Summary

If copy-past is not working on OneNote for Windows 10, open settings for OneNote and tap on “Repair” or “Reset” button.

Background

I use OneNote for work extensively to capture meeting minutes and share with the rest of my team. It is a great utility that helps organize notes, thoughts, various information and in some cases design/system specs. Search feature works very nicely and I can easily locate information that I have captured many years back.

After a recent update, copy-paste stopped working. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time, I could not copy-paste text from one page to another or within the same page. Super annoying.

I’ve searched online and followed the first link that points to a Microsoft forum. Funny thing is “Microsoft Agent” recommends to “try uninstalling and reinstalling your OneNote application and check if will make any difference”. I don’t even know how to do that as my PC is managed by the company IT department.

After further searching I found another solution which recommended finding OneNote settings under system settings app, but there is no specific settings for OneNote.

Detailed Solution

What worked for me is:

  1. Click on Start button in Windows 10 (lower left corner).
  2. Type Onenote in search bar (you can directly start typing). That would show OneNote as the Best Match.
  3. Now you can either
    • Right click on “OneNote for Windows 10” or
    • Tap on the circular down arrow to bring up a menu of options (Open, Pin to Start, App Settings, Uninstall etc.)
  4. Tap on Settings.
  5. Tap on Repair button.

That did it for me and copy-paste started working as expected. If Repair button does not work, you can try Reset button as well.

Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4 above showing how to open OneNote Settings window.
Step 5 showing OneNote Settings window.

Happy copy-pasting!