OneNote Linked Notes
OneNote is a wonderfully flexible notetaking app but sometimes you just can't get the best out of it without using some of the more hidden features.
I find Linked Notes particularly useful when gathering my thoughts on Word documents or PowerPoint decks I'm working on with others, where I want to take notes for myself (i.e. not shared with my collaborators) but want to keep track of how those notes link back to the content I'm working on.
Essentially, what Linked Notes enables us to do is to dock a cut down view of OneNote to the side of our screen for notetaking while keeping the app (Word or PowerPoint) we are taking notes from in view alongside it.
A Word document with a docked OneNote window beside it showing a Linked Note
You enable this either by selecting the Dock to Desktop view in OneNote, or by using the Linked Notes button in the Review ribbon in Word or Excel. This is a feature that works in the desktop versions only, not the web apps, and currently is only supported in the Microsoft 365 Apps version of OneNote, not in OneNote for Windows 10.
Dock to Desktop button in OneNote
Linked Notes button in Word
One you have taken some Linked Notes you will see the app icon appear next to that note on your OneNote page, mousing over will show you a thumbnail, and clicking through with access the linked document.
Linked notes in OneNote
Linked Notes is not a perfect solution. One really valuable use of this feature was to also be able to take notes while browsing the web but this only works with Internet Explorer (which is no longer supported by Microsoft) and has not yet been updated to support Edge, despite this glaring omission being noted in user forums as early as 2020. The OneNote Web Clipper extension that is available for Edge does give some limited similar functionality, but the experience is so different to Linked Notes that it cannot fit into the same workflow. Equally, there's no support for Excel or Outlook, or any other 3rd-party app. No updates of this feature are on either the Microsoft Edge or Microsoft 365 roadmaps, so it seems unlikely these limitations will be addressed.
More information on this feature can be found here:
Title image credit: Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash
