OneNote — Full CRUD Lifecycle (Notebooks, Sections, Pages)
Overview
OneNote's hierarchy — Notebook, Section Group, Section, Page — maps cleanly to Graph API endpoints, but the implementation has sharp edges. Section groups created via API sometimes don't render in the desktop client. Page content must be strict XHTML with self-closing tags, and the HTML you send in differs from the HTML you get back. This skill covers the full create/read/update/delete lifecycle with production-safe patterns for every level of the hierarchy.
Key pain points addressed:
- Page content requires XHTML (all tags must close, UTF-8 encoded, no
rowspan/colspan)
- Section groups support API nesting depths that the desktop app cannot render beyond two levels
- Output HTML from
GET /pages/{id}/content contains Graph-injected data-id attributes and rewritten image URLs that differ from your input HTML
PATCH page updates use a JSON array with target/action/content — not raw HTML
Prerequisites
- Azure app registration with delegated permissions:
Notes.ReadWrite or Notes.ReadWrite.All
- App-only auth deprecated March 31, 2025 — use delegated auth only (DeviceCodeCredential or InteractiveBrowserCredential)
- Python:
pip install msgraph-sdk azure-identity
- Node/TypeScript:
npm install @microsoft/microsoft-graph-client @azure/identity @azure/msal-node
Instructions
Step 1 — Authenticate with Delegated Credentials
TypeScript:
import { Client } from "@microsoft/microsoft-graph-client";
import { TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider } from "@microsoft/microsoft-graph-client/authProviders/azureTokenCredentials";
import { DeviceCodeCredential } from "@azure/identity";
const credential = new DeviceCodeCredential({
clientId: process.env.AZURE_CLIENT_ID!,
tenantId: process.env.AZURE_TENANT_ID!,
});
const scopes = ["Notes.ReadWrite"];
const authProvider = new TokenCredentialAuthenticationProvider(credential, { scopes });
const client = Client.initWithMiddleware({ authProvider });
Python:
from azure.identity import DeviceCodeCredential
from msgraph import GraphServiceClient
credential = DeviceCodeCredential(
client_id=os.environ["AZURE_CLIENT_ID"],
tenant_id=os.environ["AZURE_TENANT_ID"],
)
scopes = ["Notes.ReadWrite"]
client = GraphServiceClient(credentials=credential, scopes=scopes)
Step 2 — Create a Notebook
const notebook = await client.api("/me/onenote/notebooks").post({
displayName: "Project Notes Q2 2026",
});
console.log(`Created notebook: ${notebook.id}`);
Notebook names must be unique per user. Attempting to create a duplicate returns 400 Bad Request with code 20117.
Step 3 — Create Section Groups and Sections
const group = await client.api(
`/me/onenote/notebooks/${notebook.id}/sectionGroups`
).post({ displayName: "Engineering" });
const section = await client.api(
`/me/onenote/sectionGroups/${group.id}/sections`
).post({ displayName: "Sprint 1" });
const standaloneSection = await client.api(
`/me/onenote/notebooks/${notebook.id}/sections`
).post({ displayName: "Quick Notes" });
Gotcha: The API allows nesting section groups three or more levels deep, but the OneNote desktop app only renders two levels. The web app may show deeper nesting inconsistently. Stick to a maximum of two levels for cross-client compatibility.
Step 4 — Create a Page with XHTML Content
OneNote pages use strict XHTML. Every tag must close. Use data-tag attributes for checkboxes and note tags.
const htmlContent = `<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
<head>
<title>Sprint Planning - March 2026</title>
<meta name="created" content="2026-03-23T10:00:00-05:00" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>Sprint Planning</h1>
<p>Attendees: Alice, Bob, Charlie</p>
<h2>Action Items</h2>
<ul>
<li data-tag="to-do">Deploy feature X by Friday</li>
<li data-tag="to-do">Review PR #488</li>
<li data-tag="to-do:completed">Set up staging environment</li>
</ul>
<table>
<tr><td>Task</td><td>Owner</td><td>Due</td></tr>
<tr><td>API integration</td><td>Alice</td><td>March 28</td></tr>
</table>
<p>Next meeting: <time datetime="2026-03-30T10:00:00-05:00">March 30</time></p>
</body>
</html>`;
const page = await client.api(
`/me/onenote/sections/${section.id}/pages`
).header("Content-Type", "text/html").post(htmlContent);
console.log(`Page created: ${page.id} — "${page.title}"`);
XHTML rules that cause silent failures if violated:
- All tags must self-close or have closing tags (
<br />, not <br>)
- No
rowspan or colspan on <td> — use separate rows instead
<img> tags must include alt attribute- Content must be UTF-8 encoded
Step 5 — Retrieve Page Content
const metadata = await client.api(`/me/onenote/pages/${page.id}`).get();
const content = await client.api(`/me/onenote/pages/${page.id}/content`).get();
Important: The HTML returned by GET /content differs from your input. Graph injects data-id attributes on every element, rewrites image src URLs to Graph resource endpoints, and may restructure your table markup. Never diff input vs output HTML for change detection — compare lastModifiedDateTime instead.
Step 6 — Update Page Content (PATCH)
Updates use a JSON array describing targeted changes, not raw HTML replacement:
await client.api(`/me/onenote/pages/${page.id}/content`).patch([
{
target: "body",
action: "append",
content: "<p>Update: Feature X deployed successfully.</p>",
},
{
target: "#action-items",
action: "replace",
content: '<ul><li data-tag="to-do:completed">All items complete</li></ul>',
},
]);
Valid action values: append, replace, delete, insert, prepend. The target is a CSS selector matching data-id attributes from the output HTML — you must GET /content first to obtain valid targets.
Step 7 — List and Filter Pages with OData
const pages = await client.api("/me/onenote/sections/{sectionId}/pages")
.select("id,title,lastModifiedDateTime,createdDateTime")
.top(25)
.orderby("lastModifiedDateTime desc")
.get();
for (const p of pages.value) {
console.log(`${p.title} — Last modified: ${p.lastModifiedDateTime}`);
}
Step 8 — Delete a Page
await client.api(`/me/onenote/pages/${page.id}`).delete();
Output
Successful CRUD operations return:
- Create notebook/section/page:
201 Created with resource JSON (includes id, self, createdDateTime)
- Get content:
200 OK with XHTML stream
- Patch:
204 No Content on success
- Delete:
204 No Content on success
Error Handling
| Status | Cause | Fix |
|---|
| 400 | Invalid XHTML, unclosed tags, duplicate notebook name | Validate HTML before sending; check notebook name uniqueness |
| 403 | Missing Notes.ReadWrite permission, wrong tenant | Verify Azure app permissions and consent status |
| 404 | Notebook/section/page deleted or wrong ID | Confirm resource exists with a GET before mutation |
| 429 | Rate limit hit (600/min per user) | Read Retry-After header, wait that many seconds |
| 507 | Section page limit exceeded | Archive old pages to a new section; see onenote-performance-tuning |
Examples
Python — Create notebook and page:
notebook = await client.me.onenote.notebooks.post(
{"displayName": "Python Notebook"}
)
sections = await client.me.onenote.notebooks.by_notebook_id(
notebook.id
).sections.post({"displayName": "Notes"})
html = """<!DOCTYPE html>
<html><head><title>Hello from Python</title></head>
<body><p>Created via msgraph-sdk.</p></body></html>"""
page = await client.me.onenote.sections.by_onenote_section_id(
sections.id
).pages.post(html)
TypeScript — Multipart page with embedded image:
const boundary = "MyPartBoundary";
const body = [
`--${boundary}`,
'Content-Disposition: form-data; name="Presentation"',
"Content-Type: text/html",
"",
'<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>With Image</title></head>',
'<body><p>See diagram:</p><img src="name:diagram" alt="Architecture" /></body></html>',
`--${boundary}`,
'Content-Disposition: form-data; name="diagram"',
"Content-Type: image/png",
"",
imageBuffer.toString("binary"),
`--${boundary}--`,
].join("\r\n");
await client.api(`/me/onenote/sections/${sectionId}/pages`)
.header("Content-Type", `multipart/form-data; boundary=${boundary}`)
.post(body);
Resources
Next Steps
- See
onenote-core-workflow-b for search, pagination, and cross-notebook queries
- See
onenote-performance-tuning for large notebook optimization and image upload limits
- See
onenote-rate-limits for throttling patterns when doing bulk page creation
