Office OneNote 2007 is still relatively new for many Microsoft Office users. It was introduced with Office 2003 and revised for Office 2007. Office OneNote 2007 is an electronic version of a paper notebook where you can write down any kind of information. OneNote provides a free-form canvas where you can type, write, or draw notes wherever you want. You can separate and organize your notes into notebook sections or different notebooks.
With a free-form canvas, managing your content in OneNote 2007 can be difficult at times. With the Canvas for OneNote add-in provided by Microsoft Office Labs, you can pan around your content in a bird’s eye view for easy browsing, editing, navigation, and organization. The Canvas for OneNote add-in is especially useful for creating new content pages or groups (to store pages), zooming into pages to locate content areas, and editing content.
After you download and install the add-in, the program is added to your Start menu within the Canvas for OneNote folder. When you start Office OneNote 2007, the program asks you to import a notebook for use with the new Canvas. Canvas for OneNote appears in a separate window outside of Office OneNote 2007. Canvas for OneNote makes a copy of the notebook you selected during setup called Canvas Notebook, where you can browse and work with your content.
In the Canvas, you can use your mouse to quickly browse, create, and organize your content. For browsing, you can single-click on a page or group to zoom-in and right-click to zoom-out or use a track ball. As you zoom out, you can display a bird’s view of all the content. If you want to edit your content, double-click on a page to open it in an editor. At the bottom of the Canvas is the Chrome bar, which you can use the zoom in and out, create new pages or groups, and use the Activity bar to view highlighted content based on when it was last modified.
After you create new groups or pages, you can click and hold on the title of groups or pages to move them, click and drag on the bottom or right side of a group to resize the group, or click and drag on the bottom right corners of groups or pages to scale the items.
Microsoft Office Labs provides the Canvas for OneNote add-in as a prototype to test out the concept in the real world. After you try it out, please let them know what you think. For more details about how Canvas for OneNote works with Office OneNote 2007, open the About the Canvas.one document that comes with the product.
