The Projex Academy Official PRINCE2® 7 Tabbing System 

Navigate. Don’t Memorise. Why Your PRINCE2® 7 Manual Needs a New Strategy for the 2026 Practitioner Exam

One of the biggest misconceptions I still hear from PRINCE2® candidates is, “It’s an open-book exam, so I’ll just fill my manual with tabs and notes.” It sounds logical enough, but if you’re sitting the PRINCE2® 7 Practitioner exam in 2026, that approach could cause problems before you’ve even answered the first question.

The exam is still open-book, and yes, you’re still allowed to take your official printed PRINCE2® manual into the exam. You can still use permanent tabs, highlighting, underlining and even short margin notes. What has changed, however, is how those annotations are expected to be used.

Over the past 12 to 18 months, PeopleCert has tightened its guidance considerably, particularly for remotely proctored exams. The emphasis is now firmly on using your manual as a navigation tool rather than a revision aid. That’s an important distinction, and it’s one that many candidates don’t fully appreciate until exam day.

A Different Way of Thinking

When your exam begins, the proctor doesn’t simply check that you have the correct manual. They’ll usually inspect the front and back covers, the page edges, your tabs, the inside pages and any loose material you’ve tucked inside. If they believe your annotations amount to additional learning material rather than navigation aids, they may ask you to remove them before the exam can begin.

That’s why I decided it was time to rethink the traditional tabbing approach.

For years, candidates were encouraged to create manuals covered in handwritten tabs with reminders such as “Outputs”, “Responsibilities”, “Benefits” or “Four Objectives”. Those systems worked well under previous guidance because they acted as quick revision prompts. Under today’s rules, however, those same tabs can be viewed as additional learning material rather than simple navigation.

So instead of asking, “What do I need to remember?”, I now encourage students to ask a much better question.

“How quickly can I find the information?”

That single shift in mindset changes everything.

Introducing the Projex Academy Official PRINCE2® 7 Tabbing System™

The system I’ve developed is built around one simple philosophy.

Navigate. Don’t Memorise.

Rather than filling your manual with dozens of reminders and prompts, the goal is to create a clean, compliant navigation system that allows you to jump to the right page almost instinctively. During the Practitioner exam, speed matters. Every second spent searching through the manual is a second you’re not analysing the scenario or answering the question.

The Projex Academy system uses just twenty-four carefully placed tabs, organised using a simple three-colour scheme. Blue identifies the Practices, green marks the Processes, while yellow highlights the reference material, such as the appendices, glossary and index. It’s deliberately uncomplicated because, under pressure, simple systems outperform complicated ones every time.

Less Really Is More

One of the most common mistakes I see is over-highlighting. Candidates often colour entire pages because everything feels important during revision. The trouble is that when half the page is highlighted, nothing really stands out.

Instead, I recommend highlighting only the items that genuinely help you navigate the manual. Purpose statements, definitions, management product names, diagrams and key tables are all excellent candidates. Long explanatory paragraphs, examples and case studies can usually be left alone. Your future exam-day self will thank you.

The same principle applies to margin notes. Short cross-references such as “See Risk” or “Used in IP” are perfectly reasonable because they simply direct you elsewhere in the manual. Longer notes that explain concepts, list outputs or remind you what to remember move beyond navigation and into revision territory. That is exactly what the current guidance is trying to avoid.

Navigation Beats Memorisation

One feature I particularly like is creating a simple navigation map inside the front cover. Rather than writing revision notes, use that space as a quick index showing where you’ll find the Practices, Processes, Management Products, Roles, Appendices and Glossary. Likewise, the blank pages at the front or back of the manual can become a clean page-number index instead of somewhere to squeeze in extra exam tips.

The beauty of this approach is that everything remains compliant because you’re simply helping yourself find information more quickly. You’re not adding new learning material to the book.

Cross-references are another valuable technique. If a section naturally links to another part of the manual, make that connection with a brief note pointing to the relevant page. Done properly, these references dramatically reduce the amount of page-turning during the exam while remaining fully within the spirit of the guidance.

The Two-Second Test

I encourage every student to perform what I call the Two-Second Navigation Test™ before they sit the exam.

Pick a topic at random, perhaps the Risk Practice, the Exception Report, the Project Board or the Benefits Management Approach, and see how quickly you can find it. If it takes longer than two seconds, don’t add more tabs. Instead, simplify your navigation system until the information becomes easier to locate.

It’s surprising how often removing clutter actually makes the manual faster to use.

Final Thoughts

The PRINCE2® 7 Practitioner exam isn’t a test of how many notes you’ve managed to squeeze into your manual. It’s a test of whether you can interpret a project scenario and apply the PRINCE2 method effectively.

Your manual is there to help you navigate the guidance, not replace your understanding of it.

That’s exactly why I created the Projex Academy Official PRINCE2® 7 Tabbing System™. It gives candidates a clean, professional and PeopleCert-compliant way of finding information quickly, without risking problems during the proctor’s inspection.

I’ve now adopted this approach with all of my PRINCE2® 7 Practitioner students, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Candidates spend less time searching, more time thinking, and go into the exam with greater confidence knowing that their manual is working with them rather than against them.

In the end, that’s what exam success is really about.

Navigate. Don’t Memorise.