Outlook: Changing an Edited Note's Subject

If I change the first line of a note, then close it, the view still displays the original subject. How can I control what subject the view shows?

As the Help topic for the Subject property states, "For a NoteItem object, the Subject property is a read-only String that is calculated from the body text of the note." Unfortunately, Outlook derives the Subject property's value only when you create an item. Subsequent revisions don't change the subject.

If you really need to change the subject, you need to create a new item with the text that you want in the first line. One strategy is to update the existing notes so that they have the information in the first line that you want to appear as the subject. Then, select them in the view and run the Outlook Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code that Listing 2 shows.

For each selected item, the RenameNotes subroutine creates a new note with the same text and other properties as the original, saves the new note, then deletes the original. The new note automatically gets a Subject value derived from the revised first line.