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Microsoft OneNote comes to Android tablets for free

Latest version of OneNote for Android is optimized for tablets and adds support for handwritten notes and text formatting.

Mary Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 30 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008). She also is the cohost of the "Windows Weekly" podcast on the TWiT network.
Mary Jo Foley
2 min read

Microsoft OneNote Logo
Microsoft

Microsoft has introduced a version of its OneNote note-taking application optimized to work on Android tablets-- with support for digital inking.

The new application is available for download for free from the Google Play store Tuesday. It requires Google's Android 4.1 operating system or higher. Microsoft has been beta testing the Android tablet version of OneNote for the past several months.

The new OneNote for Android release includes handwriting support and "touch-friendly navigation," according to Microsoft officials.

Microsoft execs had told testers to expect the Android tablet version of OneNote to support digital inking. The feature lets users take handwritten notes or draw with a stylus or finger; add text formatting options, including font types, font sizes, alignments, and tags; and allow users to move between notebooks, sections, and pages with a swipe.

Microsoft also is rolling out a couple of other OneNote updates today.

Its "OneNote for Windows Store" (aka, Metro-Style OneNote for Windows 8.x) is being updated with ink- highlighter functionality, support for printing, and the ability to insert files and PDFs.

There's also an update for Livescribe+ which adds auto-sending so users can set up any Livescribe notebook using their Livescribe 3 smartpens to automatically send handwritten notes to a specific notebook in OneNote.

Microsoft is continuing work on other touch-optimized Office apps for Android tablets. The Office on Android tablet suite, expected to include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, is on track for release before the end of calendar 2014, sources have said. The touch-optimized Metro-Style/modern Office suite for Windows 8.x is not expected to arrive until the first half of 2015, my sources also have said.

There are now nine different OneNote clients: OneNote for Windows, Windows 8, Windows Phone, iOS, Mac OS X, Android phone, Android tablets, Amazon Fire Phone/Kindle Fire tablets, and OneNote Online (for use with a variety of browsers).

This story originally appeared as "Microsoft rolls out free OneNote app for Android tablets" on ZDNet.