How to move onenote sections back to top of notebook?

Anonymous

I have found that the default onenote view is to have sections run along the top of the notebook instead of on the right (vertical view). I prefer to have my sections run along the top in the default view, but somehow, my view changed where all my sections are in a left aligned vertical view. I cannot figure out how to revert back to where all the section tabs are back along the top of each notebook. Please show me how. I cannot find this info anywhere in Microsoft support. Please note, this screenshot was taken while Office Theme = Colorful and while the "Enable Experimental Features" box was checked.

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Anonymous

Hi Nick. I'm glad to hear you're an actual MicroSoft engineer. I hope it is an engineer specifically for the OneNote product. I want to call B.S. on your "user testing". Switching over without the option of giving your end users a choice of layout was plain stupid and short-sighted on the part of MicroSoft. I've been using OneNote for just over a year despite being an avid Apple products user. I did this on the advice of two colleagues who use Onenote regularly, and who actually work for Microsoft (as employees, not vendors). Both of them state that they use tabs across the top and they believe it is only the Apple version that was changed permanently. They stated they would revert to version 15.33 if the engineering team forced this changed upon the software! Also, why don't you take a moment to read the feedback that you've been receiving about this forced change? Not just within the VOTE page (which has risen to 370), but throughout all the tickets that have been submitted asking how to restore this, as well as posts and comments made within the Microsoft online community. The 370 votes posted are only a small percentage of dissent that's out there. Nick, take your head out of the sand. Really. You can add this as an option for those who prefer tabs on the left... But why force it? Stupid. Plain stupid.

I have reverted back to version 15.33 using Apple's time machine. If anyone reading this wants to know how to fix this issue, the answer is revert back to version 15.33. If you don' have Time Machine, and you need an alternative means to do so, please post a message here and I will help you with this.

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Anonymous

Hey Santiago! I'm an engineer on the OneNote team.

To bring consistency across the OneNote platforms we've moved the section selection to the left side of the screen. Through user testing we've determined that (while the migration can be confusing) users find the updated experience to be more intuitive given our hierarchy structure (Notebook => Section => Page).

You're welcome to leave feedback for this change on UserVoice :)

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434 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-07-14T14:26:06+00:00

Thank you for posting this. I agree with you 100%. If they make a significant change like this, the end user should have the option of reverting back. The layout with all the tabs on the left makes it much too easy to delete a page by mistake.

I would appreciate your help in reverting back to the older version.
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Anonymous

2017-09-03T19:40:47+00:00

Hi,

As a die-hard user of OneNote from the beginning, I have recommended it and trained all my employees on it. This change of removing the ability of the users to have the tabs at the top is NOT better in any way. It takes up valuable screen real estate and makes it more difficult to use. As a professional who designs software for a fortune 100 company, whenever we introduce something radical, we always give the users the the ability to use the previous view if they so prefer. That way we let the actual users tell us if they like it, with minimal risk. I am not upgrading to the new version and if it becomes mandatory to migrate to it, I will stop using it altogether.

You've made a perfectly good working and very useful piece of software worse.

Trauton
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Anonymous

2017-05-26T12:40:09+00:00

Santiago ~ Welcome to the Community.

"I prefer to have my sections run along the top in the default view..."

I'm sorry to say that it's not about what you prefer, but what Microsoft prefers. ...Feedback about the change has been ignored by Microsoft but, if it makes you feel better, you're welcome to vote and comment here:

Leaving (or option to leave) the section tabs at the top on the page

"...somehow, my view changed where all my sections are in a left aligned vertical view."

It was probably when you "upgraded" (so-called) to OneNote version15.34.

"I cannot figure out how to revert back to where all the section tabs are back along the top of each notebook. Please show me how."

If you have a backup, for example via Time Machine, you could restore the previous version of OneNote from your Applications folder and then turn off "Enable experimental features" in OneNote Preferences.

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