the two little icons on the top left of the title bar. The left icon sets OneNote to docking mode, and the right-hand side icon sets it to fullscreen mode. Clicking on the icon again will reset the window to normal mode.

OneNote Window Docking
OneNote Window Docking

Record Meeting Audio

With a microphone attached, you can record audio from meetings or lectures and have OneNote playback specific audio parts based on when you write notes. This is especially useful if something important or complex is said; you can write a note saying, "Review this later," and OneNote will link this note to the correct point on the audio recording. Just make sure you have a good microphone and that there isn't much background noise, or you may be unable to hear the recording. You can also add annotations during playback, which will be linked to the recording time.

You can play back a portion of the audio related to the annotation by clicking on the play symbol that appears to the left of the note. The recording will jump straight to the point when you make the note.

OneNote Audio Recordings
OneNote Audio Recordings

Password Protect Important Information

OneNote allows you to password-protect Sections to prevent unauthorised access. You can do this by right-clicking on the section tab and clicking "Password Protect this Section". Unfortunately, when writing this, the Android mobile app cannot open password-protected sections.

OneNote Password Protection
OneNote Password Protection

Linking OneNote and Office Together

OneNote lets you link and embed content from other Office applications and sync email and to-do items in Outlook. You can do this by using the "Send to OneNote" option. You can then choose whether to insert the item as a new section or page or embed it in an existing item.

OneNote Email Syncing
OneNote Email Syncing

Do you use OneNote at home or work? Do you have any other productivity tips to share? Please let us know!

Related ArticlesThese articles may also be of interest to you

CommentsShare your thoughts in the comments below

My website and its content are free to use without the clutter of adverts, popups, marketing messages or anything else like that. If you enjoyed reading this article, or it helped you in some way, all I ask in return is you leave a comment below or share this page with your friends. Thank you.

This post has 4 comments. Why not join the discussion!

New comments for this post are currently closed.