This facility allows the user to create both Personal and Corporate notes linked to specific data sheets on pests, crops or countries. Corporate notes can be added, viewed and edited by colleagues who have access to the same network drive.
Installing the Notepad facility
Creating a User note
Softlinking
Inserting filenames and Internet addresses
Subheadings
Importing and exporting to and from User notes
View and Edit Notepad records
Using Notepads from previous versions of the CPC
To set up the Notepads, select File from the top menu, then Preferences and Notepad set up. Then click on the type of notepad button required, Personal or Corporate.
For stand-alone systems, only the Personal notepad needs to be installed. For networked versions of the Compendium, a Personal and a Corporate notepad may be installed. The Corporate notepad should be installed on a network drive that is accessible to all users.
To create a User note, click on the 
button on the data sheet toolbar, or go to User Notes in the View drop down menu. A free-text box then appears in which
your notes, results or comments can be written. Editing functions are available from the tool bar at the top.
Any text in the user note is immediately active and can be softlinked. Select any word or multi-word term in your User note, and then click the
Soft link button to display a different data sheet, reference or a
Glossary definition. From the displayed window other options may be chosen. For example, highlighting a crop and selecting
Soft link produces a list of duplicate names. From here a data sheet
of the chosen crop can be accessed. Alternatively, the softlink
button on the Tool bar can be used.
Filenames of documents can be inserted in the User Note. These may be word processor documents, spreadsheets, additional pictures, etc. Softlinking from these entries will start the corresponding application (if it is installed on the computer) and load the document.
An Internet address (URL) may also be typed into a User Note. When this is softlinked and if a web browser is installed and the computer is connected to the Internet, the website will be displayed.
Format: The File Link and Internet Address types entries in a User Note must be contained by < and > in order for the softlink to work correctly, e.g. <http://www.cabi.org>.
If you wish to give your notes subheadings, type ^Heading 1, ^Heading 2, etc. and your subheadings will be listed with all the existing data sheet subheadings in the data sheet text (Descriptions) window.
Notes or other text can be imported into the User notes. After selecting Import, choose Text to find the required file. The most common file type for this is a .TXT file, usually produced from Windows Notepad. Other formats are acceptable but may need to be modified after import to remove unwanted tabs, blank lines, etc. The Import option also allows you to import a Link to a file by browsing your available folders.
User notes can be Exported from the User note editing window, or with other data sheet text sections now that the list of data sheet texts includes the new note.
| All the user notes that have been created can be viewed and edited from the Main Menu by clicking on the Notepads icon or from the top Menu Bar by selecting the Goto menu. |  |
Here, user notes can be sorted according to species name or date in the Index box and displayed in the Records box. The date when the record was last modified is shown after the title of the user note. The Comments box below displays the user note itself and can be edited. Alternatively the species or user note title can be double-clicked in the Records box to display the notepad editor itself.
The Add record button on the right hand side can be used to add user notes that are not specifically linked to a data sheet, e.g., for a new or unidentified pest, or for notes under a theme or linked to a research organization. After giving the new user note a title, it can be accessed and edited as described above. The Delete record button enables specific user notes to be deleted after highlighting a record in the Record box.
If you created a User Notepad in either CPC, Module 1 (1997 or 1998 Editions) or the Global Module (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 or 2003 Editions), you may wish to connect the 2004 Edition to those Notepads. Guidance is provided in the Help.