Drawing free-form with a pen or highlighter
Drawing free-form with a pen or highlighter presents an opportunity to exercise your creativity. You can draw free-form to illustrate concepts and ideas. To draw free-form, select the pen or highlighter that you want to use and then drag your pen device, finger, or mouse on the page. After you finish drawing, you must inform OneNote 2013 that you want to resume typing notes.
The difference between pens and highlighters is that lines you draw with a highlighter are transparent. You can drag a highlighter across text to call attention to it, for example.
Draw free-form with a pen or highlighter
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On the ribbon, click the Draw tab.
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In the Pens gallery, in the Favorite Pens list, select a pen or highlighter.
This list contains the pens you use most often as well as custom pens or highlighters.
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Drag with a pen device, mouse, or your finger on the page. To draw using your finger, you must first click Draw With Touch.
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In the Pens gallery, click the More button to view additional pen and highlighter choices.
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In the Built-In Pens list, select a pen.
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Drag on the page with this pen.
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When you finish drawing, press Esc or click Type to resume typing notes.
See Also
To learn how to convert a handwritten note to text, read ”Handwriting notes and converting them to text”.
Caution
You can’t draw if OneNote is in Create Handwriting Only mode. To see which mode OneNote is in, open the Pens gallery, select Pen Mode, and then notice which option is selected on the Pen Mode menu. To be able to draw, Create Both Handwriting And Drawings mode or Creating Drawings Only mode must be selected.