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Do you often use Notepad to create quick
notes to yourself and then save the file on your desktop? While the
process is quite simple, there is an alternative that you might
want to investigate. This alternative takes advantage of the fact
that WordPad can generate and the Desktop can host special OLE
objects called scraps.

The benefit is that creating scraps is as easy
as a quick drag-and-drop operation–and there’s no need for all the
steps involved in naming and saving the file.

Here’s how to create quick notes with WordPad
scraps:

  1. Launch WordPad.
  2. Create your note.
  3. Select/highlight the text.
  4. Drag the selection and drop it on your
    desktop.
  5. Close WordPad and click No when prompted to
    save changes.

Once you drop the selection on your desktop,
Windows XP recognizes the selection as an OLE object from WordPad
and creates a scrap, complete with a special icon with a default
title name of Scrap. To make it easier to recognize, you can rename
the scrap. When you want to view your note, just double-click it
and WordPad will open the scrap.