Applies to
Microsoft Office OneNote® 2003 SP1
Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003

By Kathy Jacobs

Your team has created a presentation in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 to introduce the latest company product to the sales force. You want the whole team to review it before you present it to the sales force. Unfortunately, you can't get your team in the same room at the same time, and you don't have enough time for everyone to review the presentation through e-mail.

Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 to the rescue! You can set up a shared note-taking session in OneNote and invite everyone to participate. Local participants can attend in person. Remote participants can gather in conference rooms at their locations to call in for vocal participation and log on to join the shared note-taking session. Those who cannot attend the meeting can review the changes by using the pages in the shared note-taking session and any audio files created during the meeting.

Setting up the meeting

You can set up the meeting by creating the pages for the shared session, arranging a local meeting location, and then sending the meeting invitation to all participants.

Setting up the notes pages

To set up the notes pages for the shared note-taking session, you must create the pages, and then insert the presentation and other information such as color schemes, presenter notes, and additional material that accompanies the presentation.

To create the subpages that contain the presentation, in OneNote, on the Insert menu, click Document as Picture, and then browse to the presentation. This adds pages that contain black and white pictures of the slides. The slide pictures automatically appear on the background of the page, so participants can add notes on top of the slides. To indicate animations, draw on the slides to show what moves and which elements appear in what order.

If you want the color scheme of the presentation to be part of the review, add a sample slide to your notes. Add a page after the presentation pages in OneNote. Open PowerPoint, copy one of the slides, and paste it onto the new page. If your presentation has multiple color schemes, copy and paste another sample slide. (You can copy and paste only one slide at a time.)

To include presenter notes from PowerPoint in your OneNote notes, copy them from PowerPoint slide-by-slide, and then paste them near the picture of each slide in OneNote.

 Tip   You can also copy all of the presenter notes at the same time by using Microsoft Office Word 2003. Add a page at the end of your notes in OneNote. In PowerPoint, on the File menu, point to Send To, and then click Microsoft Office Word. Click Notes next to slides, and then click OK. Copy the column of notes from Word to the new OneNote page. All presenter notes appear together on that page.

You can add additional pages that contain additional material to be shared with the sales team, such as product brochures and pricing sheets.

Arranging the local meeting location

You must be able to make conference calls from the location you choose for your local meeting. A large screen to display the shared note-taking session on is also helpful. Even though all participants will have a computer with the notes pages in front of them, a screen will make it easier to keep track of changes on pages. Similar locations will help remote team members participate in the session.

Sending the invitation for the shared session

You are now ready to create your shared note-taking session and invite participants. Start a shared note-taking session by following the steps at Start or end a shared note-taking session. Make sure you select all of the pages that you want to share before you start the session.

In the Current Shared Session task pane, click Invite Participants. Add your team members' e-mail addresses to the To line of the e-mail message that appears. In the message body, include any additional information the participants will need, such as:

• Whether the audio portion of the session will be recorded and whether the audio and notes will be available after the meeting.
• How to make notes before the meeting. Because all participants will share the pages, it is better to record any pre-meeting notes on copies of the pages, instead of in the shared note-taking session.
• How to follow the progress of the meeting. You can request a volunteer to record a prominent note such as "We're moving to page 3" every time the meeting moves ahead in the notes. Delete these notes after a few seconds so they don't get confusing.
• Ground rules for the meeting. For example, participants should not delete other users' notes without permission.

Make sure that the address information listed in the e-mail message and the Shared Address Information dialog box in the Current Shared Session task pane will stay the same between the time you send the invitation and the time you start the meeting. Your IT department can provide that information.

Starting the meeting

Holding the meeting requires coordinating comments, notes, and equipment. As the leader, you might find that both coordinating the meeting and participating are too much. You can ask someone who is not participating in the review to attend and handle the coordination.

Set up the conference call so that other participants can join. Make sure that the telephone's speaker is turned on so that everyone can hear.

If possible, make sure that your computer's microphone can record any comments made by those in the room or on the phone. Having an audio recording helps participants who arrive late and those who review the audio notes later.

Next, set up a computer to display your OneNote pages on the screen. Make some test changes to make sure that everything is clear enough. Each participant has the note pages on his or her computer. Because everyone can make notations at the same time, the enlarged copy of the page helps participants keep track of where you are and what you are doing.

Select your note pages again and start the shared session that you created when you sent the invitation. This time, don't click Invite Participants. As soon as the shared session starts, the other participants can join by following the instructions in the invitation. As participants join, their names will appear in the Participants box. Remind those participating remotely that they should call in to the conference call as well.

Reviewing the presentation

After all the participants join the session, you can start the collaboration process. This is the easy part!

As members find changes or make comments, they note them on the page. OneNote accepts written, typed, or drawn notes during a shared session. Participants can add notes directly to the page or copy them from other places.

 Note   Handwritten notes are shared with other participants as drawings. Other participants cannot convert handwritten notes to text.

As you progress thorough the meeting, make sure that everyone is on the same page. Use the mechanism you set up in the invitation. In addition, keep the current page on the large screen at all times.

If, as session host, you need to take control of the meeting and stop participants from adding more notes, clear the Allow participants to edit check box in the Current Shared Session task pane. You can still add notes to the pages. To allow editing again, select the check box.

Adding pages

If, during the meeting, you find that you need a page that is not currently shared, you can add it to the shared pages list. To do this, select the pages that you want to add and click Add Pages in the Current Shared Session task pane. All shared pages must be in the same section. If you want to add a page that is not in the current section, copy it to the section and then share it. After a page is shared, it remains shared until the session is completed.

Finishing the meeting

When you are ready to wrap up the session, add a blank page and share it. On this page, add a summary of the meeting. This summary page helps those who were not able to attend the meeting to know which notes were decisions and which were just discussions.

It might be helpful to create customized note flags that mark the notes that are final and the notes that need further actions. If you do this, create a note flag summary page that shows all the flagged items for the session.

Just before you complete the collaboration session, appoint someone to receive further comments and notes. Be sure to note this assignment on your meeting summary. Those who were not at the meeting can send notes to this person, who will add the notes to an official copy of the pages. Tell the participants to mark any additional notes with a specific flag. This allows the person who is keeping track of late notes to add additional comments to the official pages.

When the meeting is finished, participants can leave the session by clicking Leave Shared Session in the Current Shared Session task pane. When the host leaves the session, one of two things occurs:

• If the participants are allowed to edit the pages, the next participant becomes the host, and the shared session continues. In this case, the session ends when all participants have left the session.
• If the participants are not allowed to edit the pages, the session ends as soon as the host leaves the session.

After the meeting

Each participant has a copy of the pages as the pages appeared when the participant left the session. However, only you have the audio recording, if you set up your computer to record it. You can create a zip file that contains the shared pages and the audio file. Send that file to all participants (including those who were unable to attend the meeting).

Participants can browse through the note pages. If they have questions about an annotation, they can play the relevant audio portion to understand what was discussed.

When the person responsible for keeping the official copy receives additional notes, he or she can search for the flagged notes and copy them to the official pages.

After all participants complete their comments, you can incorporate the comments into the presentation materials. If there are many changes or if the changes are major, you might want to repeat the review process with another shared session.

Kathy Jacobs is a Microsoft MVP and webmistress of OneNoteAnswers and PowerPointAnswers. Her first computer was a build-it-yourself Heathkit she got in high school. (Yes, she did use the soldering iron.) Her book, Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint, is available through most major booksellers.