Exciting new features coming to OneNote Desktop for Windows

Finally OneNote Desktop will be the main OneNote app for Windows

Microsoft has now decided OneNote Desktop will be the ONE OneNote app for Windows 10 and 11, phasing out the OneNote Win10 App.

What does this mean?

OneNote Desktop is now getting new features which will be coming  within the next couple of months … with more added later on too.  Also, OneNote Desktop will be referred to as just “OneNote” making everything simpler.

Here are the 4 key elements we’ll soon see:

1. Visual design refresh

2. Content capture update

3. Organizational updates

4. Better sharing experience

1. Visual Design Refresh

• OneNotes design will be aligned with the other Office apps like Word and Excel.
  The OneNote title bar will loose it’s purple  color, and rounded corners will be added.
  

• Page List on the left
  To show the whole hierarchy together (ie: Notebooks > Sections > Pages ) you can move the Pages from the right to the left.
  Just use File > Options and mark “Move page list to the left“.

• Simplified Ribbon
  This is coming from the Windows 10 app to OneNote Desktop. You can now choose between classic & simplified ribbon.

2. Content Capture Update

• The New Draw Menu
  OneNote Win 10 App had a much better interface for Pen & Touch, and OneNote Desktop has not been updated for this type of input for over 10 years. Writing in OneNote will now feel much more like writing with a pen on paper.

Here are some of the main features of the new draw menu:

• • Pencils
    Pen devices through haptic feedback will provide more natural and tactile interactions and experiences.
  • Rules
    There is also now a ruler which makes it easier to draw straight lines.
  • Ink to shape
    Great to draw a quick flowchart.
  • Ink to text
    Has also been updated. It matches the font size and color to the drawn text.

• New Pen Focus View
  The full focus view will give you an ink first experience. Laptops with a pen will hide menus so you can focus on note taking.

• Transcript
  Transcription and ink will be available soon to become a powerful record keeping tool. You can let OneNote record audio while you take notes.  For example if you are in a meeting, you can jot down notes while OneNote is recording the audio. After the meeting when you’ve taken the notes and recorded the audio, you can insert the transcript. This is powered by MS advanced speech recognition.
• Tip: You can also upload a existing audio file and have it transcribed.

• Dictate
  Voice recognition is now part of OneNote. Previously you had to install the learning tools to enable dictate. Dictate will support the same features as in the other Office apps. For example, you can dictate commands like delete that, comma, full stop, pause etc …There is also a new feature “auto-punctuation” which you can pre-set. It uses AI to predict the punctuation.
  

• Camera integration
  It’s now much easier to add pictures by just using your webcam directly in OneNote, so you can quickly scan a document or snip an article you’re reading.

3. Organizational Updates

• Reorder pages
  You can now reorder your pages alphabetical, by date created or modified.

4. Better Sharing Experience

• Updated Sharing
  New Share Button. With better descriptive options which makes it easier to share the entire notebook, copy a link to the current notebook or manage who has access to it.

All these new features will arrive soon, with more to come in the future. So keep an eye out as our Auscomp team will update this post with new features as they arrive.

Here are some related posts which you may find helpful.

• Scan documents on your phone and store it in OneNote.
• Use AI to take notes in OneNote