Notes are designed to be as easy as possible to use. They are not designed for storing large amounts of information or for organizing information in any sophisticated way. They can contain text only—no pictures or similar items—and do not permit any formatting. I use notes for things like:

Figure 13.1 shows an open note. The form is very simple and—aside from the content—contains only four elements:

Figure 13.1. An Outlook note.

Two features contribute to the ease of use of notes:

By default, Outlook displays notes as small icons with the title underneath, as shown in Figure 13.2. You can change the note view in various ways as described later in this chapter.

Figure 13.2. By default, Outlook displays notes as small icons with a title.

You can create a new note in several ways:

Outlook displays a new, blank note. All you need to do is type in the note title as the first line, hit Enter, and type the rest of the note. Then, click the note's close button or click anywhere outside the note to close and save it.

To open a note, double-click it. You can then edit the note and save your changes by closing the note. If you want to change the note's title, you must change the first line in the note.

When a note is open, you can take the following actions by clicking the menu icon in the top-left corner of the note and selecting from the menu (see Figure 13.3):

Figure 13.3. Using the Note menu.

Outlook's Notes view displays your notes as icons with the note titles. You can change the way your notes are displayed and also perform various actions with notes from Notes view.

Changing Notes Display

By default, notes are displayed as large icons with the note title underneath, as you saw earlier in Figure 13.2. Outlook provides two other Notes views, selected by clicking the Small Icons or List button on the toolbar:

• Small Icons view displays each note as a small icon with the title next to it, as shown in Figure 13.4.

• List view is similar to Small Icons view except that the notes and icons are displayed as a list (see Figure 13.5).

Whichever view you are using, you can customize it further by right-clicking a blank area in Notes view and selecting either Sort, Filter, or Other Settings from the context menu.

Figure 13.4. Notes displayed in Small Icons view.

Finding the Icon Buttons

The Large Icons, Small Icons, and List buttons are available on the toolbar only when Icons is selected in the Current View list. This list, covered in the next section, makes some additional views available to you.

Figure 13.5. Notes displayed in List view.

If you select Sort, Outlook displays the dialog box shown in Figure 13.6. You can sort notes on as many as four fields. By default, they are sorted only by Subject (the title). You can sort in ascending or descending order by creation date/time, last modified date/time, contacts associated with the note, color (that is, category), and a few others. To specify how notes are sorted:

1. Select the primary sort field in the Sort Items By list.

2. Select either the Ascending or the Descending option.

3. If you want a secondary sort field for breaking ties in the primary field, select the secondary sort field in the top Then By list and select either the Ascending or the Descending option.

4. If desired, define a third and fourth sort field in the other Then By sections.

5. Click OK.

Sorting can be particularly useful when you have a lot of notes.

Figure 13.6. Specifying how notes should be sorted.

If you select Filter from the context menu, Outlook displays the Filter dialog box as shown in Figure 13.7. Only the Notes tab is relevant. To define a filter:

1. Enter one or more words of interest in the Search for the Word(s) field. Click the adjacent arrow to select from recently used search words.

2. Open the In list and select where Outlook should search. You can choose Contents Only (the entire note) or Subject Field Only (the note's first line).

3. If you want to filter by date/time, pull down the Time list and select Created or Modified. Then open the adjacent list and select your criterion (for example, yesterday, last week, and so on).

4. Click OK.

If you want to remove a filter from Notes view:

1. Open the Filter dialog box.

2. Click the Clear All button.

3. Click OK.

Figure 13.7. Defining a filter for Notes view.

The final command on the context menu, Other Options, brings up the dialog box shown in Figure 13.8. This dialog box lets you specify the kind of icon displayed for the notes and how they are arranged.

Figure 13.8. Setting other Notes view options.

Using the Current View List

You can select additional ways to display notes from the Current View list on the toolbar or the navigation pane. This is shown on the toolbar in Figure 13.9 and on the navigation pane in Figure 13.10. There are several predefined views on this list:

Figure 13.9. Selecting a view from the Current View list.

Figure 13.10. You can also select a view on the navigation pane.

• Icons: Lets you choose Large Icons, Small Icons, or List using toolbar buttons as was described in the previous section.

• Notes List: Displays a list of notes showing the title, content, and creation/modification date and time. This is shown in Figure 13.11.

• Last Seven Days: Displays only those notes that were created or modified within the past seven days. Uses the same display format as Notes List.

• By Category: Displays notes in list format organized by assigned category.

• Outlook Data Files: Displays notes in list format organized by Outlook data file. This is relevant only if you have two or more Outlook data files, a topic that is covered in Chapter 18.

Figure 13.11. Notes displayed in Notes List view.

The last item on the Current View list in the toolbar is Define Views. Selecting this command lets you define custom views for notes. This feature is explained in full in Chapter 19.

As your collection of notes grows, you'll find it useful to be able to search your notes to find just the information that you are looking for. Searching is similar in some respects to defining a filter for Notes view, as was discussed in the previous section. It provides additional power and flexibility, however, and the two used together are even more powerful.

To perform a basic search that matches your search words to the content of the notes, type the search term into the search box (see Figure 13.12) or click the adjacent down arrow to select from previous searches. Outlook searches your notes and displays any notes that contain a match, with the search term highlighted, as shown in the figure. If you have a filter applied to your notes, the search will look only in notes that the filter displays.

Figure 13.12. Performing a simple Notes search.

When you are done, click the X adjacent to the search box to delete the search term and return to display of all notes.

For a more advanced search, click the down arrow at the top right of the Notes window. Outlook expands the search panel to show more criteria fields, as shown in Figure 13.13. Four criteria fields are by default available: Categories, Color, Body, and Subject (or title). Enter your search term in the adjacent box, or select from the list, to search. You can also fine-tune your search as follows:

Figure 13.13. Performing an advanced Notes search.

Outlook has only a few general options for notes. They control the default color and size for notes and the font used to display them. You set these options in the Notes Options dialog box, shown in Figure 13.14. To open this dialog box:

Figure 13.14. Setting global options for notes.

The final option for notes determines whether the time stamp is displayed at the bottom of the note. By default this is turned on, but you can turn it off or back on as follows:

Notes may be Outlook's simplest feature but they can be a very valuable tool. They provide an easy way to store and organize all those little bits of information that we all have to deal with. When combined with Outlook's categories and search tools, their usefulness becomes even greater.