OneNote export to Joplin

Apps
1

Hi all,

I have recently migrated from OneNote to Joplin and was not satisfied by the 2-step migration OneNote -> EverNote -> Joplin, in particular due to the lost of my Section hierarchy and Page ordering.

So I developed a Windows Console Application that directly export OneNote notebook into RAW Joplin Folder Directory.

The tool can be downloaded in the GitHub repository GitHub - alxnbl/onenote-md-exporter: ConsoleApp to export OneNote notebooks to Joplin and other Markdown formats , section "Releases" on the right of the page. A comparison between the migration based on this tool and the one on EverNote is also provided.

Hope it will help other users to take the great leap forwards :slight_smile: . Please open a GitHub issue if you encounter any error or formatting issue.

Alex

15 Likes
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I wrote a python script that works for OneNote for Windows 10. It requires a small amount of manual work but it does work: GitHub - Ben-Gillman/onenote_to_markdown: Script to convert MS Onenote notebooks to Joplin

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Hi all, I released a new version of the tool (1.0) that fixe bugs and includes export to markdown + Front Matter.

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Hi @laurent, don't you think it would worth to quote the tool in the Joplin help page as an alternative to migration based on Enex file. I did my best to make the tool very user friendly, user just need to unzip and start the exe.

OneNote: First import the notes from OneNote into Evernote. Then export the ENEX file from Evernote and import it into Joplin.

Of course, it's just a suggestion.

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That's a good idea, we could have a page or something on the website to list the good conversion tools and other scripts to import or export data. If someone's interested in creating this, I'd accept the pull request.

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I've set up a wiki post here already - Importing notes from other notebook applications if nothing else to contain raw information that can be edited easily by anyone.

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Maybe we can simply update the help page to link to the wiki post of @Daeraxa ?

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I've gone the enex route some 3+ years ago and it was not great - especially since I used plenty of onenote's formatting features...

So I have some notes somewhere in unknown state. (I've manually re-formatted just some of them.) Maybe I'll revisit them now with a fresh import. Thanks!

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I've just released version 1.2.0 of the tool that includes the following updates :

New way to manage line breaks producing cleaner markdown files
[Joplin Format] Page hierarchy is now converted into sub-notebooks
Add Chinese translation : thanks @tlich
Update English translation : thanks @gatesry
Minor fixes and improvements

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Alex + Ben: Is there a way to make either of your solution work for Windows 7 and OneNote 2016? I had kept that configuration as a double-boot on my linux machine. The upcoming EOS for OneNote 2016 (in 2023) made me look for an alternative. Joplin seems to fit the bill, yay! But I would really love to be able to get my notebooks into it. Somehow. I've read of several others in this situation (i.e., basically abandoned Win7 after Microsoft abandoned it, but still hanging on to remnants for those programs that have (seemingly) no alternative).

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Hey, I never tried my tool on Windows 7 but I expect it to work correctly. Have you make a try ?

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Hi!
Thank you for this tool!
I just tried the OneNoteMdExporter.v1.2.0 and there was a problem with the Raw Joplin Directory format:
When I tried exporting OneNote's notebook in a Raw Joplin Directory format as recommended, the subsequent import in Joplin for Desktop (v. 2.8.8) didn't work: It neither displayed a process of importing nor did any notes appear afterwards. After the import, the desktop app seemed to synchronize something with OneDrive - there were a bunch of md files uploaded and could be found in the joplin folder in OneDrive, but still nothing in the Joplin Application to be seen.

Then I deleted all profiles (and the data from Onedrive) and tried to export the OneNote notebooks once again, this time in Markdown Directory format, and the process ran smoothly (some images and formulas were not extracted but this was not such an issue).

Stoyan

1 Like
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Ben will this only work on a Window machine. I'm currently on Mac but have access to a laptop.

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Hey. Yes, you need a Windows laptop with an Office installation.

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Thanks for that.

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Version 1.3.0 released :

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This is a FANTASTIC TOOL. Thanks for creating and sharing this!

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Thanks for this tool. I have many years of notes in OneNote and just did a test import and it looks great.

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I get this on every note in my OneNote when running the tool: "Error during processing of page -- D1 [6882b2df0de14125b3387301601382a5]. Page ignored. Error message : 0x80042006"

What am I missing?

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I already have the exported *.onepkg file... will the app be able to convert that? Is there a way to consume that file in joplin?