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
    2023-12-19T13:38:33+00:00

    This issue is very well described by the original author. I've also been fighting this same issue for years and have yet to find a solution. Recently more and more of my notes tend to have the issue, making OneNote a pain to use and I have started looking for other options. Shame is the large amount of notes I would have to move to a new platform... but as more and more are broken, it might be worth the effort.

    Posting here to follow along in case a solution is found.

    OneNote Version: Microsoft® OneNote® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2312 Build 16.0.17126.20078) 64-bit

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-01-09T00:29:03+00:00

    I am also suffering from this issue, especially when I type Chinese characters near the margin.

    I believe the Office team made this change in some version, and must have thought they did really well for this clever change.

    Please roll back or add an option in settings. I'll really appreciate this update.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-01-13T00:57:32+00:00

    On my One Note I had the problem too. Somehow, the very top line (The page title) got pushed to the left, beyond where a "New Page" would put it. I have no idea how it got there, but I just created a new page, cut and pasted the contents from the bad page and now it works without trouble.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-01-24T20:56:47+00:00

    If you view the document XML you won't see any differences, page size is automatic on both, etc.

    However, if you view your OneNote in the browser, you can see the issue is in this OutlineContainer element.

    Here is a good one (created in desktop app):

    <div class="OutlineContainer OutlineContainerDisplayWrapper Ltr" data-nodeid=".." style="left:48px;top:101px;direction:ltr;">

    Here is a bad one (created on OneNote for Android):
    <div class="OutlineContainer OutlineContainerDisplayWrapper Ltr" data-nodeid=".." style="left:16px;top:115px;direction:ltr;">

    You can see the different left & top properties in the style attribute. If you edit these in the browser developer tools to be left of 48px and top of 101px then the bad pages created in OneNote for Android will display correctly. However, of course its only a fix for viewing in OneNote for browser.

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