# Converting One Note to Markdown

This is an example of how to convert notes from OneNote into Markdown to use in other, less annoying Note applications. I am using PowerShell on Windows here, but other shell/scripting environments would work as well. If you want separate `.md` files, you'll need to export your OneNote pages separately. Exporting a section, or a selection of pages creates a single `.docx` file. 

- Download and install [Pandoc](https://pandoc.org/)
- Export each of your note pages to a `.docx` (Word) format using OneNote export from the File menu
- Gather all of these `.docx` files into a directory
- Open directory in File Explorer
- Open Powershell from the File Explorer using File -> Open Windows Powersell
- Run the following command:

``
ForEach ($result in Get-ChildItem | select Name, BaseName) { pandoc.exe -f docx -t markdown_strict -i $result.Name -o "$($result.BaseName).md" --wrap=none --atx-headers }
``
- `markdown-strict` is the type of Markdown. Other variants exist in the Pandoc [documentation](https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#markdown-variants)
- `--wrap=none` ensures that text in the new `.md` files doesn't get wrapped to new lines after 80 characters
- `--atx-headers` makes headers in the new `.md` files appear as `# h1`, `## h2` and so on