The company has detailed the improvements it made in the new OneNote build

Nov 27, 2013 03:51 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft yesterday released a new version of OneNote, but the company hasn’t provided too many details on what’s new, leaving users to discover the changes it made to the app.

Today, on the other hand, Redmond has decided to provide us with full details on the update, revealing that OneNote now significantly improves the way you capture, find, and view notes on a Windows 8.1 device.

“This update makes it easier to capture notes using the Windows 8.1 Share Charm, enables you to scan things with your camera and search them, and shows your recent notes with page previews,” Microsoft said.

First of all, you can now capture your screen using the share charm, so you can quickly send new captures to OneNote with just a few taps or clicks.

“Let's say you're using the Bing Food & Drink app and you want to capture that yummy beef short rib recipe in OneNote so you can have it with you always. Use the Share Charm (swipe from the right or mouse to the top right corner, then select Share), select OneNote, and then select Send. Now that recipe will be in your notes, on all your devices, forever!” Microsoft explained.

New camera scan options help you capture documents, magazines, and whiteboards for OneNote. The new feature does the job almost all by itself, as it automatically crops, rotates, straightens, and removes shadows from images to look like scanned documents.

Last but not least, the new OneNote app comes with options to search for text in scanned documents using OCR, a feature that has been implemented in SkyDrive earlier this year.

“The technical name for this is Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and it's great for searching scanned or photographed images of recipes, documents, receipts and so much more. You can even copy the text out of the image,” Microsoft explained.

A video demonstration of what’s new in OneNote for Windows 8.1 is available below.