• Read Me First
• Introduction
• El Capitan Quick Start
• What’s New in El Capitan?
• Discover the Little Things in El Capitan
• Command the View in El Capitan
• Cut Clutter with Finder Tabs
• Get Organized with Finder Tags
• Do More with the Dock
• Find More Faster with Spotlight
• Keep Current with Notification Center
• Update Your Safari Smarts in El Capitan
• Note Your Thoughts in El Capitan
• Connect with Messages in El Capitan
• Turn Your Mac into a Speakerphone
• Talk to Your Mac—and Let It Talk to You
• Navigate iCloud Drive
• Move Easily between Devices with Handoff
• Share Files with AirDrop in El Capitan
• Avoid Problems with User Accounts
• Troubleshoot Mac Problems
• About This Book
• About the Author
• About the Publisher
• Copyright and Fine Print

Note Your Thoughts in El Capitan

A photo of a band flyer. The grocery list. Books friends recommend. A solution that came to you in a dream. Plenty of apps can gather all these bits of information together, and plenty do a great job. But most likely only one is already on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac: Apple’s Notes.

In El Capitan, Apple embraces Notes’ ubiquity and its potential. You can make checklists in a snap. You can embed more types of information in a note than before—images, video, audio memos, PDFs, sketches, maps, Web links, and more—and view them not only on a note-by-note basis but also in the Attachment Browser ①. And, if you’re an iCloud user, everything syncs across your iOS 9 and El Capitan devices.

Notice the left-hand “Folders” sidebar in the figure above. To hide or show it, click the Folders button on the toolbar. The sidebar organizes notes by account and folder.

See Notes on All Your Devices

Since Notes syncs through iCloud and is a default app on all iOS 9 and El Capitan devices, it can be a great way to move information around. Work on your meeting agenda on the bus and then when you get to work, proof it on a bigger screen and print it or paste it into an email message. Or, take notes on your MacBook during a meeting and check them on your iPhone at the hotel.

Notes has left behind its previous practice of IMAP syncing through an email account. Instead, the app uses iCloud to sync across devices.

Setting up a Notes Account

To make sure you can see Notes on all your iOS and El Capitan devices, go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts. Select iCloud in the list to the left and then check that the Notes checkbox is selected ②. In Notes, you’ll see an iCloud header in the Folders sidebar—everything under the iCloud header syncs through iCloud.

Removing a Notes Account

You may see other types of accounts in the Folders sidebar under their own headers—such as Gmail (see the sidebar ahead, Some Features Are Apple Only). If you don’t want these on your Mac, go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts. Select the account at the left and then make sure the Notes checkbox is not selected.

Create a New Folder

Notes organizes your notes in folders. For instance, you can create a folder for a trip you’re planning or a project you’re working on. (Can’t see any folders? Click the Folders button or choose View > Show Folders.)

To create a new folder in the currently selected account:

1. Click the New Folder button at the bottom of the Folders sidebar ③, or choose File > New Folder, or press Command-Shift-N.

   

2. The new folder appears in the sidebar with its name selected.
3. Type a name for the new folder.

Create a Note

To start a new note in the currently selected folder, click the New Note button, choose File > New Note, or press Command-N.

A New Note entry appears in the Notes list and a blank note appears at the right.

Start typing in the blank note. The first paragraph you type appears both in the note and in the note’s entry in the Notes list.

Format Text

How your thoughts appear is up to you as Notes supports many more formatting options than before.

Choosing a Font

Choose from any of your Mac’s fonts in the Font palette. To reveal it, choose Format > Font > Show Fonts or press Command-T.

Applying a Style

• Paragraph style: Click in a paragraph (or select text in it), click the Style button, and choose from Title, Heading, Body, Bulleted List, Dashed List, or Numbered List ④.

  

• Character format: Select the text and choose an option in Format > Font. Common keyboard shortcuts apply: Command-B for bold, Command-I for italic, Command-U for underline, and so on.

Making Text Colorful

Select text, and then choose Format > Font > Show Colors (or press Command-Shift-C) to reveal OS X’s Color Picker ⑤. Click on a color in the palette to apply it to your text.

Making Text Bigger or Smaller

No exact font sizes here—we’re taking notes, not doing page layout!

• Bigger Text: Choose Format > Font > Bigger (or press Command-Plus).
• Smaller Text: Choose Format > Font > Smaller (or press Command-Minus).

Indenting Text

Scoot text in from the left margin with an indent:

• Indent: Choose Format > Indentation > Increase (or press Command-]).
• Un-indent: Choose Format > Indentation > Decrease (or press Command-[)

Changing the Alignment

Go to Format > Text and choose from Align Left, Center, Justify, or Align Right.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Notes had a formatting toolbar so you could skip the menu? Yes. We’ll hope the next version of OS X brings us one.

Make a Checklist

Select a list in a note and then click the Checklist button, choose Format > Checklist, or press Command-Shift-L.

Round circles appear next to each item. Click one to check it off ⑥. These checklists don’t hook up to a database or anything fancy like that. They just tell you what you need to know: Did you do this task, or did you not?

Attach Photos and More

El Capitan’s Notes isn’t limited to plain text and simple attachments anymore. Now you can collect all sorts of items that catch your attention. Add sketches, voice memos, Web pages, photos, videos, documents, and map locations.

Adding a Photo or Video

Perhaps you like to take a picture of the sunset every night, or you frequently snap shots of flyers and other things you see to remember later. It’s easy to add images and videos to notes and the app can display many different image file formats, including GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, MOV, and Photoshop (PSD).

Here’s are a few methods for adding a photo or video to a note:

• Click the Photo Browser button to look through your Photos and Photo Booth images ⑦. (The programs must be open on your Mac.) Drag and drop an image or video from the palette to insert it in a note. If the image is a video, you can click the palette’s Play button to preview it.

  

• Drag and drop an image onto a note, say from the Finder, an email message, or a document.
• Choose Edit > Attach File (or press Command-Shift-A), navigate to one in the Finder, and click Attach.
• Control-click on a note and choose Import Image to capture an image from an attached camera or scanner. (Note that an iPhone connected by a Lightning cable to the Mac will show up as a camera, but the Mac’s built-in camera does not.)
• When you’re in an app—for example, Preview or Photos—click the Share button and choose Notes to send the image or video to Notes.

Adding a File

Sometimes it helps to gather the files for a project—PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, you name it. Notes can display PDFs and include links to most other file types. To add a file:

• Drag and drop a file on your note.
• Choose Edit > Attach File (or press Command-Shift-A), navigate to one in the Finder, and click Attach.

If the file is a PDF, its first page will preview in your note. Otherwise, its name will appear along with its file size and icon. Double-click the preview or link to open the file in its parent app.

Adding a Web Link

• Type the URL (Web address) and press Return. It automatically becomes a clickable link.
• To add a link to a page you see in Safari, click the Share button, choose Notes, and click Save. A note appears with a short description, the link, and, in most cases, a thumbnail representing the story or Web site.

Adding a Map

1. When in Maps, pull up the map that you want to add to a note, click the Share button, and choose Notes.
2. In the Save dialog, leave the Choose Note menu set to New Note or choose a note to append the map to.
3. Optionally, enter text. For a new note, the first paragraph of text that you enter appears as a title in the Notes list.
4. Click Save.

Deleting Content

If you change your mind about something you’ve added to a note, just select it and press Delete.

Search for Notes

Type a descriptive term in the search field at the upper right. (There’s no natural-language search in Notes yet.)

To limit your search to a only the account that’s selected in the sidebar, click the downward arrow that appears next to the magnifying glass when the search field is active and choose Current Account. Choose All Accounts (the default) to search all your notes.

Browse Your Attachments

To be a useful repository of your many and varied thoughts, Notes needs to help you find them and basic search capabilities aren’t enough. The new Attachment Browser gives you a visual way to rummage through the files you’ve attached to notes, organized by category: Photos & Videos, Sketches (from the iOS 9 Notes app, Maps, Websites, Audio, and Documents.

Showing the Browser

• Choose View > Show Attachments Browser.
• Click the Attachments button.
• Press Command-1.

Click a category name to see the files shown there ⑩.

You can’t change an item in the Attachment Browser, for instance, by selecting and deleting it. But, you can double-click a thumbnail to open it in its default application. For example, images and sketches will open in Preview (you can only make sketches in iOS 9), map information in Maps, and so on. You can also play a voice memo or video.

Exiting the Browser

Choose View > Hide Attachments Browser, press the Attachments button, or press Command-1 again.

Export and Share Notes

• It’s possible to export a note as a PDF, just choose File > Export as PDF.
• You can also share a note with another app by clicking the Share button and choosing the app’s name. For instance, click the Share button and then choose Mail to create a new message that includes the contents of your note.

Delete a Note

To remove a note, select it and then press Delete or click the Delete button. Notes has got your back: if you delete a note and change your mind right away, you can find it in the Recently Deleted folder (in the left-hand Folders sidebar ) and drag it into another folder to restore it.

Notes are permanently deleted after 30 days unless you delete them from the Recently Deleted folder first—then, they’re gone.

Copyright © 2015, Sawyer McFarland Media. All rights reserved.