Microsoft OneNote is one of the well-known years-old legacy software by the company. Over the years, Microsoft has added functions to OneNote to rival it against the likes of Evernote and Google Keep.

• Change Paper Size Microsoft Onenote Macbook
• Change Paper Size Microsoft Onenote Mac Download

There are two reasons for Microsoft OneNote’s striking popularity. First, it’s completely free to use. And second, the software is available everywhere. Be it iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, or Web, you can access the notes on all popular platforms.

Personalize Notes by Changing the Default Font Settings in Microsoft OneNote. Microsoft OneNote notes are created with default sizing, but you can adjust this: Go to View tab Choose Paper Size from the page setup section On the right size of the screen, a menu will pop up with various options. If you save the current page as a template, then you'll be able to set.

The software is usually quick to follow OS guidelines and advancements. For example, OneNote iOS and Mac apps have already implemented dark theme support.

Recently, on consumer demand, the company brought back OneNote’s desktop app. Microsoft has vowed to support it for years to come.

We have already covered OneNote’s comparison to its competitors and in this post, we are going to talk about the top twelve OneNote tips and tricks to improve your productivity.

Whether you are a student, teacher, designer, or a casual note-taker, I’m sure you will find the list below handy. Let’s get started.

1. Enable Dark Mode

Apple started rolling out dark mode with the introduction of the macOS Sierra. With a recent update, Microsoft OneNote also joined the list of apps respecting the system-wide dark theme.

To enable it, you can go to System Preferences > General > Appearance and select dark from the option. The change will reflect in the OneNote app. If you are not a fan of it, then you can revert to the light theme from app settings. Tap on the OneNote > Preferences and turn off dark mode from the options.

For iOS 13, head to Settings > Display and Brightness and select dark mode. Overall, Microsoft did a solid job with dark mode implementation. It’s a pure black theme and not the dark grey one and saves battery on AMOLED displays.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts

I always recommend memorizing keyboard shortcuts to fly through the functions of the software. Microsoft OneNote is no exception here. The software supports a bunch of keyboard shortcuts on Mac and Windows.

With the help of keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly highlight words, insert links, insert date and time, search through notes, and more. Read and master OneNote keyboard shortcuts from our previous post.

3. Share a Page as PDF and Invite Others

There are three ways to share notes in OneNote. You can send a note as pdf to others. You can also copy a page link and share it with friends. Tap on the three-dot menu and select copy link to a page.

One can also share an entire Notebook with others. Select the share menu from the upper right corner and give permission such as view only and editable from the options. Type the email and hit the send button.

4. Insert Tables

Using tables is a neat way to organize the relevant information. OneNote does support the table functionality by default.

Tap on the Insert > Table and select the number of rows and columns based on your needs. While adding the data, you can always use the ‘Enter’ key to keep adding rows and columns based on requirements.

5. Use Templates

Microsoft is bringing back the Windows desktop app for OneNote. And with that, you can start using the template function as it’s currently missing in the default Mac and Windows app.

Instead of starting a note with black space, you can use the relevant template to manage a to-do list, take meeting notes, or organize the meal details.

Tap on the Insert > Page Layout > Page Templates, and a sidebar will open the template categories to help you choose a perfect design for the new page. You can always download third-party templates from Web sources such as OneNote Gem.

6. Add Stickers

Did you know one can add stickers to the OneNote page to give it a personal touch? Microsoft has added a bunch of default sticker packs to use them. There is Cat in suits, Monkey, Office drama, and Teamsquatch stickers on the mac version.

Select Insert > Stickers and the tab will show the default ones from the right sidebar. You can also add emojis from the Edit > Emojis and Symbols menu.

7. Make Use of Drawing Capabilities

Microsoft has added a dedicated drawing section in the OneNote app. Tap on the Draw menu, and the section will let you choose from Pen, Marker, and Highlighter. You can also use Eraser function, change the Ink color, and play with the Ink thickness from the menu.

If you are using Surface Pro devices or any Windows laptops with Pen support, then you can use the Windows Ink function to write and draw directly on the page.
Note: While we’re on the subject of drawing, feel free to check out our articles on Google Drawings.

8. Change Paper Style

OneNote lets you change the page style from the settings menu. By default, it opens up as a blank white page. Visit View from the upper ribbon and change paper color and style from the given menu.

It looks good and resembles a physical notebook with different colors and rules/grid lines.

9. Password-protect Section

You can password-protect a OneNote section to lock it from unauthorized access. Right-click on a section from any notebook and select a password-protect option. Add a password and from now on, you will need that password to access notes on every platform.

Remember, if you forget the password, then there is no way to recover the section. I would advise you to invest in a password manager to memorize all such confidential details.

10. Use OneNote Clipper

Microsoft offers a capable OneNote Clipper extension on the major browsers. You can use it to directly bookmark a webpage to OneNote, clip a portion of a page, or save the entire article to OneNote.

11. Use Mobile Widgets and Shortcuts

Microsoft OneNote for iOS and Android offers widget functionality to view recent notes and quickly add new notes. On Android, you can long-tap the app icon and choose from the relevant options to add a new note.

Long-tap the displayed options and add them to the home screen to quickly add a note, voice-recording, list, and bullet list.

12. Change Default OneNote Fonts

By default, OneNote sticks to Microsoft’s own Calibri fonts at 12 size. However, you can change that. Go to Preference > Edit and View > and change font type and size.

The changes will reflect on the new page only and it won’t mess up the already added notes.

Take OneNote Experience to the Next Level

The list above is just the tip of the iceberg. The software also supports math equations, built-in reader, custom tags, and more. And that’s not all. The company recently announced its plans for OneNote, which is expected to come with tight integration with other Microsoft services such as Teams and To-Do.

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Onenote notebooks take up to four or five times the space of their actual content on your system drive, at least in OneNote 2016. Why is that so and how can you reduce the size?

Depending on where your notebook is saved and on the settings of the backup option, there are always several copies of the notebook eating up space of your system drive.

This shouldn’t be much of a problem if there is sufficient free space on your drive. But it’s rather common for modern PC systems to use a smaller SSD for the system and applications and a slower but much bigger hard drive for data files. No problem for applications like Word or Excel, where you would just save your files to the data drive and open them from there. But with OneNote this is very different. You can’t freely choose the storage location of your notebook files (apart from local notebooks which are only allowed in OneNtoe 2016 as part of MS Office). And there are additional copies on your system drive, some of which are not controllable at all.

Important: This article is all about OneNote 2013/2016 for Windows. The OneNote apps for MacOS, iOS, Android and the OneNote app for Windows 10 (UWP) won’t let you control the amount of storage space needed at all …. except for closing notebooks to clear their cache.

Let’s start with an overview of all notebook copies that are stored on your device. I’ll explain each of them later on.

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1. The actual notebooks and their content (locally saved notebooks only, doesn’t apply for notebooks on OneDrive or OneDrive for Business)
2. (multiple) backup copies
3. the local cache (for all currently opened notebooks)
4. another cache (if you are using OneNote 2016 and the Windows 10 UWP app in parallel)

In this article I will show you some methods to reilieve your devices system disk. The best options require an additional drive or a network server or NAS. But even if there is only one drive abailable like in most notebooks, there are some measurements that can be taken to save some storage space. A short overview, details follow:

Second drive available (e.g. etwa SSD on C: und HDD auf D:):

• move and save local notebooks on the second drive
• move backup copies to another drive
• relocate the OneNote 2016 cache
• close currently unused notebooks (applies to the UWP app too)

Only one drive available

• reduce number of backups
• no automatic backups, start manual backups on an external drive instead
• reduce number of locally stored notebooks or avoid them at all
• close currently unused notebooks (applies to the UWP app too)
• optimize notebook organisation

Locally saved notebooks

As you already know, only the OneNote 2016 desktop version, that comes with MS Office (but not the free one), lets you store notebooky not only ion the cloud, but also locally on your PC. They appear as normal files and folders (one folder per notebook, subfloders for section groups, .ONE files for sections) and of course will occupy the space that is correspondent to their content. The more embedded files, printouts or images, the more space is needed. While you may choose the location (drive, folder) of those notebooks at will, the default location is on your system drive. To be precise: In the symbolic document folder under C:Users<your name>DocumentsOneNote Notebooks.

This can be easily changed:

1. If locally saved notebooks are open in OneNote 2016, close them. If you are not sure, whether a particular notebook is stored locally or in the cloud, you can check this. Open the backstage view (click on File) and look at the list of currently opened notebooks. Every entry also shows the storage location path. For locally saved notebooks this starts with a drive letter, e.g. „C:Users…“. If the notebook is stored in the cloud, the path starts with “https://“
2. Go to File – Options – Save & Backup. In the upper arear there is a section labeled Save and three default paths listed below that. The last one, Default Notebook Location, is the one of interest. Click on Modifyto change the default path to another one, presumably on a different drive.

Two important remarks:

• Existing notebooks won’t be moved automatically from the old to the new path. You would have to do that manually using the Windows Explorer. Just move everything from the old path to the new one, preserving all names and folder structures. You may then open the notebooks from there.
• The free version of OneNote 2016 (can be downloaded from www.onenote.com) contains the same options to alter the default path. But changit it won’t have any effect here; the free OneNote 2016 cannot handle locally saved notebooks at all.

On systems with only one drive, these methods won’t help to save storage capacity. Maybe you should consider if there are some notes that you won’t mind being saved in the cloud and reduce the content of your local notebooks. Maybe split them up or reorganize the notes accordingly.

Optimize backup settings

OneNote 2016 comes with an internal, semi-automatic backup mechanism. „Semi“, because it only works when the OneNote propgram is running and it will only back up currently opened notebooks. The default settings of this backup function are far from optimal. The default backup location is your system drive (usually C:). WHile this gived you a fallback option in event of unwanted changes or deletions but won’t protect your notes from system drive failures or malware. In addition every backup copy will occupy the same amount of space on your system drive as the original notebook. By default there are two separate backup copies, so every notebook will need triple the amount of space. By the way: If you set Back up notebooks stored on SharePoint, notebooks you have opened from and stored on OneDrive or OneDrive for business are backed up as well…even more space occupied on your system drive. Therefore you should — again on your system drive. So you should always adjust the backup options. You will find all relevant settings in OneNote 2016 under File – Options – Save & Backup A more detailed description of the backup settings can be found in this article.

If there is a secondary drive or network storage space available, you should set up the backup location there. If there is only one drive, you may reduce the number of backup copies to one. Or you might want to consider to completely switch off the automatic backup and just create backup copies “one demand” on a USB or thumb drive (click on Back Up All Notebooks Now). Of course that needs you to remember to do that on a regular base.

Keep the cache small or relocate it

For every currently opened notebook, there is another copy created on your system drive: the local cache. Basically, this is how it works: When you open a notebook (no matter where it is stored, cloud or local drive), OneNote instantly creates a copy in a special cache folder. By default this is C:Users<your name>AppDataLocalMicrosoftOneNote. Other than locally stored notebooks or backups, this is not in the “standard” OneNote format. Instead all content is split up in small portions and binary coded (so you can’t use this cache folder as a backup). The reason for this special format is found in the way OneNote allows concurrent edits in the same notebooks and even on the same pages. If OneNote would use “normal” files like Word or Excel, that would not be possible as the operating system locks a file for write access instantly, when it is opened on one device.

Every time you do any edits in your notes, these changes are not done to the saved version of your notebooks (.ONE file) but only to the cache copy. OneNote then syncs those changes in the background to the actual files. So the cache copy is absolutely needed and cannot be omitted. What you can do (again only in OneNote 2016 for Windows) is to relocate that cache folder so it won’t take up space on your system drive. Of course, you would need a second drive which is always accessible. This is how you do it:

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• Close all(!) currently opened notebooks.
• Open File – Options – Save & Backup and locate the Cache file location settings at the bottom of the window.
• Click on Modify… and navigate to a new path where the cache files are to be stored.
• Restart OneNote.
• From now on the cache is stored in that new location. Important: Although it is possible to move the cache files to a removable drive or network location, this is not recommended.

If there is no alternative cache location available, because your system has only one drive, you are out of luck. The only thing you can do to reduce the storage space needed for your local cache files is to close all notebooks you do not constantly need access too. When closing a notebook, it’s local cache files are automatically deleted. The disadvantage of this: Every time you reopen a notebook, all its content has to be downloaded again, which can take quite a while, especially for notebooks stored in the cloud.

The cache and the Windows 10 app

The OneNote app that comes with Windows 10 is using the same mechanisms as OneNote 2016. Its also using a binary cache file for all opened notebooks which it synchronizes with the actual notebook files (in this case exclusively on OneDrive or OneDrive for Business). Unfortunately, it offers no option to relocate those cache files. Even worse: It is using its own separate cache files and does not share them with OneNote 2016. That would not make much sense anyway, as you may keep different notebooks open on OneDrive 2016 and the app. So if you are using both OneNote versions on Windows and regularly switch between them, there are even two cache copies of your notebooks that occupy space, even if you have opened the same notebook(s) on both versions.

Apart from the described measurements there is a very ovious one: Consider what you need to store in OneNote notebooks. Especially embedded files use up a lot of space, maybe even more than you might think. If you use OneNote to store PDFs, there can be a lot of space overhead. Ther eis the original file, an embedded copy in OneNote, which uses up the same amount of space, and, worst of all, printouts. As PDF printouts are stored as image files in OneNote (PNG), those usually are much bigger than the original PDF document.