You can drag one note container into another to combine the containers and merge their contents. You might do this to combine notes on a single topic, to add annotations to a picture or a drawing, to create a list or an outline, or to add items to a table.

To merge containers, click the Move handle at the top of the first container to select the container’s contents. Hold down the Shift key, and then drag the container to the container you want to combine it with. OneNote highlights the note as you drag it and then displays the borders of the combined container when the notes are merged.

One of the most effective uses of OneNote is to create outlines for reports, research papers, presentations, and other types of documents. To create an outline (or another type of hierarchical list), add a first-level heading, press Enter to start a new paragraph, and press Tab to indent items under higher-level entries as you complete the outline. (Press Shift+Tab to move back to the next higher level.) If you number the first item (and the option for OneNote to automatically number items in a list is enabled, which is the default setting), OneNote identifies different levels of entries as you work through the outline.

To view an outline at different levels of detail, you can collapse and expand paragraphs. Move the pointer to the left of a paragraph with subheadings under it. You’ll see the pointer appear as a four-headed arrow, and OneNote displays a small, similar-looking button next to the item. Double-click the button to collapse or expand the items in the paragraph.

You can also use key combinations to work with the paragraphs in an outline. The following table summarizes these keystrokes.

The background color of a OneNote page is white by default. You can set the background to a different color by using the Page Color option on the View menu. You can also use an image as a background.

To set an image as a background, place the image along the top or in the upper-left corner of the page. Also, be sure the image is not placed within a note container. (To remove an image from a note container, select the picture, press Ctrl+X—or choose Cut in the Clipboard group on the Home tab—and then paste the image on the page.)

After you insert the image you want to use, right-click the image and choose Set Picture As Background.

To remove this designation from the image, right-click and clear the Set Picture As Background option. You can then delete the image from the page.

OneNote comes with a number of page templates. You can review these templates, which are organized under five default headings (Academic, Blank, Business, Decorative, and Planners), by clicking the down arrow beside New Page in the page tabs bar and then clicking Page Templates. OneNote displays the Templates pane.

The first step in creating your own page template is to set up the page with the text, images, or other elements you want to work with. If you examine a few of the built-in templates, you can see the types of elements they contain. For example, the Project Overview template, which is included in the Business category, has placeholders for information such as the project name, the project goals and team members, and the schedule.

When the page is ready, open the Templates pane and then click Save Current Page As A Template at the bottom of the pane. In the Save As Template dialog box, type a name for the template. If you want to use this template as the basis for new pages in the current section, select the option to set the page as the default template.

When you save your own page template, OneNote creates a new category, called My Templates, and displays the templates in this group at the top of the Templates pane.

Among the notebook settings and properties you can configure are a notebook’s display name, the color of the icon it displays in the Navigation bar, its location, and whether the notebook is shared. On the Info page in Backstage view, you can view the current settings for a notebook and update settings and properties when you need to. The Info page lists each open notebook under the heading Notebook Information. The information includes the notebook’s display name, its location, and (for shared notebooks) its status. To manage a notebook’s settings and properties, you use the Settings button or the links OneNote provides. (The links let you perform some of the same operations available through the Settings button.)

Click the Settings button, and you’ll see several items—Share, Close, and Properties for notebooks stored on your computer, and Invite People, Sync, Close, and Properties for notebooks that are shared on the web or on a network.

If you select the Share option for a local notebook, OneNote switches to the Share page in Backstage view. There you can choose to share the notebook on the web in a Windows Live SkyDrive folder or on a location on your network. If you choose Web under Share On, you then need to sign in to SkyDrive (or sign up for this service if you are a new user).

To share a notebook on a network, click Network and then select one of the recent locations that OneNote lists, type a location in the text box under Network Location, or click Browse and select a network share in the Select Folder dialog box.

You can close a notebook by clicking Close on the Settings menu. When you choose this command, OneNote returns to the page you were working on in the current notebook. If you close the current notebook, OneNote displays the notebook that appears at the top of the Navigation bar.

The Properties command opens the Notebook Properties dialog box. The first two options in this dialog box let you change a notebook’s display name and the color of the icon associated with the notebook. Click Change Location to open a dialog box, named Choose A Sync Location For This Remote Notebook, that you can use to specify a new location for the notebook.

Another operation you can perform in the Notebook Properties dialog box is to convert a notebook so that it uses the OneNote 2007 or the OneNote 2010 file format. If you need to share a notebook with someone who uses an earlier version of OneNote, or you want to be able to open a notebook on a computer on which an earlier version of the program is installed, you can use the Convert To 2007 button to save that notebook in the compatible file format. If you convert a notebook to the 2007 format, you can’t use all of the features available in OneNote 2010, and some of elements of the notebook will be affected. For example, the math equation feature in OneNote 2010 is not available in the 2007 format. You also cannot use linked notes, and subpages cannot be collapsed under their parent page in the page tabs bar. In addition, the content of a notebook’s recycle bin are cleared during conversion.

If you want to store a notebook on Windows Live SkyDrive (discussed in Creating a Notebook on Windows Live SkyDrive later in this chapter), you need to use the OneNote 2010 format.

Notebooks you have worked with recently (and that you recently closed) are listed in the Recently Closed Notebooks area on the Open page in Backstage view. You can open a notebook by double-clicking the notebook’s name.

Notebooks are arranged with the most recently closed notebook first in the list. To move a notebook to the top of the list so that you can find it and open it more quickly, click the pushpin icon. OneNote groups notebooks that you pin in their own group above the other recently closed notebooks.

Windows Live SkyDrive is part of the services Microsoft provides through Windows Live. SkyDrive provides free online storage (up to 25 gigabytes) for documents and photos. You can create personal folders on SkyDrive that only you have access to or public folders that you invite others to share.

SkyDrive also lets you create and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents, including OneNote 2010 notebooks, by using Office Web Apps, which are online versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and OneNote. Storing a notebook in a SkyDrive folder is a good plan when you want to have access to it from any computer or you want to share the notebook.

If you have a Windows Live ID (a Hotmail or Live.com e-mail account, for example), you have access to SkyDrive. OneNote also provides a link you can use to sign up for SkyDrive if you want to store a notebook on the web.

To begin, click File, New, and then select Web under Store Notebook On. Type a name for the notebook, and then, under Web Location, click Sign In (assuming you have a Windows Live ID).

In the dialog box that appears, type your user name and password and click Sign In. OneNote contacts the server that hosts Windows Live SkyDrive and then displays a list of personal and shared folders. You can create a new shared folder at this point or select one of the folders already defined. Use the Refresh Folder List button to see any updates you make to the group of folders.

Click Create Notebook. After OneNote creates the notebook in the SkyDrive folder, it displays a message box that informs you the notebook is available to anyone who has permissions to access the SkyDrive folder you designated. The message box also prompts you to send a link via e-mail to people you want to invite to share the notebook.

Storing a notebook on a network location lets you share the notebook with other people in your organization, with your workgroup, with family members—anyone who has permission that provides access to the location you select. Network locations include Microsoft SharePoint sites, so if you are using SharePoint to collaborate with others on a project, adding OneNote notebooks to document libraries on your team site can be an excellent tool for storing notes and compiling and tracking project information.

The My Computer option in the Store Notebook On list creates a notebook in the default location on your computer. Unless you change the default notebook location in the OneNote Options dialog box, this location is C:UsersUsernameDocumentsOneNote Notebooks (on Windows Vista or Windows 7). If you want to store the notebook you are creating in a different folder, click the Browse button and then use the Select Folder dialog box to designate the folder.

In the following sections, you’ll learn more about options for personalizing OneNote that are included in the OneNote Options dialog box.

Configuring Display Settings

A list of nine options appears on the Display page.

The following six options are selected by default:

• Place OneNote Icon In The Notification Area Of The Taskbar You can click this icon to create a side note (which you’ll learn more about in “Use OneNote Notebook Organization Tools” in Chapter 3), or right-click the icon and select from a menu of options, as shown.

  

  Click OneNote Icon Defaults to change the action that occurs when you click the icon, which is to open a new side note by default. Other options you can choose from are to open OneNote, start an audio recording, or create a screen clipping.

• Page Tabs Appear On The Left Clear this option to display the page tabs at the right side of the OneNote window.

• Show The Floating New Page Button Near Page Tabs Clear this option to hide the floating New Page button.

• Navigation Bar Appears On The Left Clear this setting to display the Navigation bar on the right.

• Show Note Containers On Pages Clear this option to hide note containers when you select a note.

• Disable Screen Clipping Notifications One of the elements you can add to a notebook is a clipping from a window open on your screen. You might create a screen clipping to add an image from a website to a notebook page, or to include a section of a Microsoft Word document or a drawing in Microsoft Visio. If you want OneNote to display a notification that describes the steps you follow to create a screen clipping, clear this option.

You can also set three other options on the Display page:

• Create All New Pages With Rule Lines For more information about working with rule lines on pages, see Setting Page Properties later in this chapter.

• Dock New Side Note Windows To The Side Of The Desktop By default, the side note window is a floating window. Select this option to dock the side note window to the desktop.

• Vertical Scroll Bar Appears On The Left The vertical scroll bar you use to move up and down the current page appears on the right side of the page by default. Select this option to display it on the left.

Specifying Proofing Settings

The Proofing page in the OneNote options dialog box is divided into three areas. In the first of these, click the AutoCorrect Options button to open the AutoCorrect dialog box. In OneNote 2010, the AutoCorrect dialog box has two tabs: AutoCorrect and Math AutoCorrect. Use the AutoCorrect tab to specify whether OneNote should automatically correct two initial capital letters, for example, or always capitalize the names of days. You can also add to the built-in list of misspelled words and character combinations that OneNote replaces automatically with the correct spelling or a corresponding symbol.

Click the Exceptions button to open a dialog box in which you can define combinations of two capital letters that OneNote won’t correct (IDs is defined as an exception by default) as well as abbreviations that end in a period (such as Blvd.), after which OneNote won’t capitalize the next character.

On the Math AutoCorrect tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box, you can define character combinations that you type to produce mathematical symbols in equations. For example, if you type the character sequence eq (for “not equal”) within the field for an equation, OneNote inserts the symbol ≠.

In the other areas on the Proofing page, you can set options for how all Office programs correct spelling and whether OneNote checks spelling as you type and whether it hides spelling errors.

The Research command and the Translate command appear on the OneNote ribbon’s Review tab. Click Research to open the Research pane (which is available also in other Office applications). The Research pane provides a search box you can use to find information in reference books, via research sites such as Bing, and on business and financial websites. You can add to the sources OneNote uses, remove or update these sources, and set parental controls (if necessary) in the Research Options dialog box, which OneNote displays when you click the Research Options link at the bottom of the Research pane.

When you click Translate, Choose Translation Language, OneNote displays the Translation Language Options dialog box. Use this dialog box to select the language OneNote and other Office applications use when you run the mini translator to translate text.

The Page Setup group on the View tab includes four commands you can use to set page properties:

In the Views group on the OneNote ribbon’s View tab, you can switch from Normal view to Full Page view. In Full Page view, OneNote does not display the Navigation bar or the page tabs bar. You still see the tab names across the top of the ribbon, but OneNote collapses the ribbon when you first switch to Full Page view. To expose the ribbon, click the Expand The Ribbon button (the heart-shaped icon) near the end of the ribbon on the right.

The Dock To Desktop command anchors the OneNote window to the desktop, along the right side of the screen by default. You can drag the docked window to the left side or the top of the screen. When you choose Dock To Desktop, you also enable linked notes, which is indicated by the linked-chain icon OneNote displays in the top-left corner of the window. Click Stop Taking Linked Notes to turn off this feature, or click Linked Notes Options to open the area of the OneNote Options dialog box where you set options for using the feature.