How to Create a Note on Facebook

By Carolyn Abram from Facebook For Dummies, 4th Edition

Like blogs, Facebook Notes are ways of writing entries about your life, your thoughts, or your all-time favorite songs and then sharing them with your Facebook friends. The beauty of Notes lies in the ability to blog without needing to distribute a web address to friends so that they can go check out your blog. Instead, your friends are connected to your Profile. Therefore, when you publish a Note, it appears in their News Feeds.

No specific rules of etiquette dictate the proper length of notes or even the contents of notes. Some people like to keep them short and informative; other people like to take the extra space to say everything they want to say about a topic. Getting started on your first note is pretty straightforward:

Go to your Profile.
In the left side menu, click the header entitled Apps. From the Apps page, scroll down and click the Notes application.

This takes you to the Notes page for your Profile. Any notes you’ve written or received already appear here.

After you use the Notes application, you should see it in the future under the Apps header on your Profile page, without having to click through to the Apps page.
Click the Write a Note button at the upper right of the page.

A blank note appears.
In the Title field, type the title of your Note.
In the Body field, start writing about whatever interests you.

Facebook offers basic formatting options through the little buttons on top of the Body field. You probably recognize these from your word processing programming. The B icon makes text bold, the I icon makes text italicized, and so on. You can also create numbered or bulleted lists, as well as block quotes. The Preview function within Notes is a good way to figure out whether your formatting is working the way you want it to. To find out quickly whether your HTML tags are working, you can toggle between the Preview and Edit screens.
Tag friends who appear in your note by typing their names into the Tags field.

Facebook attempts to auto-complete as you type. When you see the name you’re looking for appear, highlight it and click Enter to select it.
Click the Add a Photo link to add photos.
Choose who can see your note using the Privacy drop-down menu.

As usual, your options are
- Public: Everyone on Facebook can see this note.
- Friends: Only your friends can see this note.
- Custom: This opens the customize privacy dialog box, which allows you to select specific people who can and cannot see this note.
- Lists: If you’ve created any custom Friend Lists on Facebook, those lists appear below the Custom option, so you can choose one of those lists to see this note.
After you finish writing, click Preview to view what your note will look like when published. Or click Save Draft if you want to come back to the Note later.

Preview opens a preview of the Note, so you can have one last glance-over before you publish it. If you’re unhappy with your preview, click the Edit button to return to the Create Note screen.

You can come back to your draft at any time by clicking the My Drafts menu item. You’ll see this on the left column of the page when you come to the Notes tab of your Profile.
When you’re happy with your Note, click Publish.

Congrats! You shared your Note and your thoughts with your friends. They can now read, like, and comment on your Notes.