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How do I create a new item?
To create a New item quickly in Outlook just click the New button at the top
left part of the screen. If you click New while you’re looking at your Inbox
you’ll get a blank email message form, ready for you to send. If you’re looking
at your Contacts, click the New button to create a new Contact and so on. You
can also take advantage of the little triangle next to the New button to create
any kind of Outlook item you want, any time.
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What does Outlook Today do?
The Outlook Today page shows everything you need to know on a single screen. It
works just like a page on the World Wide Web, with underlined text that you can
click to move to the part of Outlook that interests you. For example, if you
click the word “Mail” in the Outlook Today page, Outlook displays your list of
email messages. If you print your Outlook Today page you’ll have a one-sheet
summary of everything you need to do.
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How do I turn parts of Outlook off?
You can work with any part of the Outlook screen any time, but sometimes you may
want to turn parts of the screen off to get a better view of what you’re doing.
For example, you may want to see your Calendar in the largest possible view so
that you can see a whole month’s worth of appointments in detail. In that case,
switch to the Calendar module and turn off the Outlook Bar, the Folder List and
possibly even the Toolbars to make room for the Calendar. You can turn parts of
the screen on and off through the View Menu.
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How do I delete an item in Outlook?
To delete any item in Outlook click the Delete tool on the toolbar, the one
marked with the big black X. You can also get rid of an item by clicking it and
pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. If you delete something by accident,
don’t despair, you can recover it by clicking the Deleted Items icon in the
Outlook Bar and dragging the item back to where it came from.
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How do I change calendar views?
There’s more than one way to look at your Outlook Calendar. You may want to see
your schedule a day at a time, by the week or by the month. To choose the
calendar view you want, click the Day, Work Week, Week or Month button at the
top of the Calendar screen. If you want to switch to a date that doesn’t appear
in your current view of the calendar, press Ctl+G and enter the date you want to
see. Your Calendar will automatically display the date you entered.
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How do I use my task list?
Oddly enough, the quickest way to enter a Task in Outlook is through the Outlook
Calendar. When you click the Calendar icon then the Day button, the lower right
quarter of the screen shows a little scrap of your Task list headed with a line
that says “Click here to add a new task.” So just click those words, type the
name of a task and press Enter. Your task is listed along with all the other
things you need to do.
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How do I make appointments?
Some appointments don’t need much explaining. If you’re having a casual lunch
with your friend Fred on Friday, just open your Calendar, click the Workweek
button in the toolbar and click the spot on the calendar that represents Friday
at noon to select the time. Then just type a name for your appointment,
something like “Fred” and press Enter.
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Can I drag appointments?
When you receive an email containing appointment information, you don’t need to
retype all that information into your calendar. Just drag the message from your
Inbox to the Calendar icon in the Outlook Bar. When you drop the message off,
Outlook opens a New Appointment form with the text of the message you dragged in
the Note section of the Appointment. You still need to fill in the time and date
of the appointment, but now you’ve got all essential details about who what and
where included with your appointment.
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How can I set up recurring appointments?
Some appointments just keep coming back, again and again. To turn a regular
appointment into a recurring appointment, double-click the item to open it, then
click the Recurrence button. When the Recurrence dialog box opens, choose the
Recurrence pattern you want for your appointment; daily, weekly, monthly or
yearly.
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How can I set up custom views in Outlook?
Everything you ever see in Outlook is organized into Views. A View is a way
of arranging information to make it easier to understand. You don’t ever need to
think about Outlook views if you don’t want to, because Outlook always picks a
view that’s right for the items on the screen. But if you want to get more
control over how things look on your Outlook screen, choose View/Current View
and try some of the Views listed under the Current View menu. If you don’t like
one view, pick another, there are plenty to choose from.
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How can I flag messages in Outlook?
Many email messages require you to do something; find an answer, make a
decision, look something up, whatever. That’s when flagging comes in handy. When
can’t meet the many demands that show up in your Inbox all at once, but you
don’t want to forget anything, flag the messages you want to get back to later.
If you right click a message in your Inbox and choose Flag for Follow Up,
Outlook will display a little red flag next to that message to remind you to
take action on that particular message.
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How can I sort messages in Outlook?
Your email messages are normally sorted according to the time they arrive,
with the most recent messages at the top of the list. But in Outlook you can
sort your messages any way you like. If you want to sort the messages in your
Inbox according to the subject of the message, click on the word “Subject” in
the gray box at the top of your list of messages. Your messages then appear in
alphabetical order according to the subject of the message. If you click a
second time on the word “Subject” your messages will appear in reverse
alphabetical order. Any time you click one of the gray boxes at the top of the
message list, your messages get sorted in order of the information in that
column. Normally, it’s best to sort your messages according to the date you
received them by clicking on the word “Received” so that you know which messages
arrived most recently.
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How do I view my contacts?
To get the “big picture” of the names in your Contacts list, try taking a
different View. When you choose View/Current View you’ll see a list of
predefined views of your Contact list. The views whose names start with the word
“By,” such as “By Company” or “By Location” group your contacts according to a
certain characteristic. The By Company view groups all the people who work at
one company in a single place so that you can see their names all at once.
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How do I create notes in Outlook?
Do you have yellow sticky notes all over your desk? Now you can do away with
most of your sticky notes by using the Notes feature of Outlook. To create a
Note, just choose File/New/Note (or press Ctrl+Shift+N) and type your note. When
you’re done, press the Esc key. When you want to read the notes you’ve
collected, click the Notes icon in the Outlook bar to see the things you’ve
jotted down.
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How can I get more detailed control of Outlook?
If you want more detailed control of Outlook, take advantage of the Folder
List by choosing View/Folder List. The Folder List contains everything you see
in the Outlook Bar and more. The icons on the Outlook Bar are like the buttons
on your car radio, which you use to pick your favorite stations, while the
Folder list contains all stations in between your favorites. You can create a
whole filing system for your email, contacts and tasks in the Folder List.
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How do I mark a message as unread?
When a message first arrives in your Outlook Inbox, the subject appears in
boldface to show that you haven’t read it yet. Once you read the message, the
subject appears in a plain typeface to show that you’ve read the message. But
sometimes messages arrive at a busy moment, and you only have time to “scan”
them but not read them in detail. To remind yourself to get back to a message
when you can give it your full attention, you can mark the message “Unread”
which makes the title appear in boldface again, as if you had never read it.
Just right-click the title of your message in the Inbox, and choose “Mark
Unread” from the shortcut menu.
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How can I keep a record of accomplishments in Outlook?
If you get evaluations for your job performance, it’s a good idea to keep track
of what you’ve accomplished. To keep a record of what you’ve accomplished, enter
all your tasks in Outlook and click the check box next to each item as you
complete it. Then, when evaluation time comes, go to your Task list and choose
View/Current View/Completed Tasks. You’ll see an impressive list of
accomplishments to justify that raise you deserve.
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How do I create new folders?
To manage your flood of email, create a new folder for the messages you’ve
already read. With the folder list open, right-click your Inbox folder, choose
New Folder from the Shortcut Menu that appears, type a name, such as “Saved” for
your new folder and click OK. Now you have a new folder to hold the messages
you’ve already read.
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How can I customize my Outlook bar?
The Outlook Bar makes it easy to get to the most popular parts of Outlook, but
you can also customize your Outlook bar to suit your daily work. Just choose
File/New/Outlook Bar Shortcut and select the Folder you want to add to your
Outlook Bar.
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How can I set up rules to manage my messages?
Hundreds of millions of people send email every day. Does it seem like you’re
getting messages from all of them? If you’re overwhelmed with email, set up
Rules to manage those messages. The Rules feature makes Outlook act
automatically on incoming messages to help cut down your workload. For example,
if you get routine messages from a certain person or company you can set up a
rule that moves those messages to a separate folder automatically so that you
end up with fewer messages in your Inbox. To set Rules, Click the Inbox icon,
then choose Tools/Rules Wizard and follow the prompts.
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How do I create a signature?
Many people like to add a piece of standard text to the end of each message they
send, called a signature. You can create a signature in Outlook by choosing
Tools/Options/Mail Format/Signature Picker and filling in the details of the
signature you want added to your messages.
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How do I send a virtual business card in an email?
You can use Outlook to send an electronic business card via email. The technical
name for this kind of “virtual” business card is a vCard. To send the contact
information for anybody in your Contact list, just right-click that person’s
name and choose Forward as vCard. Outlook then creates an email message with
your contact’s vCard attached. Address the message to the person with whom you
want to share the information. If you want to forward your own address
information, enter your own name and address in your Contacts list and follow
the same steps.
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How can I connect the name of a person with any Outlook item?
You can connect the name of a person with any Outlook item (except Notes) to
help you find the people involved with any item. For example, when you set up an
appointment, attach the name of the person you’re meeting to the appointment
record by clicking the Contacts button at the bottom of the Appointment form and
choosing that person’s name from your Contact list.
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How do I sort addresses in my contact list?
When you enter a person’s mailing address in a Contact record, Outlook
automatically figures out which part of the address is the street as well as
city, state and ZIP code. That comes in handy when you want to use your Contacts
for a mail merge or other time saving trick But even though Outlook figures it
out automatically, you should still check to be sure that Outlook has sorted the
address correctly as you enter new contact information. Just enter the address,
and then click the Address button to see if everything ended up in the right
place.
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Spread the Word with Distribution Lists
If you need to send an email message to the same group of people over and over,
use a Distribution List simplify your work. You can create Distribution Lists in
your Contacts module that let you send a single email message that goes to
several people. To create one, choose File/New/Distribution List and choose the
names of people from your collection of Contacts to fill the list.
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Is there a way to improve the speed of Outlook & Exchange
if I have a slow Internet connection?
Yes! Although a 56K connection will provide adequate performance, two
basic tips will help your Outlook & Exchange run as fast as possible, even with
a slow Internet connection:
(1) Work “off-line”, periodically synchronizing your computer with the Mi8
Exchange server.
Working off-line does not mean working without an Internet connection. Working
off-line means occasionally connecting to the Mi8 Exchange server to synchronize
(sending and receiving your email, appointment/meeting requests, etc.) and to
access shared folder information. Using this technique, most of your working
time does not involve communication with the main servers and so the response of
Outlook is very rapid.
(2) Keep your mailbox uncluttered and lean.
A large amount of emails in your mailbox (“Inbox”, “Outbox”, “Sent Items”, etc.)
can result in less than ideal operating speeds. Moving or deleting sent email,
archiving regularly, turning off the journaling feature, and moving or deleting
emails containing large attachments can substantially increase speed of
operation.
In summary:
1. Use Outlook in “off-line” mode for best responsiveness.
2. Use “off-line” synchronization (not the “send/receive” button) to retrieve
and send email.
3. To move large amounts of folder information, synchronize first, then move.
4. Work in “on-line” mode only if you need instantaneous access to server-based
information, such as shared folders or other team members’ folders.
5. Keep your mailbox slim and trim by archiving, moving, deleting, etc.
6. Turn off the “journaling” feature. (Outlook 2000 defaults this way. Outlook
97/98 does not.)
Please read Microsoft Outlook Help (which can be accessed by clicking the “F1”
button when you’re in Outlook) to get detailed help on how to configure Outlook
to work in “off-line” mode.
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