Microsoft OneNote and Canvas

OneNote is an under-rated component of Microsoft Office application. I find it the most useful and a help tool in my quest to become a paperless journalist.

The app first showed up with the original Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PCs in the early 2000s. It hinted at a Windows and future that never arrived. It took Apple and the iPad to develop the kind of modern computer Microsoft aimed for.

Microsoft built OneNote as a note-taking exclusively tool for the pen-based Tablet PCs. It can handle typed and handwritten notes, drawings, screen clips and snatches of audio. That makes it versatile and powerful.

OneNote is my paperless database

I use OneNote as I collect the snippets of information I used to write news and features for newspapers and magazines. Technical types might describe it as a free-form database, but for me it's more like a digital reporter's notebook.

From my point of view its best features are the way it integrates with Microsoft Windows and Office. I can quickly search for data and when I've found what I need, it’s a simple operation moving text or images between Word and OneNote.

The app also lets me organise data in the ramshackle, unstructured way that suits me.

Even better with a scanner

Coupled with a scanner, OneNote helped me get rid of the piles of paper that once cluttered my desk.

One of the great things about paper was the way it could be organised on my desk. Maybe organised is too grand a term, but you get the picture.

Canvas shows the full picture

The Canvas add-on for OneNote from Microsoft Office Labs recreates that creative paper-on-desktop feel. It does wonders for me when I’m sorting through my notes. I might add here, it’s even better at the job now I have a 24-inch widescreen desktop display. I can quickly marshal my thoughts as I prepare to write more complicated articles.

Canvas has been upgraded since I first looked at it. The new version works with OneNote 2010 and there’s been some tidying up over the way it looks.