An office add-in is a utility that extends the functionality of Microsoft Office apps. They use various open web technologies (TypeScript, React) or the older COM (Component Object Model) solution.

OneMore is a COM add-in for OneNote that includes an extensive set of features. They give you the ability to clean text, manage custom styles, syntax highlighting, merge or split pages, create custom labels, bidirectional links, and more. We’ll show you how to use the OneMore add-in to increase productivity while using OneNote.

Installing OneMore Add-In for OneNote

To use and install the OneMore add-in, you must fulfill the following criteria:

  • Windows 10. If you use Windows 8 or 8.1, ensure that you have installed .NET framework 4.8.
  • OneNote 2016 or later (32-bit or 64-bit).

Although the website has mentioned OneNote 2013, we haven’t tested this add-in for the older OneNote apps.

Close the OneNote app. Head to the releases page and look for OneMore_4.17_Setupx64.msi under Assets. “4.17” is the version number, and “Setupx64” means you’re downloading the 64-bit version of the add-in (use the x86 installer if you’re on a 32-bit machine).

The add-in stores its settings in the “%AppData\Roaming\OneMore” as XML files. On successful installation, you’ll see the More button in the Home tab.

OneMore addin home tab OneNote

Pin OneMore to Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)

You can customize OneNote toolbars to suit how you work and pin your favorite commands to access them easily. Click the Customize Quick Toolbar button and choose More Commands.

customize the quick access toolbar in OneNote

In the Choose commands from list, click the dropdown just beside Popular commands and choose Home Tab. Scroll down to find the OneMore option and click the Add button to add it to QAT.

add the OneMore button to QAT

Using OneMore Through Context Menu

OneNote shows you different context menus when you right-click on the notebook, section, or pages panel. OneMore binds to the menu to give you a complete, integrated experience.

For example, when you right-click the section of any notebook, you’ll see menu options Add to Favorites, Date stamp pages in Section, and Sort Pages in Section. If you right-click a page, you’ll see options like Merge Page, Split Page, Sort Child Pages, and Export.

additional options in the context menu OneMore

Apart from the context menu, you can use shortcuts for commands you use daily. Click the More > Settings, then go to Keyboard to view/reset the shortcuts.

OneMore keyboard shortcuts

OneMore Add-In Powerful Features

When you click the More button in the QAT, the commands are neatly arranged in groups, so you can find them easily. For example, if you want to manage OneNote pages, look for the commands in More > Page. For editing pictures, navigate to More > Images.

We’ll discuss only a few commands that might come useful in day-to-day usage.

1. Use Custom Snippets

A label is a bit of content that you can insert into the OneNote page to make editing easier and faster. When you have a piece of text that is important, repeatable, this feature indeed comes useful. To add a snippet, choose More > Snippets to get started.

You can use “Info and Warning Block” label to add important facts, “Breadcrumbs” for defining the hierarchical note location, “Status labels” for labeling progress, and a code box for adding syntax-highlighted code (use the Paste Rich Text command) from the Visual Code.

custom snippets created through OneMore addin

2. Use Custom Styles and Manage Favorites

OneMore lets you define new custom styles based on existing text/or from scratch. To apply a custom style, select the text and choose More > Custom Styles. By default, there are nine styles pre-configured for heading, paragraph, quote, code, citation, and more.

custom styles for page content

Although OneNote has multiple ways of navigating around notebooks, sections, and pages, they lack an important feature called bookmarks. With OneMore, right-click a section and choose Add to Favorites. Go to More > Favorites > Add current page for adding a page. Or, choose Manage Favorites to order or sort bookmarks.

manage section and page favorites OneMore

3. Tweak Images Directly in OneNote

OneMore adds basic image editing capabilities to OneNote. You can add a caption, crop, resize, and adjust the picture accordingly.

To resize any picture, right-click it and choose Resize and Adjust. If you select only one image, you can resize it by percentage, absolute size, or to a preset width.

crop and rotate the image OneMore

By default, the original image size is preserved, and only the rendered view of the image gets changed. But if the image is big, uncheck the Preserve storage size to overwrite the image size. However, if that picture is important, change the width and height and leave the quality at 100%.

resize and adjust the image OneMore

4. Add a Monthly Calendar or Reminder to a Task

OneNote has all the necessary features to create a calendar template. But it takes time and manual tweaks to design a calendar. With OneMore, you can insert a monthly calendar in large or small format. Go to More > Snippets > Calendar, and set the specification.

insert a monthly calendar with OneMore

OneMore even brings native reminder capability to OneNote. To do this, add a tag to any task and position your cursor on the paragraph. Right-click and choose Reminder > Add or Update Reminder. Now set a due date, add a subject, priority, and click OK. OneNote will send you a popup toast notification as the due date approaches.

add reminder to OneNote with OneMore

5. Add More Value to OneNote Pages

OneNote pages form a core part of your note-taking, and this add-in focuses on adding more functions to the editor. You can add an icon to the page title, hide the page date and time stamp, display word count for current page, and add arbitrary text tags to help you during search.

When you clip a bookmark/article, it always creates a new page. You cannot append the new note to a particular page. With OneMore, you can merge two or more pages by preserving the layout of containers from each page. You can even split pages by splitting headings to new pages or through page links.

page commands OneMore addin

OneNote lets you export a page in DOCX, PDF, or MHT. OneMore add-in adds more export options like HTML (with copies of file attachment on each page) and Markdown. You can even import links/web pages in bulk.

export OneNote pages

6. Clean and Edit OneNote Page Content

If you have hundreds of notes in OneNote or share a notebook with others, you may find notes with author information, unnecessary citations, empty paragraphs and headers, spacing, and whitespace.

OneMore has a comprehensive set of functions (More > Clean) to clean unnecessary metadata, external citations (links that get auto-generated when you paste a screen clipping), spacing between lines, before and after paragraphs, and more.

clean text with OneMore

In OneNote, you can set up a wiki system to build your knowledge repository and develop critical thinking. But the wiki system is one-way traffic. It doesn’t let you develop a contextual relationship between the information you create in OneNote.

OneMore lets you add a footnote on the page with a reference label at the current cursor location (More > References > Add Footnote). If you have a snippet of content you want to repeat on other pages, go to More > References > Embed Page and select the page you want to embed from another section or notebook. The embedded content is wrapped in a table with a visible border.

add footnotes and embed page in your notes

You can create a bidirectional link between paragraphs on two pages or phrases on a single page. Select a few words/phrases as an anchor point and choose More > References > Start Bidirectional Link. Then, select the paragraph/phrase on the other page and run References > Finish Bidirectional Link.

8. Add More Functionality to OneNote Tables

OneNote lets you create a table or insert an Excel spreadsheet on the page. The integration between Excel and OneNote is well managed, and you can view complicated formulas and charts in OneNote.

OneMore allows you to convert text to a table. Just makes sure that text must be delimited by a comma, space, or other special character’s You can insert cells into a table, by shifting existing content down or to the right. Or, paste copied cells into a table, rather than inserting a nested table.

You can add formulas to the table, and perform basic mathematical operations, parenthesis, and math functions such as SUM, AVERAGE, SIN, etc. Select the cell, and choose More > Table > Add Formula. OneMore validates the syntax in real-time, so if you’re typing a wrong formula, it will show as “Invalid.”

add formula to tables in OneNote

Tips to Take Better Notes With OneNote

OneMore add-in for OneNote has an extensive set of features built into it. It not only manages every aspect of OneNote, but fills the gap with missing functionality you would expect from OneNote.

Keeping the role of add-in aside, it’s also important to know how to take better notes. Digital note-taking is as much about skill as it is about the tools. Here are some tips to take better notes with OneNote.