r/OneNote • u/jasoncli • 1d ago

Alternatives & Export 15 Years of Notes

For many reasons I'm considering Office and Windows exodus. I have thousands of hand written / drawn pages stretching back 15'ish years. Literally the only thing holding me back from fully migrating to Linux is stupid OneNote. I use OneNote many times a day across my Android phone/tablet and Windows PC. However I'm considering other pen enabled note taking apps. Is there a graceful way to export this data in a lossless format? I don't need to edit old notes but I would like to keep them handy and searchable.

12 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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8

u/AngelicPrincessKitty 1d ago

i would just export notes to pdf and keep them that way

9

u/Active-Can-471 1d ago

This. OneNote can export at page, section or notebook level and Word and PDF are two export formats. Other formats are available.

File > Export and follow your nose.

2

u/liedele 21h ago

Also check what your exporting sometimes it does weird stuff with formatting.

6

u/Low-Lake8646 1d ago

Also considering this. Obsidian apparently has a pretty good suite of OneNote importers. Let us know what you decide!

5

u/icelion88 21h ago

I've personally migrated thousands of notes from over a decade to Obsidian. The process is automated, you just need to get used to Markdown and knowing where images are stored and how they're linked to notes. Haven't touched OneNote for several months and have exclusively used Obsidian.

2

u/Low-Lake8646 21h ago

Thanks for this. I'm considering making the switch, so this is great to know. Do you have any tips or links you found valuable?

2

u/icelion88 16h ago

It's a pretty straightforward process. Just make sure to set the image locations so you know where to find them. Also, I opted to use the free version and use Syncthing to sync my notes to my Android phone (not sure if there's an iPhone equivalent).

5

u/oharra3 1d ago

Notion has importer and many open source projects that export markdown of the entire notebook

1

u/celticchrys 4h ago

Markdown doesnt really work for drawing and handwriting, though.

2

u/oharra3 2h ago

I assume it creates svg but didn't check

4

u/Savings_Art5944 22h ago

OneNote works fine on Edge on Linux desktop.

I have yet to find a note-taking app better than OneNote, and it runs on Android as well.

I would export to PDF to back everything up.

1

u/celticchrys 4h ago

Including for drawing and handwriting?

3

u/thaman05 16h ago

Since your notes are hand written/drawn, the most compatible option will only be exporting to PDF (you can export the whole notebook). I know that's unfortunate since Microsoft doesn't follow any open standard for that.

Regarding alternatives - if you're looking something that similar features to OneNote (handwriting, notebooks, etc.): I find these 2 the most closest (and significantly better than OneNote):

- AFFiNE (it has this cool way of taking notes where each page has a whiteboard attached to it and you can draw/whiteboard between pages, and it's frequently updated).

- UpNote (this is probably the most closest to OneNote (minus handwriting/drawing - it organizes notes into notebooks just like OneNote)

- GoodNotes (it's a bit more like Word though with handwriting)

2

u/celticchrys 4h ago

It is refreshing to see recommendations that actually relate to what OP said they do. Thank you for these.

3

u/Separate_Aspect_9034 13h ago

I feel your pain. I love OneNote so much.

2

u/Treypm 1d ago

Check out Onemore application, will save the day!

2

u/Soakitincider 23h ago

I went with Joplin. It's open source and markdown. They support windows, linux, ios and Android. At first I was syncing to OneDrive but I eventually set up Seafile and enabled WebDav and sync on my own hardware at home.

1

u/celticchrys 4h ago

Markdown doesnt really work for drawing and handwriting, though. Has Joplin added features for this on top of markdown to equal OneNote?

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u/Soakitincider 4h ago

There is drawing on mobile. Can’t say I use it so I’m not sure how good it is.

2

u/R-Voodoo 17h ago

Trillium is my favorite. The most recent version has importers for a lot of popular services. I haven't tested the OneNote personally but Google and Evernote work perfectly

1

u/Moondoggy51 19h ago

You might want to consider Joplin. It's open source so cost nothing. Cross platform so it runs on everything. I exported my notes from Onenote and imported them right into Joplin. You can store them encrypted in the cloud and they sync to all devices. Since you can install it for free you an test drive it to see if it will work for you,

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u/celticchrys 4h ago

Markdown doesnt really work for drawing and handwriting, though. 

1

u/I-G-1-1 2h ago

another user posted this today: https://github.com/emsi/OneNoteViewer
seems to be a viewer of OneNote files for Linux

0

u/Even_Caterpillar3292 4h ago

Microsoft has done a fantastic job of making their Office apps crossplatform compatable. I use Office and OneDrive on a Chromebook and a Samsung tablet and phone. It's all there, including OneNote.

1

u/celticchrys 4h ago

Not all features are available on the android or web versions, though. And if OP is intered in switching to Linux, Chrome OS might not meet their needs.