Microsoft Office OneNote is a useful program for creating short notes and organizing personal information, in other words, an electronic notebook developed by Microsoft and part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs.

The program can be installed on the:

• Android;
• Mac;
• Windows Phone;
• of ordinary PCs;
• a web version is available.

Today, there are two different branches of development and use of this program:

OneNote2016 and OneNote.

It is worth noting that these are two completely different programs, so they can be installed on a PC with the Windows10 operating system and work in parallel.

Let’s compare programs by such criteria as license and development.

1. OneNote 2003 – OneNote 2016 is licensed under a proprietary license. The development of this version has been stopped. Basic support was until October 2020, and extended support will be available until October 2025.
2. OneNote is licensed free of charge and is actively developing.

Although the current version is distributed under a free license, Office 365 subscribers have access to 5 additional features of the program. They include: “Stickers, Math, Dictate, Playback, and Search Assistant.

The application workspace is a plain white sheet. Here you can start working anywhere: enter text, draw, or even record audio comments. Sheets are organized into sections, and sections are organized into notebooks. Lists of sheets and sections have different arrangements. The former are to the right of the current sheet, and the latter are to the left.

Working with the program consists of certain steps.

Step one. Enter or write notes.

When you’re ready to get started and make your first recordings, follow these steps:

• click on the desired location on the page and start typing. You can do this anywhere on the sheet;
• If you need a title, click on the title field at the top of the page and enter the text. You can find them in the list of pages on the left;
• If your PC supports handwriting, select the Drawing tab. There, among the tools, select the pen you want and start drawing or typing directly on the screen.

Step two. Adding links.

The text that the user enters in this relationship is recognized as a link and automatically formatted. You can also manually add links to notes. To do this, you need:

• First, prepare a place for the link, i.e. enter either an image or text;
• on the Insert tab, select a link from the drop-down list and click on it;

• in the new window called “link”, in the “address” field, enter the desired URL and click OK.

Step three. Add files to notes.

The program can store all your data on a particular topic, including copies of relevant files and documents. To do this, you need:

• go to the page where you want to insert the file or document;
• in the “Insert” window, click on “Attach file”;
• in the new window titled “Selecting a file or set of files to insert”, select the items you want to save and click the “Insert” button.

Step four. Add images and videos.

It’s very simple:

• on any page, place the cursor where you want to insert the media file.
• On the Insert tab, click one of the buttons: “Screenshot, Image, or Online Video.

Step five. Insert a table.

Tables are a great tool for organizing and systematizing information.

Start drawing your table with a simple grid. And then:

• click the Table button on the Insert tab;
• Hover over the grid to select a table that fits your notes perfectly, and then click Insert Table;
• To quickly replace a table or a part of it, click on a cell, and then choose a command from the Table menu.

Step six. Adding pages.

The number of pages in the notebook is unlimited, so you can add as many pages as you need. To do this:

• in the notepad section, select the “add page” category;
• When you’re ready to use the new page, type a title for it, then press Enter.

So, OneNote notebooks never run out of paper, which is a big plus. It’s easy to structure and organize the information you record and the pages themselves, and to add sharing rights to individual records.