OneNote Joins Office System

OneNote, a new note-taking application that will be released at the same time as Office 2003, attempts to combine the flexibility of analog note-taking with the search, retrieval, and organizational capabilities of a freeform database. The resulting application will be most interesting to mobile workers or students who need to take and organize notes from many different meetings or classes. A bundling deal with Toshiba for laptops and Tablet PCs could help spur adoption, but OneNote is unlikely to supplant Word as the default note-taking application in most workplaces because Word comes with Office, whereas OneNote is a separate purchase.

How OneNote Improves Note-Taking

Today, many information workers use time-tested analog methods of taking and organizing notes: a pen, a paper notebook, and perhaps an audio recorder. Others, particularly those who carry laptops or Tablet PCs, take notes using a traditional word-processing program like Word or Notepad.

OneNote attempts to provide the best of both worlds by allowing users to input data in all of these ways-by typing, making handwritten notes or drawings, dragging or copying data from external sources into the application, or recording audio-then storing everything in a single virtual “notebook.” Since all the data is digital, however, users can more easily organize, retrieve, and use it-for example, they can quickly scan or search their notes for relevant information, or export information in those notes to other programs, such as Outlook 2003.