Microsoft Journal Release Notes

February 2023 - OneNote Export

• Export a journal to OneNote from the home screen!  Click on the ellipsis (three dots) menu on a tile on the home page grid to try out this new feature.  Right now you can export to any existing OneNote notebook that has been previously opened using the OneNote app.  Please let us know how this works by sending your feedback!

• Many bug fixes, including better reliability when using Journal on Documents libraries located on a network share.  If you encounter issues with saving your journals, please let us know via Feedback Hub.

September 2022 - things are shaping up!

• Shape enhancement is now supported in Journal.  Journal helps you draw neat shapes and straight lines.  Activate shape enhancement by holding your pen for a second after drawing your shape.  You can always undo to recover your original stroke if you don't like the enhanced version.  Let us know how this works for you!

• Journal has a new inking toolbar, with an extra tool slot!  You can now customize the tool (pen, pencil, or highlighter), color, and size that occupy for each of the four available slots.

  • The set of preset colors has been expanded to include the most common custom colors that were in use on previous releases, including blue.

  • Pens and pencils share the same set of custom colors, while highlighters get their own set.

• Journal now has support for nested folder navigation on the home screen, reflecting the structure of file system folders underneath your default Journal save location (usually C:\Users\username\Documents\Journals)

  • To better support nested folders, Journal will no longer show files on the home screen that are located outside of the default save location.  You can still open these files by opening them from File Explorer.  Journal will offer to optionally move these files into the default save location so they can be access from the home screen in the future.

• In an effort to improve reliability and performance, Journal is changing the way ink is stored and loaded.  The new ink format will be used for all new journal pages, and whenever you make edits to pages that used the previous format.

August 2022

The Journal page toolbar now includes a ruler tool to help you draw straight lines.

July 2022

Search through all of your journals!  The new Search bar can provide at-a-glance quick results for text or other searchable aspects on each page of each journal.  You can also dive into more complete search results by clicking the "All Journal Results" button.  Clicking a result thumbnail will open that page directly.

Journal is now available in 13 languages!

• Like other Microsoft Store apps, Journal will use your "Preferred Languages" in Windows Settings to decide what language to display the user interface in.

• The language you take notes in may be different than the user interface language.  See Language Settings to learn how to choose different ink recognition languages for your journal pages.

Other changes:

• You can zoom in further on a journal page as we have increased the maximum allowed zoom.

June 2022

You can now sign in with your Microsoft account!

• You can create meeting pages from events on your default calendar.

• You can @-mention individuals and share pages via e-mail to contacts associated with your Microsoft account.  Currently, e-mail recipients may only be selected from existing contacts associated with your account.

Notable bug fixes:

• Images with transparency are now be copied and pasted into apps that support the  common PNG clipboard format.

• Improved support for drag and drop of images from browser windows onto journal pages.  Not all image formats are currently supported, but we will continue to improve this feature in the future.

Visual Rejuvenation (March 2022)

• Renamed to Microsoft Journal to celebrate Journal's graduation from the Garage

• Windows 11 default styles and materials for visual appearance

• Improvements in file system queries for home screen files and folders

• Minimum platform requirement is now Windows 10 October 2020 Update (20H2, build 19042.xxx)

First Anniversary Release (Feb 2022)

Organize your content using folders!  Create a folder using the button on the home screen, then drag journals into the folder with your finger or pen.

• Folders are created under the default save location (usually c:\Users\username\Documents\Journals)

• One level of folders is supported. Journals contained in nested folders will be displayed  under their top-level folder

• Journal files created outside of the default save location will still show on the Journal home screen

• There are new menu options for moving journals between folders and for opening file locations in File Explorer

• Reduced overhead of inking analysis.

  • This should allow Journal to run more smoothly on lower power devices

January 2022

• More vertical space for inking in your journals: we've moved the settings icon and journal name to the application title bar

December 2021

• Use your camera to capture selfies and other images directly to a page

• Reorder pages by dragging page thumbnails to new locations

November 2021

• Improved pen pressure support

• New setting to keep your device awake when a journal is open

• Reduced memory usage for journals with many PDF pages

We're always improving performance and fixing bugs.