PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE: Microsoft Office OneNote 2003

OneNote 2003 is a digital scratchpad for taking notes and jotting thoughts and other bits of information when attending meetings, conferences, etc. OneNote is not really meant for a PC, and has been designed with the Tablet in mind. So, it is ink-enabled, and you can take notes using your stylus. OneNote goes further than just taking notes, by letting you organize them, send them to other office applications, including the all pervasive PowerPoint, and also send your notes and comments to others for collaboration and action. You can put pictures, text from websites and other MS Office applications by dragging and dropping in the GUI. It can also record voice inputs. While it is available as a stand-alone application, OneNote is best used well when integrated with the rest of the Office suite.

The user interface is similar to other MS Office applications, and is organized into sections, pages and sub pages under the My Notebook folder. You can also create folders under the sections. The sections (which can be color-coded) are arranged as tabs across the top, and pages as tabs on the right side. Though the sub pages can be created for pages, you cannot name them. The sections and pages are saved automatically and each section is stored as a separate file.

Side note window being used with MS Word

Once the notes have been taken on different parts of the screen, organizing them is simple. You can move blocks of text or

individual lines and structure it by either indenting it or by using flag symbols, which are customizable. You can represent notes as 'important' and 'questions' using these symbols. The information you drag and drop from the Net and other MS Office applications is stored in the side note window. This window floats on top of other programs for information capturing and URL (ie, source of the information) also gets copied automatically. OneNote can also capture audio, recording conversations through a microphone.

The information captured is stored in different sections and you can search for it through the My Notebook folder, individual sections and folders. Also there is a research option to look for information from online dictionaries, encyclopedias and thesaurus. You can serach for specific information also. 

You can share these notes. If you have MS Outlook 2003, you can e-mail any number of sections, and if you don't, you can attach the files created from the My Notebook folder. You can also publish sections to be used by those who don't have OneNote 2003, or view it using IE or MS word. The sections can also be saved as document library for MS Windows SharePoint services. 

The bottom line: Good software for capturing and managing information when on the move. Best when integrated with MS

Office. 

Sushil Oswal