- Create flashcards based on the contents of this page
- Create a study guide from my notes
5. Create charts, diagrams, mind maps, and other visuals
By looking for patterns, relationships, trends, and so on in your notes, Copilot may be able to generate appropriate charts or diagrams. Or if a page contains a list of ideas that you wrote, it may create a mind map that visualizes the relationships among them.
Example:
- Create a chart based on this page
Depending on the information in your notes, Copilot may be able to generate charts or other visualizations from it.
Howard Wen / Foundry
This can work the other way around too: Copilot can analyze the data in charts, graphs, and tables that you’ve added to a page. Then it can summarize any insights, patterns or trends that it finds in them.
Example:
- Summarize the table on this page
6. Find and cite sources
You can ask Copilot to search the internet for specific information — such as facts, sources, and statistics — or to define complex concepts or technical terms. This can be helpful if you need to look up more information about the topic you’re writing about, add sources to support the content on your page, or get some fresh ideas. Copilot can generate citations in APA, Chicago, or MLA style.
Example:
- Find a statistic about the adoption rate of gen AI in business, and cite the source in MLA style
Copilot web search results with MLA-style citation.
Howard Wen / Foundry
7. Transform your notes to Excel, PowerPoint, or Word
Copilot can convert the content in a OneNote page into other Microsoft 365 file formats. Try instructing it to turn the page that’s open in the main pane into an Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, or Word document.
Example:
- Turn this page into a document for Word
8. Brainstorm with you
Copilot can act as your brainstorming partner. Try chatting with it as you would with a co-worker where you’re bouncing ideas off each other. During these sessions, Copilot can offer suggestions and may provide a mind map.
Examples:
- What are some things I should consider when holding an online meeting with 8 people who are spread across 3 time zones
- Give me ideas for an online marketing campaign for a new coffeehouse
9. Translate your notes into other languages
Copilot can translate the text on a page into another language.
Example:
- Translate this page to Spanish
Copilot has not only translated the page to Spanish, but offers follow-up prompts in Spanish as well.
Howard Wen / Foundry
(For more ideas of what you can do with the Copilot sidebar in OneNote, check out Microsoft’s gallery of Copilot prompts for OneNote.)
More actions with the Copilot pop-up menu
As you add content to, edit, or otherwise work on a page, you can apply a few Copilot actions to it without invoking the Copilot sidebar.
Click the cursor somewhere on the page; if Copilot is available to do an action, its icon will appear to the left of the cursor. Or you can right-click somewhere on the page, and from the menu that opens, select Copilot.
In either instance, a small menu presents you with three actions that Copilot can do: Summarize page, Create a task list, and Rewrite page.
This mini menu appears when you click the Copilot icon next to your cursor in the main OneNote window.
Howard Wen / Foundry
Summarizing a page and creating a task list are the same as described above. Rewrite page is just what it sounds like: asking Copilot to come up with alternate text for the page. (For more details, see our guide to using Copilot for writing tasks in Word, Outlook, and OneNote.)
Copilot can rewrite the text on a page — but its output is often generic and bland.
Howard Wen / Foundry
In the OneNote Windows app, you may see one additional option in this Copilot mini menu: Take notes with Copilot. This feature is gradually rolling out to users, so you might not have it yet.
We have not been able to test it, but according to Microsoft, you’ll be able to type in a prompt to have Copilot pull in information from other Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, Word, and Teams and turn it into a note. For instance, you could ask Copilot to create a task list for a project from documents, emails, and Teams chats about the project.
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