PDA Women / Handy Palm Tips & Tricks Part 2
by Jake Jacobs
In the 3-plus years of using Palm handhelds (upgraded a few times since the Palm Pilot Professional model I began with in December, 1997), I have gathered many useful tips & tricks. These tips & tricks are practical, so you can put them to use right away and use them every day. Some of them are right out of the Palm users manual; some have been gleaned from articles like this and other Palm users and some I've discovered myself.
I've collected these tips & tricks in a list on the Palm Memo Pad application, which I refer to often and can beam to other Palm users I meet. I now want to share this collection with you, in hopes that you will benefit and get even more effective use of your Palm handheld.
To see Handy Palm Tips & Tricks: Part 1, check out Palm Tipsheet 14.0:
http://www.palmtipsheet.com/html.texts/tipsht14.html#tips-tricks
General Tips & Hints
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Just Write, Baby! -- In the built-in Datebook, To Do and Memo Pad applications, just start writing and a new entry will be created automatically. You don't have to tap the New button.
Let Your Digits do the Timing -- In Datebook if you start writing a number as the first digit of the appointment start time, the 'Time Set' screen will appear. You can continue writing the next digits of the start time or tap the remaining digits on the 'Time Set' screen. If you then write an A or a P you can set AM or PM. For example if you want an appointment at 8:30 AM, simply write 83A (notice you don't need the final 0; for 8:00 AM simply write 8A). If you started in the Datebook by writing letters instead of numbers, a new 'No Time' entry will be created.
The Button Cycle -- You can cycle through the categories in an application by pressing its application button repeatedly. For example, every time you press the Memo Pad button, the next category will be selected. This works for Address Book and To Do also. In the Datebook you can press the up and down buttons to cycle through the day in the day view, week in the week view and month in the month view.
Movin' On Up... -- Do you have a favorite category that you would like to see at the beginning of the category list? Rename the category by adding a blank space before the first letter. From now on, your favorite will appear at the top of the list. If you have for example three categories you would like to have at the top of the category list, put three spaces in front of the first one, two spaces in front of the second and one space in front of the third. The first, second and third will appear in that order. Now when you cycle through the categories as described in the previous tip, your favorite three categories will be shown before the others.
Email on the Go -- Did you know you can send and receive email with your Palm handheld? Consider enabling email to have your email transferred to and from your Palm computer and your PC every time you HotSync. Compose emails anywhere and the next time you HotSync those messages will be sent through your PC's email system. Any incoming emails will be transferred to the Palm handheld to be read at your leisure during the day. See the Palm users handbook for details on how to enable email. Note: Mac users need the $30 MultiMail Conduit to HotSync email to their Palm handhelds:
http://www.actualsoft.com/prod_macconduit_details.htm
Simplify Your Strokes -- Learn the menu commands for often used menu items such as Cut (/X), Copy (/C) and Paste (/P). These allow you to edit entries by copying, cutting and pasting just like you can do with your PC word processor. With Palm OS 3.5 or later, you don't even have to write the letter, just write the slash, /, and then tap the icon for cut, copy or paste. Saves loads of time.
Find it Quick -- The Find command searches the current application first. If you want to search a particular application, then open that application before tapping the Find button. Find will search in the current application before it searches in the other applications. If you want to find another occurrence of a word that is currently at or near the cursor, highlight the text. Highlighted text is automatically placed in the Find field. When you tap the Find icon, the highlighted text will already be inserted in the Find field for you.
Erase it Quick -- You can delete an item from the Datebook, To Do or Memo Pad by deleting all the text in the item rather than tapping the Delete button. But if you delete by deleting the text, the item will not be archived on the next HotSync. If you want to archive a deleted entry, use the Delete button.
Return to Sender... -- Each field can hold multiple lines of information. Use the return stroke (diagonal stroke top right to bottom left of the letter side of the Graffiti area) to create a new line. This is true of any field such as telephone numbers, addresses, Datebook and To Do entries. You can even add returns as blank lines to improve legibility.
Graffiti Tips & Helpful Hints
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Backspace and Cursor Tricks -- Learn how to backspace, move the cursor left and move the cursor right:
To backspace make a horizontal stroke from right to left in the Graffiti area. This is like the backspace key on your computer keyboard and will erase the character to the left of the cursor.
To move the cursor one character to the left without erasing, make a continuous left-right stroke: start at the right side of the Graffiti area, make a horizontal stroke left and then return back to the right without lifting the stylus. This will move the cursor to the left by one character without erasing.
Similarly, to move the cursor one character to the right without erasing, make a continuous right-left stroke.
One-Stroke Graffiti Reference -- You can invoke the Graffiti help screen anytime you want with a single stroke. Just use the 'power stroke' by starting from the Graffiti area and stroke up into the viewing area to summon the Graffiti help screen. If your 'power stroke' is set to do something else such as turn on the backlight, bring up the keyboard, turn off and lock your Palm, or beam data, you can change it to the Graffiti help screen. Go into 'Prefs' application, then choose the preferences category 'Buttons', then click the 'Pen' button and select 'Graffiti Help'.
Use Those ShortCuts -- Store often used phrases as ShortCuts. For example if you use the phrase 'Meeting with' often, then program a ShortCut of the two letter combination 'me' to represent 'Meeting with.' Go into Prefs application to the category 'ShortCuts' and tap the New button. Enter the ShortCut Name (me) and ShortCut Text (Meeting with) in the blanks. Remember, the ShortCut stroke looks like a lower case L.
Use shortcuts to enter characters that are not available from Graffiti or the keyboard. For instance, you can set [ShortCut stroke]12 for a special character (such as ∏). There is no way to enter the special characters like this using Graffiti or the built in Palm keyboard. But the Palm will display them. Using a workaround, you can paste any special characters into a new memo on the Palm Desktop application. Then HotSync, and these characters will be in the new memo in your Palm. Copy the first special character from the synced memo into the clipboard and go into Preferences-->ShortCuts. Now tap 'New' and enter 12 into ShortCut Name and paste the ∏ character into ShortCut Text field. The next time you want to write your special character, just use [ShortCut stroke]12.
Datebook Tips & Helpful Hints
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Blank Those Lines! -- The default setting of the Datebook is to show a full day of blank times from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM like this:
8:00 ____________
9:00 ____________
10:00 ___________
11:00 ___________
12:00 ___________
1:00 ____________
2:00 ____________
3:00 ____________
4:00 ____________
5:00 ____________
6:00 ____________
I prefer a blank screen with only lines shown for entered appointments. In Date Book if you set Options-->Preferences Start Time and End Time both to 12:00 pm, then a blank day looks like this:
12:00 ___________
The AM/PM Trick -- If you add a 10 o'clock appointment, how do you know if it is AM or PM? Easy. The 12:00 blank line is your 'noon marker.' Any appointment before 12:00 is AM and any appointment after 12:00 is PM. The following two appointments illustrate this point:
9:00 This is the AM appointment
10:00 ___________
12:00 ___________
9:00 This is the PM appointment
10:00 ___________
Details, Details, Details -- To change a time or date, select the event, tap 'Details' button at the bottom and choose the Time or Date and change it. You don't have to erase (delete) an entry and rewrite (paste) it somewhere else. I have to admit, when I first starting using my Palm handheld, I forgot about this and was cutting and pasting to move appointments. I'd forgotten about tapping the 'Details' button and selecting the 'Time' button or 'Date' button to change the appointment time or date.
History Always Repeats -- You can set events that repeat on the same day of the week (such as Thanksgiving, Daylight Savings Time, Memorial Day) by setting the repeat to Monthly, Every 12 Months, Repeat by Day. Some annual events occur on the same date: Christmas is always December 25. But other events such as Daylight Savings Time occur on the same DAY not date. To set the start of Daylight Savings Time, go to the first Sunday in April and enter an untimed event -- call it Daylight Savings Time. Now tap 'Details', then 'Repeat' and set Every 12 Month(s), End on 'No End Date' and Repeat by 'Day' and tap OK. If there's an ambiguity, you will be asked, for example on U.S. Thanksgiving day, if you want the fourth or last Thursday of the month.
Repeat it Forward -- Also keep in mind that changing text or notes of repeating events changes ALL occurrences without prompting you. But deleting or changing the time or date asks you to choose from 'Current', 'Future' (which changes only from the selected date forward), or 'All'.
Address Book Tips & Helpful Hints
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Show Me the Number -- The first telephone number that you enter into the Address Book for a new address will be the one displayed in the browse list. It will be the phone number selected in Edit-->Details, Show in List. But you can select a different number later by changing the Edit-->Details, Show in List section of the particular entry at a later time.
Quick Business Card Beaming -- Use your own name, phone, and address entry as your business card, that can be beamed to another Palm by simply holding the Address Book button down for a few seconds. The Address Book application can have one, and only one entry designated as the 'Business Card.' This business card will be beamed whenever you want by holding the Address Book button down for a few seconds regardless of what application was running. This will exit the running application, however. To set your personal Address Book entry as your business card tap Menu--Record and tap 'Select Business Card'.
Where's That Name? -- If you sort your Address Book by last names, not companies, you may in some cases want to sort an entry by company and yet have the person's name included in the entry also. Here is a way to do this: for those entries where you want the entry sorted by company, put the person's first and last names in the 'Title' field (leave the First name and Last name fields blank). The person's name will be displayed immediately under the company, and the entry will sort on company.
Memo Pad Tips & Helpful Hints
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Keep it Private! Create a separate category just for private memos. Call it 'Private.' This way you will know where they all are (the list will appear blank when Change Security is set to Hide Records). With Palm OS 3.5 there is less of a need for this if you set the security to Mask Records. This selection shows the memo in the list, but the title is grayed out. If you have private Address Book or To Do entries, you can also create a 'Private' category for each of these applications.
PC Palm Desktop Tips & Helpful Hints
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Copy and Paste -- You can copy and paste into and out of the PC Desktop program, such as addresses and memos. If you copy the entry or entries from the Desktop Address Book list and then paste it into a word processor document, for example, the entry or entries will be nicely formatted with each field on a separate line. You can then edit in the word processor.
Drag Your Dates -- Drag an event from the day-view into the small month view on the top right of the screen to change the date. The time will remain the same.
Click to Dial -- Right click an Address Book entry and select Dial to auto dial it on your modem telephone line.
[Jake Jacobs is a retired electrical engineer and part-time flight instructor who has used a Palm handheld since 1997. He enjoys writing in his spare time.]
Originally appeared in Palm Tipsheet 24, November 2001.