How to use OneNote Desktop App - Beginners Tutorial

hi there jamie here today at teachers  tech hope you're having a great day today   today i want to show you how to get started  with onenote more specifically i want to show   you how to use onenote for desktop because  there's a difference between the versions   that are currently out there you have one  note for windows 10 and then you have just   one note and that's the one i'm focusing on today  some of the features i really like about this one   is the ability to save your notebooks locally  so what i mean by this when you go ahead   and start a new notebook when you go to new  you can see you have the options right here   to save right on your pc so if security reasons  are an issue to you take a look at this one the   other thing i like that you can do is that you  can export your onenote so whether it be a page   a section or a whole notebook you can export them  and send it to someone and that person can just   open it up and do what they want with what you  have sent them so today on teachers tech i want   to show you how to get started with onenote kind  of the basics of starting your first notebook   setting it up right and then getting into  some note taking but this will be a series   of one note here for desktop so there'll be a  number of different videos that i'll put down   below in the description up in the card let's  get started with how to use onenote for desktop

so to start with i just want to mention that  everything in this video will be timestamps   so take a look below at the description then you  can jump to different parts of the video if you're   looking for something specifically now let's go  ahead and open onenote and i'm on windows 11 here   and i'm just going to go to my search you can see  one note right here but i'm going to type in one   note just to show you that i have two different  onenote apps on my computer i have one note for   windows 10 and one note this tutorial will be on  this one i do have other tutorials for onenote   for windows 10. so if you're using that i'll put  a link to that in the description up above in the   card and i go over a series on how to use it but  here i'm going to be looking at this one i do want   to mention that over this next year that microsoft  will be merging them into one version and they're   going to be taking parts from this windows 10 and  putting it into this onenote app so let's go ahead   and open up one note here and let's get started  with creating our first notebook and looking where   we can save it so before we get started creating  our notebooks and sections and pages i just want

to give you a little walk around onenote and if  you're familiar with microsoft products like word   or powerpoint or excel the experience will be very  similar up top for instance if i click on home   this is a tab underneath is the ribbon so if i'm  mentioning ribbon that's what i'm talking about   if i say go to the insert tab take a look at the  ribbon i'm under the insert ribbon you can change   if you don't want to be seeing this all the  time you have some quick ways to change this   if i just drop down here under the ribbon display  settings i could go to show tabs only so if i do   that the ribbon is gone now but if i click on for  an example draw the ribbon comes back if i click   off it goes away again if you want to turn this  back on if i right click up here notice that it   says collapse the ribbon if i uncheck this then  it's back on and i'll leave this on for today's   tutorial if you want to customize the ribbon and  i'm not going to get into that very much right now   but if you right click anywhere in the ribbon you  can go to customize here notice that we have claps   also here i'm going to click in under all this you  get all the onenote options right through here but   here's the customized ribbon if you wanted to  create any new groups and add any of these tools   but i'll talk about that in a later video now  another thing that you can do that maybe makes   things a little bit easier is use the quick access  toolbar so i'm going to drop down here again and   show quick access toolbar if i click on it this  just opened right here now i can put some tools in   there that i can get quick access to so if i drop  down right here i don't have any in it yet i could   go to let's do this one touch mouse mode now maybe  today you're following along on a touch computer   and you're using that if i go and click on this go  to touch what it does is spreads out the ribbon a   little bit more so it makes it easier to use your  finger to select different parts gives a little   bit more space between it now i'm going to be just  using my mouse today in today's tutorial i could   go and customize this a little bit more so i could  go and take a look at all these maybe i want undo   and maybe i want redo if i go back to what  i showed you before i'm just right clicking   customize the ribbon take a look at this  quick access bar so i could add things from   right here if there's some of these that you  know that you're using a lot you could go ahead   and maybe you're doing the screen clipping lots  i could add it here hit okay and now i can do a   screen clipping so you can customize the setup  of how you want now i'm going to click on the   file tab up top and it brings me to this  screen again if you're used to microsoft word   or powerpoint or excel this is going to look very  similar when i create a new notebook i am going to   be clicking uh selecting new here in a moment but  i do want to point out that here under the account

you can see the account that i'm logged  in to i could sign out of this account   i could have multiple accounts open where i  could jump back and forth between different   ones to switch accounts so depending on what you  want to use if you're making if you're not logged   in the changes that you're making customizations  won't be saved to any account and if you are   doing if you are backing up to the cloud you  won't be able to do that if you're not logged in   down below if you want to pick some themes so here  if you like the dark theme like this if you can   see it a little bit better you can quickly change  here i'm just going to leave it in the white theme   for today but you pick what works best for you we  do have options at the bottom when i click on that   this also brings me to the onenote options that i  showed you before different ways to get to things   uh customized ribbon quick access are here you  can see all right i'm gonna go ahead hit cancel   go over to file so let's go ahead and create our  first notebook you can see before i did have that

one notebook that i did have opened just so i  could show you different things but i'm going   to hit new here and this is where you have your  options where do you want to create it so you need   to kind of create it before you can open up and  i want to be on this pc i could go to my onedrive   if i wanted to save it in the cloud but if you  want to save it locally choose a place on your pc   make sure that you're saving it in a place  that's not if you are backing up files to   the cloud on your computer if you're trying to  avoid the cloud pick try to pick one that's not   that's not going to be synced with the cloud so  i'm for my purposes today i'm going to go ahead   with this documents here and i'm going to go i  have a folder that i created onenote at this point   so i'm going to go and create a new one and  what i'm going to do is call this demo here so   i'm going to call demo and i'm going to hit create  so now you can see i've created my first notebook   it's called demo i have a section that it  just creates over here and then pages so   if you're thinking about this as a book this would  be the book and we kind of have chapters in each   and then we have pages in each of ours that we  can add more and more all right so let's go see   some other things that we can do right away all  your different notebooks you'll be able to see

right through here so right now i had that first  one that i was already open to i can switch over   to that notebook and see any information in it and  drop down to here notice that it's very quick from   here to create a notebook if i go add notebook  here it brings me right back to where i showed   you before so the other thing i want to point out  is that you can close your notebooks by just right   clicking on any of these notice if you go ahead  and close the notebook so i'm going to click on it   that didn't delete it even though you don't see  it here it's not deleted i'll show you how you can   delete it if you've said decide oh you want that  off but if i go over back to file and hit open   now where was that one it should be in  my quick ones you can see here demo   right here and then it's loading up from my  computer again if i right click on it you can see   i have different options if i share this notebook  the only way i could be sharing this i would have   to upload this to onedrive and share it from there  if i was doing it that way i'll talk about the

exporting it a little later on now if you want to  delete it what you could do is go ahead and right   click on it and close it if i just open up my file  explorer here and i want to point out if we go to   our the documents and i'm just going to show  you in that folder onenote here is the demo   that i just created inside of this is uh the  two different you can see it was the section   and the open uh notebook here now if i wanted  to delete this i could go ahead and delete this   i'll just hit the garbage and it will be gone  so if i try to go back again and open up demo   it won't be there so it is deleted from  that spot now so i'm going to go to this   and drop down and add a new notebook again  and i'll just go ahead and save it on this pc   and i'm also going to call this just demo again  hit create and then i have a new one that i called   the same thing but that's how you go about kind  of switching from notebooks or deleting notebooks

so let's say you decided to change the so let's  say you wanted to change the name of your notebook   you didn't want it to be called demo like i called  it i'm going to just right click on this and going   to the options i'm going to the properties  and i'm going to just i decided to change this   to youtube right like this so this is going to  be my youtube videos pink no i don't want it to   be pink i'm going to drop down and i can change  it to a different color very quickly like this   notice that i can change the location on it  but i'm going to leave it like this and hit ok   so now i've changed my notebook so what are some  sections that i might want in this notebook well

let's think about the different topics for myself  that i usually work within so i could and i don't   want this to be called new section one i'm going  to right click on this one and i'm going to go   and hit rename just like this and this is going  to be microsoft just like this so i'm going to put   all my different vid my video ideas in here so i  have this tab and then i'll be working with pages   inside of this tab so over here i have my pages so  might what be what might be my first one that i'm   looking at so as i hit add pages you can see it  adds another one i'm not titling them   i could go at any time and just title them very  quickly as i click on any of the pages and then   type a name to this page so let's say this one is  going to be all about the different onenote videos   i'm going to make i name it over here and now it's  over here so if i go to here oh these are my excel   ideas that i'm going to put here and maybe this  will be my word and we'll say powerpoint also   just like that so i can create all these different  pages i have it under a section so maybe i have a   different section and i also do google videos so  i'll put google here and i could right click and   you can all the different options that where i  could be deleting on these ones i could create   a new section group section  color uh so maybe for this one i'll put it   red this color so i can quickly customize  them to be able to just glance at what i want   and i can switch back and forth here i have four  different pages in here if i go over to google   i can go and add different pages so maybe this is  going to be i'm just going to type here this will   be gmail this one will be about drive so  you can create all these different pages inside of   this and having all these different sections but  then you'd probably have different notebooks too   so if you're a student maybe you have one for math  you have another one for sciences you have another   one for social studies so all these different  options that you can uh start to organize all   your different things that you're trying to just  keep track of so that's a little bit about kind   of the structure of the notebooks of the  sections and of the pages microsoft onenote is a

very powerful digital note-taking app and i'm just  touching the surface of it today now we're at the   part where we can be adding content or collecting  information to onenote and this is kind of the   meat and potatoes of it here i but there's so much  more you can do to help keep organized again keep   watching for those future videos but in this case  maybe i just want to type in i have some ideas   about some videos i wanted to create in excel  maybe i want to create a new one on pivot tables   i could click anywhere in here and then anywhere i  click i get my flashing cursor i can go ahead and   type so if i was going to put pivot tables i can  go ahead and just type it in if i click off of it   i can go back i get the move handle and i can move  this all around i can go and customize this font   very quickly if i highlight it notice that i get  the options here where i could be changing my font   if i wanted a different one i could be changing  the size to it i could be changing the color   all those different options that you have you  know when you're just working in microsoft word   but you can also add quick things like a check  box if it's maybe a to-do list that you're doing   and tags so tags are a very powerful part  of this onenote app and i am going to get into a   different video explaining the tags a little bit  more but they're super easy to add here you can   see all the different options so maybe this is  just an important checklist here if i look under   the home tab up top and look into the ribbon those  same options that i was showing you are up here   and take a look we even have find tags so if you  are tagging correctly you can go ahead and search   for them that's something important as you get  lots of different pages in here so it's very easy   to add you could go ahead add more text if i was  going to go make another maybe a beginner's eye   tutorial i could go ahead and just type that note  to myself like so and you can see it picks up the   spelling what it's a mistake i could go ahead  and correct it now super easy to add text to it   but you can add so much more so for an example  if i just drag i'm going to drag this over here   and i could go grab a video so maybe this one  right here this is off my youtube page i'm just   going to copy the link address and i'm going to  right click and paste it there's the link there's   the video i can even hit play inside of this  just like this and you can see it's going to play   hi there team here today the youtube video here  so maybe i'm collecting all my thoughts i'm adding   videos to this i have different text but you  can even add things like pictures so if i get   if i copy image i can go ahead and paste that  image over here i'm just going to move this out   of the way so i have a few different things i have  this image here that i've just copied paste i can   change the size of this now i can move it around  and drag it in different places i can organize   organize this the way i want so if you're thinking  maybe this is for your notes for studying or maybe   things they're planning a vacation and you're  putting all these different things you're finding   into different pages and how you're sorting it  out because if you go back to any of these pages   i could right click notice that i can go to  move or copy a page also so if i select it   where do i want to move it so maybe i was  collecting information here and i decided to make   another notebook all about excel i could maybe  make it over there select it and copy or move   it to that spot too so remember always to right  click to check the different options that you   have too you get all these informations pictures  and videos onto your pages you can go and even   mark it up by drawing and if you're working on a  device that you can be uh using the pen or using   your finger to draw i'm just using my mouse  here but if i go to the draw i can go and pick   different tools here if i drop down you can see  from thickness and everything if i pick this one   i can go and start marking things up on this  where i can quickly change the color i've been   picking my highlight if i wanted to be a little  bit thicker here and you can see i'll just hit   ok and i can begin marking up all these things we  have shapes that we can quickly uh insert in also   if you just take a look here's the basic shapes  i am going to do a different video again talking   about the some of the key features in here i even  with ink to shape or ink to math but go ahead and   give it a try to play with some of these things  but keep watching for those other videos too   now i'm going to go uh to a different tab and  that's the insert tab because i want to point   out you can insert things like tables i'm going to  go to this new page just so you i can see better   i'm gonna go and select a table now i have this  i can insert the table as soon as i click in here   and notice that i'm still drawing that's because i  need to go to my draw and i need to go back to the   type on it i forgot to change that so if you're  if you're still drawing that's what happened there   i'm going to select this i can position this  differently too but i am just going to hit delete   and get rid of it i have a dot there too that i'm  going to also delete just like this so now with   with this table as soon as i have if i go back to  my insert notice when i us if i select my table i   get this option up here i have this tab new tab  that shows up and i can do all these different   options to the table to it some other things under  insert that you can put in you can see file print

out file attachment spreadsheets screen clipping  so if i was going to go and i'm going to just drag   this over here again just the corner of it just  like this and i could use the screen clipping here   but remember i got the shortcut here i could pick  it maybe i'm searching for something it goes gray   what i can do is select an area that i want i'll  just do this and it clips a part of the screen   and puts it right in i can change my size move  it around on it very quickly what i like doing   if you have certain files and you could go file  attachment here and open them up or what you

can do is drag them over so for example here's a  powerpoint presentation i could drag it in insert   print out so this is what if i go insert print out  you can see what it's going to do is it puts it in   like the powerpoint so this would be great if  you're studying something you have or someone gave   you a powerpoint then you could be going through  and using the draw option and marking it up   uh and maybe taking more notes on it if i go i'm  going to go to this powerpoint one if i went and   dragged a pdf it gives me an attachment or print  out if you don't want to see the whole thing if i   go to attach file it just leaves it as an option  like this which will open the pd up pdf pdf   pdf up after on it so thinking about files they  could be microsoft word they could be all these   different options drag them over or you can go  ahead and insert uh the attachments or printouts   based on those two different ways there's lots of  different things that you can add through here as   you can see a lot of these things are easy to  drag and drop now just as this is a beginner's   tutorial here today and just wanted to get you  start playing with this and feeling comfortable   with this if you take a look over at the view  i want to show you a few different options

i'm going to go ahead and close this window down  notice that we have full page view if i click on   it then you have less distraction kind of you can  focus on just the notes for that page i'm going to   go ahead and click off of it we have our dock to  desktop and it goes way over to the side here full   page view so just some different options how you  see it you can set up your page color so if you

wanted a page color differently here uh you can go  and have lines in the background so maybe you want   grid lines on it you can just simply click on each  of it doesn't go for every page you can set   up each page differently so maybe if you're using  things for math or drawing you might want to have   some of these different options on it you've  probably noticed you don't have to go ahead and   save it is going to save automatically so if  i go ahead and close this down and open things up   again so if i go back up to open the app it pops  up open it never asked me to save it was saving   as i went along now i just touched on the surface  as i mentioned before of this powerful app here   there's so much more it can do especially if  you're working with other microsoft products   like word or excel or outlook you can blend  everything into to get together and make it even   more powerful i want to know what you are looking  for to learn about onenote and i can create more   videos about this i am going to be coming out  soon with the next video here as i dive into   some of the other features that can be used  with this microsoft onenote app so thanks   for watching this week on teachers tech i'll see  you next time with more tech tips and tutorials