The best version of OneNote on Windows

[William Devereux]

The below article is out of date as of Nov 4^th 2019. Please check out this article for the latest OneNote announcement.

We’re incredibly lucky to have millions of passionate OneNote users around the globe, and we love learning how we can help you remember, think, and organize better. In spending time with you, we heard a recurring theme: you want a single version of OneNote on Windows that combines all the benefits of the modern Windows 10 app with the depth and breadth of capabilities in the older OneNote 2016. We took that feedback to heart, and over the last few years we’ve been focused on making OneNote for Windows 10 the best version of OneNote on Windows.

Beginning with the launch of Office 2019 later this year, OneNote for Windows 10 will replace OneNote 2016 as the default OneNote experience for both Office 365 and Office 2019. Why OneNote for Windows 10? The app has improved performance and reliability, and it’s powered by a brand new sync engine (which we’re also bringing to web, Mac, iOS, and Android). You don’t need to worry about being on the latest version since it’s always up-to-date via the Microsoft Store, and it lets us deliver updates faster than ever before. In fact, over the last year and a half we've added more than 100 of your favorite OneNote 2016 features based on your feedback (thank you!), with more improvements on the way including tags and better integration with Office documents.

We’d love for you to start using OneNote for Windows 10 today, however we know some of you might not be ready yet. Maybe you rely on a feature we don’t yet support on Windows 10 (please let us know using the Feedback Hub), or you don’t want to store your notebooks in the cloud. If so, you’re more than welcome to continue using OneNote 2016.

What’s happening to OneNote 2016?

While we’re no longer adding new features to OneNote 2016, it’ll still be there if you need it. OneNote 2016 is optionally available for anyone with Office 365 or Office 2019, but it will no longer be installed by default. If you currently use OneNote 2016, you won’t notice any changes when you update to Office 2019. We’ll continue to offer support, bug fixes, and security updates for OneNote 2016 for the duration of the Office 2016 support lifecycle, which runs through October 2020 for mainstream support and October 2025 for extended support. For more details, please refer to this FAQ.

A preview of what’s to come

We've been listening to your feedback about what you like—and what you don't—and working hard to address it in the product. Your opinions, feature requests, and, yes, complaints have been critical in helping us shape the current experience. Today, we’d like to walk you through some of the work we’ve done to bring your favorite features from OneNote 2016 to OneNote for Windows 10, highlight some of the capabilities that are only available in the Windows 10 app, and give you a sneak peek at a few of the improvements coming this year.

Your favorite features, improved

OneNote for Windows 10 was designed to feel natural with any input method, from mouse and keyboard to pen and touch, and it contains numerous improvements under the hood for better performance, reliability, and battery life. It also has a number of new features not available in OneNote 2016, including ink effects* and dramatically improved ink-to-text (check it out—it’ll even preserve your ink color, size, and highlights!), Researcher*, a notification center, deep integration with Windows 10, and much more. 

For many of you, shifting our focus to the Windows 10 app won’t come as a surprise. Aside from a handful of targeted improvements, we haven’t added any new features to OneNote 2016 in some time. Instead we’ve been focusing on consistency, ensuring that nearly all your favorite features in OneNote 2016 are also available in OneNote for Windows 10. We’re almost there, and in the coming months we’ll be adding even more top-requested features.

Top-requested features coming soon to OneNote for Windows 10

Here's what you can expect later this summer:

• Insert and search for tags: OneNote 2016’s popular tags feature is coming to OneNote for Windows 10! Soon you’ll be able to insert, create, and search for custom tags, making it easy to mark key information and find it later. Tags you create will now roam with you to across your devices, and OneNote will even show you tags other people have used in a shared notebook so you don’t have to recreate them yourself. The new tags experience was designed based on your feedback, and it will be available later this summer.

 

• View and edit files: See live previews of Office files in OneNote, work together on attached documents, and save space in your notebooks with cloud files. You’ll get all the benefits of saving a file on OneDrive with the context and convenience of an attachment or preview on a OneNote page.

• Additional Class Notebook features: The full slate of Class Notebook features available in the add-on for OneNote 2016 will be available in OneNote for Windows 10 this summer. Best of all, you no longer need to install a separate add-in—it's all built-in!

These are just a few of the improvements coming soon to OneNote for Windows 10. The app is updated every month with new functionality, and we have a lot of cool stuff in the works—including page templates. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements.

An improved sync experience

We've been hard at work making sync faster and more reliable on OneNote for Windows 10, as well as on Mac, iOS, Android, and web. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a look at the new sync engine in action:

You can try the first set of improvements today by opening a OneDrive notebook in OneNote for Windows 10, Mac, iOS, or Android. These improvements will be rolled out to OneNote Online in the coming months, as well as notebooks on OneDrive for Business and SharePoint.

Improving the user experience

Last year, we unveiled a new look and feel for OneNote on Windows 10, Mac, iOS, Android, and OneNote Online that aligned the disparate designs into a single, unified interface. In addition to bringing consistency to our apps, the new user experience scales much better for large notebooks and significantly improves accessibility for those who rely on assistive technologies. To learn more about the new design, check out our help article.

This is just a quick look at OneNote for Windows 10, but we’re not done yet. We'll continue listening to your feedback and incorporating it into our future plans, so leave us a comment below or add your feature request using the Feedback Hub. You can also join the Office Insider program for early access to the latest updates. And before we sign off, we want to say a huge thank you for your support. We really hope you love the new OneNote for Windows!

—OneNote Team

*Requires Office 365 subscription

[Abhimanyu Singh]

Thanks to the UserVoice entry as well: https://onenote.uservoice.com/forums/327186-onenote-for-windows/suggestions/32737648-include-onenote...

Here is the official announcement: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Your-OneNote/bc-p/982270 

However, it does fall short of saying if it is OneNote 2019. It simply says that OneNote 2016 will be included in O365 Pro Plus and continue beyond 2020 aligning the mainstream and extended support of Office 2019 through to 2025. Also, apart from dark mode (and "at mentions"), it is unclear whether feature updates and development would continue as well.

This also appeared in the message center today with the message id: MC194800.

Configuration Change: OneNote 2016
MC194800, Plan For Change, Published date: 4 Nov 2019

We're continuing mainstream support for OneNote 2016 so that organization and individual use is uninterrupted.
Beginning March 10th, 2020, new installations of Office suite products will include OneNote 2016 by default.
In addition, config.office.com, SCCM, and Intune will display OneNote 2016 as being included with Office by default.

How does this affect me?
In 2018, we announced that Microsoft would end mainstream support for OneNote 2016 in October 2020. That is no longer the case.
Although OneNote 2016 is not available on the Office install pages today, it is coming back.
Admins can control whether OneNote 2016 is included in their deployments, regardless of what’s on the Office install pages.

What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
If your organization already deploys and uses OneNote 2016, no action is needed. Your users can continue to use OneNote 2016 without interruption.
Unmanaged installations of Office on or after March 10th, 2020 will include OneNote 2016.
If your managed deployments already exclude OneNote 2016, OneNote will continue to be excluded. You can configure your preferred OneNote 2016 installation behavior at https://config.office.com or using your existing software deployment solution.

[Ed Hansberry]

Super thankful this whole thing has been abandoned and OneNote 2016 is being re-integrated into Office 365 downloads and is being supported with new features going forward.

[zemanemail]

Amazing! Thank you microsoft! 

[Ed Hansberry]

We can finally put this entire thread to rest. MS is now killing OneNote for Windows 10 and instead putting all dev efforts behind the best OneNote client! OneNote PM tweet about it here.

[Ric Bretschneider]

I expect they'll update the UI, but I could care less about that.  Persisting functionality?  I'll believe it when I see it. 

For me, the most important thing to persist is offline storage.  I'm not convinced the team is behind that, the article doesn't comment on it. And if you look at the current Mac Outlook, their "New Look" redesign eliminates local storage of mail - just abandons it and you'll never be able to reference those archived mails ever again. 

One truth about MSFT development is that there is very little to no long-term memory in the development teams, it leaves as people climb the corporate ladder or retire. And people don't get the big rewards for maintaining someone from the past's work, just for putting in new features. 

[Steve Ash]

By local storage and old archived mails, are you talking about PST files?

Can those emails be copied to subfolders of Exchange accounts so that they will be available from there?

Asking because we (we are an MSP) have pushed all our MS365 users (mostly non-profits) to abandon Apple Mail clients and use Outlook on all devices.

Your comment about MSFT dev is so true.

Always about new features. Not fixing problems. And more often than not about dumbing-down long-time apps for tablet and web users.

I guess it is similar to Apple "innovating" by removing headphone jacks from iPhones.

[RicBret955]

The current Mac doesn't use PST files for offline storage, it has a different strategy. It can import a pst file, but has a Mac Archive File format (.olm). 

I expect you could copy them to an online account, providing you had enough storage space (different limits for different types of users.)  Archiving is typically done when you run out of online space of course.

Yeah, I'm reviewing alternatives to Mac Outlook (and it won't be Apple's Mail program).  Things are kind of mixed, but there appear to be some options.

I speak from experience on the dev side. I worked for MSFT for 17 years, and have been an MVP for 12 since. It's tragic to see people who don't understand the application's origins and philosophy taking over and not respecting work that has been fine-tuned for years because they want to do something new.

[Robert-ATL]

GENERAL - Do NOT Change OneNote 2016 Design

PLEASE include the majority of functions of the original OneNote 2016 such as:

• OCR - Ability to Copy Text from Graphics - the Win10 version apparently attempts at this function but does NOT work.  Sometimes after 30 minutes you may receive the text from an image (IF any?) but the original 2016 version was immediate and always works
• Date / Time - Win10 does NOT offer to include the ability to change the D/T of a note as with 2016 - WHY or HOW?
• Menu Bar - as I read thru MANY of the comments, most people prefer the option to see the original 2016 Windows menu ribbon (including Settings / Account / Options) as ALL other Office Programs (Word, Excel, Outlook, Etc.) or at least include the ability to create a Quick Access Toolbar.  Seems that MANY of the "improvements" in Microsoft are costing users MUCH more time! 
• Links to Other OneNote - appears that Win10 version has omitted the ability to include a link as in 2016.  This is a MUST and WHY was it omitted?
• New Window - the original 2016 version includes the Title / File Name in front of the Program Name in the Taskbar (Name - OneNote) As you may well imagine with several OneNote windows open, it is VERY difficult to select the correct tab without entering each - NOT well thought out.
• Sections across Top - Allow Section Tabs across Top - NOT take space along side
• Outlook Tasks - generally thought the idea of Office 365 was to INTEGRATE the programs.  Again the Win10 seems to have eliminated this basic function of including flags / alarms to Outlook.
• Email Page - Ability in Win 10 to directly Email Page as in OneNote 2016
• Sync Status - while I generally find a much needed improvement in syncing, it would be very helpful to include a sync icon, that quickly from a glance you would know the status as in 2016 (with Name / Title), NOT with having to enter the Show Notebook List, Rt Click, Sync.

[Ibukun Momson]

The only significant feature from OneNote Win10/UWP I'm interested in is the superior smooth panning/scrolling/zooming compared to OneNote 2016/Win32.

If this can be somehow integrated into OneNote 2016, that would be great. A few additional shortcuts for pens would also be appreciated. Every other feature of Win32 OneNote is pretty superior to the UWP OneNote.

[Hubert Rabago]

> Ability to Copy Text from Graphics

I thought I was delusional when I was thinking that this used to work.  This was the main reason I even started using OneNote.  Thank you for confirming that this used to be a feature.

[CenturionOfTheSeed]

If anyone has any input on this issue below, please let me know:

*******************

I have been dealing with this image-shrinking issue on and off for years—and through some additional investigation, I narrowed down the difference in behavior (but not the cause).

Pasted images are shrinking in the Office 2016 install that includes OneNote, but not in Office 365. Since Microsoft removed OneNote from 365, you have to download OneNote separately to get it. I’ve never had a problem with the Office 365/separate OneNote installation—but the issue is consistent in the Office 2016 Professional Plus install.

Microsoft should be embarrassed by the fiasco they created around OneNote—pushing customers to use their Windows 10 toy and taking away one of the best tools ever built. They created avoidable confusion that remains to this day, and on top of that—this pasting problem that exists in one version and not the other.

Untold millions don’t even realize that it’s not supposed to shrink the images like that. I’m in IT and I relentlessly dig for answers—and it took me awhile to nail down what’s going on here. So there’s a lot of people out there who have just been putting up with it—and that’s not right. Your customers deserve a lot better than that.

On the removal of OneNote from Office: I was one of those people who fought that for over a year—and to Microsoft’s credit, they changed their minds. That’s a lot of time and frustration that no one should have had to invest. Microsoft has made some major blunders over the years—and in the right hands, those mistakes are opportunities to learn from. That stunt you pulled with pushing people to Windows 10 OneNote—you should have known better.

It’s wonderful that you came around, but you need to take a hard look at why you make such a massive mistake in the first place.

And you need to fix this problem with the images. That is sloppy programming—and that should be as unacceptable in your eyes as it is in mine. Even if you can’t fix it, there’s an explanation for it—and I wanna know what it is.

Thank you for your time,

Richard W. Memmer

*******************

[lforbes]

Pasted images are shrinking in the Office 2016 install that includes OneNote, but not in Office 365. Since Microsoft removed OneNote from 365, you have to download OneNote separately to get it. I’ve never had a problem with the Office 365/separate OneNote installation—but the issue is consistent in the Office 2016 Professional Plus install.

Office 365 comes with OneNote now? I installed it on a brand new computer and OneNote for Microsoft 365 was included in the install. I have had no issues pasting images either. Not sure what you are getting at? I use the OneNote Screen capture and capture all the time and paste into OneNote with no shrinking.

[CenturionOfTheSeed]

Iforbes: 

Thank you for your reply. I meant to mention that I have Office 365 on my personal machine (with the separate install of OneNote). It's my work machine that's at issue with the shrinking images in the full Office 2016 Professional Plus installation. And this is a consistent problem I've seen for years in Office 2016. Installing my own Office 365 at other jobs in the past -- is the only way I got around this problem.

As to your point about OneNote being included in Office 365 now: If that's the case, that's part of the change that Microsoft made in putting OneNote back into Office (365 and future versions). They removed it from Office 365 -- so the only way you could get it was a full OneNote 2016 installation (or an Office 365 install with a separate install of OneNote).

So what you're seeing now in Office 365 reflects that change. On my account it still shows that OneNote isn't included in Office 365, but on this page it is -- which syncs with what you're saying: Compare All Microsoft 365 Plans (Formerly Office 365) - Microsoft Store

That's good to know -- because now I know that a standard Office 365 install (with OneNote included) -- does not have the problem. So your input has been helpful -- it's just that it doesn't solve my problem (because at work I'm stuck with Office 2016 for now).

I really do appreciate your input on this -- and please let me know if that clears it up and if you have any further thoughts on it.

Thanks!