OneNote making my text invisible!

Anonymous
2017-03-08T20:19:19+00:00

I imagine this is some sort of bug...

OneNote in Office 365 on Windows 10 

I use OneNote for a lot of notes, including one section that is password protected. All of a sudden a few days ago, it has this very annoying glitch where the text I type is invisible.

It basically allows me to type / click check boxes, etc., but it is all invisible. As in, it creates space for the words but there is nothing there. I mostly have been using the password protected section, so I notice it there. If I close OneNote and open it back up, the previously invisible words then show up. Sometimes it lets me type regularly again, or sometimes it just makes any new text I type invisible also. 

If I press backspace, for example, the cursor moves backwards but the deleted words are still visible (until I close the program, for example).

If I switch to a non-password protected section the words are usually invisible while typing also- but if I keep typing gibberish then after a few seconds, this seems to reset and do the same thing as closing / reopening the program.

Any ideas? This is quite annoying!

Thanks!

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-03-10T02:24:31+00:00

Hello,

This issue is also occurring for me. I will type text and the cursor will move as if it is typing but the text does not appear. A short-term solution I have found is that switching to another section and then switching back to the "trouble" section then displays the text when typing.

I have tried both Quick and Full Repair.

The version is Office 365 Home Edition OneNote 2016 desktop app on Windows 10.

Help appreciated!

Thanks,

Jeff

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-09-04T20:05:34+00:00

    Hi everyone,

    It's a pity that some of you still are experiencing this "text display issue" and shame on Microsoft that nobody of this company is leading the discussion in this thread now for weeks.

    As mentioned some posts earlier, I had similar "text display issues" with my OneNote starting with Office version 16.0.7668.2074 in early February. The problem got fixed (for me) with version 16.0.8067.2157 mid June and didn't reoccur so far (actual version is 16.0.8326.2096).

    Since Microsoft doesn't show any interest, maybe it will help if all concerned people would describe their configuration a bit more in detail. At the time I experienced this issue, my configuration has been Windows 10 64-bit, Office 2016 32-bit. I have seen those problems in OneNote only on my notebooks on OneDrive and never on a local notebooks. I believe the issue happened mainly while a synchronisation process was in progress.

    Maybe it's possible to find some commonalities between all still concerned OneNote users and eventually this helps to rise the interest of Microsoft staff again.

    Good luck ...

    Kurt

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-04T19:19:52+00:00

    Hi Everyone,

    Adding myself to the list. Have read through whole post, and sounds like I have the same situation.

    This was happening on my previous laptop (Also Windows 10, OneNote, running off Office 365 account). Sometimes when editing, text would stop updating. Thought it was perhaps some problem in the historic setup (something corrupted somewhere during updates). Last week got a brand new laptop. Installed Office and OneNote. Linked to my previous notes and after some editing same problem occurs. Have to assume this is not two similar corrupt installations. Nothing went wrong. New system where everything installed perfectly.

    So I get hte same behavior - text updating seems to stop; have to page down & up and text re-appears. Sometimes the table has a black bar inside of it. Again, page down, page up requiring full screen refresh makes the text visible again.

    Not sure why it's not working. But please Microsoft team: get someone from your technical team to look at this? We cannot all be sitting on corrupt installs?

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-04T11:41:07+00:00

    I've had the same issue for a couple of weeks. 

    Reinstalling office and tell Microsoft that it didn't help - is that the only solution today??

    // Ulf

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-08-16T21:19:57+00:00

    I have this problem also.  

    A workaround for me is to paste in some text.  I can either use another program like Notepad to copy, for example, the word 'test' and then paste that into the the OneNote page.  Or I can type some text on the OneNote page, select it (even though it is not visibly selected) and copy it and then paste it.  Then my text on the OneNote page becomes visible again.

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