OneNote 2010 File Format Information

  • Article

There have been a bunch of questions about the file format so I wanted to write a comprehensive blog post to cover all of your questions. Key points:

  • OneNote 2010 will fully read & write OneNote 2007 format notebooks, no need to convert a notebook
  • There is a new OneNote 2010 format to support new features (such as versions)
  • OneNote 2010 can convert notebooks from 2007<-->2010 formats and back

 

OneNote 2010 will fully read & write any OneNote 2007 notebook; you do not need to convert your notebooks to use OneNote 2010. When you are on a 2007 notebook you will see that the title bar of the application says "(Compatibility Mode)" like this:

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When you see this you are in a 2007 format notebook, conversely if you do not see this then you are viewing a 2010 format notebook. Also certain features will be disabled and greyed out in the UI this is normal and to use the new features you should convert the notebook to the 2010 format

There is a new OneNote 2010 format to support new features such as:

  • OneNote Web App
  • Versions
  • Equations
  • Linked Note Taking
  • Recycle Bin
  • And more

By default when you create a new notebook in OneNote 2010 the format of the notebook will be in the 2010 format so you can use all of these new features.

If you are sharing with people who do not have OneNote you will be able to share your notes in the cloud (Windows Live) and they can view & edit those notes in the browser. If you need to work with others who have OneNote 2007 you will need to make sure the notebook is in the 2007 format.

You can convert any notebook between versions by:

  1. Right-click on the notebook on the navigation bar (on the left)
  2. Choose Properties
  3. Click to convert the notebook to whatever version you would like, see here:

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If you have more questions please use the comments below.