Mac OS X Lion: The Missing Manual

Stickies

Stickies creates virtual Post-it notes that you can stick anywhere on your screen—a triumphant software answer to the thousands of people who stick notes on the edges of their actual monitors. Like the Stickies widget in Dashboard, you can open this program with a keystroke (highlight some text, and then press Shift-⌘-Y)—but the program is a lot more powerful than the widget.

You can use Stickies to type quick notes and to-do items, paste in Web addresses or phone numbers you need to remember, or store any other little scraps and snippets of text you come across. Your electronic Post-it notes show up whenever the Stickies program is running (Figure 10-21).

Creating Sticky Notes

The first time you launch Stickies, a few sample notes appear automatically, describing some of the program’s features. You can quickly dispose of each sample by clicking the close button in the upper-left corner of each note or by choosing File→Close (⌘-W). Each time you close a note, a dialog box asks if you want to save it. If you click Don’t Save (or press ⌘-D), the note disappears permanently.

To create a new note, choose File→New Note (⌘-N). Then start typing or:

• Drag text in from any other program, such as TextEdit, Mail, or Microsoft Word. Or drag text clippings from the desktop directly into your note. You can also drag a PICT, GIF, JPEG, or TIFF file into a note to add a picture. You can even drag a sound or movie in. (A message asks if you’re sure you want to copy the whole whopping QuickTime ...