How to move onenote sections back to top of notebook?

Anonymous
2017-05-26T06:50:42+00:00

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.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-05-27T19:38:21+00:00

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
2017-05-27T05:41:55+00:00

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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  1. Anonymous
    2020-01-13T23:25:12+00:00

    Ya, Nick, 

    I just tried one note on my work laptop and it has the office suite installed (work laptop). my home computer just has the one note app. 

    The office suite has the sections on the top, where the one note app has them stuck on the left. The left side sucks, I don't care about your user testing. Give us options or we'll find another tool

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-01-04T18:55:18+00:00

    "Santiago, Consistency has to do with..."

    David_Foreman ~ Even though your comment should have been addressed to Nick Andre, I doubt anyone at Microsoft will see it — as notifications to the many participants of this thread were probably suspended a long time ago. (I had to resubscribe in order to receive new notifications.) ...Anyway, consider voting and commenting here:

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

    õ¿õ¬

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-01-04T15:06:16+00:00

    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 :)

    Santiago, Consistency has to do with how individual use the product - Here is any idea... "how about letting the user determine how they want to use the product instead of a backward group of Microsoft  drones?  User interfaces should add flexibility not remove it. There should never be Microsoft way.  You guys are not really innovative and if you don't learn to change you will go the way of the dinosaur as people abandon one product after another.  putting the navigation on the side reduces the the size of the area you want to put content into. I work in share point and we constantly here about moving navigation away from the side and alot of developers are paid to do that on many sites.  You should learn from that.  But I'm not for taking that away from the users of the product it should be the end users choice and not forced upon people especially for users and company who have a huge investment in the content. Microsoft will lose business over parochial software engineers who think they know best

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