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Microsoft Office bundled note-taking software. OneNote is available for Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Symbian. A web-based version of OneNote is provided as part of OneDrive or Office Online and enables users to edit notes via a web browser.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Supports hierarchical organization of information/notes
OneNote is designed to allow hierarchical organization of information. This is achieved with grouping into the following categories and UI elements (Notebooks, Sections, and Pages). Both Sections and Pages allow additional groupings that can be expanded / collapsed in list view.
This can be incredibly helpful for quickly taking notes and organizing them for work or personal projects.
For example, you could have a Notebook for "Cooking Recipes", with sections for "breakfast, dinner, desserts", where individual recipes would be page entries (i.e. the "Desserts" section would have pages for brownies, chocolate cheesecake etc).
Pro Lots of options for customizing fonts
You can fully customize your default font (the color, type of font, and font size). You can override this styles with the same options (and more) in individual notes.
Pro Offers flexible encryption
Unlike most other apps, you can selectively password protect, and fully encrypt, individual documents or entire folders. This is especially important to many people with data stored in the cloud. As of early this year, even the free version supports encryption. Microsoft has also enhanced their internal security methods for storing data on OneDrive (where OneNote performs sync), which makes it more secure than most of their competitors (including Evernote).
Pro It is easy to transfer notes to OneNote
OneNote offers quick and easy transfer software in order to import from other services.
Cons
Con Limited storage
Every user receives 5GB of cloud storage through OneDrive (it used to be 15GB). This can be limiting, especially if OneDrive is being used to store other files as well. Add a few videos into the mix inside of a note and it will be easy to max out this storage quickly. More storage of course can be purchased, but may be too costly for some.
Con Sync isn't stable
Many users have reported synchronization issues. While not everyone will experience this, it can be difficult to troubleshoot, with some fixes resorting to editing registry keys in Windows when using the Windows client.
Con No good way to print (paper, PDF, or any other neutral file format)
OneNote pages are semi-infinite (like excel) and great for taking notes in the application, however there is no Page Break view (unlike excel), or any other good way to export your note to someone not using OneNote (ie. teachers, colleagues, supervisors, etc). Neutral file formats exist for a very good reason, and OneNote does not have a professional way to do this (because it comes out as an uncontrollable garbled mess).
Con No way to generate a list of actions or flagged items from the notes
If you are keeping notes from various parts of you day in OneNote and keep writing list of things that you need to do - e.g., list of grocery items, homework assignments, books or movies to check out and errands to run, these are scattered across different pages. Even if these are tagged with different tags there is no way to filter all the actions (in one notebook section or entire notebook or across notebooks) that have a certain tag.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Pro Supports hierarchical organization of information / notes
OneNote is designed to allow hierarchical organization of information. This is achieved with grouping into the following categories and UI elements (Notebooks, Sections, and Pages). Both Sections and Pages allow additional groupings that can be expanded / collapsed in list view.
This can be incredibly helpful for quickly taking notes and organizing them for work or personal projects.
For example, you could have a Notebook for "Cooking Recipes", with sections for "breakfast, dinner, desserts", where individual recipes would be page entries (i.e. the "Desserts" section would have pages for brownies, chocolate cheesecake etc).
Con Not open-source
This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified or freely distributed.
Con All files must be stored in the cloud
OneNote does not offer support for local storage.
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Con Cannot create the to-do list offline
Microsoft OneNote cannot create the to-do list when the user does not have an internet connection but is only able to view the offline to-do list.