On this page
- About editorial notes
- Notes panel overview
- Use Notes Mode
- Add a note
- Convert text to a note
- Convert notes to text
- Navigate between notes
- Split a note
- Expand or collapse notes
- Select and open a note in Layout view
- Edit a note
- Check spelling or find/change text in notes
- Move or duplicate notes
- Delete notes
- Printing and exporting notes
- Specify note preferences
Editorial
notes are brief comments or annotations for yourself or other contributors.
In Galley and Story views, all notes are displayed inline (within
the text), and the content of the note is displayed between note
bookends 
. In
Layout view, each note is indicated by a note anchor 
. The
content of the note is displayed in the Notes panel and can be color-coded
for each user.
The Notes panel contains the name of the note’s author, the date and time it was last modified, the story label, the page number, the note number out of total notes, the number of characters and words, and the content of the note.
A. User color B. Show/Hide notes C. Go to note anchor D. Go to previous note E. Go to next note F. New note G. Delete note
Note:
Regardless of which view you are using, the content of the Notes panel appears the same.
Notes Mode is a convenient way to add, split, or delete notes, depending on where the insertion point is located or what text is selected.
-
To create a new note, place the insertion point in text.
To convert text to a note, select the text.
To split a note, place the insertion point inside a note.
To convert the note to text, select the note bookends (in Galley view or Story view).
To move the insertion point out of a note, place the insertion point at the beginning or end of the note.
, click
where you want to place the note.You can add as many notes as you want in any location. However, you cannot create a note within another note.
You can also add a note using Notes Mode.
A new note is created. The selected text is removed from the body of the story and pasted into the new note. The note anchor or bookend is located where the text you selected was cut.
If you add notes to a linked InCopy story, they also appear in the story in InDesign, and can be edited in InDesign.
You can also convert text to a note using Notes Mode.
Note:
You can assign keyboard shortcuts to convert a word, line, paragraph, or story to a note. Choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and then choose Notes Menu from the Product Area menu. Add a shortcut to the command, and then click OK.
Note:
If you select only a portion of the note contents when you convert the contents to text, the original note will be divided into two separate notes, and the portion of the note contents that is converted to text will appear between the two new notes.
When
you navigate through notes, the active text insertion point moves
from the current note anchor to the anchor of the next or previous
note. When navigating between notes in Layout view, click the Go
to Note Anchor button 
to
view the note anchor associated with the note displayed in the Notes
panel.
or
the Go To Next Note button 
in
the Notes panel.Note:
In the Galley and Story views, you can use the Find/Change command to locate a note. The Notes section of the Preferences dialog box contains a setting to include notes in Find/Change searches.
When expanded, the content of the note appears between the bookends. As you enter the content of the note, the bookends move apart to accommodate the text. You can collapse the bookends to hide the content of the note.
or
the end-note bookend 
.A
note anchor marks
the location of a note in Layout view. The Notes panel displays
the contents of the note, along with specific information about
the note.
- In
Galley view or Story view, select the Type tool
, and
then click between the bookends of the note you want to edit, and
make your changes. - In Layout View, select the Type tool , click
the note anchor to open the note in the Notes panel, and make your
changes.
Note:
If you choose Change All while spell-checking or finding text, text in collapsed notes is ignored in Galley View or Story View, but all occurrences of the text are replaced in Layout View.
- To delete a single note, Shift+Alt‑click (Windows) or Shift+Option-click (Mac OS) the start-note or end-note bookend to select the note, and then choose Notes > Delete Note.
- To delete all notes in the active story, choose Notes > Remove Notes From Story.
- To delete all notes in the document, choose Notes > Remove All Notes.
When you print an InCopy document, you can print any notes that are included in the document at the same time. You can also export notes from InCopy as PDF annotations. However, notes in tables are not exported as PDF annotations.
Preferences settings let you set the color for note anchors, bookends, and backgrounds when inline in the Galley and Story views. You can also choose to display note info as a tool tip, as well as choose whether to include note content in Find/Change operations and spell checking in the Galley and Story views.
-
Specify whether you want to include inline note content when using the Find/Change and Spell Check commands (in Galley and Story views only).
Note:
In Layout view, you cannot use the Find/Change and Spell Check commands to search for the contents of notes, regardless of the settings in the Preferences dialog box. However, Change All does edit the contents of notes.
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