How To Properly Format A Code In OneNote App

OneNote has come a very long way since its release. It began as a very basic note-taking app. It has really improved over the years and holds up a reasonably well against its counterpart Evernote. Microsoft’s productivity suite is also very popular on desktops and OneNote is also a part of it. The most recent version is really awesome enabling you to embed videos, sound, and even spreadsheets from Excel. It meets most note taking prerequisites and missing features are compensated for by the add-ons. All apps in MS Office have their own set of add-ons and OneNote is the same. If you make use of OneNote to store bits of code, NoteHighlight2016 is an add-on you should probably give a try. It allows you appropriately format code in OneNote and it supports C#, CSS, SQL, JS, HTML, XML, PHP, Jave, Perl, Python, Ruby, and CPP.

Format Code In OneNote App

NoteHighlight2016 is an open source add-on. Download it from Github repo and run the MSI file. It will take care of the rest installation process. You don’t even need to enable it like you do in other office apps. Once installed, open OneNote and you’ll see another tab named ‘NoteHighlight’.

This tab will show you all languages it supports. Also, the add-on won’t correctly format the code unless you select the correct language that you want.

When you select your desired language, another window opens. Just paste the code in this window and make sure you check the ‘Copy to Clipboard’ option. When you enable this option, any code that you paste in the NoteHighlight box will be formatted and after that, it will automatically be copied to your clipboard. If you do not enable the option, you will have to manually copy the formatted text.

Now, Open a notebook and paste the code in a note. It will automatically retain its formatting pattern.

Limitations

NoteHighlighter gives you a chance to format code in OneNote however it doesn’t include the functionality inside the note-taking interface. There is an intermediary i.e., the box that opens when you select your desired language. If you try to edit the code snippet you paste in a note, it will not recognize and format the code. If you need to make any changes to the code snippet you’ve pasted and also retain its formatting, you will have to go through the NoteHighlight tab again to do that.

The add-on recognizes the code syntax and after that, it formats it for OneNote using the inbuilt text formatting styles. You can always change the formatting by choosing it and using the Basic Text tools on the Home tab. The add-on works in OneNote 2016.