Microsoft OneNote vs Dropbox

OneNote allows you to arrange text freely on the digital paper mimicking the way it would be done with a real pen on real paper.

Can have multiple 'sections/tabs' at the top like in a web browser with many notes within each 'section/tab'. Also, there can be sections within section groups infinitely. The complete hierarchy looks like this: Notebooks > Section Groups ... Section Groups > Sections > Pages > Sub-pages > Sub-pages.

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).

Adding and resizing rows and columns is easy and flexible. This makes for an easy way to adjust a note as it grows in content size.

You can add a variety of different files into your notes including images, video, audio, and more.

If you don't want to search through all of your notes, you can narrow it down by specifying the page, section, group, or notebook.
You're not limited to just searching through your text either. You can search for text in images, video recordings, and audio (this is off by default).

Which makes it easy to quickly look at the high level of notes, and then drill deep into each point.

You can choose what notebook the notes will save to. E-mail notes to your special Onenote e-mail and it will be accessible across all devices.

OneNote can be used on all touch capable devices via stylus or digitizer pen making for an intuitive and easy way to take notes by hand, which can often be faster or just preferred over typing. It has the best pen input out of any note taking app.

If you have experience with other Microsoft programs such as Microsoft Office, you'll feel right at home with the design of OneNote thanks to the similarity of the menus.

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.

You can take handwritten notes on your mobile device with a stylus or digital pen and then convert the handwriting to text later on your Windows PC.

Has a web clipper extension on Chrome and Edge that can be used for clipping whole articles and images. Web clipping of articles is also available on Chrome mobile through the "Share" option.

Its available Windows Mobile, Windows Store, Android, a Desktop Version, and a Web app. Apple macOS and iOS are also supported.

Integrates well with Outlook, Office, and OneDrive.

You can share your notes by inviting people with an e-mail, or by giving them a direct URL. You have control over what kind of access the user has on your note (read only, edit) and can revoke it at any time.
OneNote will alert you when a chance is made on your shared note.

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).

You can perform mathematical calculations in OneNote like a calculator.
e.g. 1+2=3,
85/4=21.25,
8!=40,320,
7^2=49

Handwritten mathematical equations can be converted to typed mathematical equations. Moreover, you can ask OneNote to solve the equation too.

You can copy / search text in images added to OneNote.

You can view the history of any page and revert to a previous version.

The badge on Android hovers over on your screen similar to Facebook Messenger's Chat Heads. You can tap it and instantly start jotting down your thoughts without having to flip to the app first.

This is great for taking meeting minutes. You can import all the meeting details, including a checklist of attendees and a link back to the original event in your Outlook calendar. You can tag all the actions coming out of a meeting and you can create linked tasks from them in Outlook. Much quicker and more effective than writing meeting minutes the traditional way.

The ability to quickly file away web clippings is a key part of note taking.

You have quite a few options for themes available with illustrated backgrounds. If you want something a bit more simple while still having personality, there are also several color themes.

You can use Dropbox via website, by installing a desktop client that creates a folder that you simply drag and drop files into, or with their mobile app. Everything synchronizes across all devices used and cloud storage. And Dropbox offers easy methods of sharing whatever is within it.

Dropbox is available on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, OS X and Linux. By having a client for so many OS's pretty much anyone is covered no matter what kind of device or OS they are using.

Using a desktop client: right click on the folder you want to share and select Dropbox > Share This Folder, then enter the e-mail addressees of people you want to share the folder with.

If a small portion of the file is changed it sends/receives only the differences (not the whole file), which is fast and bandwidth-efficient.

Whether using desktop client or web interface, simply right click on the file you want to share and select Dropbox > Share link, then send the link to the people you want to share the file with. The recipient does not require a Dropbox account.

Dropbox personal accounts start out free, with 2GB of space, but users can get extra space by recommending the site to friends, or taking part in events like "Dropquest", where users can win extra space by solving puzzles.

Dropbox offers native Linux support, integrates with Nautilus file manager.

As long as you have enough storage available, you can upload files of any size using Dropbox desktop client.

To save bandwidth and download speed you can choose to compress a folder into a zip archive for download.

To not slow down the network or save traffic you can limit the upload and download speeds of Dropbox.

There are official and third-party Dropbox add-ons that extend the functionality of the service and add ease of use of existing features.

Additionally, Dropbox can be integrated with existing applications to bring its functionality to other apps.

Dropbox keeps deleted and earlier versions of files for a month.

Your files always synced online means instant disaster recovery. When your hard drive becomes unbootable, pick up another laptop and just carry on with your life from where you last saved.

You get extra free space for you and your friend if they sign up.