AppFlow

Earlier this week, I had a brief look at Microsoft Word and it’s potential to be a good program when switched to Notebook Mode.

Today, I’m going to have more of an in-depth look at it’s audio recording functionality.  While doing some testing of this in a lesson the other day, I found something quite amazing.  Well, I say ‘quite amazing’, really it’s rather mundane, but nonetheless, very useful!

Notebook Mode

If you haven’t already, have a look at the post on Microsoft Word’s Notebook mode for an overview of notebook mode.

Switching to Notebook mode is done through the view menu.

Recording

When you arrive in a lecture,meeting or lesson you want to record, go right ahead and press the record button.  This can be done by first bringing up the ‘audio’ functions, and then by pressing record.

As you type your notes, you’ll notice a blue speaker to the left of the line you are typing on.  As you press the ‘enter’ key to move to the next line (and next note) the blue speaker follows.

Playback

When you’re done recording, press stop, followed by play.

You’ll notice that the blue speaker on the side follows down your notes as you were entering them.  This means that you can hear what was being said at the time that you typed that note.

Want to skip right to a bit you didn’t understand?  Hover over the note in question and the blue speaker appears to it’s left.  Click it, and your full recording begins from the time when you started typing that note.

Conclusion

The practical applications of this simple function go way beyond Lectures.  If you work in a business, why not deliver meeting minutes in this way?  If you can think of any others – please add them as comments, of tweet us @appflowblog.