Blog Post

Microsoft 365 Blog
3 MIN READ

Go Dark Mode and more on OneNote

Jee Soo Han's avatar
Jee Soo Han
Former Employee
May 29, 2019

 

 



 

This month, we’re excited to bring you some highly anticipated features in OneNote: Dark Mode, Send to OneNote from Outlook, Insert printouts of Office files, and simplified ribbon for OneNote on the web. Read on below for more information on these highly requested features!


Go easy on the eyes with Dark Mode

 

You asked, and we heard you. Dark Mode in OneNote for Windows 10 is finally available! It’s currently rolled out to Office Insiders and will be available for all users over the next few weeks. To turn on Dark Mode, head over to Settings in the upper right corner of the ribbon, click Options and select Dark under the Color section to switch your OneNote to Dark Mode. If your Windows Mode is already in the Dark color scheme, then you can also select Use my Windows Mode to turn on Dark Mode in OneNote.



 

As we built Dark Mode, we took many careful considerations to make it a great experience. For example, we aimed to turn the canvas dark along with the rest of the interface, while leaving users’ existing content at the same visibility and contrast as in Light Mode. To achieve this goal, we provided a “Dark Mode lens” through which a user can view canvas content such as text colors, table background colors, text highlighters, and ink colors with the same comfort as in Light Mode without simply inverting colors to the opposite end of the color spectrum. In addition, users are able to create content in Dark Mode that will be equally legible in Light Mode, so other collaborators viewing the same content in Light Mode will not have any noticeable difficulties.  


We are actively working to bring Dark Mode to OneNote for Mac, as well as adjustments to the OneNote for Windows 10 experience that came from early Insiders feedback. If you want to be one of the first people to try out new features in OneNote, sign up to be an Office Insider or simply opt-in from Settings in your OneNote app.


Quickly catalog important emails with Send to OneNote

 

Send emails and meetings from Outlook to OneNote for Windows 10, OneNote for Mac and OneNote on the web with ease. In Outlook, click the Send to OneNote add-in to open the location picker panel. Find the destination notebook and section then click Send – it’s that easy. Once you go to the selected section in OneNote, your email or meeting will be there.

 

If you don’t see the new Send to OneNote add-in in Windows 10, head over to File, Options, Advanced, and scroll down to the very bottom and check that “Use Send to OneNote with OneNote for Windows 10, if available” is selected. Once your Outlook is given the update, you should be able to use this new feature.

 

 

This feature is available on Outlook for desktop, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the web and will be rolling out to all users over the next few weeks.


Insert printouts of Office files directly in your notes

 

Now, you can insert printouts of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files into your notebooks for more robust content in OneNote for Windows 10. Under the Insert tab, click Printout and select the Office file to insert. Once selected, OneNote will load the printouts of your file onto your canvas.

 

This feature is rolling out to all users over the next few weeks. Keep your OneNote for Windows 10 updated and give it a try!

 

Simplified ribbon in OneNote for the Web

 



Finally, simplified ribbon has come to OneNote for the web. Enjoy more space on your screen and quickly get to the tools you need with this update. If you prefer to switch back to the old experience, click the View tab and uncheck Simplified Ribbon to refresh and return to the previous ribbon.

 

We hope you try the features above and look forward to hearing from you. Leave us a comment down below and don’t forget to request features you’d like to see in Feedback Hub. We’ll see you soon with more updates from the OneNote team!

 

Updated Nov 09, 2023
Version 2.0
  • Ginger_6's avatar
    Ginger_6
    Copper Contributor

    Any chance this feature will be coming to the iPad app anytime soon? I love the dark mode but I use my iPad and onenote for school all the time and would love dark mode there too.

  • baron94's avatar
    baron94
    Copper Contributor

    I have spent a whole day updating to the latest version of Windows 10 on my computer and I still don't have the option to switch to dark mode or the Send to OneNote tab (although the setting show I chose that option). The OneNote program shows I have Version 16001.11727.20076.0 Is there some other setting or update that I should check?

  • tony88's avatar
    tony88
    Copper Contributor

    Any plans for Dark mode setting for OneNote in IOS mobile?

  • johndev4's avatar
    johndev4
    Copper Contributor

    2 things:

    1 - Any plans to add Markdown support?

    2 - I have the same issue as baron94 and don't see the dark mode even after joining windows Insider and checking for updates.

  • JPSCurran's avatar
    JPSCurran
    Copper Contributor

    I am coming late to this thread, but there is an inherent problem with dark mode that makes it difficult to use.  If you switch from lighht to dark mode, the pen ink color and text that you have already written in black automatically inverts to white.  However, if you write additional text (in white) while in dark mode and then switch back to light mode, the pen inverts back to black, but the new text does not, so it is white on white and unreadable.  It makes dark mode nearly unusable for me because I often need to change back to a white background.      

  • PeterKeim's avatar
    PeterKeim
    Copper Contributor

    Jee Soo Han Excellent news with the Dark Mode option!

    OneNote still does not allow sharing to emails with certain TLD's, like '.design', which we use for our company. An email is an email, and this restricts our team from using microsoft products to the fullest. The OneNote team needs to rework the form entry for emails somehow, simply looking for  {whatever} @ {whatever} . {whatever} , using latin characters only to prevent cross-site-scripting attacks. Are there any cases which would break this logic or create problems?

  • JohnOlds's avatar
    JohnOlds
    Copper Contributor

    JPSCurran , I had the same issue.  I created my own workaround by using the light blue color for anything in dark mode and it was still visible in Normal Mode.  I do think it should "flip" it when changing modes (especially across devices).  

  • dksimerly's avatar
    dksimerly
    Copper Contributor

    Are there any plans to port dark mode to the Office365 webapp version of OneNote as you've done for Outlook? Switching from the other Office365 webapps that support dark mode to OneNote that doesn't support dark mode is really hard on the eyes. Also, given that most of my meetings are now conducted over Zoom, and I have a very large 2nd display on my workstation, it really throws off the lighting balance for my video feed if I need to look at my OneNote entries during a meeting. It would be really nice to have feature consistency across apps in the Office365 suite.