How to Link Pages in OneNote and Build an Index Page

To link pages in OneNote for Windows, right-click a page in the page list, choose Copy Link to Page, then click where you want the link on another page and paste. OneNote inserts a clickable link named after the page. A faster shortcut is to type a page title inside double square brackets, like [[Weekly Review]], and OneNote turns it into a link on its own.

Below is how to link pages in OneNote on each app, how to build an index page that makes a big notebook easy to move around, and how to turn off the security warning that appears when you click some links in the Windows app.

How to Link Pages in OneNote for Windows

These steps are for OneNote for Windows, the desktop app that comes with Microsoft 365.

1. In the page list, right-click the page you want to link to.
2. Choose Copy Link to Page.
3. Go to the page where the link should appear and click where it belongs.
4. Press Ctrl+V. OneNote pastes the page title as a link.
5. Click the link to test it, then press Alt+Left arrow to come back.

The same idea works for other targets. Right-click the item, copy its link and paste it anywhere.

Link to	Right-click	Then choose
A notebook	The notebook name in the notebook list	Copy Link to Notebook
A section	The section tab	Copy Link to Section
A page	The page in the page list	Copy Link to Page
A paragraph	The paragraph handle (point at the paragraph’s left edge until the four-headed arrow appears)	Copy Link to Paragraph

Paragraph links are handy in long pages. A link straight to the “Action items” paragraph of a meeting page saves scrolling past everything above it.

Turn Your Own Words Into a Link

A pasted link always shows the page title. To link text you have already typed, such as “Back to Index” or “Next week”, select it and press Ctrl+K (or choose Insert > Link). In the Link dialog, either paste a copied page link into the Address box or use Or pick a location in OneNote to search for the page, then choose OK.

This works on pictures too. Select an icon or sticker, press Ctrl+K and link it to a page, and it becomes a tappable button.

Double-Bracket Links

Type two opening square brackets, the exact page title and two closing brackets: [[Grocery List]]. OneNote links to the page with that title, and if there is no such page, it creates a new, empty one for you.

Double-bracket links match by title, so keep titles unique. A page called “Monday” in every week leaves OneNote guessing, while “Monday, Week 12” does not.

Linking Pages on Mac, iPad and the Web

The apps do not all handle links the same way, so build your links on a computer when you can.

• OneNote for Mac: Control-click the page, section or notebook, choose the matching Copy Link command and paste it where you want it.
• OneNote on the web: right-click a page to copy its link. You get a web address, which is useful for sharing but opens in a browser tab.
• OneNote for iPad: the iPad app does not reliably create links to specific pages the way the desktop apps do, a limitation Microsoft’s support forum has acknowledged. Double-bracket links do work when you type them with a keyboard, either on screen or attached. If you handwrite the brackets with Apple Pencil, OneNote converts them to plain text instead of a link.

Page links made on a computer usually work when you tap them on the iPad, as long as the notebook syncs through OneDrive, so do your linking there. Our guide to the OneNote digital planner on iPad covers tapping around a linked planner with a pencil in hand.

How to Build a OneNote Table of Contents (Index Page)

An index page is a single page of links to everything important in the notebook. Once it exists, every other page is two taps away: one back to the index, one to the destination.

1. Create the page. Add a page called Index and drag it to the top of your first section, or give it its own section at the far left. Our guide on how to organize OneNote shows where it fits in a planner notebook.
2. Lay it out. Choose Insert > Table and make three or four columns, one per group of pages.
3. Fill in the links. For each destination, use Copy Link to Page (or Copy Link to Section for a whole section) and paste it into the right cell.
4. Shorten the labels. Right-click a link, choose Edit Link and change Text to display. “March” reads better than a long page title.
5. Add a way back. Copy the link to the Index page and paste it at the top of every page as “Back to Index”.
6. Test every link on your computer and on your iPad or phone.

A sample layout for a planner index:

Plan	Months	Life
Year overview	January	Goals
Yearly goals	February	Projects
Habits	March	Finance
Notes	April, and so on	Meals and self-care

Keep the scale in mind before you start. A yearly index that links 12 months, where each month page links up to 5 weeks, needs at most 72 links (12 plus 12 × 5). Build it in the same order: index to months first, then months to weeks, and test as you go.

Add a Side Menu and a Page Template

A side menu is a narrow column of the same five or six links on every page, such as Index, Year, This Month, Goals and Notes. Build it once as a small table, then copy it onto each page. Linked icons, made with Ctrl+K on a picture, make it quicker to tap.

For pages you add later, put the side menu and your “Back to Index” link on a blank page, then choose Insert > Page Templates > Page Templates and select Save current page as a template at the bottom of the pane. New pages made from that template start with the links already in place.

If you would rather not build this yourself, our OneNote digital planner comes with linked yearly, monthly, weekly and daily pages plus an index and side menu, all ready to click. For the routine that makes linked pages worth having, see how to use OneNote as a planner.

OneNote Link Warning Message: How to Turn It Off

In OneNote for Windows, clicking some links brings up a Microsoft OneNote Security Notice saying that Microsoft Office has identified a potential security concern. Choosing Yes opens the link. There is no switch for this in OneNote’s own Options.

What Microsoft documents is a registry value for Office apps on Windows that turns off hyperlink warnings, and it is the fix given on Microsoft’s support forum for this OneNote prompt. Only follow these steps if you are comfortable editing the registry. On a work or school computer, ask your IT team first, since these settings are often managed for you.

1. Close OneNote.
2. Press Windows key+R, type regedit and press Enter.
3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common. Current Microsoft 365 apps use the 16.0 folder.
4. If there is no Security key under Common, right-click Common, choose New > Key and name it Security.
5. Right-click Security and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it DisableHyperlinkWarning.
6. Double-click it, select Decimal, enter 1 as the value data and choose OK.
7. Close Registry Editor and reopen OneNote. If the warning still appears, restart your computer.

To bring the warning back, change the value to 0 or delete it. Keep two limits in mind. The setting applies to every Office app on your Windows account, so Word, Excel and Outlook stop warning you about links too, including links in files other people send you. And it changes nothing on a Mac, iPad or the web. If a link still prompts after a restart, choosing Yes each time still opens it.

When a OneNote Link Does Not Work

• It opens a browser tab instead of jumping to the page. Some recent builds of OneNote for Windows copy page links as web addresses. Use a double-bracket link instead, which stays inside the app.
• It goes nowhere. The target page was deleted, or it lives in a notebook that is not open or not synced on this device. On a second device, the notebook needs to be on OneDrive; our guide to syncing OneNote across devices covers that.
• It opens the wrong page. A double-bracket link found a different page with the same title. Rename one of them and retype the link.
• Handwritten brackets stayed as text. Type them with a keyboard instead.

Your next step: create an Index page in the notebook you use most, link just your five most-visited pages, and add “Back to Index” to each of them. You can grow the index from there.