OneNote is finally getting two highly requested features

A few days ago, we learned that Excel is getting a highly requested PivotTable feature in the form of auto-refresh for this particular component. It seems like the company is looking to grant even more wishes as it has revealed that a couple more highly anticipated capabilities are coming to OneNote too.

The first of these enhancements is the ability to merge cells in a OneNote table, just like you can do in Excel. This grouping can be both horizontal and vertical, and the content should align accordingly. There's not much else to say about this, it does exactly what it says on the tin. That said, it is important to note that Insiders have the ability to display merged cells across all OneNote platforms, but the ability to actually create merged cells is just available on Windows, Mac, and iPad for now. iPhone, Android, and web support are planned for a later date.

Next, we have a quality-of-life (QoL) improvement in the form of the paste text only shortcut, also known as Paste Without Formatting. On Windows, this shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + V, while for Mac, it is Cmd + Shift + V. This is similar to other Microsoft 365 applications like Word and Teams, and the hope is that it will help keep content consistent and clean in terms of fonts, colors, and styling. Another way to trigger this behavior is the right-click context menu > Paste Text Only, as well as the Home > Paste > Paste Options > Keep Text Only toolbar.

It is important to note that the pasted text will adopt the formatting of your OneNote target, not the original source. Also, this feature is currently available for Insiders on Windows, Mac, and the web only. That said, if either of the two capabilities is not visible to you right now despite meeting the minimum criteria mentioned here, it might be due to the staggered nature of the rollout.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Posted Tuesday 29 July 2025 at 9:22 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of June): 2,864

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend