Microsoft OneNote has your digital notebook needs covered. With OneNote 2016 we've made our notebook organizer tools even stronger and collaboration easier. Microsoft OneNote has your digital notebook needs covered. With OneNote 2016 we've made our notebook organizer tools even stronger and collaboration easier.

What you need to know

• Microsoft is preparing to merge modern features and code with its OneNote 2016 desktop app.
• Features like @mentions, To Do integration, and Microsoft Search are in the pipeline.
• The news comes after Microsoft revealed this week that OneNote 2016 will get extended support, along with a dark mode.

Microsoft gave OneNote 2016 a stay of execution earlier this week, revealing that it is extending support for the app to October of 2023. As it turns out, Microsoft has bigger plans for the OneNote desktop app, however. In an Ignite 2019 session today, Microsoft laid out plans for merging modern code and features back into the OneNote 2016 desktop app, which is a pivot in focus to begin operating under one codebase.

When it announced extended support for OneNote 2016, Microsoft said that a dark mode is also coming to the app. Beyond that, however, Microsoft plans to bring more modern features like @mentions and integration with Microsoft Search to the desktop app. There are also plans to integrate Microsoft To Do, which has already come to apps and services like Outlook and Microsoft Launcher on Android.

Notably, Microsoft previously continued to push the OneNote Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app over its traditional desktop counterpart as part of the Office suite. As part of this pivot, Microsoft is also shifting back to OneNote 2016 as the default version of the app that will be deployed and installed with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

'We also want to make deployment and installation easier for organizations and individuals, so for Windows users, starting in March 2020, when you deploy or install Office 365 subscriptions that include the Office desktop apps or Office 2019, the OneNote desktop app will be installed by default alongside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint,' Microsoft said in a blog post this week.

Where that leaves the UWP app is unclear, but we'll presumably see Microsoft flesh out its vision for OneNote in the coming months.

Updated November 7, 2019: A Microsoft engineer clarified the team's path in a Reddit post, stating the following:

Three years ago, we forked our code to work independently on 2016. We separated OneNote 2016 from our shared code base (the libraries that support android, UWP, IOS, Mac etc). Today, with our new strategy, we are taking that old branch that we deviated from, and bringing it back to accelerate our process shipping in all platforms.

This doesn't mean we are stopping to support clients, or merging clients. Win 10 is alive, Office OneNote is alive.

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You’ve been asking for it and today it’s here! We’re excited to announce Class Notebook Tools for OneNote 2016 for Mac, which helps teachers work even more efficiently with their Class Notebooks—on the Mac platform some teachers already know and use.

With this update, the Class Notebook tab is visible if you are teacher in a Class Notebook for which you have administrative rights. To set up a Class Notebook, visit www.onenote.com/classnotebook.

With the Class Notebook Tools for Mac, you can do the following:

One recommendation I can give is to learn WPF and the MVVM pattern on Windows if you are interested in writing UI in your plug-in that will be easy to post port. On OSX, the UI would be designed in Interface Builder (part of XCode) and could be hooked up to the same ViewModel class that you write on windows making only the actual user interface widgets different, but the same logic underneath. Rhino assembly plugin. This turns out to be the approach that allows for as much shared code between the different versions of your plug-in as possible.

• Quickly and easily distribute pages or new sections to students in a class.
• Copy sections to Content Libraries in multiple notebooks.
• Sequentially review student work (assignments, quizzes, etc.).
• Easily navigate and browse student notebooks through a student list.
• Launch Class Notebook app functionality.
• Visit useful professional development and community resources.

Below are some highlights of what you can do with the Class Notebook Management Tools. For more details, visit the Class Notebook Tools for OneNote 2016 for Mac user guide.

Distribute a page to all of your students with two clicks

Rather than sending students to the Content Library to copy a page for themselves, a teacher can distribute a page to all students in a class with just two clicks.

Review student work

Teachers are provided with a list of all the pages they’ve distributed and a quick way to sequentially review work (homework, assignments, quizzes, etc.). Simply click a student’s name to navigate to the page in the student’s notebook.

View students’ Class Notebooks

With this view, navigating student Class Notebooks is a cinch. Teachers are provided with an easy-to-scan list of all students and their sections to quickly browse and navigate to—and monitor their students’ activity.

Easily manage students Class Notebooks

The Manage drop-down makes handy links for teachers easily accessible. You can also add or remove students or teachers from a Class Notebook or get started on creating a new Class Notebook under the Manage drop-down.

We plan to continually improve these tools and deliver on top requests. Please don’t hesitate to email us directly at classnotebook@onenote.uservoice.com, where the Class Notebook product team reads through every piece of feedback received.

We’re excited for teachers to try Class Notebook Tools for Mac and look forward to hearing feedback!