In this chapter, you learn how to complete forms, create links, use the permanent pen and highlighter, and how to work with tables. You also learn several text formatting techniques.
Notes forms contain several types of fields. Some are automatically filled in and others are fields in which you enter information. Notes fields in which you enter data are easily identified because they are the white boxes—usually to the right or below the text that describes the field—where you type in information, as you have seen in the subject of a Mail Memo form.
The following list describes the common field types you find in Notes database forms. Not all forms contain all of these elements.
Text Fields—. Fields in which you can enter words and sentences, usually titles or topics. You cannot format text in a text field. The Subject in a Mail Memo is a text field.
Rich Text Fields—. Fields in which you can enter text, import text, import graphics such as GIF or JPEG files, and attach files. The body of the Mail Memo is a rich text field. You can apply both text and paragraph formatting in rich text fields.
List Fields—. Fields in which you select choices from a list. The Title field on the New Contact form in your address book is a list field. Depending on the database design, you might be able to enter or even add your own list items.
Date/Time Fields—. Very often, these fields are automatically filled by Notes, using your computer’s clock. Most time fields display hour and minute, while most date fields display month, date, and year. In the Calendar Appointment Entry form there is a date field and a time field for Starts and Ends.
Number Fields—. Fields that can contain only numbers, such as currency or quantities. You will get an error if you enter text in a number field. A number field might be the quantity you enter in an order form.
To enter information into a field, click inside of the field and begin typing. To move from field to field on a form, press the Tab key.
Most fields within the mail database are not fixed-length fields; they grow in size as you type information into them. In some cases, a database designer can make a field fixed-length to keep the integrity of the data consistent. For example, he might design the area code field to accept only three characters.
For the most part, information that you place in Notes fields can be copied, moved, or deleted as you would in any word processor. However, as stated above, the ability to format text and paragraphs in a field is reserved for rich text fields.
You can change character formatting in any rich text field to make your documents more interesting or attractive, or to emphasize important text. As pictured in Figure 14.1, character formatting includes working with the following characteristics:
Font—. Apply a typeface to text in the document. For example, you can make a title stand out by applying a different typeface to it. You are limited to the fonts available in your operating system.
Size—. Apply a size to the text to increase or decrease the size of the printed or displayed text. Typically, larger text (say, 24-point size) commands more attention, and smaller text (10-point, for example) is reserved for details.
Style—. Apply special text formatting—plain, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, subscript, superscript, shadow, emboss, or extrude—to add emphasis and clarity to your document.
Color—. Apply color to text to further define the text in your document.
Figure 14.1. Character formatting makes your documents more attractive and easier to read if you don’t overdo the number of fonts and types of formatting.
Note
Try these keyboard hotkeys:—Ctrl+B for Bold, Ctrl+I for Italic, Ctrl+U for Underlining, F2 to increase the font size, Shift+F2 to decrease the font size. More hotkeys are listed in the Text pull-down menu.
Select your text before you apply formatting. There are several methods of applying text formatting after you have selected it:
Status bar—. If you customized your Status bar to show font and font size, you click directly on the font name and font size and select your new choices from the pop-up lists.
Menu—. Press Alt+T on your keyboard to open the Text menu or click on Text. Select your character formatting from the pull-down menu.
Text Properties box—. Press Ctrl+K or select Text, Text Properties from the menu bar. Font properties are changed in the first tab as seen in Figure 14.2.
Tools—. Bold and Italic Icons and Font and Font Size drop-downs are available on the Text Formatting toolbar by default.
Right-click—. Choose the most common types of text formatting from the shortcut menu.
You apply paragraph formatting for the same reasons as you apply character formatting—that is, to add emphasis and clarity to your documents. It is helpful to view the ruler in Notes as you work. To display the ruler, place your cursor in a rich text field (such as the body of a memo) and choose View, Ruler from the menu. As pictured in Figure 14.3, paragraph formatting includes working with the following characteristics:
Alignment—. Move the paragraph to the left margin or right margin, center it between the left and right margins, fully justify it to both the left and right margins, or continue it past the right margin without word wrapping.
Margins—. Set ruler measurements for your left and right margin. You can also indent or outdent the first line of a paragraph or the entire paragraph.
Tab Stops—. Set ruler measurements for tab placement. Choices include left tabs, right tabs, centered tabs, and decimal place tabs.
Line Spacing—. Set the amount of space you want between lines of text in your document. Choices include
Interline—. Determines the space between the lines of text within a paragraph.
Above—. Determines extra space added above a paragraph.
Below—. Determines extra space added below a paragraph.
Single, 1½, or Double—. Sets the spacing for the selected paragraph.
Lists—. Extremely helpful for adding emphasis to documents, each item on the list is preceded by sequential numbers, bullets, check boxes, square boxes, or circles.
Figure 14.3. Very effective documents are created when you combine both character and paragraph formatting.
Like formatting text, you can change formatting options before you begin typing or you can select your typed paragraph and then apply formatting. There are several methods of applying paragraph formatting after you have selected your paragraph:
Menu—. Press Alt+T on your keyboard to open the Text menu. Select your individual paragraph formatting from the pull-down menu.
Keyboard Hotkeys—. F8 for Indent, Shift+F8 for Outdent. Hint: Hotkeys are listed in the Text pull-down menu.
Text Properties box—. Press Ctrl+K or select Text, Text Properties from the menu bar. Paragraph properties are changed in the second and third tab, as seen in Figure 14.4.
Icons—. Alignment, Indent, Outdent, and List icons are available by default on the toolbar.
Right-click—. Choose the most common types of paragraph formatting from the shortcut menu.
Figure 14.4. Click on the Paragraph tab of the text formatting properties box to select paragraph formatting options. Click on the third tab to set paragraph margins.
Note
In Notes, a paragraph is defined as text contained between hard paragraph returns (which you create by pressing Enter). To see your paragraphs as you type, choose View, Show, Hidden Characters. To maintain formatting options but put a return within a paragraph (called a soft return) press Shift + Enter.
If you find yourself frequently reformatting paragraphs to look a certain way, you should use styles for this purpose. After formatting your paragraph the way you want it to look, and while the text cursor is still in the paragraph, open the Text properties box, click the last (Paragraph Styles) tab, and click the Create Style button. Give your style a name, select any of the other options you like, and choose OK. Later, whenever you want a paragraph to look as defined by the style, you can place the text cursor in the paragraph and select your defined style from the Paragraph Style list in the Status bar.
The permanent pen enables you to add text in a different color, typeface and type style, or font than the default font settings so that it stands out from the rest of the document. This is especially useful for collaborative projects because each user can work in a different color permanent pen; everyone can see who contributed to the document by the color of the text. This feature is easier to use when you want to apply the same text formatting to noncontiguous text that you’ve already typed, or when you are inserting new text into existing text such as comments. Permanent pen only works in a rich text field such as the body of a message. The default permanent pen is bold red text.
Note
When a message or document is forwarded to you from another person, you can edit your copy of the original message. However, because it is not appropriate to modify the sender’s text without her knowledge, use permanent pen to add your own comments before forwarding it on to anyone else.
To turn on the permanent pen, choose Text, Permanent Pen, Use Permanent Pen or click the Permanent Pen icon. “Permanent Pen enabled” displays in the status bar at the bottom of your screen. Then, type the text you want to appear in the permanent pen style. To stop using the permanent pen and begin using normal text again, click the Permanent Pen Icon again, or remove the check mark next to Use Permanent Pen in the menu.
Note
Strikethrough text is used to mark text that you want to edit out (for example: Outlook Notes). To accomplish this with the permanent pen, first select the words you want to strike through. Then use the hotkey combination Shift+Backspace to mark the text.
To change the look of the permanent pen from the default bold red text, type some text and apply the formatting to that text. Then, select the text and choose Text, Permanent Pen, Set Permanent Pen Style. In setting the permanent pen formatting, you can set the font, the font color, and the size and style.
Another useful tool for collaborating or bringing someone’s attention to text is the highlighter. It looks just like you used a highlighting marker on your text. Choose Text, Highlighter from the menu and then select your color: yellow, blue, or pink. As you drag your mouse cursor over text, the background color of the text changes.
You can also highlight selected text. After you select the text, turn on the highlighter and Notes will apply the highlighting to the selected text.
Don’t forget to turn the highlighter off when you are done by choosing Text, Highlighter and deselecting the highlighter color.
Links are pointers to other documents, views, or Lotus Notes databases. If you want to send a mail message and refer to a page in the Help database, you can create a document link in your mail message. When the recipient receives your mail, he can click the Document Link icon and see the page to which you are referring.
There are four types of Lotus Notes links that you can create and include in your mail messages or Lotus Notes documents (see Table 14.1).
Table 14.1. Types of Links
It’s important to understand that links only work when they are linked to documents, views, and databases to which others have access. If you link to a document that has been deleted or to a database not available to or accessible by the person to whom you are sending the link (such as your Mail database), it simply won’t work.
The examples in this chapter create links from a Mail Memo to a document located in the Help database. We use the example of the help database because we can’t be certain of other databases your company has made available to you. If you create a link to your local copy of the Help database, the link won’t work so if you’re following our example, be certain to create a link to the server copy of the Help database. If you have access to discussion databases or other types of Lotus Notes databases, try these exercises using those databases instead of the Help and mail databases.
To create a document link, follow these steps:
Begin a mail message by filling in the header (address, subject line, and so on) information.
In the body field of your message, type a sentence telling the recipient what information is in the document that’s linked to your Mail Memo (this is a courtesy, not a requirement). You might type something such as I’m learning how to create a document link. If you want to learn too, click here.
Press the Spacebar (or to create an arrow --> press spacebar, dash, dash, greater than sign) at the end of your sentence.
Choose Help, Help Topics from the menu to open the Help database. Click on the Working with Documents twistie to expand the topic, and then expand Linking to other data. Click the Creating Links to Documents, Views, Folders or Databases topic to open it.
With the Help document open, choose Edit, Copy as Link, Document Link from the menu.
You created your document link. The next step is to paste it into your mail message. Return to your Inbox and click on the New Memo task button.
Place your cursor at the end of your sentence, remembering to leave the blank space. Choose Edit, Paste to insert the Document Link icon into your mail message (see Figure 14.5).
Send your mail message. Press Esc to close the Help database if you haven’t already.
You can see the results of your document link by looking at the copy of the mail message you just sent. Open the Sent view of your mailbox and double-click the copy of the mail message you just created. If you want to display the name of the linked document, point at the document link icon and hold your mouse pointer there without clicking. A small hand appears, pointing at the link icon.
If you want to see the linked document, click the Document Link icon.
Lotus Notes automatically creates document links when you use the reply option of Mail. Look in your Inbox and locate a mail message you’ve received as a reply. It’s easy to identify replies when you use the Discussion Thread view because the replies are indented. You can generally find them in your Inbox, too, because the subject line usually starts with Re:. Double-click to open a reply. You see a document link located at the end of the subject line. Lotus Notes automatically placed that document link; it points to the message to which this message is replying. Click the document link, and you can see the original message. This is an extremely helpful Mail tool, enabling you to easily work your way back through the path of mail messages.
To link to a particular location in a document, you should use an anchor link. Anchor links consist of an anchor and a link. You can use anchor links entirely within a single document or split between two documents. A table of contents is an example of using anchor links entirely within one document; you create the anchor in the content paragraph and the link in the table of contents. When the reader clicks the link, the document scrolls to the anchor paragraph. If the anchor and link are split between two documents, clicking the link in one document would cause the second document to open, then scroll to the anchor paragraph.
Open the document you want to link to and put it in Edit mode (try using Ctrl+E to do so). If the document you want to link to is the same one you are working in, you will have to save the document (Ctrl+S) before you can create an anchor link in it.
Place your cursor anywhere in the content paragraph that you want to link to.
Choose Edit, Copy as Link, Anchor Link from the menu. A dialog will open, showing the first few words of the paragraph. Edit or accept the words, then click anchor. A small anchor link icon appears next to the paragraph (it can only be seen in Edit mode).
If you want to place the link in the same document, place the text cursor at the point in the document where you want the link to appear. If you want to open the document where you want to place the link, making sure that it is in Edit mode.
Click where you want the link to appear, and then choose Edit, Paste from the menu.
Note
Mail has a special Link Message mail memo you can use to send document links. When Mail is open, choose Create, Special, Link Message. A mail memo opens with Link Message as the subject (you can add to this) and a place in the body for you to paste the link. Instructions are already in the memo that tell the recipient to open the document by clicking on the link icon. You only need to enter the recipient information and send it.
Hotspots are areas, usually text or pictures, where you click and then a new website opens, or a new document appears, or you see a small balloon pop up with additional text. You can only create hotspots in a rich text field, such as the body of a mail memo.
When you point to a highlighted or boxed-in word or phrase and see a rectangle appear above or below the word with more text, that is a text pop-up hotspot. This type of hotspot is handy to further clarify a sentence or word. Recipients can mouse over the hotspot and the additional information appears. Point to the text and the additional text appears with the explanation of the term, as seen in Figure 14.6.
To create a text pop-up hotspot in a mail memo, follow these steps:
Begin a mail message by filling in the header information.
In the body of the mail message, type your message. Determine which word(s) you want to become the text hotspot word or phrase (Figure 14.5 uses TAW site).
Highlight that word or phrase by selecting it with your mouse. Choose Create, Hotspot, Text Pop-Up from the menu.
The HotSpot Pop-up Properties box appears, as shown in Figure 14.7.
In the Popup Text box, fill in the text you want to pop up when this hotspot is clicked. When you have finished typing the text, click the check mark.
Choose whether you want the pop-up to appear when the user holds the mouse over your text (On mouse over) or clicks on the pop-up (On Click).
Determine your hotspot appearance by selecting one of the Hotspot styles.
Close the Properties box. Finish and send your message.
Figure 14.6. A text pop-up hotspot usually contains instructions, additional information, or directions.
Figure 14.7. Additional help is available by clicking on the question mark in the upper-right corner of the HotSpot Pop-up Properties box.
You can see the effects of your pop-up by looking at the copy of your message in Sent mail.
A link hotspot is usually text or a picture that the user clicks to open a document, view, database, or URL. To add one to your mail message, follow these steps:
In the body of the mail message, type the text you want to serve as the link and then select it.
In the HotSpot Resource Link properties box (see Figure 14.8), select the Type of hotspot you want to create:
Figure 14.8. When the user clicks on the text you turned into the hotspot link, he will go to the item specified in the Value field.
URL—. Use this type to link to a website. Enter the URL for the website in the Value field, such as http://www.ibm.com. Make sure to use the full address, including the “http://” at the beginning of the URL.
Link—. This type links to a document, anchor, view, or database. For this type of link to work, you must first go to the document, view, or database to which you want to link. Then choose Edit, Copy As Link from the menu and select the type of item you want. After you create the hotspot, Link will automatically be selected as the type and the Value will be the name of the item which you copied as the link.
Named Element—. To link to a view, a form, or a folder, use this type to specify the element. After you select Named Element from the Type field, a list field appears to the right with selections of the elements to which you can link. Select View, Form, or Folder. Below the field, click on the small folder icon to browse for the specific element you want. In the dialog box that appears (see Figure 14.9), select the Database where the element is and then select the element by name. Click OK to put that information into the Value field of the hotspot.
Figure 14.9. Make sure that the database and the element you select are ones to which the recipient has access, or he won’t be able to open it from your link.
Note
If you just want to put a URL link in a rich text field and you don’t mind if the URL shows, you don’t need to make a URL link hotspot. Just type the full address, such as http://takeawalk.com, or copy it from the address area of your browser and Notes will automatically make the hotspot for you.
Tables offer an excellent way to organize data, and you can easily add tables to your mail messages. Figure 14.10 shows a mail message with a table inserted.
To insert a table in your mail message, follow these steps:
Create a new memo.
Position your cursor in the body field where you want the table to appear.
Choose Create, Table or click the Insert Table Icon. The Create Table dialog box appears (see Figure 14.11).
Enter the number of Rows and Columns you want in your table. Check Fixed Width if you do not want the table to adjust to the width of the screen. Once you create a fixed-width table, you can set the column widths in the Table Properties box or drag the sizes of the columns using the ruler. To turn on the ruler, choose View, Ruler from the menu.
Basic table—. Each row and column is presented in a standard table matrix. You can add formatting options (colors, borders, and so forth) in the Table Properties box after you have created the table.
Tabbed table—. Each row is presented as a different tabbed page. To move from row to row, click the tabs. Add labels for the tabs in the Table Properties box after you have created the table.
Animated table—. Creates a table which displays a different row every two seconds. Intervals can be set in the Table Properties box after you have created the table.
Caption table—. Creates a table in which each row shows as a clickable caption, with Windows expand and reduce buttons.
Programmed table—. Creates a table that presents a different row based on the value of a field. This is an advanced table in which you must create a field and so forth, and this type of table is beyond the scope of this book.
Figure 14.10. Here’s a table created in three table types: 1. A Basic table, 2. A Tabbed table, and 3. A Caption table.
Figure 14.11. When you create a table, you must indicate the Table Type in the Create Table dialog box. The various types of tables available in Notes give you a lot of flexibility for saving space, drawing attention to rows, and displaying data in different formats.
Tables can be created within tables. For example you can create a tabbed table then insert a basic table into each row of the tabbed table. Experiment with different table types and by inserting tables within tables to better understand the flexibility and power of tables in Lotus Notes.
You can also edit; insert columns and rows; and add borders, colors, and shading to tables. If you right-click an element of the table, the properties box appears, from which you can select properties for tables, rows, columns, or text (see Figure 14.12).
Sections are helpful in making large documents more manageable. You can gather all the information on one topic into a section. Sections collapse into one-line paragraphs or expand to display all the text in the section, so a reader doesn’t have to read sections that aren’t of any interest. Figure 14.13 shows a document with both expanded and collapsed sections.
When you gather text into a section, a small triangle appears to the left of the section head. To expand a section, click this triangle (called a twistie). Clicking again on the twistie collapses the section. To expand all the sections in a document, choose View, Expand All Sections from the menu. To collapse all sections, choose View, Collapse All Sections from the menu.
To create a section in your message, follow these steps:
Create a new mail message. Type several paragraphs in the body field.
Select the paragraphs you want to make into a section. If you are creating a section from a single paragraph, you don’t need to select the paragraph, simply place your cursor anywhere in the paragraph before you proceed to step 3.
The first 128 characters of the paragraph become the section title. If you want to change it, follow these steps:
Click the section title.
Choose Section, Section Properties from the menu (see Figure 14.14).
Click the Title tab.
Select Text, and then replace the text in the Title box with the section title you want. Don’t use carriage returns, hotspots, or buttons in section titles.
Under Section Border, choose a Border Style from the list box and a Border Color from the list box.
If you want to hide the title of the section when it expands, click the Expand/Collapse tab, and check Hide Title When Expanded (see Figure 14.15).
If you want to format the section title, select it and choose Section, Section Properties. Click the Font tab; select the font, size, style, and color you want for the section title.
Figure 14.14. In the Section properties box, set the option to create a section title, visible even when the section is collapsed.
Figure 14.15. The Expand/Collapse tab of the Section Properties box is where you set expand and collapse options for each section.
You can copy and move sections as you would any other text or paragraphs with Cut, Copy, and Paste commands. When you want to remove a section but still want to keep all the text in the section, select the section and choose Section, Remove Section from the menu. If you want to remove the section and all its text, however, choose Edit, Clear or press the Delete key.
Note
When sending documents containing sections over the Internet, the title of the section is lost but the text in the section remains. In that case you might want the title repeated in the section text.
In this chapter, you learned about enhancing your documents by applying character and paragraph formatting, using the permanent pen and the highlighter, and adding links, tables, and sections. In the next chapter, you learn how to create attachments.