Basic tasks in OneNote for the web

Create a new notebook

1. From any page on OneNote for the web, click or tap the Notebook List button in the upper left.

2. At the bottom of the pane that appears, click or tap Add Notebook.

3. When prompted, enter a name for the new notebook. For best results, use a meaningful name that describes the type of notes that the notebook will contain.

4. Click or tap Create Notebook.

   OneNote switches to the new notebook, which contains a new section and a new, blank page.

5. When OneNote has created a new notebook, click or tap on the notebook at the top left. Which will open a section dialog box, Sections contain the pages in your notebook on which you take notes. 

6. In the Section Name dialog box, type a meaningful description for the new section, and then click or tap OK.

As soon as your first section and page are created, you can continue editing in your browser window or click or tap Open in OneNote on the top menu bar to switch to the full OneNote app installed on your computer or device. To download the OneNote app for the operating system you’re currently using, open a new browser window and go to www.onenote.com/download.

Create a notebook directly from OneDrive

You can also create a new notebook directly from OneDrive.

1. Sign into OneDrive with the same free Microsoft Account (Hotmail, Live, Outlook.com) that you’ll want to use for OneNote.

2. When signed into OneDrive, navigate to the folder where you want to create the new notebook (for example, Documents).

3. On the top menu bar, click or tap + Add New > OneNote notebook.

Add links

Whenever you type text that OneNote for the web recognizes as a link (also known as a hyperlink), it automatically formats it as a link. For example, if you type www.onenote.com into your notes, OneNote for the web turns the text into a link. In this example, click or taping the link will open the OneNote website in your browser.

You can also manually insert links into your notes by doing the following:

1. Click or tap or tap the text you want to format as a link.

2. Right click on the selected text and tap on Insert Link. 

3. Type the link’s destination URL into the Address field and then click or tap Insert.

4. Another way to Insert link is from the insert menu.

Insert pictures

With OneNote for the web, you can easily insert pictures into your notes.

1. On any page, put the cursor where you want to insert the picture.

2. Click or tap Insert and then do one of the following:

   • Click or tap from file to insert a picture file from your computer.

   • Click or tap from Online to search for and insert pictures from Bing Images.

   • Click or tap from Camera to click and insert picture using your camera.

Add more pages

For more room in any section of your notebook, you can add as many pages as you need.

1. At the bottom of the page list, click or tap Add Page.

2. Type a title into the heading area at the top of the page, and then press Enter.

Add more sections

To better organize your notebook into different categories, you can add as many sections as you need.

1. At the bottom of the section list, click or tap Add Section.

2. In the Section Name dialog box, type a meaningful description for the new section, and then click or tap OK.

Share notes online

Your notebook is stored online, so you can easily share it with others for viewing or editing.

1. Click File > Share > Share with People.

2. Do either of the following:

   • Add email or name and a quick welcome note and click or tap send to share the notebook with others. To share a notebook that others can modify, make sure Recipients can edit is displayed. To share a notebook for viewing only, make sure Recipients can only view is displayed. Click or tap the icon next to names to change the current setting. 

   • Click or tap Get a link to create a link to the current notebook that you can manually copy and paste in an email, blog post, or Web page. In the Choose an option list, click or tap or tap View only or Edit to set the permissions level, and then click or tap Create link.

Learn more about sharing notebooks with others.