Notes is another iOS application that has been brought over to Mountain Lion and many find it a nice flexible alternative to the Stickies app. The setup of the Notes application is basic – the left side features a list of all of the notes you’ve created. Clicking on any of the notes in the left pane will display its contents in the right pane. Additionally, you can create folders by which you can group your notes.

The Notes app is a bit different than the other apps that sync data between your devices in that it uses the IMAP protocol to sync rather than iCloud. Thus, the folder list will display all of the various IMAP accounts that you have set up.

There is a hidden pane that displays all of the IMAP accounts that you have set up that support the Notes app. To display it, choose View > Show Folders List from the menu or click the Show Folders List icon (the one on the left) on the bottom of the Notes Window. Click the icon on the right to hide the folders list.

To create a new note, select the folder in the Folders List and then click the + symbol. A new note is then created and your cursor is positioned in the new note in the right pane. The first few words that you type on the first line become the title of the note. After typing the title, press Return and then enter the rest of the content of your note. A nice feature of Notes is that you can hyperlinks into your notes which, when clicked, will launch the linked Website in your browser. To add a hyperlink, display the Web page in your browser and then drag the Web site icon from the Address Bar to the content area of a note.

You can also embed files and images into your notes. Simply drag the file into the note’s content area and the object becomes part of the note. Note however, that when syncing your notes to your iOS devices, embedded files will not open. As of this writing, they will only open on your Mac.

Notes support rich text and allow you to format your notes by:

• Changing fonts, colors and styles
• Aligning text
• Changing writing direction
• Create bulleted, dashed or numbered lists
• Indenting paragraphs

Adding accounts works just like the Reminders application. Select the account in System Preferences (or choose Notes > Accounts from the menu) and then enable the Notes application.

To Use Notes

1. Select Go > Applications from the Finder menu.
2. Click the Notes icon in the Applications folder.
3. To create a new note:
   a. Click the + (plus) icon on top of the Reminders window
   Or
   Select File > New Note from the menu
   Or
   Press the ⌘ + N keystroke combination.
   b. Type in your note content.
4. To display your accounts, choose View > Show Folders List from the menu or click the Show Folders List icon (the one on the left) on the bottom of the Notes Window.
5. To create a folder, select File > New Folder from the menu Or Press the ⌘ +Shift + N keystroke combination.
6. To move a note, click and drag it to the desired folder.
7. To embed a document or an image into a note, click and drag the file into the content area of a note.
8. To insert a hyperlink into a note, display the Web page in your browser and then drag the Web site icon from the Address Bar to the content area of a note.
9. To format the text of a note: a. Select the text you want to format. b. Choose Format from the menu. c. Make your selections.

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