OneNote inserts ghost whitespace

Question

I am a heavy user of OneNote 2013, and I am observing behavior that is similar to the "ink moving and shifting bug" that has been described by many other users over the past decade. Since I rarely use ink, I don't know how closely my issue is related.

I have tried to find this question addressed elsewhere, but if the topic exists, it's drowned out by the ink-related discussions.

I use OneNote daily at work to organize files, emails, and notes by project. Most of these OneNote pages are stable, and are written blog-style, starting with the beginning of the project at the top of the page, with new content progressively added to the bottom.

The pages that become disorganized are the pages that contain collections of frequently-referred and frequently-copied information -- checklists, tables, labels, and files. These pages are frequently opened and left in the background throughout the day -- when I need this checklist or that table, I just copy it from my standard collection.

The disorganization seems to take the form of randomly-inserted whitespace -- as if someone clicked on the page at random and hit the spacebar. If I hit Ctrl-A to select the entire page as if for a copy/paste operation, little bits of "ghost" whitespace are highlighted among the selected items. If I then click elsewhere to deselect, then Ctrl-A to select all again, these bits of "ghost" whitespace have disappeared.

Because of the differences in how text, pictures, tables, etc. react on OneNote pages, the various elements become entirely rearranged over time. The displacement is almost always vertical. Arrows that once pointed to spots of interest on photos are now separated from them by entire paragraphs. Line segments that originally served as dividers between notes become intermingled with them. Clickable file icons become separated from the text snippets that describe them. If allowed to continue, elements drift so wildly that bits are separated from the rest by entire pages' worth of blank vertical scrolling.

This rearrangement doesn't happen every day. I am the only user of these particular source pages, so I don't suspect pranksters. How can I prevent this behavior, short of simply not using OneNote pages in this manner?

[Edit 2016-07-06] I should correct what I said about Ctrl-A. I actually have to drag across the area on the screen in order for the ghost whitespace to show up. Ctrl-A does not reveal it.

Answer 1

Hello Tim,

I generally use two notebooks, one saved on consumer OneDrive for personal use, and the other on OneDrive for Business for work-specific information. I have seen this issue with both notebooks.

As it turns out, I already have a potential test notebook, the default My Notebook that comes with a fresh OneNote installation. Since I already had both a personal and a work notebook, I haven't used My Notebook.

I have created a sample page, selected the attractive engineering-paper background, and populated it with various sample elements. I will leave it open over the next few days to see what happens.

While creating the page, I noticed a slightly different behavior from what I'm used to seeing. On the new page, if I create a new textbox vertically above an existing one, then start to add lines, the new box will automatically overlap the old one:

This behavior is different from what I see in the notebooks I have been using. If I create a similar setup on one of the pages that have exhibited the drift issue under discussion, then add a new textbox above an existing one...

... adding new lines in the new textbox pushes the old one downward in order to make room, as well as the text below that -- but not the oval:

On the same problem page, if I put things roughly back to where they were, then put the insertion point at this spot:

... then hit Ctrl-M to open a new window, as I do immediately before changing the new window to a different page, the text inside the oval shifts slightly:

... and now, if I click someplace else on the page to ensure the insertion point is no longer at that position, then drag across that area of the screen, I see a "ghost" where the insertion point was before Ctrl-M:

... almost as if Ctrl-M somehow caused OneNote to create a one-character textbox, which pushed the test text downward.

Naturally, I wonder if this is a clue to at least some of the issue. Why do the textboxes behave differently on different pages? Is there a setting for this behavior? If I could set OneNote to always allow overlap between textboxes, might that mitigate the tendency to shift unpredictably?

Thank you,

Jon

Answer 2

Hello again, Sheen --

You asked for a sample screenshot showing the whitespace that appears seemingly from nowhere. Here is a screenshot of a page that contains checklists and other information that I frequently copy and paste into project-specific pages. Generally, upon the start of the workday, I will open this page and leave it up for immediate availability. (Since the content is work-related, I blurred parts of the image.)

In the original post, I wrote that the whitespace is shown when I use Ctrl-A to Select All. I remembered incorrectly -- Ctrl-A does not do this. Instead, I must drag across the area in question with the mouse.

You can see 8 or 9 small grey rectangles, each about the size and shape of a space character (" "), floating in the area between textboxes. If I click away from the selected area to cancel the selection, then drag across the same area again, the rectangles do not appear the second time.

While gathering screenshots, I noticed something that may be helpful in your analysis.

Since OneNote is essentially open all day, I generally start it immediately after a reboot. Naturally, the most recent page is the one that opens (another feature I enjoy, btw), and usually it is the page shown above. Once the first page is open, I hit Ctrl-M a few times to open more OneNote screens and then navigate those to the project pages that I will be using today. Since I have a multiple-monitor setup, this arrangement works well to improve my workflow.

What I noticed is that the whitespace seems to appear in the general area where the insertion point cursor was blinking before I began opening additional screens. It could be my imagination, but it also seems that the shifting occurs when the duplicate screen opens.

I am trying to test this hypothesis by ensuring that the insertion point is within a textbox before using Ctrl-M, in the hopes that doing so will help prevent drift.

Thank you for any insight you can provide. Please let me know what additional information you may need.

BR, Jon

Answer 3

Hi Sheen,

Thank you for your reply, and apologies for the delay in responding.

I believe I have the latest version of OneNote. I have checked Windows Update and do not find anything related to OneNote in the list.

I am reluctant to disable automatic syncing because of the usefulness of the feature. From what I'm reading, that doesn't seem to fix the problem anyway -- it only helps mitigate it.

You asked for screenshots. For clarity, will show screenshots of the whitespace in a separate reply, and screenshots of disorganization and displacement in this one. Since this is a work computer, I will of course obscure any sensitive information.

Some months ago, I took a screenshot of an Excel sheet...

... drew an arrow to point to one of the fields...

... and wrote a comment next to it.

The ease with which this can be done is one of the attractive features of OneNote. Unfortunately, these items have become so widely separated that it is necessary to zoom out extensively just to get them all in one screenshot. As you can see, the drift is so extreme that other items now intervene between items that were once together:

OneNote is a marvelous tool, more stable than OneDrive, and wonderfully versatile. However, comments from pages like the one you referenced seem to indicate that these moving-element issues are seriously damaging to OneNote's usage share.

BR, Jon

Answer 4

Hi Jon,

Have you referred to the information I provided? Please keep us updated when you have the time.

Regards,

Sheen

Answer 5

Hi Jon,

Please try to update OneNote to the latest version if isn’t already and see if the issue persists.

It may also have something to do with the shifting ink bug. Please try to disable automatic syncing and see if your notes will still shift over time.

For your reference:

Shifting ink.

Disclaimer: Microsoft provides no assurances and/or warranties, implied or otherwise, and is not responsible for the information you receive from the third-party linked sites or any support related to technology.

Additionally, we would like to collect screenshots of the issue to identify it:

Screenshots of the whitespaces in a note (Please use CTRL + A to highlight the entire section so that we can see the whitespace clearly).

If possible, please take a few screenshots, as described by you. For example: Disorganized and displacement of segments.

Regards,

Sheen