A lady in distress ... Can you help with this feature of the Notes part of Outlook

  • Thread starter Thread starter JER
  • Start date Start date
J

JER

When opening the Notes feature in Outlook 2003, how do I prevent the program
from going to the end of the alphabetized list of Note subjects? Every time
I open the Notes feature, the highlight goes clear to the end of the list of
Notes and sits on the last heading/subject or Note!!! If you understand how
to keep this from happening, please, a step by step adjustment for a
relatively new user of the program. Why shouldn't the highlight rest on the
first rather than the last Note in the list like most programs would do?

Thanks

Liz
 
When opening the Notes feature in Outlook 2003, how do I prevent the
program from going to the end of the alphabetized list of Note
subjects? Every time I open the Notes feature, the highlight goes clear
to the end of the list of Notes and sits on the last heading/subject or
Note!!! If you understand how to keep this from happening, please, a
step by step adjustment for a relatively new user of the program. Why
shouldn't the highlight rest on the first rather than the last Note in the list like most programs would do?

Thanks

Liz
Click to expand...

I'm going to guess that you're using a list view (as opposed to "icons")
and you have the view sorted by "Created" with the newest one at the bottom.
(or some semblance of that) That's the only way I could duplicate the
behavior you're describing. Try clicking the "Created" heading to flip
the sort such that the newest item is at the top and see if that helps.
 
Ben, I'm sorry but your directions are not really user friendly. (smile)
Where is the "Created" heading? Went there, and looked, but ..... As
mentioned in my post, I am fairly new at Outlook.

Liz
 
Ben, I'm sorry but your directions are not really user friendly. (smile)
Where is the "Created" heading? Went there, and looked, but ..... As
mentioned in my post, I am fairly new at Outlook. Ah, found "Created" and
fiddled with it.
Subjects come up alphabetized ... but Notes still load with highlight at the
bottom of the list. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get the setting
right so as to start at the top of the list.

Liz
 
Ben, I'm sorry but your directions are not really user friendly.
(smile) Where is the "Created" heading? Went there, and looked, but
..... As mentioned in my post, I am fairly new at Outlook. Ah, found
"Created" and fiddled with it.
Subjects come up alphabetized ... but Notes still load with highlight
at the bottom of the list. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get the
setting right so as to start at the top of the list.
Click to expand...

Well...if they don't have to be in "list" format you could try going to
View | Arrange By | Current View and change it to "Icons" which always
comes up with the first note highlighted for me.
 
Ben (or anyone else who has a solution to this quirk)

OK, I was able to run through the various possible settings .... all but the
icon view wants to open Notes at the bottom of the alphabetized list. That
would not make sense either to a novice like me or a rocket scientist. When
you use the icon view ... true, the highlight is at the top of the list ...
but the screen is also all jumbled up with scores of icons, making it even
more difficult to find what you are look for even though they are
alphabetized.

I just want a neat, (ladies like things neat and organized) single column of
notes in alphabetized fashion with the first note highlighted at the top.
Why should Outlook (Notes) open the file at the end of the list? That just
does not equate with common reasoning. Is what I am asking for, too much to
ask ... impossible with this program? My Palm desktop organizes its notes
or memos in "the correct" fashion. Please don't ask why I just don't go
ahead and use it instead of Outlook. (smile) I think the reason is rather
obvious.

Liz
 
Are you sure the icon list is sorted alphabetically? Default sort order
is by date and if you imported them from the pda, it may have been alphabetically
with the created date of "z" notes newest, so it's on top.
View, toolbar, Advanced - on the advanced toolbar is a views selector.
At the bottom is Define views - change the sort order of the view.
FWIW, the icon view is the worst one IMHO. Use the Notes list view and
sort by subject. The highlighted note will be the last one viewed or the
top one, depending on when you last viewed a note.


Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)




[Posted using NewsLook NNTP add-in for Outlook]
 
This is Liz's husband Jerry. As a last resort, since nothing else works I
reinstalled Outlook, and we followed Diane's directions very carefully. (we
thought) The results are exactly as described earlier. This is very
frustrating, and we feel bad about your wasted time.

There were however, a few blank spots in earlier directions. For example
selecting "Define views" takes you to a dialog box called "Custom view
organizer" .. what to do here? We highlighted "notes list" and then
"modify." Then the Box "Custom View Notes List". Under "Fields", "Subject
only" is listed. "Group by"/none. "Sort" shows/"Subject"/"Descending".
"'Filter"/off. Other selections not modified. Click OK and back to "Custom
view organizer". At the bottom of this box, "Only show views created for
this folder" remains unchecked. We click apply view and box closes
automatically. Exit "Outlook"/load ''Outlook"/ "Notes"/ Now the last
alphabetized note starting with a "W" is highlighted at the top of the list
or page. Unbelievable! Same procedure followed only selecting "ascending"
instead of "descending," and we are back to square one with highlighting
still on the "W" subject, but back to the bottom or the list or page. Now,
if you are doing something to get it to work, then we are doing something
wrong.

Jerry and Liz (lady and husband both in distress .... and .... frustrated!)
 
Ben, I am using Outlook 2003

--
From Jerry & Liz Bohley ([email protected])
Bethelmail.org is a privately owned domain.
There is no relationship to the Society's branch
Please do not give my email address to anyone,
nor include it in any group or mass mailings
 
my two cents...

I've been following this thread with great interest, because JER's
experience has been mine, both with Outlook 2003 and before, with Outlook
2002. Like JER, I use the Notes List view, and my notes are sorted ascending
on Subject. Whenever I switch to the Notes view after opening Outlook, I
find that the last note is highlighted.

Reading this thread has led me to do some experiments. Today I opened
Outlook, switched to my notes, and selected Customize Current View. I
clicked the Reset Current View button and observed that Outlook changed the
sort from ascending on Subject to descending on Created. I closed Outlook
and reopened it, and when I switched to notes, the first one was
highlighted.

I brought up the Customize View dialog box again and changed the sort back
to ascending on Subject. Closed Outlook; opened it; switched to notes --
last note highlighted.

I created a new view from scratch, including in it the fields from the Notes
List view and sorting ascending on Subject. I applied that view, closed
Outlook, opened it, switched to notes -- last note highlighted.

My conclusion, based on experience and confirmed by these experiments, is
this: so long as you sort the Notes List view in ascending order on the
Subject field, Outlook will highlight the last note in the list. If, on the
other hand, you sort on Created, Outlook will highlight the first one. As I
say, this has been my experience as well as JER's, for me both in Outlook
2002 and 2003.
 
Well now, isn't this getting interesting. We were so frustrated, we left and
went out for a couple of hours .... supper and etc. Came back for an
additional look. DDM is correct. I also got a similar result earlier.
Couldn't even remember how I did it, however. I tried so many things. I
could get the high light at the top of the list, but never resting at the
top of a group of notes that descended in alphabetic order. So the problem
remains. You cannot (I cannot) have a list of notes in alphabetic order with
the highlight at the top of the list. I hate to waste any more of my time,
that of my wife, Liz, or anyone else. Someone please tell us for sure that
it can or cannot be done.

Jerry
 
Hi,

Please try this as a temporary workaround.

(1) Click to sort by subject in Notes folder (until alpabetically
ascending).
(2) Navigate to Tools->Options->Other menu choice.
(3) Click 'Advanced Options' button.
(4) Select 'Notes' in the 'Startup in this folder' drop-down field.
(5) Click 'Ok'. Click 'Ok' again.
(6) Close Outlook.
(7) Open Outlook.

You'll notice that Outlook will startup in the Notes folder and the
first/top note will be highlighted. The good thing about this approach
is that Outlook will now retain the current target in the Notes folder
across the entire session.

Meaning, you launch Outlook, starts in Notes folder, first note
highlighted. You select a different note(e..g Note#3) in the list.
Navigate to your Inbox, when you return to the Notes folder note #3
will still be highlighted. Of course the process would hold true for
note #1 as well.

Ultimately there is probably a registry setting somewhere which can
force the first note to be highlighted when launching Outlook in
another folder (Inbox, etc) and then navigating to the Notes folder.

You can also use a startup switch to accomplish the same thing, but
I'll only include it here for reference sake.

Navigate to Start->Run.
Type "outlook /select outlook:notes" (w/o quotes) in the Open field.
Click Ok.

Note: You may need to specify the full path for Outlook depending on
how your system is setup. If so, just right-click the shortcut icon
for Outlook, and copy the full path from the 'Target' field and then
paste it in the Run field.

I'll continue my search for a registry setting fix.

Cheers,

V
 
Thanks, Rob
That is an acceptable workaround. At least it will satisfy my lady's
frustration. We spent a lot of time on this one. Sure seems like there
should be an easier way to "get there from here." Some way that even a
newbie could figure out. Anyway, thanks again ... and thanks to all the
others who joined efforts to try and solve this one.

Jerry

--
From Jerry & Liz Bohley ([email protected])
Bethelmail.org is a privately owned domain.
There is no relationship to the Society's branch
Please do not give my email address to anyone,
nor include it in any group or mass mailings
 
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