Your OneNote
Published Nov 04 2019 06:12 AM 179K Views
Steel Contributor

From your flashes of inspiration at 2:00 AM to the list of funny things your children say, or that brilliant idea you had in the conference room, and your ever-growing list of household chores  OneNote holds the notes to your life to track all the things you need to keep in mind, but simply don’t have room for in your overworked brain. 

 

We enjoy the privilege of serving millions of customers like you, who each have unique needs and who use OneNote in unique waysOver the past year, we’ve been listening to your passionate feedback and are humbled by your consistent love for OneNote. We hear you loud and clear — you want to keep your notes your way! 

 

With that in mind, we’re pleased to announce that we are continuing mainstream support for OneNote 2016 beyond October 2020, so that you can continue using the version of OneNote that works best for you. New support dates for OneNote 2016 now align with Office 2019 (October 10, 2023 for mainstream support and October 14, 2025 for extended support). We also want to make deployment and installation easier for organizations and individuals, so for Windows users, starting in March 2020, when you deploy or install Office 365 subscriptions that include the Office desktop apps or Office 2019, the OneNote desktop app will be installed by default alongside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. If you’d like to install OneNote 2016 earlier, you can get it here: aka.ms/InstallOneNote. 

 

And, of course, OneNote should look the way you want it to. That’s why this week we are rolling out Dark Mode for OneNote 2016This will be available for Office 365 subscribers and non-volume licensing Office 2019 customers. Dark Mode changes the app’s interface elements from light to dark. Using OneNote in this mode can improve readability in low light environments, increase legibility of the user interface as well as your notes, provide better contrast, and reduce eye strain. You might also use OneNote in Dark Mode simply as a personal preference. The choice is yours! 

 

OneNote_2016_DarkMode(CROP)

 

We’re excited about today’s announcements and we’ll keep listening to your feedback to make your OneNote better and better! Please continue requesting features and telling us what you think via the in-app feedback. 

 

For more information check out our OneNote FAQ! 

175 Comments
Copper Contributor

Please update your road-plan to include Office 2019 VL customers.

Copper Contributor

As an educator who has his students use OneNote 2016 within the course, THANK YOU!!! 

Copper Contributor

What is the future of UWP OneNote, will the development stop in favour of OneNote 2016?

 

Thanks in advance.

Microsoft

@Vladimir980 We're regularly updating all supported versions, which of course includes the OneNote on Windows 10 app.

Copper Contributor

I have only one question before I start using OneNote.

As you wrote here, support for office 2016 is extended until 2023/2025.

Now, the question is, what happens after 2023?

Which OneNote is the future*?

 

*feature - I mean which OneNote will be prefered in 10  or more years?

 

Thank you very much & have a great day!

Brass Contributor

@Ben Schorr , you just replied to @Vladimir980 "We're regularly updating..."

 

was this a case of using the royal "we" to imply all of Microsoft, or are you actually part of the OneNote team, and if the latter, what is your role therein?

 

Thanks for the clarification...

Microsoft

@Ed Aldrich - I'm using the royal we. :) I work in Office, but not on OneNote specifically. I did spend many years as a OneNote MVP before joining Microsoft as an employee.

 

Copper Contributor

GREAT NEWS!  We use OneNote exclusively for team communication as Teams is overkill and not conducive to what we are looking for.  With OneNote we are able to throw in a table and put the date and enter stuff throughout the day and then for those who have been off work, when they come back it's easy for them to scroll up the table and see what's been happening.  SO HAPPY about this news!!

Brass Contributor

This has made me so happy. Thank you Microsoft for an early Christmas present!

 

Ive been using OneNote for longer than I care to remember and I always feel that it is one of your best products (after SharePoint of course) and it is core to my working day. This is the best outcome we could have hoped for. :)

 

 

Copper Contributor

great news!

Copper Contributor

Great news, thank you.

 

For me, the following functionality of OneNote 2016 is missing of the UWP app:

- Install and use offline.

- Save notebooks on computer.

- Export notebooks/sections/pages.

 

One of my main reasons for choosing OneNote desktop was that it could be used offline completely. Even though we live in a technologically advanced era, several workplaces and situations exists where only offline use is possible. Also, OneNote is not a toy or casual tool (although you don't need to be an expert to learn and use it). It is considered a serious productivity app on which several companies and educational institutes rely every day. In that sense it is similar to other Office applications, like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I think it is part of any serious software that they could be used in the way the users/companies desire. Supporting and further developing OneNote desktop supports this and strengthens the software. Focusing only on the cloud and on UWP did the opposite.

Copper Contributor

That's wonderful news, thank you for listening to us :)

I have a question reffering to dark mode being ''available for Office 365 subscribers''. I have a student office 365 subscription and ON 2016 is not a part of it, so I was using it downloaded from this link aka.ms/InstallOneNote. So how do I get dark mode to work?

Thank you again! It's great!

Copper Contributor

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! :lol:

Iron Contributor

THANK YOU to the OneNote team and Microsoft for listening to our outcries. I am all for progress, but my entire life is in OneNote - and while the UWP app may be the future, it just isn't up to snuff when compared to OneNote 2016, especially for power users. I look forward to the OneNote app improving over time, but I also look forward to there not being a hard deadline for it to happen. THANKS AGAIN!

Steel Contributor

Thank you ALL for the amazing support and great comments and questions! We appreciate all the feedback and will keep listening. To answer a few common questions:

 

This OneNotePM profile is a team of dedicated OneNote product managers, engineers, and a product marketing manager. We want to ensure we read all your feedback and answer as a team.

 

@paul great questions that others have asked as well! OneNote 2016 will receive new feature updates starting with Dark Mode rolling out this week. When we say “…the OneNote desktop app will be installed by default….” in the above blog post, we mean the version currently called OneNote 2016 (Win32). We hope this makes deployment easier. 

 

Many of you have asked about the future of OneNote for Windows 10 (UWP) – we will continue to support and develop it! You can expect to continue to see new features so that you can use the OneNote that works best for you!

 

Thank you!

- The OneNote Team

Brass Contributor

WHAT a breath of fresh air to see this renewed activity from the Product group.  Your renewed commitment to this amazing product is welcome news indeed as you’ve already seen. 

As you may already know if you’ve browsed the content from the past 18 months on the 4/2018 blog post, our members have been very busy putting forth a ton of items they’d like to see in the 2016 version! Skip over the rant’s, please! :)

 

 you’ll find a very broad range of users in here who are very keen to help you make this platform the very best it can be. It’s quite comforting to know there is such a broad range of professionals lurking behind the @OneNotePM link!!!!

 

 Thank you once again for your collective commitment! LETS DO THIS!!!

Copper Contributor

I joined up just so I could say thank you so much for this.   Dark mode is wonderful and OneNote 2016 is the greatest.  I actually wrote three books in the thing.  (A total of more than 1 mil words.)  Thank you guys so much for continuing to keep it updated.  <3

Copper Contributor

You don't know how much you have lightened and brightened my day, my week, my month. I have been a OneNote user on my PC using 2016 and UWP and on my cell phone at work and home since the corporation I worked for standardized on Microsoft products. My brain is in my notebooks.

 

Both versions allow me to go back and forth when I'm on my PC to pick up the best tool for whatever I'm working on, and I've learned to compromise on some things when I'm on my cell and clean them up when I get home to my PC. They each have value depending on where I am and what I'm doing, whether I need it in the cloud, or need it on my laptop alone, or both. I worked with IT support before I retired on Enterprise versions of MS and understand well the frustrations of installing, updating and maintaining software versions over the variety of equipment, user experience levels, corporate needs, and application conflicts that can develop. I am so glad the ON team is listening to us and look forward to my continued use with improvements rather than the loss of functionality that the old (last week's) policy was leading us.

 

Bravo team. And bravo to all of us as we listen and continue to work to improve our product. Thank you MS for listening to the people who use this product in so many different ways, and thank you IT support people for the headaches you go through for us on apps that you may or may not use yourself.
Well done.

Copper Contributor

Thank you. OneNote is my "file cabinet" of receipts and other important documents, because the interface is so easy to organize and access both on my computer and my cellphone. 

 

I have appreciated the ability to photo small items, such as cash register receipts. The ability to print web-based receipts using the Send to OneNote Print Command is irreplaceable. My only disappointment is that the scanner access was removed. This was the best way to capture mailed receipts and reports, and I miss that capability.  I would rather accumulate data on my hard drive and OneDrive than paper in my file drawer.

Brass Contributor

I too was lost w/o Scanner feature , however, you MUST look at new OneDrive app! It is simply brilliant in its simplicity, at least on my IoS devices (esp my phone). The one app can manage access to either/or your personal or business account, and it has a SCAN to folder feature. As a frequent traveler who needs to document receipts for a ton of stuff... I hit the register, or get a dinner folio, sign the transaction and scan to OneDrive immediately....  I'm highly impressed with its sophistication, and ease of use.

Copper Contributor

Microsoft has released black theme for OneNote 2016 Desktop - in November 2019 - however when I switch it on the pages' background remain white/bright color and no way to change it...

How To get real dark mode with black background pages ?

Steel Contributor

@Steve G Those theming options have been available on Office 365 for years. At least 2, maybe 3. That isn't the Dark Mode MS is talking about. It is coming...

Brass Contributor

@Steve G I think you are talking about Office Theme: Black.

I didn't yet find any Dark Mode in Settings.

Deleted
Not applicable

I see dark mode in OneNote 2016 - it's tied to the entire Office suite and not just a OneNote setting.

 

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/turn-dark-mode-on-or-off-in-onenote-bb81fb88-968d-4c1a-818d...

Copper Contributor
Thank you!
Copper Contributor

Vielen Dank, das beendet meine Suche nach Alternativen. Ich hoffe, dass ich weiterhin viele Jahre mit OneNote arbeiten kann.

Copper Contributor

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!! Vamos!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :smile::smile::smile: Long live OneNote 2016!!!!

Copper Contributor

Very nice- thank you very much. Please keep up and integrate OneNote again where it belongs. Into the regular office suite.

Copper Contributor

Thank you from me and all the people I train in Outlook & OneNote too.

I just couldn't quite understand why you would chop off one of your fingers.

I could always count my top 5 work tools on one hand - Outlook, OneNote, Excel, Word, PowerPoint.

These applications have been developed over so many years to the point that there is no longer any competition. They are sophisticated but user friendly and they talk to each other!!

The web style apps are for kiddies. Or for mobile devices where we expect simplicity.

Thank you for listening to the users. People Power hey!

Brass Contributor

Black theme is the same as Dark mode?

Copper Contributor

I hope you still work to get OneNote 2019 as feature rich as 2016. Because most complains were about missing features in 2019. And a changed design of register/tab view. You could also make everything available in OneNote 2019, that would be a much better solution as running two OneNote versions, which still will make people confused. Please make one very good and complete OneNote, which combines all the features and more. So you don't need to run two OneNote Versions. 

Copper Contributor

I was about to buy an Apple iPad until this announcement. I had already canceled all my Office365 subscriptions and setup a vm to host OneNote 2016 because of your decision to discontinue support. I have 6 years and 50gb of notebooks in everything from diaries to college notes and circuit designs. 

 

I've happy to pay for the software, but you can't tell me where to put my data. Don't limit storage locations like you did in that windows store app. We want features and power and options... that's what we like about Windows and Microsoft instead of Apples crazy "buy my crappy service" ecosystem. 

 

Bought a 13" Surface Book 2 i7/1TB/16GB this week because of this announcement, and you guys finally fixed the track pad. :) Telling everyone I know how much i love it ;)

Copper Contributor

Great decision!

Copper Contributor

I had pretty much already switched over to OneNote for Windows 10. There was a bit of a transition but as new features were being added I began to prefer OneNote for Windows 10 over OneNote 2016. There was some missing functionality but I found workarounds and soon these became a non-issue. I recently started a new job where I have to use OneNote 2016 because they won't let us connect to the Windows store or the Office 365 cloud. I can say I'm pretty solid in my opinion now after being forced to go back to OneNote for 2016. I do prefer OneNote for Windows 10. It's nice to have an option. Thank you Microsoft for your decision to keep both versions of arguably one of the best applications in existence that generates so much passion in the community. If I could ask one favor just don't eliminate OneNote for Windows 10.

While I'm happy to hear this announcement, I'm wary still about trusting the Office teams to continue support for this going forward.

 

Office self-lobotomizes every few cycles - the teams move on and the new inheritors are often not happy with having to continue "legacy" support. Typically they don't understand legacy, so they convince themselves it doesn't matter. They look for any excuse to boneyard the older apps and move onto something they perceive as "strategic" or "cutting edge" with little concern for legacy workflows and documents of their customers. We saw this happen with OneNote once, we can certainly anticipate it happening again.  I'd be happier if the Windows 10 app went away (along with all the Universal Windows Platform junk - weren't they killing that platform?) just to focus them on one great application.  When MSFT tries to divide it's focus like this it invariably loses focus, and the customer loses productivity.

 

Of course, the proof will be in the execution of this new statement of support. If there were only an actual name (not just @OneNotePM) making that statement!

Brass Contributor

Aartecho indicated that he found a workaround for his needed functionality when switching from ON2016 to W-ON. I am very glad he was able to do that however, while I figured out “how” to do that, for the most part, in terms of getting information into the notebooks, the number of keystrokes to do increased fourfold. In this period of time speed and ease of operation is very critical.

 

I too use both ON2016 on my PC and W-ON on my iOS devices. I agree wholeheartedly that we need both with the data integrated. I agree that these softwares are world class and the best I been able find. In my case most of the data is entered in ON2016 while at my desk while W-ON I use to refer to that information while on a job site or in a presentation with a client. In that regard W-ON is much more cumbersome in terms of locating the docs I need. I generally try to anticipate what I might need to use on the call and locate it prior to the appointment. For me, a LOT of work needs to be done to make W-ON anywhere near as valuable as ON2016. To me they are really very different applications within a general category of note keeping.

 

Integration is key to keeping these useable for my needs.

Copper Contributor

Enable Page Format for Onenote Universal App and more comfortable reading experience in mobile would be nice

 

Also, great App. Keep the good work!

Copper Contributor
This very welcome announcement will save the demise of OneNote in the Education environment! We were mortified at the appearance of the truly awful, half-baked, annoying product that is "OneNote for Windows". It may well come into its own, hopefully, but not until at least ALL the features of 2016 are implemented therein!
Steel Contributor

@OneNotePM Working for multiple large customers where we're rolling out Office 365 ProPlus + OneDrive. Before Ignite we decided to go for Office 365 ProPlus without OneNote 2016 + OneNote for Windows to make sure we get consistent experience on Windows as well as other platforms and also "force" all notebooks to be in the cloud since "a cloud notebook is a happy notebook" :)

 

What I wonder now when you're merging the codebase for all OneNote apps. What version will eventually get this new codebase, both or just OneNote for Windows or OneNote 2016?

 

Just want to make sure we choose the correct path to make sure we in a year or two automatically get the new version and don't have to perform a new move from one OneNote client to another. That is mostly important for the user education part of things.

Brass Contributor

Now if it was just possible to anchor markup/drawings to images my life would be complete. We'd finally have everything we had with Evernote!

Copper Contributor

That is something I would like to see as well. 

Copper Contributor

One of the best pieces of news I have had recently.  Love OneNote desktop!  Long may it live!

Copper Contributor

@OneNotePM , @Ben Schorr 
I do not know why so many people like the solution, of integrate 2016 in Office 365. Perhaps most do not think what will happen in 2023. We will get the same problem. People continue using old OneNote, OneNote branches will differ more and more. I don't see a nice and long term solution here.

 

The solution should be, bringing all features of 2016 and 2019 (OneNote for Windows) into one OneNote. The "2019" OneNote has also some improvements which old "2016" has not. (Better use on phones and tablet, Pen features)
Also it's a very frustrating situations, working with a team and some use 2016 and some 2019 (or discuss with them what to use). The solution must be, that there is ONE OneNote of course!!!

 

I also can't believe that MS want to maintain both OneNote Versions.

And It also will still making people curios when seeing 2 Versions of OneNote available for install. What is the OneNote to use now and in long term?!

 

But I agree, new 2019 OneNote is really missing a lot features of 2019. That's totally right. I will never understand the step of MS to "replace" OneNote instead of extend it with a such limited feature version as 2019 is. Or course many people complain about that. Nothing to wonder about that.

But, of course 2019 with it's Online editing features is also nice (Nice Online edits, nice integrated in Sharepoint and Teams, better on phone/tablet).

I really hope to see simply a feature rich OneNote 2019 with feature OneNote 2016 has (also with having still the possibility to use OneNote Offline or as shared network solution like 2016 can do)!

And als with integrated all the nice top suggestions for OneNote on the user-voting. All top ideas are really great! 
https://onenote.uservoice.com/forums/327186-onenote-for-windows/filters/top

That's a real solution we need.

Copper Contributor

Sorry, cant edit. I have to correct this:
"But I agree, new 2019 OneNote is really missing a lot features of 2016."

Brass Contributor

@Sebastian79 

You clearly did not read the previous posts in full. The issue for many of us in not the great new features in Onenote 2019 that make it more usable on a mobile device. They are fine and I use them almost everyday. The issue is that there are many functions that the new version does not do that the previous one does really well. for instance printing a document from anywhere to a page, transferring a block of emails all at the same time to a section and many more. Really, for many of us the functionality should be considered as two different pieces of software and should be called something different. We all understand that the idea of an "upgrade" was to make the program more mobile friendly but there is a significant body of work in the corporate environment where Onenote 2016 is being used for long term document storage and organization, something that a mobile user has much less need for. Again, I recommend that MS consider these two different software with the ability to share some information but now that we have ON2019 we can't do without it but we also can't do without ON2016 as we have acclimated our business models into it. I fail to see how they can ever be totally merged as the initial data input formats are divergent and non-mergeable. 

Copper Contributor

Reading all the comments I thought I would contribute my opinion. When I first heard OneNote desktop was going away, I was a little dismayed. However, I made the decision to start using OneNote for Windows exclusively so that I could adapt slightly different workflows adjusting to missing features. Pretty soon I was preferring OneNote for Windows. I think it is best to have one version so that the user experience is similar across all platforms. 

Microsoft

@Sebastian79 Just to clarify, because I think there's a bit of confusion. The OneNote for Windows 10 app is not called OneNote 2019. OneNote 2019, if we end up using that name, will be a new evolution of the OneNote 2016 app. Just as Word 2019 evolved from Word 2016.

 

The app on Windows, that I think you're referring to, is called OneNote for Windows 10.

 

Hope that helps clear things up a bit. :) 

Brass Contributor

Hi @Ben Schorr,

Maybe you can provide a little translucency to the opacity that is the OneNote development team?  Are these issues being actively discussed within the team, and if not is there a developmental plan in play?  Do they have an MVP group?

 

Personally I've been using OneNote since the OG pre-alpha internal builds back in the day.  I'm incredibly dismayed by it's lack of actual cross-platform development. Yes, I'm entirely discounting the OneNote for Windows 10 application, it's simply too limited when compared with my preferred OneNote 2016 app. It might as well have been developed by a completely different company with no insights into the earlier product usage.

 

I'm replacing my OneNote use with EverNote these days. That is a company focused on their users and providing true cross-platform equivalency and for me they're winning the game that was Microsoft's to lose. 

-Ric

Microsoft

Hi Ric,

 

To be fair I'm not in the building with the OneNote team (literally or metaphorically) so I don't want to presume to comment on what their plans and discussions are. I'm sure there IS a plan; that's a good group and they're actively working, but I'm not involved in those discussions so I don't have any specific insights there. I can certainly share any feedback you may have with them, of course.

 

OneNote DOES have an active MVP group, yes.

 

Which features in OneNote are most important to you?

Brass Contributor

@Aartecho  So I did exactly what you suggest you did. I totally suspended ON 2016 in favor of the WIN10 version when it was first introduced precisely for the same reason: if it is the latest development then I will get on board immediately. I could not have been more disappointed. The ON-Win10 is not in any way shape of form usable in my day to day office management functions. It was just barely OK for job-site notes but terribly cumbersome to bring that back to my desktop where the real work is done. (I do still use ON-Win10 daily but manipulate the data from ON2016) Again, from my perspective and that of many others, the ON Win10 can not ever reach the capabilities of the ON2016 for how I use it. As for an ON2019 as mentioned by @Ben Schorr , I have not heard of that version before and am totally unaware of it's purpose and functionality so, yes I was/am confused and probably mis-stated things in my previous post. I guess I should see how to get a copy of ON2019.  So, to a further point. I fail to understand why we have to have the same functionality in our mobile devices that we have on a PC when it means that we have to sacrifice capability on the PC to get it. I know there is a bunch of dialog about doing everything on a mobile device but I have serious doubts that I will ever work that way for people like me. I have three monitors on that I use all day long on my desktop switching back and forth creating and moving a ton of data. I will never be able to do that on a mobile device nor will the screens ever be large enough for me to see the detail I work with all day long at my desk. The mobile versions allow me to collect data remotely on the job site and then retrieve it for further development on my desktop. This operational functionality can't be replaced with a mobile only environment. Jim

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