OneNote Missing Features

Julian Knight — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 12:31:45 +0000

Microsoft have announced the deprecation of the desktop version of OneNote. They claim that the Windows Store version is as good or better. But it really isn't! Here I try to list the missing features. I will update this post as things change.

Office 2019 (due for release late 2018) will no longer contain a desktop version of OneNote. Microsoft are telling everyone to move over to the Windows Store version (AKA “OneNote for Windows 10”), also seen in this blog post by William Devereux.

Microsoft claim that OneNote for Windows 10 is the only one now getting development other than fixes & that it is already “better” than the desktop version in “many” areas.

OneNote 2016 (the full desktop version) will continue to be available separately but will stop receiving any updates in 2020.

You can also keep track of what has been updated in OneNote for Windows 10 in the What’s New post.

However, there is a LOT missing from OneNote for Windows 10 - I’ve compiled this list in order to track what is missing and whether anything is done about it.

The marketing post by Microsoft “What’s the difference between OneNote and OneNote 2016?” gives Microsoft’s official view on which is best.

I’ve tried to be accurate but if you see anything wrong or anything missing, please leave a comment below.

Tell Microsoft what you want!

If you want Microsoft to fix some of these missing features:

Vote or raise feedback on the OneNote UserVoice site
Contact them directly if you are an enterprise customer. You should have access to a Technical Account Manager at least, possibly also an industry sector technical lead, and industry sector account manager.
Join the OneNote Group on LinkedIn
Try the UserVoice suggestions site
Take to Twitter, copy in @msonenote and William Devereux (@MasterDevwi)
Use the Give Feedback link and/or give feedback via Windows 10
Leave a review on the Windows store.

They do generally listen. They don’t always do what you want of course!

Missing Features

Revision History
- ~~No page versions view~~ Finally found this hidden under the RMB menu in the page list. Very poor UX though, to be fair, this option is in the same place in ON 2016. It’s just that isn’t the only place, it is also on the Ribbon.
- No recent edits view
- ~~No recycle bin view - to allow recovery of accidentally deleted items~~ Yes, this is present, just well hidden again. RMB over the notebook in the notebook list - which is probably normally hidden for you as it ends up taking up too much horizontal space.
UI/General Usability
- ~~No Insert Date/Time/Date & Time~~ You can, in fact, insert date and time. But don’t bother looking for something simple if you aren’t using a keyboard, it is only available via a keyboard shortcut. Insert Date = Alt+Shift+D, Insert Time = Alt+Shift+T, Insert Date & Time = Alt+Shift+F. Really not very helpful for mobile/tablet users!
- No symbol insert (Coming soon)
- No page templates - no way to create a boilerplate template - e.g. for meetings
- No custom ribbon or quick access toolbar - giving quick access to tools relevant to users workflows
- No way to change paste option after pasting
- No quick way to flip between notebooks without taking up half the screen. You have to click back to get to the list then select. On desktop, you can quickly switch between notebooks using a pop-over. The only alternative is perhaps to create separate tiles pinned to the start menu and then have multiple notebooks open at the same time.
- Inefficient use of screen space - all navigation is forced to the left-hand side of the screen. On desktop, notebooks can be in a drop-down and tabs go across the top, this is a lot more efficient.
- No way to change paragraph and line spacing - I find that the default text layout has too little white-space, especially between paragraphs. This makes large blocks of text difficult to read unless you manually include empty lines - which, in turn is not helpful if you later paste into other tools.
- No “Record Video” feature
- No control over audio recording quality
- No internal control over audio recording device selection - can only use the Windows default
- Uncertain whether recognise text in recordings is available or working
- No ability to move navigation sidebars to other side
- No floating new page button for note list so no way to create a new page in a chosen location without using the mouse/long-touch - which also changes the page
- ~~No way to turn off or correct auto capitalisation~~ - immensely annoying when using OneNote for keeping technical notes (e.g. Programming). UPDATE: OK, not quite true, you can turn it on/off in settings but you can’t turn it off temporarily - for a single instance - like you can in the desktop. (thanks to Albin, see the comments)
- Fewer size options for drawing pens
- Only limited example equations for insert
- Even less ability to automate than before
- ~~No way to set the language for text~~ - you have to change the input keyboard to the language you want before typing, a terrible experience for multi-lingual use. UPDATE: Also not quite true, you can select some text and right/long click then you get an option to change it. (again, thanks to Albin)
- No way to translate text (Coming soon)
Integration
- No integration with Outlook or other Office applications - you can only integrate with Outlook.com or O365 so if you have a different Exchange email service as your default, there is no integration.
- No Outlook task integration - I know some people use this extensively so that they get reminders in Outlook for expiring task dates
- Why does meeting integration to outlook.com/O365 require me to log in again? I’m already logged in.
- No integration with Office(?)
- No office autocorrect.
- No grammar checks
- No access to custom spell-check dictionaries
- No Thesaurus
- No docked note taking with linked notes
- No Very limited addins/extensions - not even from the Office Store
  
  Albin points out in the comments that this is not quite true. There is a version of the GEM addin for ON UWP. It is US$18 which may be too steep for some but it does add one or two useful things such as inserting a horizontal line and coloured code syntax. Mostly seems to make up for some of the issues listed here though. Uses a Windows menu overlay.
- No “Insert Excel Spreadsheet” or “Insert (Visio) Diagram”. UPDATE: According to Albin, this is coming in a future release.
- No way to access notebooks on local or network drives
- No way to export notes - e.g. to a .one file - even the Surface Hub lets you do this.
- No way to share just a page or a section, only the whole notebook
Tags
- No custom “tags” (on roadmap?)
- No text style tags
- No “Find Tags” feature
- No “Create Summary” feature, allowing tagged paragraphs from different pages/notebooks to be pulled together on a single page.
Search
- Much more limited search view - no visibility of “recent” ~~nor of the difference between search terms in titles vs page~~
  
  So it seems that the search results do differentiate between results in the title from the body. You wouldn’t be able to know this without reading the help though since the difference is that a search term found in a title is highlighted in bold+purple. Hmm, very intuitive - not.
- No pop-over - results limited to same width as current sidebar so a lot less usable unless you change the width - which you then want to change back afterwards
- No control over searching AV for words - can it even be done?
- You cannot search closed notebooks - I suppose this is because it now only supports OneDrive, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online for storage.
- No search and replace. To be fair, this is a failing of ON 2016 as well.
Tables
- No convert to excel for tables
- No way to include/exclude heading row for table sort
- No way to create a table with a specified number of rows/columns (by number)
- No way to hide the borders of a table (Coming soon)
Security
- No notebook local backups
- No control over cache file location
- ~~No page password protection~~ Eventually found this under the RMB menu for a section. Poor discoverability.

Other Issues

Drag and drop from Outlook is SLOW, have to keep the mouse over OneNote with the LMB pressed for an appreciable amount of time

What do we get that is “Better”?

May start faster on many systems.
Insert an image from your PC’s webcam - use the intelligence of MS Lens to improve document and whiteboard captures.
More colours for the pens - pen colours may be retained when converting to text.
A ruler.
Marginally better touch/pen handling.
Dictation.
Stickers(!)
Pin to start - you can pin Notebooks, Sections and Pages to the start menu. You can also have a transparent start menu entry. Note that “recent” entries in the jump list don’t work properly on the UWP version and not at all on the desktop version.
Uses system “share” capability to more easily share notes to other apps and share info from other apps to OneNote.
Built-in accessibility checker - be kinder to colleagues with accessibility issues.
Use the Immersive Reader for focused reading and improved comprehension.
Some simple equations can be charted or “solved”. You aren’t always given an option to chart however - such as for the desktop app’s example “A=πr^2” equation. Make sure you use “x” and “y” as variables to get round this limitation.
Use the pen to take a note even if the PC is locked.
Use the Edge browser to ink over a web page and save to OneNote.
Use Cortana to add a note.
“Better” sync engine is “coming soon” - though honestly, we may have to take MS’s word for that at the moment. The current sync engine seems to be the best one MS have in my view. However, it does start to struggle on mobile devices if your notebook gets too large, especially with embedded files.

Updates

2018-07-31:

Updated the “better” list following the comment from @DragosStefan. Also added further entries to that list based on the Microsoft blog posts.
Cross referenced to MS Power User blog post.

2018-07-26:

Many thanks to Albin LABELLE who has provided some really useful updates. Do check out his OneNote blog, especially his Closing the Gap post, he is keeping an eye on changes there. He also has some great OneNote tweets.
Twitter link from OneNote Central

A long-time fan of the desktop version of #OneNote for Windows, IT pro Julian Knight is taking a closer look at where the current feature set of the OneNote for #Windows10 app stands compared to his favorite version. https://t.co/b0FUEQq4LA
by @knightnet pic.twitter.com/1GvNEAux8O
— MSEdu Central Marjolein Hoekstra (@MSEduCentral) July 26, 2018
Twitter question from @msonenote

What could we do to make it better? We're always open to feedback. 🙂
— Microsoft OneNote (@msonenote) July 26, 2018

2018-07-21:

Many thanks to Kjell for the comments via Disqus. I’ve updated the entries for the Recycle Bin and Insert date/time.

2018-07-19:

Updated the list after publishing today when I went through some other posts and through the OneNote for Windows UserVoice site
Blog post by William Devereux, OneNote product manager, who has been kindly communicating with me and the OneNote LinkedIn Group. Detailing some new updates (actual update on his Twitter feed).

Hey OneNote fans! We just released a new update on Windows 10 (version 16.0.10325.20049) with a number of features based directly on your feedback. As always these features are rolling out, so if you don't see one of them yet then check back soon. Here's what's new for everyone:
— William Devereux (@MasterDevwi) July 18, 2018

Copy and Paste to OneNote (AutoHotKey script)

Julian Knight — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:05:00 +0000

After yesterdays OneNote tool post, I thought I’d do another while I think about it.

Another annoyance of OneNote is it’s lack of control over pasting information from the clipboard. I’ve raised a suggestion with MS to improve this; you can see my comment in the newsgroup.

To ease things a little if you need to copy and paste lots of stuff to OneNote, here is an AutoHotKey script to help. You need to assign this to a hot-key and have OneNote open in the background. Select something and press the hot-key and it will be pasted (using the current default paste option as this cannot be controlled) into the current note in OneNote.

AutoHotKey Script to copy pre-selected stuff from the currently active window
; to the currently open note in OneNote
;
; Usage: #include in your main AutoHotKey.ahk assigned to a hot key
; Limitations:
; 1) OneNote must be open - maybe change this in the future so that content goes to a new unfiled note
; 2) Doesn't swap back to original application
;
; Author: Julian Knight, http://www.knightnet.org.uk/contact.htm
; Version: 2009-04-01 v1.0

; We need a partial title match but we will also reset to previous setting
oldTitleMatchMode := A_TitleMatchMode
SetTitleMatchMode, 2

; Settings
winTitlePart := " - Microsoft Office OneNote" ; Partial title of ON windows

; Copy currently selected stuff
SendPlay, ^c ; Use sendplay to avoid unexpected interactions with Win key

; If OneNote is not started, give up
IfWinExist, %winTitlePart%
{
 ; Save the currently active window title
 WinGetTitle, actWin, A

 ; If OneNote is not active, activate it now
 IfWinNotActive, %winTitlePart%
 WinActivate, %winTitlePart%

 ; Check again, if ON active then paste else error
 IfWinActive, %winTitlePart%
 {
 ; Paste to ON &amp; Add some blank lines
 SendPlay, ^v`r ; Use sendplay to avoid unexpected interactions with Win key
 ; Switch window back to previously active
 WinActivate, %actWin%
 }
 else
 MsgBox, Could not activate OneNote window.

} else
 MsgBox, Can't find ON [%winTitlePart%]

SetTitleMatchMode, %oldTitleMatchMode%
return

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Setting list item gaps in Microsoft OneNote (AutoHotKey script)

Julian Knight — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:58:00 +0000

Although I like Microsoft OneNote and use it continuously, it does have a few failings. One of these is the inability to set the default styles and layout for text. In particular, when you create a new paragraph or list entry in OneNote, the default – non-changeable – setting is to have no white space between the paragraphs. This is very poor design and makes more than a small amount of text quite unreadable. I’ve raised this with Microsoft but who knows if or when it might be sorted. In the mean time, I need a far quicker way of changing this. Currently, I’ve had to:

Select the container with the text I want to format
Use the menu to show the List Task Pane ([alt]o/L)
Mouse click on the text box to change (you cannot tab into it)
Change the 0.00 pt default to something like the 6.00 pt that I prefer
Close the List Task Pane Not nice! Having determined that there is nothing clever that can be done in OneNote, I decided that the old standy “AutoHotKey” would be useful. So I’ve created a script for AutoHotKey that will change the inter-list gap for the currently selected container.

OK, so it’s a bit rough-and-ready but it does save a whole lot of time. I’ve got this in my default AHK script so it is loaded whenever I log in and is activated with [win]z.