Office OneNote 2003

OneNote 2003 is a new program in the MicrosoftOffice System that enables you to capture, organize, and reuse your notes onlaptop computers, desktop computers, or Tablet PCs. It gives you one place tostore all your notes and the freedom to work with them how you want. OneNote2003 also helps you capture information in multiple ways and then organize anduse it according to your needs. OneNote 2003 combines the freedom and flexibility of paper notes with theefficiency and power of digital organizational tools, enabling you to work withyour notes and information more productively.

Personal information managers such as Outlook 2003 let you make and store notes, but OneNote 2003 is more sophisticated. Notes are organised into folders, with each folder having pages, sub-pages and tabbed sections. Each note can contain text, images and audio recordings, and you can add user-definable flags indicating such things as to-do tasks or questions for follow-up. Outlining is built-in, so you can show and hide different levels. On the Tablet PC there is full support for handwriting, with the option to convert it to text, or you can create free-form drawings on any kind of PC. Notes can be shared on a network or emailed to others. There is no OneNote viewer, but by default OneNote documents get sent both in native format and as HTML, which makes for a bulky email but should ensure readability.

The best feature of OneNote 2003 is synchronisation with audio recordings. Go to a meeting, set OneNote 2003 to record, and take notes in the normal way. When you review the notes, you can jump to the exact spot in the audio for each note. It's a great time saver. OneNote 2003 is an innovative application that works best on a Tablet but is also useful for note addicts on ordinary PCs. --Tim Anderson