How OneNote is organized: notebooks, sections and pages

Aysel is in tenth grade. Her notes are everywhere: in exercise books, in photos of the whiteboard on her phone and in Word files on her computer. Before a test, finding what she needs takes an hour. OneNote gathers all of it into one digital binder that opens on both her laptop and her phone. In this lesson you will learn how it is organized and how to sync a notebook with OneDrive.

From binder to digital notebook

OneNote works like a ring binder: a notebook contains sections, and sections contain pages. In a big notebook you can gather sections into section groups and related pages into subpages.

A simple plan that works:

• One notebook per big area: “School”, “Courses”, “Personal”.
• One section per subject, with related subjects in a section group.
• One page per lesson or topic, with the date and topic in the title, e.g. “12 Sep — Speed and acceleration”.
• Subpages for exercises and worked problems.

Creating a notebook on OneDrive

1. 1
   Open the new notebook screen

   Select File › New.

2. 2
   Choose OneDrive

   Choose OneDrive (personal or work/school) as the location. If you want to open your notes on your phone too, don't choose This PC.

3. 3
   Name it and create it

   Type a name such as “School 2026–2027” and select Create Notebook. The new notebook already contains one section with one blank page.

Sections, groups, pages and subpages

To add a section, select the + at the end of the section tabs or press Ctrl+T; right-clicking a section tab offers Rename, Section Color and New Section Group. Add a page with the Add Page button in the page list or with Ctrl+N. To turn a page into a subpage, right-click it and choose Make Subpage (or press Ctrl+Alt+]); Ctrl+Alt+[ moves it back up a level. A main page with subpages can be collapsed so the list stays short. Give each section its own colour with Section Color so you recognize subjects at a glance.

Syncing: your notes everywhere

A notebook on OneDrive syncs automatically: what you write on your laptop shows up on your phone. To check, open File › Info › View Sync Status: in the Shared Notebook Synchronization window, Sync All syncs every notebook and Sync Now syncs a single one. From the keyboard, Shift+F9 syncs the current notebook and F9 syncs them all. In the list of notebooks, a small icon next to a notebook's name shows its sync status.