The ALT key stopped registering in desktop OneNote 365 on Windows 11 Enterprise and Pro

Question

One two PCs running Windows 11 (Enterprise and Pro) OneNote desktop version 2506 has started failing to recognise the ALT key more than half the time even though it accepts other keys like CTRL. If I switch away from OneNote and back again, it will usually (but not always) recognise the ALT key. The problem doesn't arise in other Office 365 apps.

I've repaired Office but that didn't fix it.

Is there anything I can do to make OneNote accept the ALT key so I can use ALT-driven keyboard shortcuts? They're meant to speed my work up but, at the moment, they're slowing me down while I go through the process of observing that they've failed to register and then fixing the problem.

Thank for any clues you might have.

Answer 1

Hi @Kevin Lucas 

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.   

According to your issue, I understand that you have encountered a disabled ALT key error in OneNote. We are glad to assist you this part  

You can follow these instructions to troubleshoot it: 

1. Check and configure the Keyboard layout and input language: 

Based on my searching, OneNote traditionally looks at first what keyboard is installed in Windows. You may check your keyboard settings and see if it's English (US) as well. 

You can refer via: Keyboard shortcuts in OneNote - Microsoft Support 

1. Disable Sticky keys: 

To turn off Sticky Keys: 

• Press the Shift key five times quickly. 
• A confirmation dialog will appear. 
• Click "No" to disable Sticky Keys. 

In some situations, Sticky Keys can interfere with keyboard shortcuts, such as the Alt key functions. Disabling them can help restore normal shortcut behavior. 

If you need further assistance, please let us know.  

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".     

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

Answer 2

Thanks for all the replies and sorry to be tardy following up. I'm checking all these options although nothing's worked yet. One further discovery though was that, on those occasions when the ALT key doesn't offer me shortcuts, then, at the time, the ribbon doesn't respond to mouse clicks either. I don't think it's a window focus problem therefore because I can happily type into OneNote pages. So if the Ribbon's not responding, then maybe the ALT problem is a manifestation of that rather than being a problem in its own right.

An unresponsive ribbon occasionally happens in desktop Outlook but I haven't observed it in any other office apps. And I don't use many Outlook shortcuts so maybe ALT's not been working there either and I just didn't notice.

Does the inoperative ribbon give us any more clues to restoring keyboard shortcuts to use at the first attempt - without having to switch away from OneNote and back to it to make ALT-based keyboard shortcuts and the ribbon work?

Thanks again for all help - it's much appreciated.

Answer 3

Thanks for this. I'll explore the possible impacts on Gem and OneTastic because, if the reset disabled my access to those tools, I might prefer to live with broken keyboard shortcuts rather than broken addins. So this is all very useful food for thought. And I'll weigh next steps. Thanks all.