There is a notes panel on every page here

Look for the Notes button in the corner of the screen. It is on every page of this site.

Open it, type anything you want to remember, and keep reading. What you write follows you from page to page — jot a question while you are on a condition page and it is still there when you reach the evidence pages. When you are done, Print gives you the notes on their own, and your browser's print dialog is also where you choose Save as PDF if you would rather keep a file or email it.

That is the whole feature. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install.

What happens to what you type

It is kept while you move around this site, and discarded when you close the tab. Nothing is sent anywhere — there is no account on this site, no database, and nothing on the other end to receive it.

Being precise about this matters more here than on most sites, because what goes in that box tends to be symptoms, treatment and service history:

• It lives in your browser's per-tab memory. A different tab does not see it, and a tab opened after you close this one starts empty.
• It is not saved to disk by this site, not sent over the network, and not included in anything this site measures.
• Printing or saving a PDF puts a copy wherever you send it. That is the point, and worth remembering on a shared printer.

Two honest caveats. While the tab is open the text is in the page, so lock or close it if you step away from a shared computer — and use Clear when you are finished. And browsers that offer reopen closed tab, or that restore your tabs after a restart, can bring the notes back; that is much narrower than notes being saved permanently, but it is not nothing.

If your browser blocks this kind of per-tab memory, the panel says so when you open it, and tells you to print before navigating rather than letting you lose something.

Turning it off

The panel has a Turn off button. It clears whatever is in it, stops the panel opening, and stays off for the rest of that tab — useful if you are on a library terminal or a borrowed computer and would rather the box not be there at all. The button stays visible and says Notes off; pressing it again turns them back on.

What this is not

It is not a VA form, and nothing from it should be mailed to VA. The printed sheet says so across the top. VA's forms are the official ones on the forms page, and your representative will tell you which form anything belongs on.

It is for notes about what you are reading, not a place to keep your records. Your Social Security number, your claim number and your documents belong with VA or your representative, not in a box on a website — the panel says so where you type, and that is guidance rather than a rule the page can enforce.

It does not ask you anything. There is one box called Notes. No questions about when symptoms began, no list of conditions, nothing that scores or evaluates your case. Which conditions to file, on what theory, and with which evidence attached is the work an accredited representative does — free, through a VSO, with your actual file in front of them.

What is worth writing down

A few things that reliably help, from the pages that cover them properly:

• Questions, as they occur to you. The ones you think of while reading are the ones you forget on the way to the appointment.
• What you want to be sure you mention. Anything you would be annoyed with yourself for leaving out.
• Documents you have and documents you are waiting on. Getting your private records is usually the highest-value thing you can do yourself, and it is slow — so start before the appointment, not after.
• Your own timeline, however untidy. Approximate dates are fine when you label them as approximate. That holds for a written statement too.
• What you were told, and by whom, and when. Fill that in during or straight after. It is nearly impossible to reconstruct a month later and it is the part nobody writes down.

Next: find accredited help · build an evidence plan · prepare for an exam

Reviewed October 7, 2026