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why does the last page set as background in OneNote disappear?

BARRICK, James (NHS ENGLAND) 5 Reputation points
2026-02-03T10:06:51.39+00:00

Our college has just come across this issue in the web browser version of OneNote that our students use. We have inserted printouts from word and PDFs of workbooks for them to complete throughout the year. We use the Set picture to background function to keep those in place while the students work to avoid the pages shifting while editing or working.

However, last week we noticed the last page of the doc you insert and set as background goes missing as soon as you click to start working on the page. We know its a recent issue because work had been completed on these pages and then when it came time to mark them the text boxes of answers remained but the page just vanished. It would come back after a refresh of the browser but as soon as you click on them it disappears again.

To get round this we have added a spare/extra blank page to disappear instead but we will need to add all these pages to past work and upcoming workbooks, for students to see the whole thing.

Would it be possible to fix this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For education | Windows
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  1. Cheung, Kelvin 15 Reputation points
    2026-03-09T15:43:21.61+00:00

    Has there been a reliable fix for this issue? I am still running into this with my students using the online browser OneNote

  2. Daniel-Vo 4,420 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-02-03T14:53:25.2233333+00:00

    Dear BARRICK, James (NHS ENGLAND),

    Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

    Based on your description, it appears that the last page set as a background image disappears when the page is clicked, and that this is a recent issue. To help us investigate further, could you please clarify how the pages are distributed to students? For example, are the pages shared to each student’s individual account, or are all students accessing the same account? 

    Additionally, could you confirm whether this issue also occurs with newly created notebooks, or if it only affects existing notebooks created previously? 

    As a recommended workaround, I suggest preparing the content using the OneNote desktop app. In the desktop client, insert the printout, set it as a background image, and confirm that it remains stable. Once confirmed, distribute the pages to students (for example, using Class Notebook or via Microsoft Teams). Students can still open and work on the pages in OneNote for the web, and the background is typically retained because the backgrounding process was completed in the desktop application.

    Please note that Microsoft Q&A moderators are unable to connect directly to your environment to diagnose issues or apply fixes. As such, I can only propose workarounds based on the information provided. If you require direct assistance or a deeper investigation, I recommend raising a Microsoft support ticket, where an engineer can review logs and diagnose the issue in more detail. 

    To raise a support ticket, you can follow the below:

    • Go to the admin center
    • On the bottom right side of the page, select Help & support.
    • User's image

    Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to your response.

    If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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