Chapter 19
Managing Contacts
Get ready to . . .
Notes is the built-in application that you can use to do everything from jotting down notes at meetings to keeping to-do lists. It isn’t a robust word processor (such as Apple Pages or Microsoft Word) by any means, but for taking notes on the fly, jotting down to-do lists, or writing a few pages of your novel-in-progress while you sit and sip a cup of tea on your deck, it’s a great option.
In this chapter, you see how to enter and edit text in Notes and how to manage notes by navigating among them, search for content, e-mail notes, or delete notes.
Open a Blank Note
1. To get started with Notes, tap the Notes app icon on the Home screen. If you’ve never used Notes, it opens with a new, blank note displayed. (If you have used Notes, it opens to the last note you were working on. If that’s the case, you might want to jump to the next task to create a new, blank note.) Depending on how your iPad is oriented, you see the view shown in Figure 19-1 (portrait) or Figure 19-2 (landscape).
Figure 19-1
2. Tap the blank page. The onscreen keyboard, shown in Figure 19-3, appears.
Figure 19-2
Figure 19-3
3. Tap keys on the keyboard to enter text. If you want to enter numbers or symbols, tap either of the keys labeled .?123 on the keyboard. The numerical keyboard, shown in Figure 19-4, appears. Whenever you want to return to the alphabetic keyboard, tap either of the keys labeled ABC.
Figure 19-4
4. To capitalize a letter, tap a Shift key (one with the upward-pointing arrow on it) at the same time as you tap the letter. If you enable the Enable Caps Lock feature in Settings, you can also turn caps lock on by double-tapping one the Shift key; tap the key once to turn the feature off.
5. When you want to start a new paragraph or a new item in a list, tap the Return key.
6. To edit text, tap the text you want to edit and either use the Delete key to delete text to the left of the cursor or type new text.
When you have the numerical keyboard displayed (refer to Figure 19-4), you can tap either of the keys labeled #+= to access more symbols, such as the percentage sign or the euro symbol, or additional bracket styles. Pressing and holding certain keys displays alternative characters.
No need to save a note — it’s kept automatically until you delete it.
Create a New Note
1. With one note open, to create a new note, tap the New Note button — the one with the plus sign (+) on it — in the top-right corner.
2. A new, blank note appears (refer to Figure 19-1). Enter and edit text as described in the previous task.
If your iPad is in portrait orientation and you want to see the list of saved notes beside the current note, switch to landscape orientation. You can also tap the Notes button in portrait orientation to see a drop-down list of notes.
Use Copy and Paste
1. The Notes app includes two essential editing tools you’re probably familiar with from other word processors: copy and paste. With a note displayed, press and hold your finger on a word. The toolbar shown in Figure 19-5 appears.
Figure 19-5
2. Tap the Select button. The toolbar shown in Figure 19-6 appears.
Figure 19-6
3. Tap the Copy button.
4. Press and hold your finger in the document at the spot where you want to place the copied text.
5. On the toolbar that appears (see Figure 19-7), tap the Paste button. The copied text appears.
Figure 19-7
If you want to select all text in a note to either delete or copy it, tap the Select All button on the toolbar shown in Figure 19-5. The Cut/Copy/Paste/Suggest toolbar appears, which you can use to deal with the selected text. To extend a selection to adjacent words, press one of the little handles that extent from the selection and drag to the left or right. To get an alternate spelling suggestion you can tap Suggest.
To delete text, you can use the Select or Select All command and then press the Delete key on the onscreen keyboard.
Display the Notes List
1. Tap the Notes app icon on the Home screen to open Notes.
2. In landscape orientation, a list of notes appears by default on the left side of the screen (refer to Figure 19-2). In portrait orientation, you can display this list by tapping the Notes button in the top-left corner of the screen; the notes list appears, as shown in Figure 19-8.
Figure 19-8
3. Tap any note on the list to display it.
Notes names your note, using the first line of text. If you want to rename a note, first display the note, tap at the end of the first line of text, and then tap the Delete key on your onscreen keyboard to delete the old title. Enter a new title; it’s reflected as the name of your note in the notes list.
Move among Notes
1. You have a couple of ways to move among notes you’ve created. Tap the Notes app icon on the Home screen to open Notes.
2. With the notes list displayed (you can either turn your iPad to landscape orientation or tap the Notes button in portrait orientation; see the previous task for more on viewing the notes list), tap a note to open it.
3. To move among notes, tap the Next or Previous button (the right- or left-facing arrow at the bottom of the Notes pad, as shown in Figure 19-9).
Figure 19-9
Even though Notes lets you enter multiple notes with the same title — which causes confusion — name your notes uniquely!
Search for a Note
1. You can search to locate a note that contains certain text. The Search feature lists only notes that contain your search criteria; it doesn’t highlight and show you every instance of the word or words you enter. Tap the Notes app icon on the Home screen to open Notes.
2. Either hold the iPad in landscape orientation or tap the Notes button in portrait orientation to display the notes list (refer to Figure 19-8).
3. Tap in the Search field at the top of the notes list (see Figure 19-10). The onscreen keyboard appears.
Figure 19-10
4. Begin to enter the search term. All notes that contain matching words appear on the list, as shown in Figure 19-11.
Figure 19-11
5. Tap a note to display it and then locate the instance of the matching word the old-fashioned way — by skimming to find it.
If you want to look for a note based on how long ago you created it, you should know that notes are stored with the most recently created or modified notes — at the top of the notes list. Older notes fall toward the bottom of the list. The date you last modified a note is also listed in the notes list to help you out.
E-Mail a Note
1. If you want to share what you wrote with a friend or colleague, you can easily e-mail the contents of a note. With a note displayed, tap the E-Mail button at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 19-12.
Figure 19-12
2. Tap Email. In the e-mail form that appears (see Figure 19-13), type one or more e-mail addresses in the appropriate fields. At least one e-mail address must appear in the To field.
Figure 19-13
3. If you need to make changes to the subject or message, tap in either area and make the changes.
4. Tap the Send button and your e-mail is on its way.
If you want to print a note in Step 2, choose Print rather than Email. Complete the Printer Options dialog by designating an AirPrint-enabled wireless printer (or shared printer on a printer on a network that you can access using AirPrint) and how many copies to print, and then tap Print.
You can tap the button with a plus sign (+) on it in the top-right corner of the e-mail message form to display your contacts list and choose recipients from it. This method works only with contacts for whom you have added an e-mail addresses. See Chapter 18 for more about using the Contacts app.
To cancel an e-mail message and return to Notes without sending it, tap the Cancel button in the e-mail form and then tap Don’t Save on the menu that appears. To leave a message but save a draft so that you can finish and send it later, tap Cancel and then tap Save. The next time you tap the e-mail button with the same note displayed in Notes, your draft appears.
Delete a Note
1. There’s no sense in letting your notes list get cluttered, making it harder to find the ones you need. When you’re done with a note, it’s time to delete it. Tap the Notes app icon on the Home screen to open Notes.
2. With the iPad in landscape orientation, tap a note in the notes list to open it.
3. Tap the Trash Can button, shown in Figure 19-14.
Figure 19-14
4. Tap the Delete Note button that appears (see Figure 19-15). The note is deleted.
Figure 19-15
Notes is a nice little application, but it’s limited. It offers no formatting tools or ways to print the content you enter. You can’t paste pictures into Notes (you can try, but it won’t work: only the filename appears, not the image). So, if you’ve made some notes and want to graduate to building a more robust document in a word processor, you have a couple of options. One way is to buy the Pages word processor application for iPad, which costs about $9.99, and copy your note (using the copy-and-paste feature discussed earlier in this chapter). Alternatively, you can send the note to yourself in an e-mail message. Open the e-mail and copy and paste its text into a full-fledged word processor, and you’re good to go.