How to use Web Notes on Microsoft Edge for Windows 10

By Mark Guim
published

My favorite feature on the new Microsoft Edge browser for Windows 10 is the ability to scribble, highlight, and add notes to web pages. Microsoft calls this feature Web Notes. It's really simple, but you can watch our quick how-to video to see how it works.

  1. Tap or click Make a web note at the top right corner to start adding to the page you're on.
  2. The Web Note menu shows up on top, replacing the address bar
  3. Use the pen, highlighter, and caption box to add notes to the page. Use the eraser if you've made any mistakes.
  4. Tap the arrow button when you want to scroll up or down the page.
  5. That's it!

You can save the note to Microsoft OneNote, your favorites, or your reading list. You can also use the Share button to share your marked up note via email, Twitter or other apps.

By default, it saves or shares the whole page. You might not want to do this on very long pages. Use the crop button to select the section you want.

Was this guide helpful? There are plenty more at our Windows 10 help, tips, and tricks page!

Mark Guim
Mark Guim

Mark Guim is Video Editor at Windows Central. He switched to Windows because the MacBook Pro isn't Pro enough. You can follow him on Twitter at @markguim.

52 Comments
  • Nice
  • Not on phone, sad.
  • This^
  • +1 mate...
  • Unfortunetly I think this comment is a Summary of feature additions right now.
  • If this is truly an universal app, the feature is there but hidden. I guess they will enable it eventually, especially with a presumed surface pen accessory rumored
  • Same thing with OneNote, if universal must be some hidden feature as well
  • I thought it was Lumia lol
  • It's a cool feature, but in no way is it my favorite, you really have to have a specific set of jobs for it to be your favorite features, for regular people there isn't much use for us for this. Maybe every once and a while, but it will be rare that I ever need to use this feature. How about you commenters? Which of you will use it a lot and which won't?
  • If I can use it to save the "story" to OneNote then yes, quite often. By "story" I mean the text and related photos without the ads.
  • Just been informed this works in read mode, so very useful.
  • Is great for realestate hunting n other shopping notes.
  • The typed notes section is going to come in very handy when reviewing web pages and sending in corrections.
  • I have to say I was excited about this feature, and planed on using it, but it has indeed become my favorite feature as well. As a web designer I instantly began using it for work, sending comments and notes to coworkers on fixes and designs. Unexpectedly I began using it to send jokes to friends, recipes to gf, notes for later. . . .etc. The share to onenote has resulted in a whole new section for me. It's prety terrific. Waiting for a collabortive or coauthoring technique to be added!
  • Give me that tablet
  • Seeing the picture with the Surface keyboard flipped back like that makes me one want now!  Does the active stylus work on the newest versions?
  • Yes, it uses the same N-Trig Stylus like the Surface Pro 3.
  • I wonder why they didn't do this for all of Windows ten? Great way to take a screen shot an put notes in it. I know you can take. Screen shot and then add notes. But to have this baked in to the O.S. Would be great. For example you could see a picture in the news app, add a few few lines to make it look funny and then share it.
  • Still got the snipping tool at least. Not quite as glamorous but you can add bits to your snips. I always keep it pinned to the task bar for emergencies!
  • How does it work with the pen? Can we move the page with the finger and ink with the pen without having to switch the mode in the top bar buttons?
  • Was going to test this out, but I can't find my pen!
  • Just tried it, works great. If you use your pen to draw, you can scroll with your finger.
  • Great! Thank you
  • Thanks!
  • Why not on phone?
  • I thought this feature was kind of gimmicky, however since installing the RTM build on my SP3 I've actually found it's super convenient and am using it way more than I thought I would. I find myself reaching for my pen a lot more than I used to. Where before I was just sharing links in an e-mail and often would not share something because I didn't want to take the time to add typed notes I'm now sharing a lot more ideas at work using this feature. It's like a mini OneNote in that you don't really think you'll use it, until you do and now you'd be disappointed if they took it away!
  • Does this work in read mode?
  • Yep, works in read mode.
  • That will be very useful, thanks for letting me know Vasrias.
  • Thanks Mark. I do like these simple how-to articles, makes it easy to digest and search. I also appreciate the Windows 10 help, tips, and tricks page link in the article, sure this will be handy in the future, cheers.
  • Glad it helped. Will be adding more to that page, so make sure to bookmark =)
  • Question: if i add a caption, does it have to be expanded the moment i share it in order for it to appear, or can the person i sent it to just click it to read what i wrote..? thanx for the video.  
  • Maybe I can get an answer here in an article on it since my question in the forums hasn't been answered. Is this working in the current build? Any time I try and save a note it crashes edge and I need to know if it is just me, requiring a refresh, or if it is actually broke. I use the hell out of this feature at work.
  • Used the Surface 3 running the current build in this demo
  • Damn. Well maybe I will wait until the next update to see if it fixes it, otherwise guess I need to do a refresh. Is there a way to just reinstall one note or edge?
  • There was some updates today and something fixed it. Amazing how much this little feature can be missed when it's gone, one of my most used tools at work right now.
  • As opposed to Microsoft Edge for any other OS
  • Hi Mark, You start your story by saying this is your favorite feature. Could you tell me how you use Web Notes in your daily routine? Do you use this method to share and commuicate with Daniel? If so how do you use it? Do you use to it as design feedback, corrections?, do you only use it to emphasize webpages on windowscentral.com? Or do you also use it for other websites? And in what way? And how do you manage those webnotes in onenote? Do you make a seperate section for webnotes? Do you combine them with other notes? As you probably can tell I am very curious about the real world functionality of this feature. I have tried using webnotes in my daily routine, but I have found it difficult to find a good valuable usecase. On my surface I tend to prefer to print my webpages to onenote and doodle there. I think you gave a good and basic tutorial of how to use the basic features of webnotes. It would be nice if you could do a followup video of how to save webnotes to edge and how to save to favorites. I've tried it a couple of times, but it isn't as straightforward as I imagined. Sometimes a combination of pen annotations and text annotations are not saved, only one of both.
  • How often you use something doesn't correlate to how much you like something.
  • I use it quite extensively to quickly take note of bugs on our company website that I need to fix.
  • Crashes when trying to face.
  • If you mean when trying to "save" it was broken for me as well. Something in tonight's update fixed it for me, you might try that.
  • and so if we are upgrading from Win7 w/o touch screen we are just S.O.L. as far as this goes?    
  • You can use a mouse, not sure for every thing but the things I've tried the mouse worked just fine.
  • Is it just an image copy, or does it allow you to click on items and links? Failing that, does it at least keep the html address so you can easily get back to the live page?
  • MS should put this on the Win10 phn too. LOVE IT.
  • I have microsoft edge for lumia 520
  • What tablet is this?
  • Will this feature work on Lumia devices?
  • Like Wevenhuis, I have had trouble saving my notes too. The webpage will save to OneNote but the actual typed notes that made on the page just show up as an icon. Not very useful I'm afraid.
  • How do I save it when done? Because when I try to it just closes the whole internet explorer browser.
  • I need to use the draw tool to highlight within the "settings" for an instructional video. If I go into the webnote window, the settings disappears from the tool bar so I cannot access it. Is there a way to do it?