Microsoft Office OneNote helps you organize notes you intend to incorporate into a lengthier document. Originally designed with Tablet PCs in mind, Microsoft OneNote offers many benefits to desktop and laptop users alike. Family Law practitioner and ABA Family Law Section member Stephen M. Worrall refers to Microsoft Office OneNote as The Ideal Note-Taking Tool for Today's Lawyer in his TabletPCLawyer blog.

Microsoft OneNote was first released as part of Microsoft Office 2003 in October 2003. If you're contemplating a Microsoft Office 2007 upgrade, Microsoft OneNote 2007 is included in Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Ultimate Edition. While OneNote will run as a standalone application, it was designed to complement Office and integrate seamlessly with its components.

Reviewer James Marshall at about.com likes to think of Microsoft OneNote as a go-between for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook. If you're a Microsoft Office user, you should be up and running in Microsoft OneNote immediately. While several of the Microsoft Office 2007 applications have a new look, Microsoft OneNote 2007 still uses the traditional menus. You can easily share files between Microsoft Word and Outlook and OneNote using menus you're already familiar with. Read James Marshall's review.

You can create a Microsoft Outlook appointment, contact or task within Microsoft OneNote. Taking notes at a meeting? No problem; it's very simple to insert Microsoft Outlook meeting details into your notes. Learn more about these features from Microsoft Office's Crabby Office Lady.

Microsoft OneNote also works powerfully with Microsoft PowerPoint, allowing you to import PowerPoint slides into OneNote to make relevant notes. With group permission, you can also record the presentation and OneNote will automatically put markers within your notes that determines where to start the audio (or video) when you click a marker.

To sum up....TechnoLawyer Neil Squillante likes Microsoft OneNote and sees it as a great tool for many lawyers. (See Squillante's TechnoLawyer Blog for his review.) And Legal Writer Mark Voorhees declared, "Microsoft may have finally written a program for lawyers, although it isn't aimed specifically at the legal market. Microsoft OneNote helps people take notes on their computer. Note taking is not rocket science, but it occupies a fair chunk of billable hours by lawyers." (Read more of Mark Voorhees on Microsoft OneNote at Law.com.)