Sharing a notebook on Windows Live SkyDrive requires four steps (assuming that you have a Windows Live ID, which you need to log on to Windows Live and gain access to Windows Live SkyDrive).

In most cases, you won’t need to change the setting under Select Notebook, but you can select a notebook from this list if you aren’t sharing the current notebook. Select Web under Share On, and then click Sign In to log on to SkyDrive. OneNote then displays the folders already defined on the SkyDrive that you logged on to. Select a folder under Shared Folders, or click New Shared Folder to define a folder specifically for this notebook. If you click New Shared Folder, the Windows Live SkyDrive sign-in page opens in your browser. Log on with your Windows Live ID, and then you’ll see the Create A Folder page. After typing a name for the folder, click Change to set up the folder so that the users you designate have access to it. You can sign out of Windows Live at this point, and return to OneNote.

On the Share page in Backstage view, click Refresh to see the updated list of folders. Select the folder you want to use, and then click Share Notebook to complete the process. If you want to send a link about the notebook to another user, click E-Mail A Link in the message box OneNote displays.

You follow essentially the same set of steps to place a notebook on a SharePoint site, where anyone who has access to the document library in which you save the notebook can open it and use it.

You need to know the address (URL) for the site and the name of the document library in which you want to store the notebook. You can type this information in the Location box when you share the notebook or use the Select Folder dialog box to navigate to the site.

You will probably need to enter the credentials required to log on to the SharePoint site. If you include the root site address in the Network Location box but do not include the name of a valid document library in the path, OneNote opens the Select Folder dialog box after you click Browse. You can use the dialog box to select the folder (library) in which to store the notebook.

OneNote displays a message box after you click Share Notebook. You can use this message box to send a link to the notebook to other users via e-mail.

When you want to share a notebook on a network drive, you first need to know the path to the location in which you want to locate the notebook. You must have permissions to access this site (at a level that grants you permission to store files in that location). Select Network under Share On, type the path in the Network Location box (or use the Browse button to select the location from the Select Folder dialog box). You can also select any of the recent locations that OneNote displays. Click Share Notebook to complete the process, and then use the message box that OneNote displays to send a link to the notebook to the people you want to share the notebook with.

Keep in mind that notifying people of a notebook’s location—inviting them to share the notebook—doesn’t automatically grant the recipients access to the network location in which you saved the notebook. Permissions to network locations are administered separately and must be updated if necessary to grant access to people who need to work with the notebook.

Shared notebooks are identified in the Navigation bar by a Sync Status icon. The icon displays a symbol to indicate the status of synchronization. For example, you’ll see a check mark when a notebook is up to date. You’ll see a warning exclamation mark when OneNote has encountered problems with the synchronization process (for example, if some sections are not available or in a location that is not accessible.) The icon shows arrows spinning in a circle when a notebook is being synchronized.

When you share a notebook on the web, on a SharePoint site, or in a network location, OneNote keeps a local copy of the shared notebook, which lets you work with the most up-to-date copy (the most recently synchronized version) when you are offline and away from the network. OneNote synchronizes changes to shared notebooks (made by you or by people with whom you share the notebook) when you connect to the network or the Internet (you might need to enter a user name and password), which makes the local copy and the shared copy the same.

To be sure that a shared notebook is current—that all the most recent changes are available to you to review—you can use the synchronization feature in OneNote. You can begin synchronization in a number of ways. You can right-click a notebook in the Navigation bar and click Sync This Notebook Now. You can also display the Info page in Backstage view, click Settings for the notebook you want to synchronize, and then click Sync. To start synchronizing a notebook by using the keyboard, select a section of the notebook in the Navigation bar and then press Shift+F9. You can also right-click a notebook, click Notebook Sync Status, select the notebook in the Shared Notebook Synchronization dialog box, and then click Sync Selected Notebook.

If you want to control when synchronization occurs (instead of having OneNote synchronize changes automatically), select the option Work Offline—Sync Only When I Click “Sync Now” at the top of the Shared Notebook Synchronization dialog box.

At the end of the process you follow to share a notebook in OneNote, you see a message box that informs you that anyone who has permission to access the location you specified (a network location or a Windows Live SkyDrive folder) can now work with the notebook. The message box also provides a command button you can use to send an e-mail message with a link to the notebook’s location to people you want to share the notebook with.

Click the E-Mail A Link button, and OneNote opens a message window in Outlook, complete with a subject line (which reads Invitation to OneNote Notebook: <name of notebook>) and a hyperlink that recipients can use to open the notebook in OneNote.

Of course, click No, Thanks in the message box if you need to perform other tasks before you notify other people where the notebook is located or aren’t planning to share the notebook at all.

If you want to invite other people to share a notebook later—as an independent step instead of as a step in the process you follow to create or share a notebook—you can use the E-Mail Others About The Notebook link on the Share page in Backstage view. You can also click Invite People To This Notebook when you are working on the Info page, which takes you to the Share page.

Clicking the E-Mail Others About The Notebook link opens an Outlook message window with a link to the notebook. If you are working with a notebook you have stored in a Windows Live SkyDrive folder, the message will contain two links, one that opens the notebook in OneNote and the second that opens the notebook from Windows Live SkyDrive using a web browser.

By using the E-Mail Page command in the E-Mail group on the Share tab (or in the Outlook group on the Home tab), you can send a OneNote page via e-mail to recipients you designate.

When you use the E-Mail Page command, OneNote adds the contents of the page, including the page title and the date and time stamp, to a message window in Outlook. OneNote inserts the page’s name in the message window’s Subject line. You need to add addresses for recipients, update the Subject line (if necessary), and then send the message. You can also edit the message’s body as necessary.

You can find other options for sharing the content of a notebook on the Send page in Backstage view.

This page lists three options for the format in which you can send a notebook page to recipients. The Send page also includes commands you can use to send a page to a Microsoft Word document (which you could distribute as an attachment) or to a blog post that you publish through Word:

The two other options on the Send page let you work with the content of a OneNote page in Word, either as a Word document or as the content of a blog post you create in Word. The option Send To Word inserts the content of a page in a Microsoft Word document. You can save the document to keep a record of the page, distribute the page via e-mail in Word format, or include the page in a longer document you are creating in Word. Choose the Send To Blog option to add the page’s content to a document in Word and display the Blog Post tab on the Word ribbon. You can then publish the page—as it comes in from OneNote or after making edits and additions—to a blog by using the tools provided by Word.

The OneNote Options dialog box includes several settings for how OneNote works with e-mail. You’ll find these settings on the Advanced page of the dialog box, in the area labeled E-Mail Sent From OneNote.

By default, OneNote inserts a page’s content into the body of an e-mail message when you select E-Mail A Page (from the Outlook group on the Home tab or in the E-Mail group on the Share tab). Select the option Attach A Copy Of The Original Notes As A OneNote File if you want to also include the page as an attachment in the .one file format. If you select this option, recipients of the message can save the attachment and add the page to notebooks of their own.

The second option in this area, Attach Embedded Files To The E-Mail Message As Separate Files, is selected by default. With this setting, any files you have added to a page (by using the Attach File command on the Insert tab, for example) are included in the e-mail message as a separate attachment, and the body of the e-mail message displays the file’s name as a placeholder.

If you clear this option, the embedded file is stripped from the page and not included as an attachment.

When you send a OneNote page via e-mail, OneNote by default adds a signature that reads “Created with Microsoft OneNote 2010 / One place for all your notes and information.” You can change the signature that OneNote includes (or clear the option to include no signature at all). Change the text for the signature OneNote adds, or clear the option Add The Following Signature To E-Mail Messages And Web Pages Created In OneNote.

When you open a shared notebook, notes added by other users since the last time you opened the notebook are highlighted. In addition, in the page tabs bar, OneNote displays the names of pages with unread notes in bold. You can use the commands in the Unread group on the Share tab to navigate to pages that contain unread notes and to mark notes as read or unread.

To move to the next page in a notebook with notes you haven’t read, go to the Share tab and click the Next Unread button. Using the Mark As Read menu, you can do the following to indicate you’ve read notes entered by others since the last time you opened a notebook:

The Recent Edits menu, in the Shared Notebooks group on the Share tab, lets you choose an option for seeing the edits made to a notebook over a specific period of time. You can choose Today, for example, to see the most recent changes, or Since Yesterday to review any additions or changes made since the day before. You can also choose a period of time such as the last seven days or a span as long as the past six months. Choose the option All Pages Sorted By Date to see a list of pages organized by time period.

When you choose an option to view recent edits, OneNote opens that Search Results pane and lists sections and pages that match the option you selected.

In the Search Results pane, the search scope is set to Search This Notebook. You can choose an alternative from the search scope list to search only the current section, search the current section group, or search all open notebooks. To switch to a different search scope by using the keyboard, press Ctrl+E, Tab, Space.

Use the Sort button at the right of the Sort By list to change the order from ascending to descending. Choosing the Recent Edits command specifies that the Search Results pane is sorted by date modified. With the Search Results pane open, however, you can use the Sort By list to see results by section, title, and author, as well.

Another use of the Search Results pane is to let you find notes added or changed by a specific author. Click Find By Author in the Shared Notebook group to display the Search Results pane with the option Sort By Author selected in the list of sorting options.

You can expand and collapse the entries for a particular author by using the arrow to the left of an author’s name. Click an entry in the list to jump to that page. Use the Sort button to sort the entries in ascending or descending order.

In a shared notebook, OneNote identifies the person who inserted or edited a note by displaying that person’s initials next to the note. You can see more details—the person’s full name and the last modified date and time—by pointing to the initials to reveal a ScreenTip.

If you want to see the page without the identifying initials, click Hide Authors in the Shared Notebook group on the Share tab. To reveal the initials again, click Hide Authors a second time. OneNote doesn’t display initials next to the notes or other content that you add yourself.