Handwriting Search and Apple Watch support for OneNote

Today’s post on OneNote was written by Greg Akselrod and Avneesh Kohli, program managers on the OneNote team.

Millions of people take handwritten notes in OneNote thanks to digital inking capabilities across popular devices including the iPad, Windows tablets and Android tablets. In fact, OneNote for Windows has supported handwriting recognition since 2006. Microsoft Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3 users can start writing with a click of their pen and iPad users can use a variety of styluses designed for the iPad.

Starting today, you can now search your handwritten notes that are in OneNote notebooks saved to OneDrive–just like you can search through typed text and text within images. Just type your search query into the OneNote search box to locate the page and the specific handwritten note. With OneNote’s powerful handwriting recognition, you’ll never have to worry about losing your notes again.

OneNote for Windows 8.1

OneNote for iPad

Handwritten notes saved to OneDrive are processed and searchable within two to five minutes and any pre-existing handwritten notes in your OneNote notebooks stored on OneDrive will be processed and searchable in the coming weeks.

In addition, OneNote’s handwriting recognition works in 25 languages. We will expand language support and recognition accuracy, so stay tuned for future improvements.

OneNote for Apple Watch

We recently released OneNote for the Apple Watch to access your content when you’re on the go. We designed OneNote for Apple Watch with a strong focus on lightweight interactions and placed a premium on convenience. A core principle of our design was ensuring that you could quickly and easily reference the information you are looking for. If you pinned a note on OneNote for iPhone, we’ll surface it right at the top of your Apple Watch app, so you don’t need to hunt for it. This is perfect for when you’re frequently checking your to-do list.

Additionally, OneNote for Apple Watch presents a unique opportunity to capture any quick idea, to-do, or thought you have while you’re on the go. All you need to do is speak what’s on your mind, and we’ll save it to OneNote immediately so you don’t forget it. Just tap the large + button and start dictating–it’s really is that simple.

We encourage you to give OneNote for Apple Watch a try and let us know what you think! You’ll need OneNote installed on your iPhone and then you simply need to toggle it on from the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.

Improvements to OneNote for iPad

Lastly, we recently released an update to OneNote for iPad that introduced a new and improved way to organize your notebooks. Similar to the OneNote for iPhone experience, you can now easily swipe from the left to view the drawer where you can view all your notebooks, open or create notebooks, reorder and close notebooks. Additionally, you can now more easily access and manage your accounts and app settings in this all-new user interface. This makes all the ideas and information you keep in OneNote more convenient to recall.

—Greg Akselrod and Avneesh Kohli, on behalf of the OneNote team.