How to Link to Pages in Microsoft OneNote

If you’ve ever typed a list of dates into Microsoft OneNote, it probably looked something like this:

• 3 June
• 10 June
• 17 June
• 24 June

Maybe it’s for your weekly meetings, or a project timeline. Perhaps it’s a training schedule you fully intend to keep on top of!

For a lot of people, those dates are meant to become separate meeting notes pages. The problem is that creating pages manually in OneNote feels fiddly, so it often gets put off until later. Unfortunately, later rarely happens.

What many users don’t realise is that OneNote has a built-in feature called Link to Pages. It allows you to select a list, such as dates, and then automatically create a new OneNote page for each list item, complete with links.

Once you start using Link to Pages, you’ll see that setting up meeting notes, project pages, and wiki-style notebooks gets much quicker and far less frustrating.

Let’s check it out.

Why Link to Pages is one of the most useful OneNote Features

Let’s face it, setting up pages is the boring bit. Most people are happy taking notes. What they tend to avoid is the setup. Creating pages one by one is fiddly and time consuming:

• Click Add Page
• Rename it
• Rinse and Repeat
• Get distracted halfway through

So instead, everything ends up getting dumped onto one very long page. You scroll. You search. You mutter things under your breath.

The Link to Pages feature solves this by letting you start with a simple list, which is something you’d probably do anyway, and letting OneNote do the work and turn that list into structure.

Dates are the perfect starting point, so that’s where we’ll start.

Step 1: Create a List of Dates in OneNote

Start on a new or existing OneNote page. I’ll use a Monthly Meeting page, but it could be a project overview page or a simple planning page.

Type the dates using one date per line. Plain text is all you really need, but you can use a bulleted list if you want.

Tip – To save myself some time, I used Excel and just typed in the first couple of dates, then used Autofill to quickly get a list of the dates. Once I copied and pasted this back into OneNote, I used the Paste Options Smart tag to keep the text only.

Step 2: Select your List

Using your mouse, click to the left of the first date, then drag down until all the dates are selected.

It’s important to make sure every line you want turned into a page is selected, otherwise your page list will be incomplete.

Step 3: Use Link to Pages to create pages automatically

Now that you’ve selected the list:

1. Right-click anywhere in the highlighted list.
2. From the shortcut menu, choose Link to Pages.

What Happens when you use Link to Pages in OneNote

As soon as you click Link to Pages, OneNote goes to work.

Here’s what just happened automatically:

• A new page is created for each selected date
• Each new page is named based on the date
• The original list becomes a set of clickable links to the new pages

Now you’ve got a nice clean Index page with links, and a separate page ready to go for each set of meeting notes. And all this in just a couple of steps! I just read that back and realised it sounds like I’m about to start hawking steak knives!

Anyway, this is the bit where most users think “Why didn’t anyone tell me this sooner?”

Using Linked Pages for Meeting Notes in OneNote

This is a great way to set up pages for your recurring meetings. Click on any date link and OneNote jumps straight to the corresponding page. Once you’re there, you can add:

• Agenda items
• Attendees
• Discussion Points
• Action Items

This way, each meeting stays nice and tidy on its own page, but everything stays connected through your original list.

If you regularly take meeting notes in OneNote, this works particularly well when you combine it with Microsoft Outlook to grab the meeting details and add them to your pages. I cover that in more detail in my article: How to take meeting notes in OneNote.

Using Link to Pages for Projects, Clients and Topics

Dates are perhaps the most common usage, but Link to Pages works with any list. You can use it for:

• Project Phases
• Training Modules
• Topics for a Knowledge Base

Example:

• Project Kick-off
• Resources
• Development
• Testing
• Go-live

Try typing the example list into your notebook, then select it and right-click > Link to Pages.

Voila, instant project pages.

The key idea is to start with a simple list, then let OneNote build the pages for you.

Creating a OneNote Wiki using Link to Pages

One of the nice side effects of this feature is that it effectively builds a Home page or Table of Contents page for you. You get a page that acts as navigation, and multiple linked pages below.

This approach is the foundation of a simple OneNote wiki. If you want to take that idea further, have a look at my article: How to create a wiki in Microsoft OneNote.

Common Link to Pages Mistakes to Avoid

Even though this feature is simple, there are a few things that might trip people up.

Mistake 1: Not selecting the entire list

If only one line is selected, only one page will be created.

Mistake 2: Using Multi-line entries

If a list item wraps onto multiple lines, OneNote won’t be able to do its thing.

Mistake 3: Expecting Subpages to be created Automatically

Sorry folks, it’s not going to happen! You can easily add subpages later if you need them.

A Simple OneNote Habit that Saves Time each Week

This takes a bit of a shift in thinking, but mainly it’s a matter of changing the order you work in:

1. Create the list first
2. Use Link to Pages
3. Add content afterwards

Once you get into this habit, setting up notes will be much quicker. Instead of avoiding structure, thinking you’ll get to it later, you get it “for free” right from the start.

Conclusion

The Link to Pages feature is one of those great OneNote tools that’s hidden away, so it’s not obvious. When I teach features like this to my clients, it’s always fun to see the looks on faces, and comments like “Is this a new feature?”. Nope, but if it’s new to you, then I reckon I’ve done my job!