OneNote importer

Features
1

Hello, everyone!

I'm working on adding OneNote importer to Joplin.

The feature is getting close to being ready for a pre-release, but I still would like to make more tests of real use cases before that. I'm creating the topic to ask if anyone here has any notebooks inside OneNote and would be willing to export them for me to test and see if we find any bugs.

How to export a notebook

Access OneNote from its web application:
https://www.onenote.com/notebooks?auth=1

By right-clicking a notebook you have an option to export the notebook:
image

A new window will open up with a download button:
image

This .zip file is what we are going to use to import, that is what I would need to make the test!

I want to export, but I have some private information

If you would like to help but have some sensitive notes that you wouldn't like to give me access to you could always duplicate the notebook and export the newly created without these notes.

To do that you can follow the steps above until you get the zip file.

After that you should follow OneNote instruction Export and import OneNote notebooks - Microsoft Support to duplicate your notebook

At this point, you will be able to visualize the copy and remove the sensitive notes and follow the export process again.

If anyone would like to help but needs more privacy you can reach out to me via PM.

4 Likes
2

Could you access a notebook via link?
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I wonder if it's preferable over uploading gigabytes of notes into the forum...

3

Sent you a PM with a link to a zip file. Looking forward to this resource. Let me know if there is anyway I could help. Sorry, don't know Rust.... :frowning:

2 Likes
4

I recently tried to use a Python module to process OneNote files. It turned out that the same set of notes produced a different export file when using Microsoft 365 respectively the web version. The first worked, the second didn't. So it would be good to test both. Here is my simple web export. It's just a few test notes:

OneDrive_2024-04-03.zip (94.9 KB)

2 Likes
5

I have a massive OneNote notebook notebook - hundreds of pages, subpages, images, etc.. I've been trying all sort of PowerShell techniques to export it from OneNote to HTML, but something always seems to flub. I'd be curious how you do this. I want to share it, but I would rather it not be publicly downloadable, but there's nothing really sensitive about it - it's just some creative work of mine.

I don't see how to PM you here. Perhaps you can initiate a PM to me and I'll figure it out from there? Thanks.

4 Likes
6

Assuming you have a Windows machine, install OneMore andon. It's a free andon with lots and lots of extra features, including export to MD or HTML.

In my experience, HTML export is hit or miss with attachments, but MD export works well, and importing them to Joplin also works fine.

1 Like
7

Hi,

Here is the link to the software that you can try if the one listed above doesn't meet your needs.

supports folder hierarchy for sections and pages.

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8

I'd like to report that the OneNote Importer doesn't seem to work properly in 2.3.5 Windows. I imported a notebook zip file with 7 sections, only 6 sections were imported, with missing pages too.

9

Hi, sorry for the late reply. We kind of expected that the feature would be some problems even on release. It is a complex format and there are many edge cases that are probably not accounted for yet.

I have been looking into fixing the problems, could you share the notebook or the section that didn't work?

If you have OneNote for Windows you can create a new empty notebook, right-click the section -> Move/Copy only the section that didn't appear on Joplin to the new notebook and then export this notebook on the web interface like described above.

Please, if you find any other problems, we would appreciate if you could create an issue about it so I can look into fixing them ASAP.

Thanks!

10

Hi pedr, the file was sent by PM. Thanks.

11

Hello,

First time posting - just started using joplin. It seems great so far!

Just trying to find the best way to move my OneNote notebooks and I see there is this great importer. Thanks! Is there any known list of limitation of the importer that I should be aware of for manual correction of the notes?

Thank you!

Qbort

12

I think theoretically there are no limitations, but it does mess up your notes' layout if you have used different formatting, handwritten notes or attachments (my notes in OneNote are pretty wild, I think).

However, at the moment there seems to be a bug resulting in some sections / notes not being imported. They are working on it and for most things it works great, but after importing you should check that all your sections / notes are there.
See here: OneNote ZIP import incomplete - #13 by againman

But, given that: I think the Joplin OneNote importer is the best tool for "getting out of OneNote" that I have found so far. The Obsidian OneNote importer e. g. simply ignores all handwritten notes (and I am not sure how it handles attachments). So as soon as the missing sections problem is solved, this might easily become the gold standard for people to leave OneNote to switch to a more open note taking software.

1 Like
13

for now, i found the best thing to be to use two tools:

  1. in-built one note importer works well to get almost all data. It is just overly complex markdown if later i want to edit it.
  2. I also use onenote to joplin markdown converter (ref: OneNote export to Joplin) it works well but has many imitations

So i have two imported notebooks: markdown one and a "joplin" one and am manually checking each page and tidying up the import. Of course not perfect but at least I have a good solution and am able to move away from Microsoft :slight_smile:

1 Like