How do you open a second window in OneNote 2019 / Windows 10?

I've been using OneNote 2016 on my desktop, and OneNote 2019 on my laptop. There are many differences between versions one of which is in OneNote 2016, if I open a new instance of the program I'll get a separate Window and I can edit the notes side by side.

I don't appear to be able to do this in OneNote 2019 on Windows 10...forgive me if I have gotten the versioning information mixed up, but I've seen the OneNote 2019 referred to as the Windows 10 version.

3 Answers

In the UWP version.. View .. New Window for side-by-side notebooks

There is large confusion caused at the moment by Microsoft concerning OneNote.

The version of OneNote 2019 that is inbuilt to Windows 10 is the new UWP version. Microsoft has decided to port all of Office 2016 to UWP in Office 2019, but has abandoned those plans. The 2019 version of OneNote is left orphan, and is incomplete. In particular, you cannot open multiple instances.

You should download the desktop version of OneNote, which comes actually from Office version 2016, in order to be able to open multiple instances.

The download is found in the pageGet OneNote on your PC and Macintosh for Free. Click the "Free Download" button, to download, then execute the setup program. You will now have in your Start menu two such:

The one you want is "OneNote 2016".

You may find more gory details in the articleOneNote Is Lonely And Confused.

To open a second window of OneNote Windows 10, shift+click the OneNote shortcut/icon either in the Start Menu or the Taskbar. This will launch a second instance of OneNote and allow side-by-side viewing.