SOLVED

Keyboard Shortcut to Show/Hide Navigation panel

Brass Contributor

I miss a keyboard shortcut to show/hide the new Navigation panel.

I know I can Ctrl+G to show it and choose another notebook, but I didn't find any way to hide it again after choosing a new section/page.

 

Using OneNote for Windows 10 

Version 16001.11629.20028.0

 

Would love your advice on this...

17 Replies

@Shalem120 Microsoft killed the feature hide navigation panel (here at 22:55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvYqYEIjU88) and now the only thing you can do is to make it smaller. I wish I could be able to hide like it was one month ago beacuse when I use the Surface in vertical mode i lose so much space

@Shalem120 I'd like to see this as well; don't like having to hide the nav. panels with the mouse, but don't like the added screen confusion with them there.

@Shalem120, a workaround for this is hitting F6 twice and enter. That focuses the left navigation bar and closes/opens it

Same here... hitting ctrl+shift+g again should hide navigation menu.

The multiple F6 + Enter combo seems the only viable "toggle visibility" option atm. The primary issue with this is sometimes you hit F6 twice, sometimes 3x. This results in time lost now confirming F6 selected the correct icon. If the multiple key strokes didn't already do it, that certainly makes the process equal to if not longer than simply clicking with your mouse.

This really needs to be a single, reliable keybind to Show/Hide the Navigation opened to the Page.
best response confirmed by Shalem120 (Brass Contributor)
Solution
"Ctrl+Alt+- and Ctrl+Alt+= will hide and show the panes respectively"
From a OneNote Engineer in Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/OneNote/comments/c30aau/how_do_i_hide_the_new_navigation_pane/
Tested in Office365 and works great, thanks!

@adrianvlupu Neither hitting F6 twice then enter, nor Cntl+Shift+g twice did anything.  I use the OneNote app on Windows 10Home.  

@Josh Gotbaum that's weird. I have the following version of the app

adrianvlupu_0-1588524777426.png

 

and when I hit F6 twice it changes the focus to the navigation panel

 

adrianvlupu_1-1588524879940.png

 

"Ctrl+Alt+- and Ctrl+Alt+

Hey it worked greatly. Thanks.@theavidlearner 

Has anyone found an equivalent shortcut for OneNote on Mac? Seems the Ctrl + Opt + - doesn't trigger the show/hide animation.

I have OneNote for Mac and have been asking for this for years.  It's insane not to show / hide this with key command.   Also, you can key command can open Find window, but no closing it by toggle or alternate command.   MS, what in the ever-lovin' world are you waiting for???

BTW don't be flumoxed if you see if these supposed methods to do it, but they don't work.  Ctrl Alt (Opt) _ / + or - / = do not work, not for me at least.  One of those does strike through and one subscript btw so check edit undo to make sure nothing changed if you try these.  

 

I've seen pages as recent as 2018 reference "Expand / Collapse Navigation" in the Menu bar, no.  It's not there.   Too bad CMD G doesn't at least open to show Sections, like say if that's the last view before you closed.  So why in blazes do they have a key to open Notebooks?  Different Notebooks are the least likely to contain anything related to what you're working on, being different umbrella categories.   I don't go between Financial and Personal Journals a lot.  Going between Notebooks seems the rarest navigation of all. Why is this all so bass-ackwards?? 

 

This is bloody irritating as it's something I keep thinking "surely it has it, it must be under some odd term I haven't uncovered."  So I troll through the menus, search Help (useful on Mac with .01% up attempts,) find key command lists, down the Google rabbit hole with outdated pages and conflicting info to no avail, yet again.  Frustrating time waster beyond words.  

 

As for the suggestion or hitting F6 twice, if that works for you great, but I've never, ever heard of a shortcut / key command that involved repeated pressing of keys.  For starters, I'm fairly sure that would not be programmable for anything customizable; why introduce that when there are plenty combinations to use? (Then again, not having this function is as ridiculous as anything else.)  Also many on Mac are set up for media keys with F6 as Play / Pause toggle, so I can hear a split second of your music this way but that's it. 

I found an even faster solution than the ones mentioned since it seems that Microsoft has finally modified Quick Notes for good, where you can't have multiple pages like you used to. I always use this for work to take quick notes, so I figured out that using Shift + F6 and then hitting Enter is the fastest way to access the Show/Hide the "Show Navigation" pane.@Shalem120 

I feel your pain the only reason i'm still using OneNote instead looking of an alternative is because I's so used to after many many years, close to 8 now. but the lack of some important features and shorcut really pushes me to look for an alternative

@theavidlearner this solution doesn't work with Mac

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Shalem120 (Brass Contributor)
Solution
"Ctrl+Alt+- and Ctrl+Alt+= will hide and show the panes respectively"
From a OneNote Engineer in Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/OneNote/comments/c30aau/how_do_i_hide_the_new_navigation_pane/

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