5. The Windows Journal: More Than Just Notes

The Windows Journal, which was developed especially for the Tablet PC, looks much like a classic notepad. It allows you to enter notes, images and sketches with the pen. There are several different types of paper templates from which to choose, including lined and gridded.

The notes can be stored in a new format called ".jnt." Later, you can call them up again and manipulate them, or you can insert them as an image file in Word or in other documents.

If you want to pass your notes on to a co-worker, you can export them as TIFF or MHTML files. The latter format can be viewed on any PC that has Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher installed on it.

Since the handwriting-recognition software is always running in the background, you can search for text in Journal documents and insert handwritten text into other documents as typed text.