Topical or A-Z Filing
When organizing paper at home or work, filing by category often makes the most sense. You may keep a financial file box separate from your travel literature files, for example
However, there are advantages to storing almost everything in an A-Z sequence. You don't have to check in multiple file drawers when seeking that one little piece of paper you filed somewhere or other.
ON THE PALMTOP
Many users new to the palmtop follow the strategy of keeping several separate NoteTaker files, such as WORK.NDB, HOME.NDB, FUN.NDB, etc. This makes retrieval more time consuming than may be necessary, because whenever you need a different file, you must follow these steps: (Menu), File, Open, and then find the file. On the other hand, if all information is in one A-Z sequence, it can be retrieved simply by opening NoteTaker.
Electronic filing has an advantage over paper storage retrieval options are multiplied. By adding words such as work or home or fun to the category field in a NoteTaker record, you can retrieve records by these distinct labels. You can also use (F4) (Find) to locate what you need
While paper files can be fat and crowd each other out, electronic records fit next to each other without fuss. So its o.k. to have your tires record (tire sizes and ages for your car or kids bicycles) next to time management notes from a seminar. Your movies to watch can be adjacent to your record listing motivational ideas from company sales meetings.
For fastest retrieval of categories, press the (F6) (Subset) key. Define a new subset by tabbing to the category field and selecting a Category, then save the new subset with the same name as the category. Do this for each category you use. Then every time you want to see only your business or only your personal notes, you simply press (F6) (Subset), select the appropriate subset, press (F10) (OK), and NoteTaker displays the relevant records automatically.
If you have already created separate NoteTaker files, there is a simple method for merging them, one at a time, into one main, alphabetically-arranged file. Press (Menu), File, Merge, and then select the name of another NoteTaker file. By pressing (ENTER) (OK), the palmtop will merge the files.
NoteTaker can be accessed at any time by pressing the (Ctrl)+(Memo) key-combination. Stored information has never been easier to reach.
Carol de Giere
Associate Editor, The HP Palmtop Paper
carol_degiere@thaddeus.com