Check out these Five Free OneNote Add-Ons and Tools

Last week our editor in chief, Lisa Schmeiser, produced a terrific three-part series called Evernote vs OneNote.

In Part 1 she focused on the ability to create and organize your information, Part 2 explained how you add information to the applications and Part 3 was all about the things you could do with all of that information.

In this follow up to that three-part series, I wanted to let you know about five different add-ons and tools for Microsoft’s OneNote that can help expand the capabilities of that software and allow you to take its functionality even further.

OneNote Clipper

This free add-on from Microsoft allows you to clip anything you find on the web into a OneNote notebook.

Since your OneNote notebooks are synched across all of your devices information that you add on one device will be available on your other ones as well.

This browser tool is available for Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.

Just visit https://www.onenote.com/clipper with your favorite browser and follow the installation steps.

OneTastic

This add-on was developed by Omer Atay, a Microsoft developer, in his spare time.

The extensive program expands OneNote by adding the following features:

- Macros for automating tasks such as search & replace, sorting and creating table of contents. OneTastic also provides access to Macroland a repository of macros built by other OneTastic users that you can download or you can share those you build.

- OneCalendar allows you to view your OneNote pages in a calendar view.

- Image Utilities for cropping and rotating images and also selecting/copying text from them.

- Custom Styles for the layout of your OneNotebooks just like you can in Word.

- Favorites/Shortcuts gives you quick access to your favorite pages and allows you to create shortcuts on your desktop to them.

You can learn more and download OneTastic at http://omeratay.com/onetastic/

OneNote Class/Staff Notebook

If you are a teacher then you want to check out this free add on that can help you organize your course content, create/deliver interactive lessons and collaborate with and provide feedback to your students.

In addition to the notebook for your own classes, there is also a OneNote Staff Notebook that provides a place for teachers and staff to share information and work together by collaborating on lesson plans, take notes and find other development opportunities.

For more info about these and using OneNote in Education visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/onenote/default.aspx

E-mail to OneNote

Although this is not an add-on it is a capability that you can activate which will then allow you to forward emails from a registered email account to [email protected].

Those emails can then be sent directly into a specific OneNote Notebook and Section for storage and later referral.

Of course that in turn makes the information available across all of the devices that you use OneNote on.

For more info about setting this up and using it visit https://www.onenote.com/EmailToOneNote

Office Lens

This is another tool that makes OneNote easily accessible especially.

Remember the days of having to use a desktop scanner to get physical copies of things into the computer such as pictures and receipts or having to copy all of the notes from a chalkboard/whiteboard by hand and then later type them in for distribution?

Well these days most of us walk around with a camera in our pockets that is integrated into our smartphones and with Microsoft’s Office Lens it is a snap, pun intended, to get information quickly out of the physical world into your digital OneNote Notebook.

Office Lens turns your smartphone into a portable scanner for digitizing all of that information around you and can also be used to edit and save previous digital images into your OneNote Notebooks.

Office Lens is available for the following mobile platforms:

Office Lens for Windows Phone

Office Lens for iOS

Office Lens for Android

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You can check out all the other featured apps that support Microsoft's OneNote at http://www.onenote.com/apps

So what is your favorite OneNote add-on or tool?

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.