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I use Microsoft OneNote all day for all of my note taking. For the longest time, I’ve wanted to be able to paste an image into my notes and then have a border drawn around the image’s edges, like I can do in Word or Outlook. OneNote doesn’t support this feature though. I am using OneNote 2016 now but this has been a limitation for a long time, so this problem applies to older versions just the same and so does my solution below.

The work-around I found is pretty easy and effectively solves my problem. The fix for this is to insert a 1×1 table wherever you want the picture to appear and then paste the image inside that table’s only cell.

Here are the steps then:

1. Click on whichever Note page you want to insert the image into.
2. Select the Insert ribbon at the top of the OneNote screen.
3. Select the Table pulldown and click once on the “1×1” cell in that table, as shown in the screenshot above.
4. Now that you have a 1×1 table cell on the page, you have the border you were looking for.
5. Paste the image inside that table cell then and you’re done.

You can then format the table any way you like and so now the image has a border around it.

I hope this helps someone out there, as it’s been bugging me for a long time.

:)

Update - May 2023:

Ruth wrote, “4 years later and this solution is still perfect. I can’t get the thick border but this thin one is better than nothing. Thank you for the tip.” Cheers, Ruth. I’m glad that works for you!