Chapter 3. Getting Started with Windows Journal

Windows Journal is the “killer application” on your new tablet. It’s an excellent example of good software design: simple and intuitive enough to start using with minimum instruction, yet packed with powerful features awaiting your discovery. On the surface, Windows Journal works like a pad of paper. To take notes, simply place your pen on the screen and start writing. In fact, a great deal of design effort went into making Journal behave as much like real paper as possible. If you start thinking about Journal as a pad of paper, you’ll be off to a great start.

In this and upcoming chapters, you’ll discover some of the capabilities of Journal. For example, you’ll learn how your pen can write in several colors, work as a highlighter, and how it can erase. You’ll learn how to add and remove space in your notes, cut and paste your handwriting, and format your handwriting into bold and italics. You’ll also learn how to search your handwritten notes for specific words and how to import documents from programs like Microsoft Word and mark them up with pen and highlighter as easily as if they had been printed out. These latent features are the real power of Journal. You can use Journal at whatever level of sophistication meets your needs in a given situation. If you’re reading this book, you probably want to find out all the cool features of Journal, so let’s dive in.

Just Start Writing

The best way to get going with Journal is to take a few moments to just start writing and exploring the user interface. Figure 3-1 shows the default Journal page. Try out the different pens, highlighters, and erasers in the Pen toolbar to get a feel for them. To switch between them, tap the down arrow to the right of the tool and select the particular pen, highlighter, or eraser you want. Most people have a definite “Oooh-Aaah” reaction the first time they use the chisel tip pen. It makes everyone’s handwriting look better, even mine.

These are the major components of Journal.
Figure 3-1. These are the major components of Journal.

As shown in the figure, the major components of Journal are as follows:

Using Pens and Highlighters

The default settings provide five pens of various colors, tip types, and tip sizes. Once you have seen what these pens can do, you can customize the pen palette as you need to for different uses. Do you need a very fine red point for editing documents? An extra fine black point for detailed drawing? A four mm purple chisel marker for calligraphy? Open the Pen And Highlighter Settings dialog box by selecting Pen Settings from the bottom of the pen menu, as shown in Figure 3-2.

Try out different pen types and build a custom palette that meets your needs.
Figure 3-2. Try out different pen types and build a custom palette that meets your needs.

In the Pen And Highlighter Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 3-3, select the pen you want to change. Next select the color, thickness, and tip style you want for the new pen. A point tip is similar to a ballpoint or rollerball pen. A chisel is similar to a fountain pen. Try some wild colors and pen sizes while you’re at it.

Use the Pen And Highlighter Settings dialog box to modify your pen settings.
Figure 3-3. Use the Pen And Highlighter Settings dialog box to modify your pen settings.

Tip

Create a color code system for your notes and make a pen for each color. For example, your notes could be in black, “to do” items in red, and ideas in purple. When you review your notes it’s easy to pick out each type of information. You can also create a similar system with highlighters.

Highlighters are selected and used just like pens, except that the ink is partially transparent and the tips are wider. The five highlighter colors, thicknesses, and tips can be customized as well. Highlighter colors will also mix, so if you highlight an area with yellow and then again with blue, wherever the colors overlap the highlight will be green. Going over an area with the same color several times, however, will not make it any darker.

Checking the Pressure Sensitivity check box in the Pen And Highlighter Settings dialog box creates a pen or highlighter that responds to pressure—the harder you press, the wider the ink. The feature really shows with chisel tip pens and markers, as you can see in Figure 3-4. Unfortunately, not all tablet digitizer systems support pressure sensitivity. The pressure sensitivity option will appear whether or not your tablet hardware supports it. If it pressure sensitivity doesn’t seem to work, it’s probably not available on your tablet.

Here’s an example of what can be done with a pressure-sensitive chisel tip
Figure 3-4. Here’s an example of what can be done with a pressure-sensitive chisel tip

Try This

To get a feel for how the ink you create in Journal differs from the lines you might make in a paint program like Microsoft Paint, open them both and draw a curved line. Now zoom in on each line and compare the two. The Journal line will be equally smooth at any zoom setting. The Paint line will get more and more grainy, or pixilated, as you zoom in. This is because Journal records your ink strokes as complex equations, called Bezier curves, rather than as dots on the screen. The result is a line that is smoothed as you write it and is equally clear no matter how you resize it. This same technology is used by artists operating high-end computer illustration software. The Bezier curve also stores the direction the line was drawn, which provides key information for handwriting recognition.

The eraser tool is used just like a pen: select a small, medium, or large eraser tip and press down as you erase. The eraser cursor is square, but if you cut an ink stroke with the eraser, the trimmed ends will appear rounded or chiseled depending on the pen used to draw the stroke. Looking closely at the left-hand image in Figure 3-5 you can see how the end of the line is rounded even though it was cut with a square eraser. The stroke eraser, the fourth eraser type, is a “smart eraser” and works differently from the other three. The right-hand image shown in Figure 3-5 was tapped in exactly the same spot as the left-hand image but it was done using the stroke eraser. Because I drew the circle of the bug’s head as a single pen stroke, the stroke eraser removed the entire thing. The stroke eraser allows you to remove large areas of ink quickly, and you can selectively remove ink strokes that cross other ink strokes. In the right-hand image of Figure 3-5, the antennae remained intact even though they crossed over the circle of the bug’s head. Once you get used to it, you’ll probably use the stroke eraser most of the time.

A normal eraser is used on the left and a stroke eraser is used on the right. The stroke eraser removes entire ink strokes at once.
Figure 3-5. A normal eraser is used on the left and a stroke eraser is used on the right. The stroke eraser removes entire ink strokes at once.

Tip

The stroke eraser is a great way to erase highlighting but leave the underlying ink untouched.

Some tablet pens have a feature that you almost have to see to believe. These pens have a plastic “eraser” on the top. This eraser is really a button. If you flip the pen over and press down with the eraser as you move it, Journal automatically switches to the eraser tool! When you flip it back, the pen will revert to whatever tool you had selected previously. You can’t get much more intuitive than that! Some pens have a two-position button on the pen shaft that provides the normal right-tap when you push it one way and does a quick switch to the eraser when you move it the other way. Some pens even have both quick eraser buttons. Journal also supports multiple undos, providing another great way to remove recent mistakes.

Journal also supports the scratch out gesture used in Tablet PC Input Panel and Write Anywhere. The gesture is a bit harder to get right in Journal because the system must now decide if you are scratching out or simply shading in a picture. As with the other scratch out gestures, you do not need to cover the entire object for scratch out to remove the entire stroke. The scratch out in Figure 3-6 would remove the entire word “Out,” similar to crossing the letters with the stroke eraser. You must, however, make the gesture aggressively, with horizontal strokes, and move back and forth at least two and one half times. The availability of the eraser, especially the stroke eraser, somewhat obviates the need for scratch out in Journal.

Journal supports the scratch out gesture.
Figure 3-6. Journal supports the scratch out gesture.

Note

The scratch out gesture must be enabled on the Other tab of the Journal Options dialog box to have an effect. If you get scratch outs when you don’t want them, you can disable this feature.

Flags are a very simple but powerful feature. The Flag tool places a flag graphic in your document wherever you tap. This is a great way to mark a point in your document so you can easily find it later. When you review a list of notes, you’ll see at a glance which ones contain flags. When you open a note, the Find command, discussed in Chapter 5, lets you quickly find all the flags in the note. There are five flag colors, so you can use different ones to represent different types of items. You cannot, however, limit the search to flags of a particular color. Each flag is simply a graphic, and can be moved around or resized however you wish.

Changing the View

Journal lets you zoom in and out on the page, a feature that leaves traditional paper in the dust. This is great way to touch up a hand-drawn picture or do some precise erasing. There are three ways to zoom in and out: select a new zoom setting from the Standard toolbar, select a new zoom setting from the View menu, or open and use the View toolbar, as shown in Figure 3-7. The View toolbar also gives you the Pan tool, whose icon is a small hand, which allows you to slide the paper around on the screen while you are zoomed in.

Changing the view.
Figure 3-7. Changing the view.

Zooming in can create problems if you don’t realize how it works. By default, new notes are shown with the paper sized to fit the available screen. This gives you the most screen area to write on, but it means your handwriting may end up very large or very small depending on the size and settings of your screen. If you write at your normal writing size with the zoom set at 50%, 100%, or 200%, the actual ink strokes will get progressively smaller. The pen will appear thicker when zoomed in, as well, since the width of the tip is a set number of millimeters. Figure 3-8 shows this effect, where the word written the same size on the screen will appear as three different sizes on the page. This is not a big deal if you never print your notes, but if you do print them the results can be somewhat unexpected.

Ink drawn at different zoom settings will appear different sizes relative to the page.
Figure 3-8. Ink drawn at different zoom settings will appear different sizes relative to the page.

You may have noticed how one inch on the computer screen often doesn’t print as one inch on paper. Journal has a feature that corrects this so that a one-inch measurement on screen will print at exactly one inch. Even if you never print your notes, it’s a good idea to make this calibration. Pen tips simulate particular sized pens and will appear smoother and more natural if the on-screen size is correct. This is especially true of the very fine and extra fine pens.

To calibrate the size of your notes, select Options on the Tools menu. On the Note Format tab, tap Display Measurements to display the Adjust Display Measurements dialog box, shown in Figure 3-9. Now take a real ruler and lay it across your screen. Adjust the slider until the inches on the screen match the inches on the ruler. Tap OK once you’re done. From now on, whatever you draw at 100% zoom will print at exactly the same size.

Use this slider to calibrate the paper size.
Figure 3-9. Use this slider to calibrate the paper size.

Reading view will set the view so that you can see the entire page or part of the page based on the available screen area and the size of the ink and type you are reading. You specify reading view by selecting Reading View from the Zoom drop-down list on the Standard toolbar or by selecting Reading View from the View menu. While in reading view, pressing the Up or Down arrow keys will advance the note one entire page rather than just one line. The Spacebar also advances the note one screen or page. This is very convenient for reviewing notes and editing documents, especially if the Up and Down keys are mapped to hardware buttons or you have the page bar visible, as discussed in Chapter 5. You may still write, highlight, and erase normally in reading view. Switching the zoom to any other setting will quit reading view.

Full-Screen Mode

Similar to full-screen mode in Microsoft Internet Explorer, full-screen mode in Journal causes the Journal title bar and taskbar to disappear and Journal to fill the screen, as shown in Figure 3-10. You can toggle between full-screen mode and normal mode by selecting Full Screen on the View menu or by pressing F11 on the input panel keyboard. If you’re going to work in Journal for a while and won’t be switching to other applications often, full-screen mode makes the most of the available screen space and removes any distractions. You may use any zoom setting in full-screen mode, including reading view. Full-screen mode also uses separate toolbar preferences, so you can set different default toolbars.

Full-screen mode makes the most of limited screen space.
Figure 3-10. Full-screen mode makes the most of limited screen space.

Saving and Opening Notes

As mentioned earlier, the handwritten note title will be converted to text and set as the default name for your note. If there’s no title, the first recognizable text appears as the default filename. If the default text is what you want as the filename, tap the Save button and the note will be saved. If the text is incorrect, you will need to correct it using Input Panel. The filename need not match the note title, but it reduces confusion if you can keep them the same. By default, your notes are saved in a new My Notes folder in your My Documents folder.

Note

The note title area only applies to the first page of a multi-page note. The note title area does not appear on subsequent pages.

You can open a note by double-tapping the actual file in your My Notes folder, but using the note list in Journal provides a lot more options. Tapping the View Recent Notes toolbar button in Journal opens the note list pane shown in Figure 3-11. The note list shows the ink contained in the title area of the note as well as the filename, so you can find a note either way. If there’s no ink in the note title area, that column is left blank. The note list pane is also a kind of notes browser. Whatever note you select in the note list is opened in the window below, and tapping the Previous or Next buttons or pressing the Up or Down arrow key will open the next note in the list.

The note list pane shows you the note title in ink as well as the filename.
Figure 3-11. The note list pane shows you the note title in ink as well as the filename.

Tip

Double-tapping a filename in the Journal notes opens it in new window. Right-tapping a filename opens a shortcut menu options for opening, moving, deleting, or sending the note.

You can also organize the note list view by folder, creation date, modification date, or show only the notes containing flags. Figure 3-12 shows notes organized by creation date, a handy feature if you can’t remember what you called that note you wrote last Thursday. Tapping any column title will sort the notes by that column in descending order as well. Tapping a second time will sort them in ascending order. A red flag to the left of the note title appears if there are any flags in the document, regardless of their color. The note list is further customizable by right-tapping on any column heading. The resulting shortcut menu lets you turn on several more fields. For example, the Flags column showing the number of flags in each document, as seen in Figure 3-12, is not on by default and was added using this shortcut menu.

Note list offers organizational tools to help you find your notes.
Figure 3-12. Note list offers organizational tools to help you find your notes.

Note

You can customize the position of the note list, as well as number of recently used folders and note listed in the note list, using the View tab of the Journal Options dialog box. You can also set whether the list of recently used notes in the file menu appears as note titles or filenames.

Since many notes are only needed for a short time, deletion of unneeded notes is made easier by a Delete Note option on the File menu. The Delete Note command works on the note you have open or the note you have selected in the note list. This is a very handy command when you are cleaning out old notes without the use of a keyboard and don’t have a hardware button for delete.

Tip

You can delete the note currently selected in the note list by pressing the Delete key on Input Panel.

Adding Pages

Once you fill a page, tap the New Page/Next button in the lower right of the Journal window. If you’re in the middle of a multi-page note, this button scrolls the view down one page. If you’re on the last page of the note, this button adds a new page to the end of the note. You can also insert a page before the page you are viewing by selecting New Page from the Insert menu. Use this feature if you want to add a cover page before sharing a note.

Note

The New Page/Next button will not create a new page if the current page is still blank.

Often when writing a note, especially a list, you need to add an item between two items already on the note. With traditional paper you’re out of luck, but not with Journal. To insert vertical space in between items on a note, choose the Insert/Remove Space tool on the Pen toolbar and bring the cursor to the point in the document that you want to expand, as shown in Figure 3-13. Next drag downward to indicate how much extra space you want, and lift the pen. All the ink below the insertion point will move downward on the page, allowing you to write in the additional space. The Insert/Remove Space tool won’t split up grouped ink, so if there’s ink on both sides of the insertion point it will either all move down or all stay put, depending on which side of the insertion point the majority of the ink lies. To remove space, place the Insert/Remove Space tool at the bottom of the blank space and drag upward. When you remove space, you can only remove space that’s completely free of ink. The Insert/Remove Space tool won’t delete ink.

Glossary

Grouped ink is a set of several ink strokes that should stay together if they’re moved throughout the document, such as all the strokes that create a single word. See "Selecting Ink" and "Grouping Ink" later in this chapter for more information.

If the ink moved down will no longer fit on the page, you’ll see the Space Tool dialog box, shown in Figure 3-14, asking if you want to increase the height of the page or move the ink below the insertion onto a new page. If you increase the height, you’ll have one page that is longer than all the others. This is only a problem if you plan to print the note, as one page will print differently. If you move the ink to a new page, all the ink below the insertion point will move to a new page, even if there’s still room for some of the ink on the current page.

To add vertical space, tap and drag downward with the Insert/Remove Space tool.
Figure 3-13. To add vertical space, tap and drag downward with the Insert/Remove Space tool.
Dialog box that appears if there isn’t enough space on the page when using the Insert/Remove Space tool.
Figure 3-14. Dialog box that appears if there isn’t enough space on the page when using the Insert/Remove Space tool.

Note

By default, the Insert/Remove Space tool will only insert space in increments the same size as the rules on your page. If it did not, you would almost certainly end up with some extra wide or extra narrow spaces between rules. You can disable this option on the View tab of the Journal Options dialog box.

Editing Notes

If Journal did nothing more than supply a digital writing pad, it would still be useful, but it’s the power to select and edit ink that makes Journal really shine. To select ink and move it to a new location, select the Selection Tool on the Pen toolbar and circle (or lasso, as the icon might imply) the ink you want selected. As ink is added to the selection, it appears in an outline format. Once you have all the ink selected, lift your pen. The selection is bounded by a box. To move the ink, tap and drag anywhere inside the box. Tap anywhere outside the box or switch back to a pen tool to deselect and continue writing. Figure 3-15 shows the process.

Selecting and moving ink.
Figure 3-15. Selecting and moving ink.

Selecting usually works easily and intuitively, but sometimes the Selection Tool seems to select extra items you didn’t want or won’t let you select the items you do want. The key to successful editing is understanding how to select exactly the objects you want, and the key to precise selection is understanding how Journal groups the ink you put down on the page.

When you write words on a page, Journal looks at the many strokes of ink you made and groups them together based on a complex logic system. For example, take the words “ink object.” The word “ink” is actually five pen strokes: the body of the i, the dot on the i, the n, the tall part of the k, and the short part of the k. Ideally, Journal will group all these strokes together so that when I select the word they all move together, and won’t leave out the dot on the i or part of the k. When you select with the Selection Tool, if 50% of a group of strokes is contained by the lasso, the entire group is selected. If less than 50% is contained by the lasso, none of the group is selected. Table 3-1 shows examples of the Selection Tool attempting to select the word “ink” out of “ink object” and the results.

Table 3-1. Results of selecting objects. 

Ink Object

Selected Words

Notes

Results of selecting objects. 

<none>

The original ink strokes

Results of selecting objects. 

ink

Selecting “ink”

Results of selecting objects. 

ink

Selecting at least 50% of “ink”

Results of selecting objects. 

ink

Selecting “ink” and less than 50% of “object”

Results of selecting objects. 

ink object

Selecting “ink” and more than 50% of “object”

The grouping of ink strokes is done automatically as you write. If Journal groups strokes that you want to select individually, you can ungroup the strokes. To do this, select the group containing the strokes you want ungrouped and then choose Ungroup from the Actions menu. Now all the strokes are selectable individually. You can also group strokes so that they always stay together as a single object, as you might prefer with a hand-drawn map. To group ink strokes, select all the strokes you want to group and choose Group from the Actions menu. Now all the strokes will stay together if you select them in the document. If several strokes make up a word but are not recognized as such, select the strokes and choose Group As One Word instead of Group.

Note

Grouping is essential for Journal to recognize your handwriting as text. If you group several words as one in an effort to keep them together, handwriting recognition will not understand those words correctly.

Whenever ink is selected, you can drag any handle on the selection box to resize it. Dragging a corner handle will change the height and width proportionally. Dragging a middle handle will distort the shape. When creating maps or diagrams, it’s often easier to draw them large and then select and resize them smaller to fit better on the page, as shown in Figure 3-16.

Select and resize ink to make room as necessary.
Figure 3-16. Select and resize ink to make room as necessary.

There are several selection shortcuts and tricks to make selection easier.

Tip

If you draw a box around text and it is too small, tap the box to select it without selecting the text and then increase the box size to fit more text.

Tip

You don’t need to switch to the Selection Tool to select objects using right-tap, tap-and-hold, or right-drag. This lets you make selections without changing tools.

Select All and Select Page

Select All and Select Page appear in the Edit menu and serve two distinct functions. Select All will select all the objects, including ink, flags, text boxes, and images, on the current page, even if they’re currently off the screen. Once the objects are selected, you can resize all the items or paste them onto a different page. Select Page selects all the items on a page, plus the background. After selecting a page, the options on the Edit menu change. Now you can Copy Page, Cut Page, or Delete Page. If you copy or cut the page, you can paste the entire page into a different note. A pasted page is always inserted before the page you are viewing.

Tip

There’s no way to merge two notes, but you can use Select All and Select Page to paste notes together one page at a time.

Cutting Ink Strokes

You cannot select only part of a solid ink stroke, but you can cut an ink stroke in two with the Eraser tool and then select only one part. The erased area must be big enough that Journal understands you are cutting the ink rather than simply making a small correction. If after you cut a stroke the two parts remain grouped, manually ungroup them with the Ungroup command. Once separated, you can select and move each part. This is very helpful when editing a combination of text and drawings, as shown in Figure 3-18.

Use the Eraser tool to cut an ink stroke, ungroup if needed, and edit the ink.
Figure 3-18. Use the Eraser tool to cut an ink stroke, ungroup if needed, and edit the ink.

You can cut, copy, and paste ink objects within a note and into another note, the same way you can cut and paste text or graphics in most applications. When you paste ink into another application, Journal will paste the selection differently depending on what the application supports. Ideally, the ink itself will be pasted so that you can edit or convert it to text at a later date. If the application does not support ink, the next best option is to paste it as an image that can be resized but not edited. If neither option is available, the selected ink will be converted into text and pasted as text that may contain recognition errors. Figure 3-19 shows the result of pasting ink into Microsoft Outlook Express, where it has become a static image. For information on converting text in a Journal note to e-mail, see "Converting Selection to E-Mail" later in this chapter.

Journal will paste ink into another application as ink, a static image, or text, depending on the situation.
Figure 3-19. Journal will paste ink into another application as ink, a static image, or text, depending on the situation.

Tip

If you select ink, tap the Ctrl button on Input Panel or hold down the Ctrl button on a standard keyboard, and then drag the selection. A copy of the selection appears in the new location.

Every time you put ink on a page, Journal assesses the strokes to see if they might form a word. If Journal thinks the strokes do represent a word, they’re grouped and the handwriting recognizer records its best guess for the word as well as several alternatives. The list of possible words is stored as part of the Journal note. The process happens in the background, so it doesn’t interfere with your work, but if you choose to convert your handwriting to text, the recognition is already complete.

To access the recognized words and convert your handwriting to text, select the text you want converted and choose Convert Handwriting To Text from the Actions menu. This displays the Text Correction dialog box, shown in Figure 3-20, which is a more sophisticated version of the Input Panel text preview pane.

Recognition results of the Convert Handwriting To Text command.
Figure 3-20. Recognition results of the Convert Handwriting To Text command.

Correct the text in the dialog box by selecting incorrect words and either by choosing the correct word from the alternatives provided on the right or by tapping the green carat and choosing a word from the shortcut menu. The alternative list on the right of the dialog box is a little longer than the shortcut menu and offers a wider range of words. The list on the shortcut menu is the same list you would see using Input Panel. It also uses the same dictionary, so vocabulary added in Journal will appear in Input Panel as well. If you choose the Rewrite option from the shortcut menu, Input Panel will open automatically.

While the Text Correction dialog box is open you may rearrange text by dragging and dropping, and you may also add or remove line breaks. By default, a line break is entered in the converted text wherever there was a new line in the Journal note. You can remove all these automatic line breaks by tapping the Options button and unchecking Preserve Line Breaks From Notes.

When you’re done, tap OK and Journal will ask if you want the converted text copied to the clipboard, preserving your original ink, or if you want the ink replaced by the converted text. This dialog box is shown in Figure 3-21.

Tip

If you want the converted text put on the clipboard, choose Copy As Text from the Edit menu rather than Convert Handwriting To Text from the Actions menu. This avoids the final dialog box.

What to do with converted text.
Figure 3-21. What to do with converted text.

The original handwriting doesn’t need to be horizontal for recognition to work, but the order may be confused. Figure 3-22 shows multiple-orientation writing and the uncorrected converted text.

Handwriting recognition works, to an extent, in any orientation.
Figure 3-22. Handwriting recognition works, to an extent, in any orientation.

If you want to convert Journal text and send it to an e-mail program, select Convert Selection To E-Mail on the Actions menu. Convert Selection To E-Mail uses the same Text Correction dialog box as Convert Handwriting To Text, but once finished, the text is inserted into the body of a new, blank e-mail message using your default e-mail program. An image of the original ink is added as an attachment as well. Convert Selection To E-Mail is a great way to delegate action items to specific people or forward a short bit of information found while reviewing your notes. If you have the Office XP Pack for Tablet PC installed, you will have additional options to convert ink to Outlook appointments, contacts, or tasks.

Fortune Telling

Here’s a fun game using the convert to text function. Write your normal signature in a Journal note, select it, convert it to text and see what it says about you! My basically illegible Jeff Van West came out “Jeffy word,” which seems rather appropriate for a writer. Of course, the alternate list offered “iffy word” as another interpretation, something my editors might appreciate.

Printing Notes

Printing from Journal is the same as printing from any other Windows application. Select Print from the File menu. The Options tab of the Print dialog box gives you the option to print or hide the rules on the note page and the background images. By default, the rules print but the background images do not, since they tend to interfere with readability. If you have a note where the background images are important, such as on a form, you can specify that they be printed.

Unless you write your Journal notes on an 8½-by-11-inch page, there will be a difference between the Journal note paper size and the actual paper size if you print your notes on letter-size paper. Usually the Journal note is smaller than the actual paper, in which case the note will appear at its actual size, centered in the page. If the note size is larger than the paper, it will be scaled down to fit. There is no option in Journal itself to print multiple note pages side-by-side on a single sheet of paper or to tile a note across several pages, but your printer may have options to do this.

Automatic File Recovery

File recovery is meant just as a backup system, so you should still save your notes regularly as you work. If Journal quits unexpectedly or your tablet loses power, you may be able to recover lost changes. The next time you open Journal, you’ll see a list of notes, similar to Figure 3-23, with unsaved changes available for recovery, and you’ll be asked if you want to open them.

If you choose No, any recovered changes will be lost. If you choose Yes, the next option will depend on whether or not you saved the note at least once before Journal quit unexpectedly. If you did, you have the option of opening the most recent version, saved automatically, or the last saved version. There’s little reason not to open the most recent version. If you open it and then decide you want the last saved version instead, close the note without saving it and open the saved version. If the note had never been saved, you’ll simply be asked if you want to recover the note. Choosing No will permanently delete the note.

The File Recovery dialog box appears when Journal quits unexpectedly and there were unsaved changes.
Figure 3-23. The File Recovery dialog box appears when Journal quits unexpectedly and there were unsaved changes.

By default, Journal saves your notes for automatic recovery every three minutes. You can increase or decrease this interval on the Other tab of the Journal Options dialog box.

Note

If you know that Journal might recover a lost note when it opens, open Journal using the icon in the Start menu or Quick Launch bar, rather than opening the note file directly. If you open the last saved version of the same note Journal is trying to recover, you may lose all the unsaved changes.

Key Points