Does OneNote Have Templates?

OneNote is a great tool for organizing your notes (and your life). Whether for personal or business use, you might be wondering if OneNote has templates that you can use to make note-taking more streamlined. Templates make meeting notes, to-do checklists, project overviews and more simple and easy.

So, does OneNote have templates? You can easily find built-in templates on OneNote by going to the "Insert" tab and then clicking on "Page Templates". Additionally, you can set a default template for your OneNote section or create your own saved Template for future use.

Here are the step-by-step instructions on how to find, use, and create OneNote Templates on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

It's important to note that it is not possible to choose or create a template from the OneNote web app version.

Find out how to use OneNote templates on Windows 10!

Where are the Templates in OneNote?

In the top ribbon, click on Insert
Click on Page Templates

If you click the down arrow next to Page Templates, you will get a default list of templates to choose from. However, if you would like to see more templates, you can click on the page icon above Page Templates in the ribbon, or you can click on the Page Templates... option at the bottom of the dropdown. Either option will open the Templates side panel from the right.

On the templates side panel, you will see various categories which you can choose from - Academic, Blank, Business, Decorative, or Planners. Expanding these categories will give you various built-in page templates to choose from.

How to Use a OneNote Template

Once you have found a template that you would like to use, simply click on it and a new page will be added using the selected template. I usually end up clicking a bunch of them until I find one that I like.

Once you find a template that you like, you can delete the other pages that were created in bulk.

More than likely, you'll want to make some changes to the template to personalize it to your needs. No problem!

On thing you can do is remove the image that is added to many of the templates. These images honestly look a little outdated and aren't my favorite, so I usually delete it for a cleaner look. To do this, simply right click on the image and click on Set Picture as Background. Once this is done, you can click on the image and press Delete on your keyboard to remove the image.

Then you can add or remove elements and edit the default text on the page as you see fit for your needs.

The last thing you will do is simply save your edits as your own template and you'll be good to go!

How to Create a OneNote Template

Once your template page is built out the way you would like, it's time to save your template for future use.

At the bottom of the Templates side panel, you'll see a link to Save the current page as a template.

Next, you'll see a popup box asking you to give your template a name and the option to set your template as default for new pages created in the current section (you can also select this in the dropdown under Always use a specific template in the screenshot above).

And there ya have it! Now you know how to find, use, and create templates in OneNote! Please feel free to share your OneNote template tips in the comments below!