The advent of micro-technology, handhelds, smartphones and whatnot doesn’t completely prevent us from using papers. We still send fax messages from a correspondence printed on paper, we still exchange business cards (the physical ones) and yes, we still use sticky notes, aka, post-its. I have a colleague whose desk is full of interconnected sticky notes that makes you wonder if this person ever did something in his life, or at least in his office life. Using sticky notes for Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 as the case may be, saves us the trouble of looking for a pen which most, if not all of the time doesn’t work. It also saves us the trouble of losing it (falling sticky notes) while we help save the environment (less paper, less trees to cut).
Run Windows Sticky Notes
There are several ways to run this application but the simplest is to type in ‘Sticky’ on the search box. You should see the application’s name in an instant and you can click on it to run. This program is pretty straightforward that you can see the sticky note and write on it right away. As expected, sticky notes are by default yellow and you can create as many sticky notes as you want, as long as they fit in the screen (although having so many of these populating your desktop would somehow defeat its purpose). I usually place just a couple at the top right-hand corner of my screen just to make them prominent. Also, those sticky notes stay on your desktop even after you shut your computer down.
Work on sticky notes
Windows sticky notes is so bare-bone that if you are not well-versed in Windows basic editing commands using the keyboard shortcuts, you will have a very limited and restricted use of this useful application. You can add more sticky notes by clicking the plus sign (+) on the upper left-hand corner of the note. You can change its size by dragging a corner and you can remove it (assuming that you’re done with it and you don’t need it anymore) by clicking on the ‘X’ button on the top-right hand corner of the note. To change its color, right click on the sticky note and choose your desired color from among the list.
Use keyboard shortcuts
Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, using sticky notes for Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 is more than just adding, deleting, enlarging and changing its color. This is where your knowledge of keyboard shortcuts will come in handy; just don’t forget to select the text before you apply the keyboard shortcut for the command to take effect. You press CTRL with B, CTRL with I, CTRL with U and CTRL with T if you want to apply bold, italics, underline and strike-through, respectively. Pressing CTRL with SHIFT and L repeatedly will give you either the bulleted or the numbered list (just like to-do-lists in the paper world). Let’s not forget CTRL with SHIFT and > to enlarge the text and CTRL with SHIFT and < to reduce its size.
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