49. Working with Notes
In This Chapter
Outlook notes, which resemble online sticky notes, offer a handy way to securely store bits of text and information. If you used notes in a previous version of Outlook, be aware that Outlook 2013 has streamlined notes’ functionality to focus on simplicity.
Tip
If you need a full-featured online notebook, check out OneNote 2013, covered in Part VI, “Microsoft OneNote 2013,” of this book.
Exploring Outlook Notes
Outlook notes are useful for storing small pieces of text. You can add contacts or categories to your notes and locate the note quickly using the Find functionality. Because URLs in notes are clickable, you can paste a URL in a note and include comments about the site. You never have to remember to save notes; Outlook automatically saves them as soon as you move focus away from the note.
To simplify things and make Outlook’s options less overwhelming, Microsoft removed all the note options in 2013. A medium yellow note is your only choice, although you can drag the edges of a note to make the note larger (or smaller) and Outlook remembers the note size.
Notes use a simple text editor that doesn’t support rich text formatting. As a result, you can’t highlight words or phrases with different colors or fonts or include images in a note. This doesn’t mean notes aren’t useful—as an electronic version of sticky notes, simple is better. Notes are great for small snippets of text—usernames and passwords, email settings, and other short blocks of text are well suited for notes.
The Notes feature is not listed on the Folder bar by default. Click the three dots on the bar and select Notes to open the Notes folder (see Figure 49.1). To create the maximum number of visible items or change the order of the folders on the Folder bar, click the three dots on the bar and select Navigation Options. This enables you to see Notes on the Folder bar.
Creating a Note
To create a note in the Notes module, click the New Note button on the Home tab. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N to create a new note. A blank note opens, as shown in Figure 49.2, where you can type or paste note content.
The status bar displays the time and date the note was last modified. The Modified Time field is updated to the current time when you edit a note.
Note
If it’s important for you to know the date a note was created, type the date into the note body—don’t rely on the Created and Modified Date fields in Outlook.
When you’re done creating your note, you can use the Esc key or Alt+F4 to close it.
Outlook uses the first line of the note for the name of the note. The maximum length for the name is 256 characters, unless you begin a new paragraph. If you want a shorter name, press Enter to begin a new line.
Emailing Notes
It’s easy to send your notes to other people; just drag and drop the note on the Inbox or any mail folder. A new message form opens with the text of the note in the body of the message. The first line of the note is used for the subject, and the note’s last modified date is added to the message.
When you select multiple notes and drop them on the Inbox, one message is created with the contents of the notes in the message body. The subject field is left blank.
You can send notes as attachments, too. If you’ve already started an email message, click the Attach Item button in the message window and select Outlook Item from the menu.
Organizing Your Notes
Whenv you have a lot of notes, you can organize them, either using folders or views. In some cases, creating additional note folders makes sense, but you can create custom views to show certain notes. In the Current View group (see Figure 49.3), you see the predefined views that are included with Outlook 2013:
• Icon—Display notes as icons.
• Notes List—Similar to the view used in the Inbox. Arrange by category or created date.
• Last Seven Days—A filtered view that shows only new notes.
You can customize these views or create new custom views. Right-click the Current View group and select View Settings from the menu to customize a view.