Create Quick Notes in OneNote 2016 for Windows

Think of Quick Notes as the electronic equivalent of a little yellow sticky note. Unlike paper though, Quick Notes (formerly Side Notes) are instantly saved to your OneNote 2016 notebook so you can search and organize them.

You can create a new Quick Note while OneNote is running.

1. Choose View > New Quick Note.

   

2. Type your note in the small note window. You can format the text by using the commands on the mini toolbar that appears. (If you don't see the toolbar, click the ... at the top of the window.)

3. Repeat the previous steps for any additional Quick Notes that you want to create.

You can move Quick Notes anywhere on your screen and leave them there for as long as you need to refer to them. When you're done with a Quick Note, close its window.

Note:  Closing a Quick Note window does not delete the note. Like regular notes, OneNote automatically saves your Quick Notes as soon as you've created them and whenever you edit them. Quick Notes are stored in the Unfiled Notes section in your default notebook. You can find them quickly by opening your Notebooks list (click the down-arrow next to the name of your notebook and look at the bottom of the list for Quick Notes).

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Create a Quick Note when OneNote isn't running

You can create a Quick Note even if you haven't opened OneNote.

1. On your keyboard, press Windows+N.

2. Type your note in the small note window.

3. To open additional Quick Notes after OneNote running, press Windows+Alt+N on your keyboard.

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Pin important Quick Notes to your screen

If you're using Quick Notes to keep small reminders and important information visible at all times, you can pin them so that they stay visible over any other windows on your computer screen.

1. In any Quick Note that you want to keep visible, on the toolbar, choose View > Always on Top. (If you don't see the toolbar, click the ... at the top of the window.)

2. Move each pinned note to the position of your screen where you want to keep it displayed.

3. To stop a note from being pinned to the top of your screen, repeat step 1 (the button is a toggle).

Review all of your Quick Notes

No matter how or when you created them, you can easily look through all of your Quick Notes whenever you want.

1. Near the top of the current page, click the name of your current notebook (for example "My Notebook").

2. At the bottom of the Notebook list, click Quick Notes.

   

3. In the Quick Notes section, click the tabs of the pages you want to review.

You can keep Quick Notes filed in the Quick Notes section, or you can move selected notes to other parts of your notebooks. To move a page, right-click the page tab, choose Move or Copy, and follow the prompts.

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