To put Entourage into Notes view, click the Notes button in the upper left of the Entourage main window, or choose View → Go To → Notes (⌘-4). The right side of the Entourage main window fills with your notes, as shown in Figure 11-29.

Figure 11-29. The Notes window holds the list of notes. The Quick Filter pop-up menu item labeled “Title is” actually means “Title contains.” It helps you filter your thousands of memos down to a more manageable few.

To create a new note once you’re viewing the Notes list, click the New button or press ⌘-N. (If you’re not already in Notes view, choose File → New → Note, or choose Note from the New button’s pop-up menu.)

An Untitled note window like the one shown in Figure 11-30 appears. Give the note a title, press Tab, and then type the body of the note into the lower, larger box (driving directions, an order number, or whatever).

Figure 11-30. Notes provide a resting place for all of those random facts that should be attached to other Entourage items, or simply miscellaneous goodies that you want to preserve

As you go, don’t miss the formatting toolbar that lets you add colors, fonts, and other visual spice to a note. These formatting controls have the same HTML capabilities as email messages, meaning you can paste a formatted note into an email message when you need to share one of your notes. You can also paste—or drag—formatted text from another program (say, a Word document) into a note where the text retains much of its formatting. Notes can also contain URLs, pictures, sounds, movies, background images, and so on—giving Entourage Notes a clear advantage over the kind you scrawl on your scratchpad. Although Notes are mostly intended to help organize small bits of text and information, they can grow quite large, holding hundreds of kilobytes of text if necessary.

Once you’ve typed your note (or pasted text into it), just close the window. Your note’s title now shows up in the Notes list (if you don’t see it, make sure you’re in the Notes view by clicking the Notes button or pressing ⌘-4). Now that you’ve got yourself a note, here are some of the cool things you can do with it:

To delete a note, highlight its name in the list and then press Delete (or click the Delete button in the toolbar, or choose Edit → Delete Note, or press ⌘-delete).

To print a note, Control-click (or right-click) a note in the list and choose Print from the pop-up menu, choose File → Print, or click the Print button in the toolbar of an open note. Entourage displays Notes’ Print window, where you can choose to print all notes or just the selected ones. You can also specify how those notes are laid out (cut lines, page numbers, and so on) and whether any pictures in your notes get printed. Finally, you can select whether the notes should be printed in a format that works with planners like FranklinCovey or Day-Timer, or even add your own form to that list with a click of the Add button.