Microsoft announced Monday that Sticky Notes, one of Windows' worst applications, will receive an upgrade intended to serve as a kind of annotation tool for other applications. This is a niche where Sticky Notes could survive, but could still use some additional features.
There are many apps and services for taking notes. For example, I've used Microsoft's OneNote for decades. But apps like Google Keep are great as simple, flexible apps for jotting down reminders, lists, and other information you want to refer to later but forget quickly.
The latest update to Sticky Notes supports this same “I need it until I don't need it” utility. This is essentially a digital footnote, allowing you to capture a PowerPoint slide or a web page and attach some digital notes to it.
However, the trouble is that it doesn't work on its own, at least not at first. Microsoft is testing this preview experience as an addition to OneNote. Once your PC receives it, you'll see a small button above it that says “Sticky Notes.” Clicking on it will launch a preview of this new sticky note. Fortunately, you can avoid doing the same thing again by pinning the app to the taskbar afterwards. However, if you don't want to see sticky notes live at the bottom of the screen, Win+Alt+S Use the shortcut to launch it instead.
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The main feature is automatic saving of sources. This is a fancy way of saying that if you take a screenshot of an important slide, you can save it as a new note on a sticky note with an automatic link to the source presentation or website. When you reopen the slide or website later, the note will appear at the top if you have Sticky Notes open. (Sticky notes can be docked as a vertical column of notes on your desktop.)
I haven't used the new Sticky Notes app yet, but taking screenshots seems to be the key to everything. Without that connection, Sticky Notes won't know what page you're on. However, that link is used to connect to a site or presentation (from within Sticky Notes) or to Sticky Notes (from within Source). Naturally, you'll need to sign in to your Microsoft account to take full advantage of the app.
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In general, sticky notes feel like this: Too Temporary; if you want to scribble a quick note, you might use Notepad instead. Otherwise, drop it into Keep or OneNote. Sticky Notes always just felt There, has no real purpose. The new update will help give you that.
Microsoft says the new Sticky Notes app is available to current channel (preview) users running OneNote on Windows version 2402 (build 17328.20000) or later.
