Margins on top and left side of the page disappear in certain pages of notebooks in OneNote desktop version

Anonymous
2022-07-26T05:31:58+00:00

I don't know how to call this problem. I tried searching for solutions online but no answers would come up so I have to post this.

I had trouble displaying some pages in some notebooks on OneNote since last month. Both notebooks created and saved on OneDrive or locally are affected. I don't know if the the app version that came with Windows 10 have this problem (uninstalled it a long time ago). I also don't have another Windows device to check if this is just exclusive to my laptop.

OneNote Version: 2206 (Build 15330.20264 Click-to-Run) Current Channel

Windows Version: Windows 10 21H2 (OS Build 19044.1826)

Device: Aspire A315-57G (has no touch input)

The screenshot below shows how a page in OneNote should appear normally. Note how the margins on top and the left side of the page are displayed:

The other pages, however, have their margins cut off even though the scrollbar shows that there are margins on both the top and left side of the page. Forcing the scrollbar to go leftmost or topmost would force the page to go back to this non-margin display:

I can live with this kind of display if it's just that but the fact that moving text boxes and other objects causes the page to go jerky when moved to those extreme sides renders the page impossible to edit. Not all pages are affected, fortunately, but I don't when those pages will get this same bug or how they even got that bug in the first place.

Anyway, is there a way I can make the page go back to how it was, with the margins displaying properly? Previous versions of the pages with this problem were also affected so I can't use the restore previous page version function.

(07/27/2022) Edit: Since the images were not enough to describe the problem, here's a video. I hope it plays on this site:

(08/02/2022) Edit: Some users suggested that this problem has something to do with syncing from the Android client but this problem also appeared on a notebook created on the desktop version and saved outside of OneDrive so I don't think this is just exclusive to Android-created pages. Nevertheless, here's the info of my Android device:

OneNote Version: 16.0.15330.20214

Android Version: Android 7.0 (Nougat)

Device: LG V20 (non-rooted)

The problem has also nothing to do with my device's hardware/installed other software interfering with OneNote since this also appeared in a device with completely different specs and software version from mine as tested last July 31.

(12/31/2022) Edit: I recently got a new device which came pre-installed with Windows 11 and an old version of Office 365 (I forgot to take a screenshot of the version but I think it's 2204 or earlier). All of the pages that were badly displayed in my old device displayed correctly in my new one. After updating Office, however, those pages displayed incorrectly again. One of the updates introduced in version 2206 and beyond definitely caused this problem.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | Other | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-07-27T09:46:18+00:00

    Aren't options 1 and 3 a bit too drastic just to solve a bug that's most probably not hardware-related? My version of OneNote is 202206 which means that it's a June 2022 version and it so happened that I first encountered this problem last month which was also June or probably last 2 weeks of May. And, even if this is hardware-related, why are not all pages affected?

    I did option 2 and opened the notebook with the bug in a newly created local account but the problem remained.

    I created a shareable test notebook as instructed which includes some pages that have this problem. For some reason, the content of the pages were moved to the extreme left side of the page when viewed on browser. I tried moving them a bit to the center to see if that fixes the problem but that only moved the text box to the center. The margins are still not displayed.

    I just realized now that the bug is most likely treating the page as if it's viewed on a mobile phone since viewing OneNote pages on phones usually cut off the margins by default. Normally, the margins should return when viewed on the desktop version as it did before but since last month, that stopped happening in certain pages.

    One of the pages included in the test notebook was originally created on desktop and was never viewed on mobile so I don't think viewing them on mobile triggers this.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-27T08:09:55+00:00

    I didn't experience the same phenomenon when I tried, so I'm guessing the problem is with one of the programs in your device (not necessarily OneNote). To narrow down the problem, you can do the following things:

    1. Disable hardware graphics acceleration.
    2. Create a new local account in Windows to exclude the influence of other programs, and try to open this notebook in the new account.
    3. Perform a clean boot. A "clean boot" starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs, so that you can determine whether a background program is interfering with your game or program.  This is similar to starting Windows in Safe Mode, but provides you more control over which services and programs run at startup to help you isolate the cause of a problem.  

    Disclaimer: Clean start is a means of troubleshooting, not a condition suitable for normal long-term use. Some applications may not be able to be used in this mode, please exit after testing.

    If all these don't help, share these pages in OneDrive and copy the link here, so that more members in Microsoft Community can help figure out the root cause. Detailed steps can be found in Share OneDrive files and folders. Don't include your personal or confidential info in the pages.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-07-27T03:17:36+00:00

    As I mentioned in the post, "forcing the scrollbar to go leftmost or topmost would force the page to go back to this non-margin display". Clicking those buttons were useless as it would force the page to move back to those position. I guess an image is not enough to describe the problem.

    Here is a video. I hope it plays in this site.

    ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/40671f97-31f2-4fa2-b51b-15b8b70ddd81?platform=QnA

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-07-27T02:53:45+00:00

    Hello , MoonAngel_747

    Welcome to Microsoft Community.

    I tried in the same version of OneNote and found that if I drag the right and bottom scrollbars, I can change the top and left margins. So I suggest you move the scrollbars to have a try, like this:

    As for why some pages have scrollbars, it's likely related to what you type and the formatting. If you don't want the scrollbar to appear again, you can copy or save the formatting of other pages as a template, and then add the content according to the template.

    If the problem still can't be solved, please let me know, so that I can figure out another workaround.

    Best Regard,

    Yuhao Li| Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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