How to Keep a Journal in The Journal

The Journal is designed to help you keep a journal--any kind of journal you want: a personal journal, a daily diary, a professional journal, class notes, or anything else.

Getting Started

The Journal automatically creates two entry categories for you: "Daily Journal" and "Notebook".

Daily Journal

The Daily Journal category is a standard (or "daily entry") category. In other words, every day will have its own, unique entry. When you start The Journal, the entry for the current day is brought up automatically. You can type in this entry just as you would a word processor or text editor.

To create a past entry, simply click on a past date on the calendar. A new, empty entry will be brought up for you. The entry is not added to the "tree" of dates below the calendar yet, because the entry is empty. Once you begin adding text to the entry, then it will show up in the date tree. You can also create future entries just by selecting the date on the calendar and entering text.

As the days and weeks go by, your collection of entries will grow. In the tree of dates, your entries will be organized by year and month.

Notebook

The Notebook category is a loose-leaf category. Unlike the Daily Journal category, the Notebook category entries are not tied to dates. Instead, the entries are named.

To create a new entry, click on the Entry menu, choose Create New Entry, and then Document (or press F9). This will create a new document entry. Enter the name you want the entry to have and hit ENTER. You now have a new loose-leaf entry following the first one in the tree.

Press F10 ("Create New Sub-Entry") to create a new entry as a sub-entry of the current entry. A loose-leaf entry can have as many sub-entries as you want. Loose-Leaf entries can also be organized by dragging and dropping them in the tree.

Click on the second entry in the tree and "drag" it up to the first entry. Then release it. The second entry is now a "sub-entry" of the first entry.

This gives you the basics of creating and using entries in The Journal.

Using Categories

The Journal's categories provide a powerful tool for organizing your journaling or other writing. Each category provides a separate "folder" of entries.

Creating a New Category

The Daily Journal and Notebook categories are created for you automatically, but you are not limited to just those. You can have as many or as few categories as you want.

To create a new category, click on the Category menu and choose "New Category..." That will bring up the New Category Wizard.

Enter the name of the category you would like, then choose whether you want a standard category or a loose-leaf category. If you choose a standard category, you will then have to specify how often you want the category to create new entries. Choose "Every Day" for now.

Your next choice is type of entry. Choose "Normal Document Entry".

Finally, you are shown all your choices. You can either go "Back" to edit your selections, or "Finish" to create the category. Click on "Finish".

The new category is added to your collection of category tabs.

Once the new category is created, you can begin making entries immediately.

And that's all there is to it!

Relax! To make The Journal even easier to use, if you have any questions at all, just ask (davidrm@davidrm.com) . I'm here for you.

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