Microsoft OneNote 2010 : Taking Notes in Your Own Handwriting (part 1)

If you have a Tablet PC running Windows XP Tablet Edition or any edition of Windows 7, or you have a Single Touch or Multi-Touch PC running any edition of Windows 7, you can use the handwriting capabilities that are built in to OneNote 2010. Instead of typing notes on your keyboard, you can handwrite them in your notebooks by writing directly on your computer’s screen with a stylus or Tablet pen.

If you’re running OneNote 2010 on Windows 7, you can easily determine if your PC has Touch capabilities by clicking the Start button on the Windows taskbar, and then right-clicking the word Computer (look for it near the right column on the Start menu). On the pop-up menu that appears, click Properties. In the System dialog box that opens, look for the Pen and Touch confirmation under the System heading. If you see “Pen and Single Touch Input Available” or “Pen and Multi-Touch Input Available,” you can use OneNote’s handwriting features. If you see “No Pen or Touch Input is available for this display,” you’ll have to stick to the keyboard for now.

Handwriting features can have a number of benefits in electronic note-taking. For starters, if you handwrite better and faster than you type, taking notes will obviously be easier for you in this mode. In meetings or in a classroom, typing notes on a noisy keyboard in front of others can be distracting and even considered poor etiquette, whereas handwriting your notes is virtually silent. Additionally, if you frequently draw or sketch as part of your work, you can do so right on the notes page you’re writing on, without having to rely on predrawn shapes or imported images.

Another nice feature of digital handwriting is that your pen strokes can be formatted much like text (for example, you can change the thickness and color of your handwriting) and OneNote can even convert a selection of handwriting to text whenever you want to send a copy of your handwritten notes to colleagues or classmates in a more legible and reusable text format.

The following step-by-step procedures assume that you’re using OneNote on a Tablet PC. If you don’t yet have a device that lets you enjoy OneNote’s handwriting features, feel free to skip this section for now.

Handwriting and Drawing Notes

OneNote defaults to typed text input, but you can easily switch to Pen mode for handwriting and drawing on a page.

To use the handwriting and drawing notes features, follow these steps:

Displaying Additional Pens and Highlighters

At first glance, the Draw tab on the ribbon shows you only 10 pens of different colors and degrees of thickness and four highlighters in as many colors. By expanding the gallery to full view, you can reveal additional presets.

To display additional pens and highlighters, follow these steps:

Customizing a Pen or Highlighter

If the colors and line thickness of the pen and highlighter presets don’t meet your needs, you can create your own custom pens by following these steps. Although it might seem tempting to click the big Color & Thickness button that’s shown on the Draw tab of the ribbon, that command applies only to shapes and existing ink strokes.

To change the color and thickness of pens and highlighters, do the following:

1.	On the Draw tab, in the Tools group, click the More drop-down arrow in the lower-right corner of the box showing the pens and highlighters (see Figure 5.12).
2.	Click or tap the More Colors and Thickness Options command that appears near the bottom of the menu.
3.	In the Pen Properties dialog box that opens (see Figure 3), click or tap a custom line thickness and color that you want your new pen or highlighter to have. You can rest the mouse pointer over the thickness and color swatches to display a ToolTip describing the line thickness and color properties. Figure 3. In the Pen Properties dialog box, you can create custom pens and highlighters by choosing the line thickness and line color you want.
4.	Click OK to create the new pen or highlighter with the properties you selected. New pens and highlighters are automatically added to the Favorite Pens list on the ribbon. Click the More drop-down arrow (see Figure 5.12) whenever you want to see the full list of your pens and highlighters.