Using OneNote to design!

From our friends at the  Creative briefing blog

For those of you in the business of design, think about all the software you use. My personal list includes all of Adobe Creative Suite 3, EditPlus 2, and Microsoft Office OneNote.

Wait a sec…  did I just say OneNote?! Yes, I did!

If you’ve ever been in the situation where you needed to eye-drop a colour from somewhere, or make a measurement, or simply grab a snippet of something on your screen, you’ll understand the importance of your computer’s Print Screen function. But Print Screen is a hassle. After all, it prints the whole screen, leaving you to crop out the unecessary parts. That’s where OneNote comes in!

Among all the cool note-taking functionality OneNote offers, it also comes equipped with a nifty screen clipping function that allows you to take a screenshot of any part of your screen simply by clicking and dragging your cursor over the desired area (similar to how you would select an area in Photoshop). And voila – no cropping required! OneNote gives you the option to save the screenshot to your clipboard (ready to be pasted somewhere) or to place it into a new note within OneNote. It even comes handy with a keyboard shortcut (windows key + s… sorry Mac users)!

I personally love the convenience of being able to take custom-sized screenshots whether I’m using it within design, word processing, or even instant messaging (MSN lets you simply “paste” the image into the message box and then sends it as a file to your buddy).

Now I know not everyone owns or can afford a copy of OneNote. Nor would many of you even consider purchasing it for this functionality alone. 

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