AtoZ is ideal for storing name and address information. The A to Z format has been in use for this very purpose for as long as paper address books have been printed, and the software equivalent is just as powerful.

At it’s simplest, all you need to do is create a new Notebook, give it a name such as “Addresses”, and start adding entries. If you want to break down the name and address information further – for example, you may wish to separate business and personal names and addresses, or you may wish to categorize them by type – you can create as many individual Notebooks as you need.

One for Personal names and addresses, another for current business contacts, and another for clients or potential clients.

AtoZ Notebook is a lot easier to use when you remember just a few shortcut keys. The free flowing text area uses all of the shortcuts that you might be familiar with if you use Microsoft Word or any word processing package on a regular basis.

Apart from that, the key shortcuts to remember are the tab navigation shortcut that jumps you to different lettered pages, and the Add and Make Header shortcuts that inserts a new entry or converts existing text into a new header.

• Ctrl + Shift + A or B or C etc. will jump to the corresponding page
• Ctrl + H will add a new header at the top of the open page, and format the fonts correctly so that all YOU need to do is start typing.
• Ctrl + M will convert the selected text into a new header, using the correct header font and header size.

Once you remember these shortcuts, AtoZ becomes far easier to use.

Yes and no.

AtoZ Notebook is a personal data manager. Though personal or private data often includes passwords, it is not limited to them. Your private address book listing names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses is data that you wouldn’t necessarily share with everyone, but it doesn’t involve passwords.

Your Swiss bank account numbers are not passwords, and neither is your passport number, the social security numbers of everyone in your family, or the birthdays of your extended family of cousins, aunts, and step-sisters.

AtoZ Notebook was designed to store all sorts of private and personal information, unlike most password managers that store only one type of private data.

Of course, if you are using the free version of AtoZ, which is limited to a single notebook, you may be using the software solely as a password manager, but if that’s the case, you’re missing out, as AtoZ comes into its own when you utilise the full potential of its multiple notebooks.

AtoZ Notebook doesn’t generate passwords for you. The option was bandied about during the design stage, and almost made it into the product. But at the last hurdle it failed to make the cut.

The reason there is no password generator in AtoZ is that it’s not a password manager. Yes, it can be used to store login details and passwords – I have a website login notebook myself – but this is not its only or even its primary purpose. AtoZ is a personal data manger, and passwords are only one small segment of personal data.

People use AtoZ Notebook format for a variety of purposes: as an address book, as a database for software licenses, as an information store for people and places, and as a login / password manager. Generating passwords is a specific function that has a role to play in only one of these, and as such, does not exist in AtoZ.

While this may change in the future, depending on feedback, AtoZ Notebook was designed to be as feature light as possible. If something could be left out without inconveniencing users, then it was left out.

And as far as I’m concerned, automatic password generation – while kind of cool – is simply not a requirement. Who amongst us can’t type eight or twelve random keys on a key board?