Unable to highlight text to copy on iPad air 13 OneNote app

I've tried all those options. None have worked

I have made sure in "home" tab and not drawing.

This also occurs on my iPad if logging into my personal account

Hi @Cody, 

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.  

Thank you for testing this across multiple devices and platforms, and for clearly explaining what changed since yesterday. Based on the details you shared, I understand that you are currently unable to highlight text to copy in the OneNote app on your iPad Air 13, although the same action still works on your phone, on the Microsoft 365 website, and in other OneNote experiences.  

This behavior commonly occurs when OneNote on iPad switches to a pen or drawing input state, where touch or Pencil gestures are interpreted as inking rather than text selection. In addition, if the content on a specific page is a printout or image based layer, OneNote may not allow standard text highlighting on iPad because there is no selectable text. Since it was working previously, a mode change, a temporary app state, or a sync and cache refresh is often the reason. 

To address this, please follow the steps below in order, as they are designed for your situation: 

1/ Switch OneNote back to text selection mode 

• Open the affected page in OneNote on your iPad. 
• Tap the Home tab (or exit the Draw tab if it is active). 
• If you see any drawing options enabled, turn off drawing for touch input (for example, options such as drawing with finger or touch). 
• Tap directly inside the text area, then press and hold on a word for about one second until selection handles appear, then drag to expand the selection. 

2/ Confirm whether the page contains editable text or an image style layer 

• Create a quick test page: add a new page and type a short line such as “Test copy.” 
• Press and hold on the typed text to highlight and copy it. 
• If the test text can be highlighted but the original page cannot, the original content is likely a printout, image, or embedded content. In that case, try opening the same page on the web or desktop to copy the text there, or re insert the content as editable text if available. 

3/ Refresh sync and reset the current app session 

• In OneNote, manually trigger a sync by pulling down in the notebook list or using the sync option if shown in your version. 
• Close OneNote completely, then reopen it. 
• Restart the iPad to clear any input or gesture state that may be stuck. 
• If the issue continues, sign out of OneNote and sign back in, then open the notebook again to re load the page data cleanly. 

4/ Contact IT administrator:  

Since your account is managed by your organization, please contact your IT administrator to review your permissions and policies. If the issue persists after these checks, ask your IT administrator to submit a support request directly to Microsoft Support team.       

They can raise a support ticket by visiting: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn 

As community moderators, we appreciate your understanding that our access to internal development details is limited. Our primary role is to guide users toward the appropriate resources and support channels. While we may not have visibility into deeper backend analysis, we’ll continue doing our best to support you within the scope of our responsibilities.     

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If you have any updates regarding the issue, please feel free to share them with me.       

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. I look forward to continuing the conversation. 

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