It might seem at first sight that an information organizer based on a filing drawer/folders/documents metaphor is yawn making - but don't know it until you've tried it: OneNote 2003 is the hidden gem in the Microsoft Office portfolio - it's just a superb way of capturing and structuring information.

Each page within OneNote can hold a bewildering mix of information. You can click anywhere on the page and just type. You can drop in photos, links to websites and files, or complete web pages. You can write and draw anywhere on the screen (particularly useful if you have a tablet PC, but we've used OneNote for a while on an ordinary desktop PC and it still works very well). And, particularly cleverly, if you use OneNote to take audio notes - say in a meeting - then when you play back those audio notes, any text you typed at the same time is highlighted as you get to the appropriate point in the audio - this is truly neat. Oh, and there's no need to save - OneNote does so as you go along.

Interaction with other packages is good too. Drag some text from Internet Explorer, and OneNote automatically labels it with a hot link back to the website. You can set up Outlook meetings and contact details from within OneNote too. And a couple of free add-ins from the Microsoft site make OneNote even more effective. With these you can send information direct from Internet Explorer or Outlook into a OneNote page.

Searching across the whole collection of information is easy and effective, and there are very flexible checkbox "note flags" which can be in different visual forms, and which can be collected together in a single place to keep an eye on what you should be doing.

Being a Microsoft product, OneNote is very slick, well finished and professional, but there are some limitations. It would be great to be able to put in a link from one place within OneNote to another, but you can't. And it would also be useful to have views onto a piece of information on one page from another page. Even so this is a very powerful way of organizing information if the structure appeals. A mind map based system is great for brainstorming or presenting information, but we find OneNote much better for collecting and storing information for future use. And at just $79.99 (£70.97 in the UK) it's very good value for money too.

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Copyright © Creativity Unleashed Limited 2006
Last update 13 October 2005