Microsoft OneNote is one of the applications that are in the Microsoft Office 365 set of Applications. These applications have replaced the classic Microsoft programs like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint etc. The Microsoft 365 Applications are like up to date versions of the same programs, keeping the true essence of the old ones and adding things that are essential in today’s world.
Microsoft OneNote is what you would use instead of Microsoft Word. It is an application that works as a Digital book bag, and you can create Notebooks in the app, name them individually, and have all of your notes in one place. It has several different features that help you switch from a regular, offline note-taking system to this one that can be accessed online from anywhere. Since it is a cloud-based application, your notes are uploaded to the cloud in real-time. That allows its users to take notes anywhere, at any time, and share them with whoever they want, who can also add to your notes and create a collaborative notebook.
But there are still a few things that the application hasn’t figured out, one of which is the fact that many people will be using it on their tablets or phones and might want to rotate the device to get that “real notebook” feel while making notes or reading PDFs. Plus, landscape mode is just generally more preferable for people that are using larger tablets that have a lot of room vertically and can get heavy to hold that way. Holding them in landscape mode helps keep the weight of the device more evenly spread and takes away the element of distraction while you take notes.
PDFs and documents in Microsoft OneNote can’t rotate on their own. This is because when you open a PDF in OneNote, the application doesn’t just open it, it “prints it” inside the application itself. So you are shown pages that are exactly like you would see them if you had printed them onto physical paper. Just as you can’t rotate text that is printed on physical sheets of paper, you can’t rotate it on Microsoft OneNote either.
But this doesn’t mean that you are stuck reading PDFs vertically, you can still rotate them, you need to do it using a third-party app or add-in, to do this,
- On your device, open the OneNote Application,
- Go to the File tab and click “Account.”
- There, find the “About OneNote” option and click on it.
- Check if you are using the 32 bit or the 64-bit version of OneNote.
- Visit https://getonetastic.com/ and click “download” to download an add-in for your OneNote Application.
- Pick the version of Onetastic depending on whether you had the 32 or 64-bit version of the OneNote Application,
- Download it
Once the Add-in is finished installing, it will automatically integrate into the OneNote Application, and you can begin using it immediately.
How To rotate a PDF in OneNote
- Go to the image/printout you want to rotate
- Please select it and right-click on it
- It will open a drop-down menu
- Scroll down until you see the “Rotate Printout” option and hover on it
- It will open another side menu where you will have options between rotating the PDF 90 degrees left or right, or flip the image horizontally or vertically. Click on the direction you want to flip your PDF.
- You will now have successfully rotated your printout/PDF.
Although it is a little inconvenient to download an Add-in to be able to rotate files, it is a feature that most people want, and Onetastic gives you the ability to do it easily. Since this add-in blends in seamlessly into the OneNote Application, once you have downloaded it and start using it, it won’t feel like it’s a third-party add-in, instead, that it was part of the application, to begin with!
