Four ways to be productive with OneNote on iPad

Microsoft’s OneNote makes any tablet instantly ready for business. Thanks to the recent update, features like scanning whiteboards, searching images and most importantly handwritten notes and comments have been introduced making productivity and efficiency even more pronounced on iPad devices. There are a few creative ways that iPad users can make use of the new OneNote and maximise its use as the very powerful office tool that it is.

Hand written notes

The latest version of OneNote for iPad brings handwriting and drawing support. With this update, taking notes in meetings and presentations have become so much easier. It saves users from the tedious exercise of writing on the iOS keyboard. Users can make notes, draw a flowchart or even make a sketch of a product.

All handwriting and drawing operations are kept under the Draw tab on the OneNote ribbon. To write notes with a finger or a stylus, users will have to tap the Draw tab and select a pen, marker or highlighter along with ink color and thickness. According to PCWorld , Microsoft offers sixteen different pen colors.

Users writing with the stylus can also tap Palm Rejection to select the image that resembles the way the pen is held. There are six options (three each for righties and lefties) for how to hold a pen to help OneNote adapt to the angle of the palm resting.

Annotate images

With the drawing tools of OneNote for iPad, users can annotate images and send it across to the concerned person. Users can open the image with the note and go to the Draw tab to access drawing tools. They can make notes and comments directly on the image. This saves the time for creating the whole new document and messaging or mailing to convey the comments.

Search scanned document and images

Microsoft has made Optical Character Recognition (OCR) available across its entire range of OneNote apps from Office Online to iOS. One has to just take or scan a picture that includes some text, wait for few minutes and the text will be searchable.

Users can search for specific content in a web clipping or a scanned receipt in OneNote. Once the image is saved and indexed in OneDrive, it becomes searchable from any OneNote client, says Macworld in a report.

Scan whiteboards

Gone are the days of tedious note scribbling during meetings and brainstorming sessions. Thanks to the scanning feature of the OneNote, users can concentrate on the actual meeting instead of multitasking between note-taking and the conference. To access the scanning feature, users need to open a new OneNote page, tap the insert tab and press the camera icon to start scanning the whiteboard. OneNote will automatically crop and rotate the image.

There are three scanning options at the bottom of the screen - Whiteboard, Photo and Document. Once the user select whiteboard, OneNote will help to enhance the image. The image can be saved by tapping the check mark. Later, the user can also annotate the image to share with others.

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