Outlook
TIP: FINDING A MESSAGE IN A HAYSTACK
Where did that message go? Weren't there, in fact, several messages about the important meeting? How can you find them? Do the following:
  • 1. Open the Edit menu.
  • 2. Choose Find Message.
  • 3. In the Find Message dialog box, type the keywords to search on in the areas where they might be found: From, Sent to, Subject, Message Body.
  • 4. Click on Find Now.
BITTER SUITE IRONY
We've done a number of tips that have focused on neat features and cool options related to checking the spelling in your e-mail messages. But, as subscribers J. Burrow and F. DeFort point out, Outlook Express doesn't actually have its own spelling checker program. It borrows one from such Office 95 and Office 97 suite applications as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint--which are presumably already on your system. Unfortunately, if you don't run any of those programs, you won't be able check your spelling by pressing F7 or choosing Tools + Spelling in a message you're composing. In fact, the only Spelling YOU'LL be able to check is on Fox on Wednesdays on Beverly Hills 90210. We apologize if you are one of those people--for both reasons.

CAN I GET YOUR BUSINESS CARD? PART 2 OF 5

In the first tip of this series, we introduced the concept of a Business Card--a fancy-sounding term for a contact record with your own info in your Address Book. In addition, we showed you how to create one (press Ctrl + Shift + B to open your Address Book; press Ctrl + N to create a new contact record; in the Personal folder tab, type in your first and last names in the proper fields; type your e-mail address in the Add new field and click Add; click the Home and/or Business folder tabs and fill in whatever information you want people to see; then click OK). But we sort of left you dangling there, wondering how/when to apply that information we gave you. Well, dangle no more, because today we show you TWO ways of applying your Business Card (we hope this makes up for any undue dangling we caused):
To automatically attach your business card to every outgoing message: 1. Choose Tools + Stationery. 2. Click Signature. 3. In the Personal Business Card (vCard) section, click the down arrow next to the Card field to open the pull-down list (and leave the pointer there). 4. Start typing your name until you see it highlighted in the contact list; then click the down arrow again. 5. Click to put a check in the Attach Card to All Outgoing Messages box. 6. Click OK. 7. Click OK again.
To attach your business card only to individual messages you choose: 1. Press Ctrl + N to compose a new message. 2. Choose Insert + Business Card. (Pretty straightforward, huh?)
Note: This method also works for both forward and reply messages. And it doesn't matter where you do the second step. In other words, you can have the cursor in the To field, the Subject field, or the body of the message; it still works.

CAN I GET YOUR BUSINESS CARD? PART 3 OF 5

During the last couple of tips, we introduced you to the concept of an electronic personal Business Card and showed you how to at tach one either automatically or individually to outgoing e-mail messages. Today, we show you a variation on this theme.
Being the social butterfly that you are, you probably do a lot of networking: meeting friends of friends, introducing your friends to other friends, befriending people at bus stops. Anyway, the point is that it's nice not only to be able to pass along your information with a quick, neat little Business Card, but sometimes you want to pass along someone else's information. And if the information happens to be that of a contact you already have in your Address Book, you can probably save yourself some time typing by using the Business Card format. Here's how to insert SOMEONE ELSE'S Business Card into an e-mail you're sending: 1. Choose Tools + Stationery. 2. Click Signature. 3. In the Personal Business Card (vCard) section, click in the space next to Card. (You don't HAVE to click the down arrow, unless it makes you happy.) 4. Either scroll through the list or begin typing the name of the contact whose information you want to send. 5. When the contact you want is highlighted, click the name. 6. Click OK. 7. Click OK again.
Then when you want to attach that information to an e-mail, you just have to choose Insert + Business Card. Be warned though: Changing this setting makes the new business card the default. At some point you'll probably want to switch the default business card back to your name.

CAN I GET YOUR BUSINESS CARD? PART 4 OF 5

If you've been tuned in to the last week or so of tips, you've seen a series on how to add your own special text-based signature to e-mails (which we describe how to do below). More recently, you've seen the current series on personal electronic business cards, which use the vCard format. Well, despite the fact that the Outlook Express Help file claims that "the vCard format can be read by any type of computer or digital device," you'll probably find that--surprise!--things don't always work so smoothly in the wonderful world of computers. The truth is that some people (especially those with Outlook Express) will be able to check out the card attachments easily, some people WON'T be able to open the card attachments, and some people WILL be able to open the card attachments, only to be greeted by a montage of goopy symbols. So how can you work around this? Here's one cool way that covers both bases by using a signature AND business card at the same time: 1. Choose Tools + Stationery. 2. In the Mail folder tab, click Signature. 3. Click the Text radio button; then click in the big white text box next to it. 4. Type your name, address, phone, fax, and cellular and pager numbers--or whatever contact info you want people to see. Then at the end of your signature, you can type a message, perhaps something like If your e-mail program can handle the vCard format, try opening my attached business card! 5. Click to put a check in the Add This Signature to All Outgoing Messages box. 6. If, in the Personal Business Card (vCard) section, the Card field already displays your name, skip to Step 8; otherwise, go to Step 7. 7. Click the name in the Card field to open the pull-down contact list, use the arrows to scroll up or down, and then click your name when you find it. (If your name's not in there, you can click New and quickly create your own contact record on the fly.) 8. Click Attach Card to All Outgoing Messages to put a check mark in the box. 9. Click OK. 10. Click OK again.
After you perform these steps, you'll automatically have an informative signature AND business card attached to each outgoing message. Other than capturing the Redundant E-mailer of the Day Award (and congratulations--it's about time!), what did you just accomplish? Well, the ability to share information in a very special way. We show you what we mean by this as we conclude this series with our next tip.

CAN I GET YOUR BUSINESS CARD? PART 5 OF 5

Man, you should have seen the last tip! WHOOOO doggie, it was a COOL one! We showed you how to automatically attach a customized signature AND business card to all of your outgoing messages. At the end of the tip, we asked the musical question: "What did you just accomplish?" And then we alluded to some special way of sharing information. Today, we explain just what we were talking about by putting you on the RECEIVING end of such a message. The goal is that you find out how to open up a business card (vCard) attachment and add that information to your Address Book, all with just a few clicks of the mouse. But first, follow these directions to send yourself a quick message: 1. Press Ctrl + N to compose a new message. 2. In the To field, type your e-mail address; then press the Tab key three times to get the Subject field. 3. In the Subject field type Test For Opening vCard Files 4. If, in the top-right corner under the blue "e" symbol, you see a little Rolodex card icon, skip to Step 6. 5. Choose Insert + Business Card. 6. Press Ctrl + Enter to send the message to your Outbox.
The process that follows, which involves opening the vCard attachment and using it to add the information to your Address Book, assumes that you've already connected to the Internet, downloaded new messages, and have selected the message you sent yourself in your Inbox message list: 1. Choose View + Layout. 2. Click Show Preview Pane Header to put a check in the box. 3. Click OK. 4. Click the card icon in the Preview Pane Header. 5. Choose Open It; then click OK. You should be looking at your own contact record, which you sent yourself from your Address Book. (Note: Normally, you'd be looking at someone else's contact record.) 6. In the Personal folder tab, click Add to Address Book. 7. At this point, if you want, you can click through the folder tabs and make additions or changes to the contact record. 8. Click OK.
Note: Because this is an experiment with your own record and you're already in your Address Book, when you go through these steps, you'll be asked whether you want to replace your contact record, which already exists. Just click No.

DIRECTING YOUR SIMPLE MAPI CLIENT

When we talk about your Simple MAPI (pronounced like "mappy") client, we're not referring to that business partner of yours with the poor sense of direction (although, that guy should really think about seeking help--perhaps at one of those AAA meetings). No, when we talk of a Simple MAPI client, what we're talking about is your ability to send Outlook Express-style e-mail from within OTHER programs. For example, you could be working on a document in Microsoft Word. Rather than saving it, opening Outlook Express, composing a new e-mail, finding the saved document file on your hard drive, and inserting the Word document into your message as an attachment, you could just choose File + Send To + Mail Recipient right from Word. A new message with the Word document you have open as an attachment will pop up right in front of your very eyes. But to make that possible, you first have to make Outlook Express your default simple MAPI client by doing the following: 1. (In Outlook Express) choose Tools + Options. 2. In the General tab, if there isn't a check in the box marked Make Outlook Express my default e-mail program, click one in there. 3. Now click a check in the box marked Make Outlook Express My Default Simple MAPI Client. 4. A dialog box will pop up warning you that other messaging applications such as Microsoft Outlook may not work if you enable Outlook Express as your Simple MAPI client. If that's okay with you, click Yes. 5. Click OK.
As you will find out if/when you go through with this, you may have to close down all the programs you have running at the time you do this and then restart your computer before the changes will take full effect.

YOU GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO SEND 'EM--PART 1 OF 4 Because Outlook Express is primarily a means of electronic messaging, it probably makes sense that we tend to focus on e-mail: how to compose it, add neat stuff to it, send it, automate certain processes dealing with it, etc. But today we start a series on how to NOT send e-mail. Seems pretty easy, doesn't it? You just sit back in your rocker/recliner in front of the television set with a cool domestic beer in one hand, the remote control in the other, and your belly sticking out from underneath your T-shirt, right? Well, that certainly is a provocative image, but not quite what we had in mind. We're talking about the fact that sometimes even though you've taken the time to compose a message, you don't want to send it right away. You know, like a love letter or letter of resignation you may have written in the heat of the moment--or something that you're just not quite finished with for whatever reason. Hey, it's your choice. After all, you have a good handful of factors to choose from that can delay sending your messages. For instance, there's the ever-popular Save To Draft method, which goes as follows: 1. You're composing an e-mail and decide that you want to close the message but don't want to lose the work you've done, however little that may be. 2. You press Alt + F4 to close the message. 3. When asked if you want to save changes, you click Yes. 4. If you're prompted that your message will be saved to your Draft folder, you acknowledge by clicking OK. You can continually open the message and save any changes you make to it in your Drafts folder. It doesn't matter if you're online (connected to the Internet at the time) or offline. As long as you don't delete or send it (however it is you usually do that), it won't go to your Outbox and it WILL NOT leave your system. In the next couple of tips, we'll compare and contrast some more conditional features and commands that can be employed in the (not) sending game. If all goes well, by the end of this series you'll be an expert electronic procrastinator. (THERE'S something you can add to beef up the old resume!) YOU GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO SEND 'EM--PART 2 OF 4 In the "Why do today what you can put off 'til tomorrow?" spirit of this series on purposefully delaying the delivery of certain outgoing messages, today we present you with TWO strategies for stalling the sending. Unlike the previous tip in which we showed you how to save an e-mail work in progress to your Drafts folder (with the message open, press Alt + F4 and click Yes to save changes), both of today's methods actually allow the message to be sent to your Outbox--but in a way so that the message still doesn't leave your system. What's so special about it is that both methods apply when you're online, when you wouldn't ordinarily get a second chance to recover/change/delete something you've sent to your Outbox. In other words, each of the following two methods is a way of sending a message to your Outbox when you're connected to the Internet without having the message actually leave your system. - The Send Later Method: 1. Connect to the Internet however you usually do. 2. Press Ctrl + N to compose a new message while online. 3. When finished composing, choose File + Send Later. - The Don't Send Immediately Method: 1. Before composing a new message, choose Tools + Options. 2. Click the Send folder tab. 3. Click the check box next to Send Messages Immediately, so that the check box is empty. 4. Click OK. WARNING: You can use the Send Later method on multiple consecutive messages, but keep in mind that the next time you do a regular Send (e.g., by choosing Tools + Send, or pressing Ctrl + Enter), whatever "standby" messages you have in your Outbox will automatically be sent--in other words, gone, off your system. The same goes for the Don't Send Immediately Method and doing a full Send and Receive (in other words, by choosing Tools + Send and Receive, or pressing Ctrl + Shift + M). So you have to think a little when using these methods. YOU GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO SEND 'EM--PART 4 OF 4 Over the past few tips, we've developed the concept of delayed message sending--that is, the strategic art of temporarily preventing outgoing electronic correspondence from irrevocably sallying forth from your laptop or desktop system. Or, in English, making sure that certain e-mails aren't sent before you want them to be sent. And that can be important if, say, you have an emotional, questionable, or unfinished message that you're not completely ready to send for whatever reason. As promised, today we show you the best way to delay that love letter, off-color rumor or first draft: working offline. We're not saying you shouldn't ever connect to the Internet--although that, like abstinence, is probably the most logical (and unpopular) method of preventing trouble. To the contrary, we're saying that you can connect to the Internet, compose new messages, send them to your Outbox and they WON'T leave your system. No matter how many messages you send with the regular Send command (although Send Later would work, too). All you have to do is choose File + Work Offline. If you finally decide that you want to send all of the messages patiently waiting in your Outbox, all you have to do is the following: 1. Press Ctrl + Shift + M. 2. When the dialog box pops up reminding you that you're offline and asking you if you want to go online, click Yes. All the messages in your Outbox will fly the coop--and you may even catch a few on the flip side in your Inbox. If you want to go back to working offline (while still connected) to forward or reply to those new messages, you can choose File + Work Offline again. The process begins anew. And it's all so much more foolproof than the Send Later, Don't Send Immediately and Don't Check Every [x] Minutes methods we showed you previously. However, the Work Offline method can be used in conjunction with any combination of those methods. So now that you have the full picture, go off and don't send to your little heart's content. CAN'T ALL GROUPS JUST GET ALONG?--PART 1 OF 2 It's an otherwise dull weekday, but you've just decided that you're going to Vegas for a long weekend, baby! It's time to get a gang of your friends together so that you can all pile into a couple of cars, shoot across the desert, and enjoy every minute of gambling that the fine state of Nevada will allow. As you excitedly begin composing the great road trip e-mail announcement, you realize that you don't have a "Las Vegas Road Trippers" Group in your Address Book--but you DO have the following two groups of folks that you'd like to invite: - West Coast Dudes: Ariadne, Cheryl, Dave, Greg, and Jonny - Gambling Types: Ariadne, Chris, Garrett, Howie, and Jonny Both groups seem like logical choices for a three-day jaunt to The Las Vegas Strip. But you notice some crossover. Although the two groups combine for ten names, there are really only eight people there. And that'll work out splendidly transportation-wise. You just don't want certain people to have to get TWO copies of the e-mail you send just because they're members of TWO different Address Book groups of yours. No problem, because when you address an e-mail, Outlook Express makes sure there are no duplicates--whether someone's listed in multiple groups, or even if you mistakenly include their name more than once when manually addressing the message. Speaking of which, to address the road trip e-mail announcement example we've been describing, just do the following: 1. Choose Compose + New Message. 2. Choose Tools + Select Recipients. 3. Scroll down the Names list until you find the Gambling Types group name; then double-click it. 4. Scroll down the Names list some more until you find the West Coast Dudes group name; then double-click it. 5. Click OK. 6. Fill in the subject and body of the message and send it off however you usually do. CAN'T ALL GROUPS JUST GET ALONG?--PART 2 OF 2 As you found out in the last tip (in which we explained how to send e-mail to groups), Outlook Express makes sure not to send duplicates of the same message to the same person, even though that person may be a member of more than one group you're writing your e-mail to. Because Outlook ensures that each person, regardless of how many times you include them in the address field, gets only one copy of the message you send, you can create new groups without worrying about overlap with other groups. In our example scenario, for instance, we're inviting the members of two groups--the West Coast Dudes group and the Gambling Sorts group--to Vegas. We could create a new group, called Las Vegas Road Trippers, and include these two groups, any other groups, and any individuals we want. Mixing and matching groups and individuals? Not a problem. To create a new group and add existing groups and individuals to it, follow these steps: 1. Press Ctrl + Shift + B to open up your Address Book. 2. Press Ctrl + G to start a new group. 3. In the Group Name field, type the name of the group you want to create. If you're following our example, type the following: Las Vegas Road Trippers 4. Click Select Members. 5. Scroll down the Names list until you find the group or individual you want to add to the list (in our example, we'd look for Gambling Types); then double-click it. 6. Repeat Step 5 for any other group or individual you want to include in your new group. 7. When you're finished adding people and groups, click OK. 8. Click OK again. CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM! Depending on the size and number of e-mails you receive and delete on a daily basis, every blue moon or so Outlook Express will prompt you to clean up all the "wasted space" in your folders. If you're like most people, you say to yourself, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," click Yes, and don't give the matter much thought. Well, we're here today to say something you've probably heard a thousand times from your mom: "Don't put that thing in your mouth! Do you know where that thing's BEEN?" Oops, wrong saying. That saying's for one of NEXT week's topics. The saying that goes with today's theme is: "You should really clean up your room more often," especially since you are a grown-up now (at least in theory) and you need to be more proactive about these things. You can try your best to remember to choose File + Folder + Compact All Folders every week or so upon opening Outlook Express. But that seems like a strain on the old mental energy banks, since you can simply adjust how often Outlook Express automatically reminds you. To change how often you're prompted to compact the wasted space in your message files, do the following: 1. Choose Tools + Options. 2. Click the Advanced folder tab. 3. Click the tiny up/down arrows on the number field where it says Compact Files When There Is [X] Percent Wasted Space. 4. When you've set the "X" percent to a number you feel happy with, click OK. How do you know what it should be set to? Come on, we can't tell you EVERYTHING! Okay, okay. Of all the numbers between 5 and 100 (the predefined limits), we like something around 10 or 20. But take a walk on the wild side for once in your life. Choose a number like 18 and see what happens. And put a sweater on, for godsakes. And don't keep making that face--or it'll freeze like that forever! HOW TO MAKE YOUR FRIENDS LISTLESS--PART 1 OF 2 Suppose that one of your best friends from high school, Dave, suddenly decides to pick up and move from Boston to Boulder. Sure, you're happy for him, but you're not sure whether you'll be able to keep in touch with him as much. You see, Dave isn't the most prompt guy at returning your phone calls--but he sure is Sir Speedy when it comes to responding to those e-mails! Alas, since he won't be with that company in Boston anymore, he's told you to strike from your Address Book any trace of that now obsolete e-mail address. Speaking of which, do they even have computers in Boulder? Just kidding. Great town. Go Broncos! Anyway, to get rid of the e-mail address of one of your contacts, do the following: 1. Press Ctrl + Shift + B to open your Address Book. 2. Click the contact's e-mail address to highlight it. 3. Click Delete. 4. Click OK. We know what you may be thinking: "Gosh, that was pretty simple, but what the heck did it have to do with being listless, like in the title of this tip series?" Well, we hate to leave YOU listless, but we'll fill in the blanks for you next time. HOW TO MAKE YOUR FRIENDS LISTLESS--PART 2 OF 2 If you were paying attention last time, you found out how to completely wipe out a friend's e-mail address from your Address Book (press Ctrl + Shift + B to open your Address Book; click the contact's e-mail address; click Remove; and click OK). Or technically, DID you (find out how to obliterate an e-mail address, that is)? Are you POSITIVE? Ahh, you're not so sure now. Don't worry--this isn't one of those it's-not-really-deleted-because-it's-in-the-Recycle-Bin tricks. The sneaky reason your contact's e-mail address may not be completely eradicated from your Address Book is that the contact may be a member in one (or more) of your group lists. You'd forgotten about those lists, hadn't you? That's what we thought. Thus, to avoid all sorts of chaos and confusion, you need to make your friend officially listless. (We have tip series title!) First, to check out what group list(s) this person is in, do the following: 1. If you don't already have your Address Book up, press Ctrl + Shift + B to open it. 2. Right-click the contact's icon and choose Properties. 3. Click the Other tab. 4. Check out the section marked Group Membership to see a list of groups this person is a member of. Remember this list. If you can't remember it (you're recall ability rivals that of an absentminded amnesiac), write it down. 5. Click OK. Then to eject someone from whatever group lists he or she may be in, do the following: 1. If you don't already see the list of groups along the left side of your Address Book screen, choose View + Groups List. 2. Click a group that claims this person as a member. (Hopefully, you can remember the groups or you wrote down the pertinent info.) 3. Find the contact's name in the right pane; then right-click the icon and choose Delete. 4. When the confirmation dialog box pops up, click Yes to nuke 'em right off that group list. 5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 for however many groups this person belongs to. BACK-TO-BACK SINGLES The original premise of our last tip ("How To Make Your Friends Listless") was that you had a friend--but wait, that's not the unbelievable part! Anyway, this friend (we named him Dave) was moving from Boston to Boulder. So you got rid of the e-mail address from his contact record and then systematically removed his name from all of the group lists in your Address Book. But suppose Dave doesn't move to Boulder; is only changing his e-mail address, not getting rid of it; and has decided, for some unintelligible reason, to remain in Boston (just kidding--great town. Go Red Sox!). In this case, rather than delete his address, you would just want to change it, by doing the following: 1. Choose Tools + Address Book to bring up your Address Book. 2. Double-click the contact's icon to bring up his record. 3. Click on the e-mail address you want to change. 4. Click this e-mail address AGAIN. (In other words, you're single-clicking twice, not double-clicking.) What you see is that the e-mail address is now highlighted AND editable. 5. Press the Home key to take the highlight off the entire e-mail address; then make whatever changes you want to it. 6. When you've finished editing the e-mail address, press Enter. 7. Click OK. 8. Press the Esc key to exit your Address Book. Although you may not have saved a ton of time over deleting the old address and typing in the new one, at least you don't have to re-enter the new address multiple times for every group list your buddy may be in! Your Address Book takes care of THAT for you automatically. TRIPLE PLAY! Time for a quick game of Nerdy Phrase Association. Just sit back and think of the first nerdy words that come to mind. For example, when we say, "plug and," most nerds think "play." When we say "click and," most nerds think "drag." When we say, "drag and," most nerds think "drop." Okay, here we go: Your phrase is "copy and." Did you think, "paste"? Well if so, then you're normal. But if you're a SUPERCOOL user, like subscriber Gregg S., then you think "paste and compose." That's because Gregg S. knows a groovy method for doing a copy and paste AND compose all in one fell swoop. This trick is great because you can save time typing and composing a new message. This may not seem like a lot, but when you read and respond to a BUNCH of messages, those seconds here and there can really add up. So to copy and paste text and plop it into a newly composed message all in one fell swoop, do the following: 1. Using your favorite method of selecting, highlight some text in the Preview Pane. 2. Click the selected text (either left button or right--it doesn't matter) and drag it over to your message list. 3. Anywhere in the message list (again, it doesn't matter), release the button. A new message pops up on the screen with the text you selected in the body! 4. Address, title, add whatever else you want, and then send your message just as you normally would. COPY THAT, ROGER At some point, you've probably been composing a message and thought that, for one reason or another, it was worthy of saving to one of your folders. For instance, you may be forwarding a funny joke, passing along some info to a friend on a Web site you'd like to visit sometime, or eloquently writing to the President with constructive feedback on his foreign policy. Whatever the case, if you want to save a copy of a message you're composing, do the following: 1. Choose File + Copy To Folder. 2. When the Copy dialog box pops up, search through the list of folders until you find the folder you want and then double-click the folder name. (Keep in mind that you may have to click a plus [+] sign to reveal the folder that you want to copy it to.) 3. Finish composing the message and send it as you normally would. Note: The copy that is saved isn't necessarily the same as the sent message. It's of the message at whatever stage you decide to do the Copy To Folder function. So wait until right before you send the message to save a final copy to a folder; that way, you're sure to have the most updated version saved.) I'VE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO YOUR PHRASE--PART 1 OF 2 So, you've already got a signature all typed and ready to attach to your e-mails? Well la-DEE-dah! After our popular series back in April on creating and adding signatures, anybody who's ANYBODY has one. But wait--how many people out there have TWO? Impossible, you say? Well, Doubting Thomas, having a second signature is as easy as creating a text file. A text file, as the name implies, is simply a file you create, using only text in an application such as WordPad or NotePad. To create a text file that you can use as a secondary signature and save it to your desktop (for easy access), do the following: 1. Click Windows 95's Start button and choose Programs + Accessories + Notepad. 2. In Notepad, type the signature text. (Don't worry for now about how the font looks.) 3. Choose File + Exit. 4. When asked if you want to save changes, click Yes. 5. In the Save As dialog box, type a name, such as Secondary Signature, in the File Name field. 6. Click the Up One Level icon (which looks like a folder with a bent arrow pointing up) until the word "Desktop" appears next to Look In. 7. Click Save. Next time, we show you how and when to use your new signature. Plus, we describe a few other uses for your recently acquired text-file knowledge. I'VE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO YOUR PHRASE--PART 2 OF 2 Last time, we showed you how to create a text file (click the Start button and choose Programs + Accessories + Notepad; type the text; choose File + Exit; when asked to save changes, click Yes; type a name for the file in the File Name field; click the Up One Level icon until you see Desktop; and then click Save). This time, we show you how to utilize that text file as your signature: 1. In an e-mail you're composing, choose Insert + Text From File. 2. Click the down arrow next to the Look in drop-down list and choose Desktop (or get to the file folder you saved your text file in yesterday, if you didn't follow the suggestion in our example). 3. Double-click the text file (we called it "Secondary Signature" yesterday) in the file list. The text you typed into the file should pop into your e-mail message. We know what you must be thinking: "Gee willickers, that's SUCH a cool method; what OTHER sorts of uses does this Insert File Attachment deal have?" Well, as promised in the previous tip, we offer the following additional suggestions (at no extra charge to you, The Consumer!) of typical text files you may want to create/insert: - Disclaimers - Slogans - Catchphrases - Quotes - Basically, any bunch of words you tend to include in e-mails every so often and that could save you time if you could insert them instead of having to type them each time BACK UP A MINUTE--PART 1 OF 5 Nothing's more frustrating than losing a bunch of e-mail message files. Actually, come to think of it, not being able to remember a song you had in your head ALL of yesterday can be pretty frustrating, too. And what about that feeling you get right after you close and lock your car door--and see the keys dangling from the ignition? MAN, that's a good one. Okay, so for the sake of brevity, let's just agree that losing a bunch of e-mail message files is probably one of the top seven or eight most frustrating things you can do. But at least with the e-mail, you can do something proactive about it: You can back up your files on a regular basis. Of course, there's nothing revolutionary about THAT idea. In fact, we get e-mails fairly often from smart and/or recently burned subscribers asking how and what to back up. Well--just in case you hadn't guessed it yet--that's what we plan to show you in this series. Just consider this tip your preview of coming attractions. In the next tip, we tell you which files to back up and where to find them. After that, we give you a brief but necessary lesson in fancy methods of highlighting icons. Finally, we describe the act of copying the files to floppy disks--and what you should watch out for when doing so. Tip in a tip: You may want to save or print out the tips in this series so that, when it's time to actually back up, you have all the instructions at your fingertips.

BACK UP A MINUTE--PART 2 OF 5

While a sink backed up inside your bathroom and a truck backed up into your living room can both put a slight damper on your day, a disk backed up with your e-mail can make you feel pretty good--not to mention safe--at least for a little while. Of course, the first logical hurdles to pass in promulgating this positive, proactive practice are knowing which files you want to back up and where you can find them.
You want to back up your message folder files, which have IDX (*.idx) and MBX (*.mbx) file components. The two types of files work together. One contains information on the format and the other on the actual data for creating your messages as you see them. You should have Inbox.idx and Inbox.mbx files, Outbox.idx and Outbox.mbx files, Sent Items.idx and Sent Items.mbx files, and so on, on your hard drive. Depending on your setup, you should be able to find all of your IDX and MBX files in one of the following two folders: C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\Your Name\Mail [where your first and last names are in place of "Your Name"] C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Mail
Although you have a couple of basic options in determining which setup you have, we suggest you try the following method: 1. Right-click the Start button and choose Explore. 2. Click somewhere in the Address box to highlight the contents (C:\WINDOWS\Start Menu). 3. Type in one of the paths above (either starting C:\Program Files or C:\Windows). You've pretty much got a 50/50 chance of getting the right one on your first try--and you know you've chosen correctly if Windows automatically completes the path for you in the Address box as you type. 4. After the path is fully entered, press Enter. Outlook takes you to the folder with all the different IDX and MBX files. (If not, go back to Step 3 and try the other path.)
(If you don't find either of those folders, try searching your hard drive for files ending in IDX or MBX.) Now you can take a breather--and just when it was getting exciting! But be sure to tune in next time, when we give you a brief but necessary lesson in fancy highlighting. After you combine that knowledge with what we discussed today, you'll be ready to back things up. Of course, after you've completed this process a couple of times, the whole thing shouldn't take you more than a minute or so.

BACK UP A MINUTE--PART 3 OF 5

Last time we explained the function of IDX and MBX message file components (working together to form all of your Outlook Express e-mail files) and told you how/where on your hard drive to find them all. Then, on a seemingly unrelated note, we promised you a "brief, but necessary lesson in fancy highlighting" (which sounds like something you'd hear before a pop quiz at the Barbizon School of Beauty). Why cover highlighting in a tip on backing up?
Well, highlighting isn't as irrelevant as you may think. When it comes to backing up all of the folders and subfolders that comprise your message files, you may have to select a LOT of icons (depending on how many total folders you have). And depending on how they're arranged, highlighting them all, if you don't know what you're doing, could be awkward and time-consuming. As a bonus, being able to select multiple items quickly out of a haphazard list/folder is always a good skill to have. Thus, keep the following concepts in mind when you have to select or highlight items:
  • - If you press and hold down the Ctrl key before clicking on successive items, you can select items that aren't next to each other.
  • - When selecting multiple items using the Ctrl key method, you DON'T need to hold the Ctrl key down the whole time. Only just before selecting each new item (or, as you see below, group of items).
  • - With the Ctrl key held down, if you click an already selected item, you deselect it (that is, the item's no longer highlighted).
  • - If you hold down the Shift key before clicking an item, all of the items between and including that item and the last item selected are highlighted. In other words, if you want to select an entire row or column of icons, click an icon at one end to highlight it individually; then hold down Shift and click the icon at the other end of the row/column of icons to highlight all of them in between.
  • - If you want to highlight a BLOCK of items (multiple rows and columns together), click an item at one corner to highlight it individually; then hold down Shift and click the item at the OPPOSITE corner of the block of items to highlight them all.
    By combining these methods, you can select rows, columns, blocks, AND single items in one highlighting session by holding down the Ctrl key and varying when you press the Shift key--which can be murder on your pinky finger. But the bottom line is that this can save you a TON of time when you actually select all of your message folder files and back them up to a floppy disk, which we explain how to do next time.

    BACK UP A MINUTE--PART 4 OF 5 May 29th, 1998 In the first few tips of the series, we introduced the notion of each of your message folders being defined by an IDX and an MBX file component working together. Then we showed you how to find those crucial IDX and MBX files on your hard drive. And last time, we showed you a trick or two (actually, about a half dozen) for efficiently selecting items in Windows by using the Ctrl and Shift keys. Today, we put all this information together and explain how to back up your files. So [drum roll, please] in order to back up all of your e-mail message folder files, do the following: 1. Make sure you have a blank, formatted disk in your floppy drive (and that your floppy drive is connected to your computer--if it's stuck in the bedroom closet under the Christmas wrapping paper, it won't work). 2. Get to the folder that has all of your IDX and MBX files. 3. Choose View + Small Icons to so that you can see as many of the files you need to highlight as possible (hopefully, you'll be able to see them all). 4. Likewise, if the window isn't already maximized, press Alt + spacebar + X to make maximize it. 5. Choose View + Status Bar. Now you're ready to highlight. 6. Begin selecting multiple icons by using the Ctrl and Shift key techniques we discussed in an earlier tip. 7. Make sure that no icon couple (that is, Inbox.idx and Inbox.mbx, Drafts.idx and Drafts.mbx, Folder21.idx and Folder21.mbx, etc.) is split. In other words, if you select one, make sure you select the other one, too. 8. While you're doing all this--and how's it going, by the way?--you need to be looking to the bottom center of the window along the Status Bar. It tells you the total disk space required for the files you have highlighted. As that number approaches 1MB, slow down on the highlighting. After all, you're most likely going to copy these files over to a 1.44MB disk--and you need to leave room for growth, for the NEXT time you back up these files! 9. When you have an even amount of matching icons taking up no more than 1MB selected (at least for the first time you do this)--and by the way, it's okay to release the Ctrl and Shift keys, along with the left button at this point--right-click any one of the highlighted icons; then choose Send To + 3 1/2 Floppy (A). 10. Wait for the floppy drive to stop whirring and buzzing; then take out the disk from the drive and label it with whichever files you just backed up on it. 11. Repeat Steps 6 through 10 until you've systematically backed up all the folders. Tip in a tip: If you want to know how many disks you need before you start copying files, after Step 5, click one icon and press Ctrl + A to highlight them all. Round up the number of megabytes indicated on the status bar to get a rough indication of how many disks you'll use.

    BACK UP A MINUTE--PART 5 OF 5 June 1st, 1998 If you made it through the last tip, congratulations: It was a doozy--but definitely worth it! You backed up all of your Outlook Express e-mail message files onto floppy disks. Of course, you don't HAVE to back up ALL of your message files; you can always pick and choose. If you're not sure what a particular numbered subfolder is and/or whether you'd like to back it up, go ahead and double-click the MBX component of the folder file (for example, Folder9.mbx, Folder 13.mbx, and so on). While you're at it, it would probably be a good idea to back up your Address Book, with all of that valuable information about your important contacts. To find your Outlook Express Address Book file and back it up to a floppy disk, do the following: 1. Again, make sure your computer is connected to a working floppy disk drive that has a formatted 3 1/2-inch disk in it. The disk doesn't have to be blank, but it should have a lot of room left on it (at least half a megabyte--or about 500KB [kilobytes]--just to be safe). 2. Click the Start button and choose Find + Files or Folders. 3. In the Named field, type *.wab 4. Make sure the Look In field indicates that it is searching your hard drive (usually C); then click Find Now. 5. If more than one file pops up, you can see which is the right one by looking at the In Folder column. The file you want most likely will have a path like either ONE of these: C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book C:\Program Files\Outlook Express 6. In the Named column, right-click the Address Book file; then choose Send To + 3 1/2 Floppy (A). You should see flashing lights and hear buzzing noises emitting from your floppy drive (that means it's working). Once again, you want to repeat this process every so often, depending on how much you update your Address Book. Then, if (Heaven forbid) you should ever need to restore your Address Book or message files because something icky happens, you can go back to the carefully labeled floppy disks and copy the most recent edition of your backup file(s) to the folder on your hard drive (following the path outlined in Step 5 above).

    RESCHEDULE CALENDAR MEETING

    Need to reschedule a meeting you've already entered in your Calendar? Whether you need to adjust the date, time, or duration, changing it is a snap.
    To change only the date of the meeting, click and drag the appointment from your schedule--Day, Work Week, or Week View--over to the Date Navigator (the calendar in the top-right area of the window) and drop it on the correct day.
    To change the time of the meeting, switch to Day View, then click and drag the appointment up or down to the correct time. Let go, and it slides into place.
    To change the duration of the meeting, still in Day View, hold your mouse pointer over the appointment's top or bottom edge. When the mouse pointer changes to a double-pointed arrow, click and drag up or down.

    DISPLAY ADVANCED TOOLBAR Want more Outlook commands at your fingertips? Sure you do--we're all control freaks deep inside. The Advanced toolbar is a row of buttons that turn many menu-driven commands into one-click operations. To see for yourself, select View, Toolbars, Advanced and a new row of buttons appears just below the menus. (Available commands vary depending on the folder you're viewing.) Now you can jump up one level at the click of a button, as discussed in our last tip. (Tip-in-a tip: Hold your mouse pointer over each button to see what it does.)

    JUMP UP ONE LEVEL Need to jump up one level, to the parent of the folder you're in--for example, from the Personal folder you created inside Inbox, back up to Inbox? Outlook 98 has an Up One Level command, just like Windows Explorer. It's just not in plain sight--that is, unless you have the Advanced toolbar displayed (more in our next tip). To make the jump, select Go, Up One Level.

    KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FOR NAVIGATING CALENDAR If your Calendar is so full that you typically use Day View to fit everything on the screen, you end up staring at a fairly narrow view of your life. To navigate your way to other days quickly and easily, try these keyboard shortcuts: - Press the right or left cursor key to move forward or back one day at a time. - Hold down the Alt key and press the up or down cursor key to jump forward or back one week at a time. - Press Alt-Home to jump to the first day of the current week.

    MAKE ALT-HOME JUMP TO MONDAY In our last tip, we told you that you can press Alt-Home to jump to the first day of the week in Calendar's Day View. By default, that day is Sunday. Sunday? Who has appointments on Sunday? Select Tools, Options and click the Calendar Options button. Next to First Day Of Week, click the down arrow and select Monday. Click OK twice and now try the Alt-Home combination (still in Day View). Monday, Monday... (Note: This change will also affect the Month View calendar if you have the Compress Weekend Days option deselected, as described in a previous tip--select View, Current View, Customize Current View; click the Other Settings button; deselect Compress Weekend Days; then click OK twice. The weeks will then start with Monday and end with Sunday.)

    SET REMINDER FOR CALENDAR APPOINTMENT Are certain appointments in your Calendar more important than others? Attach reminders to those appointments you can't afford to miss, and Outlook will keep you on your toes (and punctual, too). Double-click any existing appointment and select the check box next to Reminder. Click the down arrow next to 15 Minutes, select the amount of advanced warning you'd like, then click Save and Close. Now as long as Outlook is running, a reminder will appear onscreen the specified number of minutes (or hours) before your appointment. Not quite ready to go? Click Snooze, and you've got five minutes to wrap things up before the reminder appears again.

    QUICKER ACCESS TO VIEWING OPTIONS (ADVANCED TOOLBAR) Do you frequently use the commands in the View, Current View menu to sort or organize the contents of the current folder? With the Advanced toolbar onscreen (select View, Toolbars, Advanced), you can cut the View and Current View commands out of the equation. Just click the drop-down arrow next to the text box on the toolbar, and take your pick. Good luck!

    CAN'T CHANGE DEFAULT SAVE AS FOLDER

    TipWorld subscriber T. Jackson writes: "When saving attachments, the default folder always opens to My Documents. How can I change the default folder to one of my choice?"
    Unfortunately, you need to set the default folder for each work session. When you use the Save As command to save an attachment, use the resulting window to navigate to your folder of choice, then name the file and click Save. That default folder sticks for the rest of the current work session, until you close and reopen Outlook or until you navigate your way to another folder.
    Microsoft confirms this shortcoming (that's what it is, as far as we're concerned): http://www.pcworld.com/r/tw/1,2061,tw-ou981106,00.html

    DISPLAY ONLY THE MESSAGE LIST AND PREVIEW PANE TipWorld reader D. writes: "Is it possible to make Outlook 98 look and work like Outlook Express? Specifically, I'd like to see one frame showing a list of unread messages, and another showing the complete contents of the currently selected message." You can accomplish this two-frame look with a couple of quick setting changes. First select View, Preview pane to display a preview of the currently selected message at the bottom of the window. (The message list will appear at the top.) Then, to get your folder list out of the way, deselect View, Folder List if you haven't already. (You can always display a drop-down folder list by clicking the name of the current folder below the New Mail Message icon.)

    MORE ON THOSE RED WAVY LINES In a previous tip, we pointed out that if you type a name in the To field of a new mail message and then tab to the next field, in some cases you'll see a wavy red line under that name. This line appears if the name you typed could refer to more than one person in your Address Book. (For example, if you type the name Jim, and you have more than one Jim in your Address Book, Outlook doesn't know which one you mean.) Upon clicking Send, the Check Names dialog box asks you to select the correct recipient. Would you rather choose the correct recipient as soon as you see that wavy red line? Right-click it, and the top of the resulting menu displays all possible addressees. Click the one you want, and Outlook addresses the message accordingly.

    WHEN RED WAVES TURN TO GREEN DASHES In our last tip, we told you what it means if you see a red, wavy line under the name you type in the To field of an outgoing message. The name you type--for example, Jim--could refer to more than one person in your Address Book, so you have to right-click it and select the correct one. The question is, what does it mean if you see green dashes underlining a recipient in the To field? (We discovered this one by accident.) These dashes mean Outlook has gone out on a limb and selected a recipient--even though what you typed could refer to more than one person. Basically, Outlook takes its best guess based on what you typed most recently. If you see these green dashes, it's probably in your best interest to right-click the name and confirm that it's the correct recipient. You won't see a Check Names dialog box when you click Send, as you do with a wavy red line.

    FUN WITH BUTTONS: ADDING AND REMOVING TEXT As you look at the icons on your Outlook toolbars, you'll notice that some have text and some don't. Why? Because Microsoft said so, that's why. But that doesn't mean it has to be that way. You have the last say in whether an icon includes a text label or not. Feels good, doesn't it? Select View, Toolbars, Customize to open the Customize dialog box. (Note: The commands we're about to show you won't work unless this box is open.) Right-click any icon on any toolbar and take your pick of display options. For example, to add text to a button, select Image And Text. To remove the text from a button, select Default Style. Repeat these steps for each icon you want to change. When you're done, click Close to exit the Customize dialog box.

    LARGER TOOLBAR BUTTONS Do you find it difficult to select those tiny buttons on Outlook's toolbars? You can put some meat on those buttons with a simple setting change. Select View, Toolbars, Customize, and on the Options tab, select Large Icons. Now those are some beefy buttons! Grandma would be proud!

    FUN WITH BUTTONS: CHANGING THEIR APPEARANCE In our last tip, we showed you how to add text to or remove it from your Outlook toolbar buttons: Select View, Toolbars, Customize (this box must be open); right-click any icon on any toolbar and take your pick of display options. While you're at it, notice the Change Button Image command on the right-mouse menu for most icons. (You can't change some, such as Send And Receive.) Select this command, choose an icon, and that button's got a brand-new look! (Note: You'll probably want to display the text for that changed icon until you get used to the new image. Also, to return a button to its original look, right-click it--with the Customize dialog box open, of course--and select Reset.)

    ANIMATE MENUS If you're a Windows 98 user, you already know about animated menus: Right-click the desktop or an icon, or select any menu command in an Explorer window, and the resulting menu rolls out onto the screen. Well, wouldn't you know--Outlook 98 offers the same form of entertainment! Select View, Toolbars, Customize and click the Options tab. In the box next to Menu Animations, click the down arrow and select one of the three options--Random, Unfold, or Slide. Click Close, then test the new effect by clicking any menu at the top of your Outlook window. Those submenus get in on the action, too. Getting dizzy yet? Go back to the Menu Animations list and select (None).

    DOWNLOAD OFFICE ASSISTANTS In a previous tip, we showed you how to change the Office Assistant--that funky little paper clip that never leaves your screen: Right-click the assistant's title bar, select Choose Assistant, click Next to view the two Office Logo options (one moves and one doesn't), then click OK. (Note: If you don't see the assistant, click the question-mark button on the right side of the Standard toolbar or press F1.) Want something even more exciting? Head on over to Microsoft's Office Update Web site for more options: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm Select one of the assistants, such as Kairu The Dolphin, then follow the download and installation instructions. (Tip: Look for the word Assistant in the Type column.) Over the next tips, we'll discuss more available downloads for Outlook.

    DOWNLOAD OUTLOOK TEMPLATES AND FORMS In the first tip in this series, we pointed you to a list of Outlook 98 downloads at the Microsoft Office Update Web site: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm Take a look at the Type column on the right side of the list, and you'll notice that it lists a good percentage of the downloads as Templates. A template, or form, is nothing more than a means of collecting information electronically. If you've ever sent an e-mail, you've used a form--the New Message template. Scroll through the list of downloads and click the Download Now link below any form you might find useful--we'll use the Diet Record Form as an example. (Note: You'll need to complete the registration information, if you haven't already. Then go back and select the file you want to download again.) When the download is complete, double-click the resulting EXE file to install the form.

    NAVIGATING THE MICROSOFT OFFICE UPDATE SITE

    In our last tip, we told you that you can download some new Office Assistants from the Microsoft Office Update Web site: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm
    While you're there, you'll notice a myriad other downloads available for Outlook 98--templates, updates, add-ins, and more. In this series of tips, we'll discuss some of these downloads in more detail--what they are and how to use them.
    First, though, let's back up a bit. Assuming you land at the main Microsoft Office Update page at: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/default.asp here's how to get to the Outlook downloads: On the left side of the screen, click Outlook, then click Downloads.
    From here, narrow your choices down a bit. Assuming you have Office 98, click the radio button next to Outlook 97/98 Downloads at the top of the screen under Show Me, then wait a minute as Outlook re-creates a shorter list of downloads. If you want, click the check box next to Show All Descriptions for a bit more detail. Again, you'll need to wait a minute for the information to appear.

    USING DOWNLOADED TEMPLATES AND FORMS In our last tip, we showed how to download template forms in which you collect information electronically--from the Microsoft Office Update Web site at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm Assuming you've just downloaded the Diet Record Form, here's how to use it. Select File, Open, Personal Folders File, and in the resulting dialog box navigate your way to the Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office folder. Inside, you'll find your new template (*.pst file). Double-click it, and you'll see that its folder now appears in your folder list. Click the plus sign next to it to expand the folder's contents, then select the Diet Record folder. To create a new entry based on this template, select File, New, Choose Form. Click the down arrow next to Look In, select the corresponding form--here, Diet Record--and click Open. When you've completed the form (be honest!), click Post.

    VIEW MULTIPLE FOLDERS VIA NEW WINDOW When an Outlook user clicks a folder or icon to flip from the Calendar to the Inbox--or any other Outlook item--information that may be needed from the previous window goes away. It seems obvious, but a lot of users don't realize they can simply open the necessary Outlook folders in separate windows, just as they would open multiple Excel worksheets. Here's how it works: Just right-click an icon in the Outlook bar or a folder in the Folder List, and then choose Open In New Window. Outlook will display the selected folder, and you can size and arrange its window to display the necessary items.

    QUICK SENDER ID Users who are inundated with messages will appreciate this trick. Assign colors to the most (or least) important senders who barrage your inbox. That way, your eyes can quickly zero in on the good stuff and skip blithely past those interminable messages from [Your Dreaded Sender Here]. Just highlight a message from the sender you want to colorize. Click Organize on the toolbar and then click Using Colors. Your selected sender will appear in the Color Messages From text box, so all you have to do is select the color you want to assign to that name. Click Apply Color and Outlook will color the sender's name in all previously received messages, as well as those that arrive from now on.

    FINDING A DIRECT ROUTE TO CONTACTS Outlook provides a slick way to get directions to a street address of someone in your Contacts list. Just open the Contacts folder and double-click the name of the person you're going to see. Then, click Actions | Display Map Of Address. The button actually links to the Microsoft Expedia Web site, which will zero in on the contact's address and display a pretty respectable map of that area.

    ADD-IN MANAGER

    If a particular Outlook component has been installed on a system, that doesn't necessarily mean Outlook can use it. That's where Add-In Manager comes in. To make sure an Outlook installation is set up to use a specified add-in, first choose Options from the Tools menu and click the Other tab. Next, click Advanced Options and then click Add-In Manager. The Add-In Manager dialog box includes a list of check boxes that correspond to various Outlook add-ins. You can select a specific item from the list of add-ins to activate it. To install an add-in that doesn't appear on the list, click Install and select the corresponding add-in files in the Install Extension dialog box. You may have to navigate to another folder to locate the appropriate files.

    RUNNING OUTLOOK WITH MS POST OFFICE

    To use Outlook on a peer-to-peer network, you have to create a post office to store messages. The easiest way to do this is to create a Microsoft Mail Post Office, because the necessary programs already come with Windows.
    If you're running Windows 95, the Microsoft Mail Post Office installs automatically when you install Microsoft messaging. If you are using Windows 98, however, the Microsoft Mail Post Office is not offered as a regular setup option. To install this option, run WMS.EXE from your Windows 98 CD located in the \\tools\oldwin95\message\us folder.
    If you installed Outlook (or Office with Outlook as an installed component) before you installed Post Office, you should reinstall Outlook after you install Post Office.

    PROMPT SECURITY IN YOUR NT NETWORK

    If you're logged on to your Windows NT network when you start Outlook, the program uses your present credentials to log you on. If you are not logged on, you'll see a dialog box asking for your logon name, domain name, and password.
    What do you do, however, if for security reasons you want Outlook to prompt you for this information every time you run the program?
    • 1. Choose Services from the Tools menu in Outlook.
    • 2. Select Microsoft Exchange Server.
    • 3. Click Properties.
    • 4. Click the Advanced tab.
    • 5. Choose None in the Logon Network Security list.
    If you ever want to switch this back to automatically log you on, choose NT Password Authentication from the Logon Network Security list.

    PERFORMING OFFLINE DEFRAGMENTATION

    Exchange Server 5.5 performs online defragmentation during scheduled information store maintenance; however, online defragmentation can't remove all the white space in databases the way offline defragmentation can. When the online defragmentation fails, it writes Event 1221 to the application log. Microsoft reports that the amount of free space stated in these events is a conservative estimate.
    You can use ESEUTIL.EXE to perform offline defragmentation of Exchange Server databases (Priv.edb, Pub.edb, and Dir.edb). Defragmenting a database requires free disk space equal to 110 percent of the size of the database being processed. Microsoft suggests that defragmenting a database can take up to an hour or more per GB of database. However, your mileage will vary depending on the type of equipment that you have. To defragment the database, stop all Exchange services and run the command: eseutil /d /database /ttargetpath The /d switch runs Eseutil in defragmentation mode. Defragmentation is only one of Eseutil's many modes. The /database indicates the database that you want to defragment. The options are ds, ispriv, and ispub for Directory, Private Information Store, and Public Information Store, respectively. By default, Eseutil will create its temporary defragmented database in the root of the C drive unless you specify an alternate path. To do so, use the /ttargetpath switch (note that there is no space between the switch and the path), where targetpath is the path to the volume with the largest amount of free space. For example, you might issue the command /te:\tempdfrg.edb.

    OFFLINE FOLDERS CAN ACCESS OUTLOOK

    If your users want to access their Outlook information when they don't have connectivity to the Exchange network (for instance, the server is down or they're using laptops while traveling), you can create offline folders for them.
    Offline folders store copies of messages and appointments on a local computer. To ensure that offline folders have the latest information from the server, your users must regularly synchronize the folders. Synchronization is the process when Outlook exchanges the data between the server and your offline folders so that both have the most current information.
    To enable this feature, open the Tools menu's Options dialog box, select the Mail Services tab, and check the Enable Offline Access check box.

    MAIL FOLDER OPTIONS IN OUTLOOK

    When you use Outlook with Microsoft Exchange server, you can choose to have your messages delivered and stored on the Exchange server or in a personal folder.
    To choose the delivery point, go to the MS Exchange Settings Properties dialog box by double-clicking the mail icon in Control Panel. Click the Delivery tab and you'll be in the Deliver New Mail To The Following Location box. This is where you can choose either Mailbox - Your Name or Personal Folders. However, you must add the Personal Folders service to your Outlook profile in order to have the option of delivering your mail to a personal folder.
    If you elect to store your mail in a personal folder, the mail in your Exchange inbox will be sent to your personal folder inbox when you connect to the network.
    Keep in mind that personal folders are stored as .pst files. Therefore, if you choose to create a personal folder on a local drive (for instance, your C drive) and you change computers, the mail you already received will not be available. BACKING UP ALL YOUR FOLDERS Do you have lots of important data--messages, appointments, and so on--stored in your Outlook 98 folders? Better back it up, because you just never know. Assuming you have a storage medium that can hold lots of data (for example, a Zip drive), you can store all of your Outlook data in one very large file. Simply copy your Personal Folders file (.pst)--typically in C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook\outlook.pst--to your location of choice. To restore the *.pst file (and everything inside) to Outlook 98, copy the backed-up outlook.pst file to its original location. Don't have a storage medium large enough to hold all your Outlook 98 data in one place? No problem. In our next tip, we'll show you how to back up individual folders. Note: If you've stored your Outlook 98 information in a mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange Server, stay tuned for a future tip with more information. The suspense is building... BACKING UP AND RESTORING DATA IF YOU USE EXCHANGE SERVER Over the last three tips, we've shown you how to back up all or part of your Outlook 98 information, assuming you've stored this information on your hard drive in Personal Folders: To back up all of the information in one fell swoop, copy your Personal Folders file--typically C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook\outlook.pst--to your location of choice. Then to restore this information, copy the backed-up outlook.pst file to its original location. To back up or restore only one folder (for example, to a floppy disk), use the Export Wizard (select File, Import Or Export) to export the contents of the folder to a *.pst file or to import a *.pst file into your Outlook folder of choice. If you use Outlook 98 with Microsoft Exchange Server, the above tips may or may not apply to you. If you've stored your Outlook information on your hard drive, you're all set--just follow the previous tips. If you've stored it in a mailbox on the server, chances are it's backed up right at the server. Then you should talk to your administrator for more info (and ignore these tips). Not sure where the info is stored? Inside Outlook 98, select Tools, Services and click the Delivery tab. Now look at the "Deliver new mail to the following location" field. If you see the word Mailbox followed by an e-mail name, your information is stored on the server. If you don't (in which case you'll probably see the words Personal Folder), the information is stored on your hard drive. BACKING UP INDIVIDUAL FOLDERS In our last tip, we showed you how to back up all of your Outlook 98 information in one location: Copy your Personal Folders file--typically C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook\outlook.pst--to your location of choice. Then, to restore this information to Outlook, copy the backed-up outlook.pst file to its original location. You can't store such a large file in one location? (This writer's file currently stands at--gulp--63MB.) Back up the most important folders individually, and store them on floppy disks. Inside Outlook 98, select File, Import And Export. Select Export To A File, then click Next. Select Personal Folder File (.pst) and click Next again. Select the folder you want to back up (and select Include Subfolders, if necessary), then click Next again. Choose an option for handling duplicates (we left "Replace duplicates with items imported" selected), and with a floppy disk in the drive, click the Browse button. Select your floppy drive, then type a name for the *.pst file you're about to create. For example, you might store your Inbox contents as inbox.pst. Click OK, Finish, then OK. Did you get all that? Repeat these steps for each folder you'd like to back up. In our next tip, we'll show you how to import it back into Outlook. BYPASS DEFAULT STATIONERY WHILE COMPOSING MESSAGES In our last tip, we showed you how to make your favorite stationery the default so you don't have to apply it to every new message by hand: Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; under Message Format, select HTML; under Stationery And Fonts, select a stationery; then click OK. Occasionally, however, you'll want to send a message that doesn't include the stationery--for example, if the recipient can't view HTML messages, or if you need to send a straight-laced, black-and-white note. To send a plain message, select Actions, New Mail Message Using, No Stationery. Then, from inside the New Message dialog box, select Format, Plain Text, and click Yes to confirm. DON'T FORGET THE SAVE AND NEW BUTTON Just finish entering all the information for a new contact? Don't click the Save And Close button just yet. If you have another contact to enter, you can save the current information and start a new entry all in one fell swoop. Clever, huh? Simply click the Save And New icon just to the right of Save And Close. Who knew? DRESS UP YOUR MESSAGE WITH STATIONERY If you're like most people, you compose your messages on a white background with black text. This drab look is fine when you need to stick to business. But for those times when you want to send a message with a bit more pizzazz, slap on some color and graphics. Outlook has 24 stationery designs ready and waiting. To compose a message on stationery, select Actions, New Message Using, More Stationery. Select a stationery and click OK, and it appears in the New Message dialog box. Compose your message as usual, then click Send. Tip: From now on, you can select that stationery in the Actions, New Mail Message Using list. Remember, however, that the recipient must be able to view HTML messages in order to enjoy your work of art. GET TO YOUR NEW MESSAGE--FAST Dying to speak your mind in a new message? The faster you get there, the more time you'll have to speak. To start a message from scratch, press Ctrl-N to open the New Message dialog box. To reply to a selected message, press Ctrl-R (or press Ctrl-Shift-R to reply to all or Ctrl-F to forward the message). When you're done, send it off--quick, before you change your mind. Press Ctrl-Enter. IMPORT ADDRESS BOOK FROM *.CSV FILE In our last tip, we showed you how to export your Outlook 98 Address Book to a *.csv file: Select File, Export, Address Book; select Text File (Comma Separated Values); click Export; identify the destination file; click Next; select the fields to export; then click Finish. Now let's suppose you want to import that information back into Outlook (for example, on a second system at home). Open the Outlook 98 Address Book and select File, Import, Address Book. Select Text File (Comma Separated Values), click Import, then click Browse and navigate your way to the *.csv file you want to import. Select this file, click Open, then click Next. Map any fields, if necessary, click Finish, and when you see a message telling you that the Address Book import has completed successfully, click OK, then Close. PRINT YOUR PHONE LIST Have you ever wanted a phone number that you have stored in Outlook 98--when you're computer isn't even on? Don't waste your time booting Windows just for a lousy phone number. Print out a phone list for quick reference. Switch to the Contacts folder and select View, Current View, Phone List. What you see is what you're about to print. But before you send anything to the printer, ditch a few unnecessary columns--for example, File As--by right-clicking an unwanted column's heading and selecting Remove This Column. (All those columns definitely won't fit across a standard page.) Last but not least, take a quick peek at the result--select File, Print Preview--and if it looks good, go for the Print button. Tip: If you ditch a column you decide you want back, you can restore it as follows: Select View, Current View, Customize Current View and click the Fields button. Select the field you want to add on the left, click Add, use the Move Up button to position it. Finally, click OK twice.) PRINT WIDER PHONE LIST USING LANDSCAPE MODE In our last tip, we showed you how to print out a phone list: Open the Contacts folder; select View, Current View, Phone List; select File, Print Preview (to preview the page); then click Print. We also suggested that you remove unwanted columns to fit the list on standard letter-size paper: Right-click a column heading and select Remove This Column. Still can't fit the list on the page? Try printing the list in Landscape mode. Select File, Print, click Page Setup, and click the Page tab. Select Landscape, click the Print Preview button (just to be sure), then click Print. Tip: Go back and switch your printing mode to Portrait. Otherwise everything you print from now on will be in Landscape mode. RESTORING BACKED-UP FOLDERS In our last tip, we showed you how to back up individual Outlook 98 folders by exporting the contents to a *.pst file: Select File, Import And Export. Then select Export To A File and click Next. Select Personal Folder File (.pst), click Next, select the folder you want to back up (and select Include Subfolders, if necessary), and click Next again. Choose an option for handling duplicates, click Browse and navigate your way to the destination file (most likely a floppy disk), and name the *.pst file you're about to create. Click OK, Finish, and OK. Whew! Now let's suppose you need to restore this information. Switch to the destination folder--Inbox, for example--and select File, Import And Export. Select Import From Another Program Or File, click Next, select Personal Folder File (.pst), and click Next again. With the floppy disk containing the file you want to import in the drive, click Browse, select your floppy drive, select the *.pst file, and click Open. Click Next, select the folder to import from, select Import Items Into The Current Folder, and click Finish. Those Inbox messages are right back where they started. Note: If you've stored your Outlook 98 information in a mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange Server, stay tuned for more information in our next tip. START IN ANY FOLDER YOU WANT If the first thing you do when you start Outlook 98 is check your mail, the Inbox--the default starting folder--is a good place to begin. However, if you head straight for your Tasks list or some other folder at the start of every work session, ask Outlook to start there instead. Select Tools, Options, click the Other tab, and click the Advanced Settings button. In the drop-down list under General Settings, select the folder you'd like to start in, then click OK twice. The next time you open Outlook, you're off to a brand-new start!

    The Problem

    You get a call from a manager whose life revolves around his Outlook 98 calendar. He has full administrator rights on his NT machine. He normally prints his calendar using the Daily Style without any problems. However, he's going out of town for a few days and wants to print it using the Weekly Style. He's printed his calendar this way before.
    Today, when he tries to print the weekly calendar, he's getting the error message "Unable to save the printer settings. Make sure the file c:\windows\outlprnt is not missing or write protected." He can't print, can't print preview, and when he tries to access the Page Setup or Define Styles screen, the options are unavailable.
    TechRepublic passport holder Matt Cerny sent us an original problem report he received from one of his users: "When I try to print from Outlook, I get prompted for a printer and then when I hit Enter to go, I get this message: 'Out of Memory Resources. Close some Windows and Try Again.' This happens even when the only program open on my computer is Outlook and the only message open is the one I am trying to print. Please advise. Thank you."

    The question: What went wrong and how do you fix it?

    And the answer is...

    Matt and Brad followed virtually the same path to solve this problem. Here's Brad's description of his experience:
    This is one of those annoying errors where the user swears up and down they printed "yesterday." Well, this time, the user is more than likely correct.
    This error occurs when the file "outlprnt" is either corrupt, missing, or in a different directory than the default directory. Under Windows9x, the default directory is c:\windows, but under Windows NT, it is located under c:\winnt\Profiles\%username%\ApplicationData\Microsoft\Outlook.
    I had to solve this very problem on an NT workstation machine the other week. I looked in the Outlook Help, Online Help, TechNet Online, the April 1999 edition of TechNet CD-ROM, and nothing.
    I started a search on Microsoft's site and came across the Newsgroups run by Microsoft. This was the best break yet. I found a post from someone with the same problem, as well as a response from a Microsoft technician. I followed the KnowledgeBase link and happened upon the fix. I will outline it below, but follow this link to the KnowledgeBase article (q179/4/39).
    The first step in solving this error is to see if the file exists. Hit the [F3] key, or go to Start, choose Find, then select Files or folders. Type the filename you want to search for—outlprnt—and select the directory. I recommend searching all of c:\. If it finds the file, and it is in the default location, go to Start, choose Run, and type regedit.exe (regedt32.exe under NT.)
    The registry key is under the following location: Hkey_Current_User/Software/Microsoft/Office/8.0/Outlook/Printing and the actual data value is the full directory path to the outlprnt file. If the directory entry in the Registry matches the directory of the file, delete and recreate the outlprnt file.
    Go to the directory where outlprnt file is located and delete it. Using Word, create a blank document and save it as outlprnt.doc in the default location.
    Now, start Outlook 98 and go to File, choose Page Setup, and select Define Print Styles. Retry the print job. If it fails, chalk it up as initializing the file and try the print job again. If all went well, the document printed. If not, take the .doc extension off the outlprnt.doc file, set the print settings, and retry the print job.

    ADD SOME SOUND TO OUTLOOK

    Want to add some sound to your Outlook chores? If you thought Windows sound schemes added a lot of spunk to your workday, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Microsoft has designed an entire set of sounds that when installed attach themselves to various Office or Outlook events.
    You can download the Office 97 Sounds for Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint from the Microsoft Office Update Web site at: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm
    Once you've downloaded and installed the sounds.exe file, select Tools, Options, and click the Other tab. Click Advanced Options, select Provide Feedback With Sound, and click OK twice. (Keep in mind--this setting affects all Office applications at once.)
    Note: You can edit individual sounds in the Control Panel's Sounds Properties dialog box. We'll show you how in our next tip.

    DOWNLOAD ECONOMIST DIARY COMPANION

    Do you consider yourself up on worldwide happenings--holidays, sports, theater, and so on? How would you like a program that REALLY keeps you up to date on all this stuff by importing the information right into your Outlook calendar? The Economist Diary Companion is available for download from the Microsoft Office Update Web site at: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm
    Once you've downloaded ediary99.exe, double-click this file and follow the installation instructions. To run the program, select Start, Programs, Economist Diary Companion, Economist Diary Companion 1999. A setup wizard allows you to choose from over 5000 worldwide dates to transfer to Outlook.

    DOWNLOAD OUTLOOK IMPORT/EXPORT DATE FIX

    With the new millennium right around the corner, you'll want to make sure you've updated everything on your system with the appropriate Y2K patches. One such update is the Outlook Import/Export Date Fix. If you frequently import or export data using Outlook--specifically, text files that include dates in the two-digit format--you'll want to install this update to make sure Outlook interprets the dates correctly.
    You can find this update on the Microsoft Office Update Web site at: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm

    EDIT DOWNLOADED SOUNDS

    In our last tip, we mentioned that you can download Office 97 Sounds for Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint from the Microsoft Office Update Web site at: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.htm
    Once you've downloaded and installed the sounds.exe file, select Tools, Options, click the Other tab, click Advanced Options, select Provide Feedback With Sound, and click OK twice.
    Want to edit a few of those sounds? You can turn individual sounds on and off or attach new sounds to particular events from the Control Panel's Sounds Properties dialog box.
    Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, and double-click Sounds. Inside the Sounds Properties dialog box, scroll down the list of events until you find those listed under Microsoft Office. To turn off a sound, select the event to which it's attached and select (None) under Name.
    To attach a new sound to an event, select that event, then click the down arrow under Name and select your sound of choice. (Extra tip: To preview the selected sound, click the arrow button under Preview.) If you don't see the sound you want in the list (which by default points to the Windows\Media folder) click the Browse button, navigate your way to the desired WAV file's location, select the file, and click OK. Repeat these steps for each sound you'd like to change, and when you're finished, click OK. (Note: The changes you make affect all Office applications.)

    SETTING A MAXIMUM RECIPIENT LIMIT

    It's every Exchange administrator's worst nightmare--a series of rapid-fire reply-all messages sent to every recipient on your company's Global Address List that rapidly brings your Exchange server to its knees. If you've ever experienced this situation, you know why some people call it "Bedlam." Since it's something you'd really rather not experience firsthand, take a simple precaution by configuring your Exchange server's registry to limit the maximum number of recipients for messages. First, start REGEDT32.EXE and open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\Parameters System and add the value Max Recipients On Submit with a data type of REG_DWORD.
    In the DWORD Editor dialog box, enter the decimal value for the limit that you want to set. The change will go into effect immediately; you don't have to stop and restart the Information Store. The limit will apply to all recipients, including those addressed in a message's To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields. A reasonable limit would range between 50 and 200 recipients. If a user tries to send a message to more than the allowed number of recipients, Exchange will notify the sender that it cannot send the message due to the restriction you've imposed. To allow certain users to circumvent this restriction, create distribution lists to which only they have send permissions.

    UNDERSTANDING MESSAGE TIME STAMPS

    You might be surprised when a user complains that it took more than three hours for another recipient in your Exchange organization to receive a message that he or she sent. To determine the cause of such excessive travel time, you might want to first ask the sender and recipient to verify their workstations' time settings and time zones. You see, Exchange Server itself doesn't determine the Sent time that Outlook displays in a message window. Instead, the sender's mail client (Outlook or any other) sets the message's time stamp. The mail client determines this value by adjusting the local machine's date and time to its equivalent in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The recipient's mail client adjusts the time stamp from GMT to the equivalent local time and displays it as the time sent.
    Suppose that your machine is in the Eastern time zone (-05:00 GMT), its local time is 22:00 (10:00 P.M.), and its local date is Oct. 4 at the instant you send a message to a recipient in the Mid-Atlantic time zone (-02:00 GMT). Your Outlook client will set the message's time stamp value to 03:00 on Oct 5. The recipient's machine will adjust the sent time to the local time zone and display its translated value as 01:00 on Oct. 5. As you can see, an incorrect time zone setting on either the sender's or the recipient's machine can result in an inaccurate Sent time and an inaccurate determination of the message's delivery time.

    VERIFYING AND TRACKING MAILBOX SIZE

    Who wins this month's booby prize for hoarding the most mail in his or her mailbox? If you want to find out, you need to know how to display the size and number of items in every mailbox on your server at once. To do this, start Exchange Administrator and select your server. Then drill down through Private Information Store to Mailbox Resources. In the right pane of Exchange Administrator, you'll see six columns of data that describe the server's mailboxes. To sort mailboxes by size from the smallest to largest, click the header on the Total K column. To add columns that show Storage Limits or the total size of Deleted Items, choose Columns from the View menu.
    Saving the Mailbox Resources data to a file for tracking purposes is easy. Just highlight a row in the right pane, select Save Window Contents from the File menu, and specify the name and location of a .csv file. Once you've added the Storage Limits column and saved the Mailbox Resources data in a file format, you can create spreadsheet macros to generate reports that identify which users consistently exceed their mailbox size limits and to determine who may need their limits increased.

    GET ATTACHED TO YOUR VCARD

    Outlook allows you to send an electronic version of your business card, called a vCard, as an attachment to your mail messages. To add your vCard to your signature in Outlook 2000:
    • Choose Options from the Tools menu and select the Mail Format tab.
    • Click on Signature Picker and select the signature to which you want to attach your vCard.
    • Click Edit.
    • Click New vCard From Contact.
    • Select your listing in the address list and click Add.
    • Click OK. You will now see your name listed in the Attach This Business Card list.
    • Click OK.
    Your vCard will now be part of this signature.

    MOVE OR BACK UP ADDRESS BOOK

    We get lots of letters asking how to move an Address Book from one system to another (or to a floppy disk as a backup). All you have to do is export the information to a *.csv file. From there, you can import it back into Outlook.
    Open the Outlook 98 Address Book and select File, Export, Address Book. In the Address Book Export Tool dialog box, select Text File (Comma Separated Values) and click Export. Click Browse, navigate your way to the destination of the *.csv file you're about to create--for example, a floppy drive--type a name for the file, and click Save. Click Next, select the fields you'd like to export, and click Finish. When you see a message stating that the Address Book export has completed successfully, click OK, then Close.
    Put that *.csv file in a safe place and stay tuned for our next tip, where we'll show you how to import this information back to Outlook.

    MOVE TO FOLDER ICON

    When you need to move a message from one folder to the next, how do you do it? By right-clicking the message, selecting Move To, choosing a folder in the resulting list, and so on? There's a much faster way.
    Select the message(s) you want to move, then click the toolbar's Move To Folder icon. (It's the one between the Print and Delete icons.) In the resulting drop-down list, select the destination and send your messages off.
    Note: The order of the folders in the Move To Folder list changes as you use this command. The most recent destination appears at the top of the list. If you don't see the folder you want, simply use the Move To Folder command at the bottom of the list.

    PERSONALIZE YOUR STATIONERY

    To create your own stationery:
    • Choose Options from the Tools menu.
    • Click the Mail Format tab.
    • Click Stationery Picker.
    • Click New.
    • Enter a name for your design in the Create New Stationery dialog box.
    • If you want to create your design by starting with a blank page, click Start With A Blank Stationery. If you want to modify an existing design, click Use This Existing Stationery As A Template. If you want to use an HTML file as your starting point, click Use This File As A Template.
    • Click OK.
    To use the new stationery as your default, select it in the Use This Stationery By Default list box. If you don't want to use it by default, select None. You can then use this stationery on a case-by-case basis by selecting New Mail Message Using on the Actions menu and choosing your stationery. AVOID THE FORWARD BUTTON WHEN DELEGATING A TASK If you receive a task request and want to forward it to another person, simply assign the task to the other person. If the new recipient accepts the task, task ownership passes to the recipient. Do not use the Forward button to reassign the task. If you do so, you won't be able to use Outlook's task management features. Instead, open the Task Request message and click Assign Task or choose Assign Task on the Actions menu. GET YOUR SCHEDULE IN ORDER To import data from other scheduling programs into Outlook, follow these steps: 1. Select File | Import And Export from the menu bar. 2. From the Choose An Action To Perform list, select Import From Another Program Or File and click Next. 3. Select the program from which you are importing your scheduling data and click Next. Outlook will locate the file containing your data; you can also select another file by clicking Browse and navigating to it. 4. Choose how you want Outlook to handle duplicate entries and click Next. 5. Outlook will show you a list of actions it will perform. You can alter the list by deselecting any action you do not want performed, or you can change Outlook's proposed destination for your data by clicking Change Destination. 6. Click Finish. GETTING INFO FROM OTHER CLIENT PROGRAMS To import the address book or mail from another e-mail program: 1. Go to the File menu and select Import And Export. 2. Choose the Import Internet Mail And Addresses option from the Choose An Action To Perform list. 3. Click Next. 4. Select Your Other Mail Program. 5. Check one or all of the check boxes: Import Mail, Import Address Book, or Import Rule. 6. Click Next. 7. Select either your Personal Address Book or Outlook Contacts Folder as the target for the information you're importing. 8. Choose how you want to handle duplicates. 9. Click Finish. LET'S GET THE NAME STRAIGHT When users rename folders they've created, Outlook doesn't change the names of their corresponding folder icons on the Outlook Bar. This is because the icons on the Outlook Bar are just shortcuts to the actual items. To rename an icon on the Outlook Bar: 1. Right-click the icon you want to rename. 2. Choose Rename Shortcut from the shortcut menu. 3. When the icon's name is highlighted, type in the new icon's name. Likewise, changing the name of an icon on the Outlook Bar or removing the icon altogether does not change the underlying folder structure. LET'S GET THIS OUTLOOK FORM PUBLISHED To publish a form you made to a forms library: 1. Choose Forms on the Tools menu and select Publish Form As. 2. Change the Look In box to the library in which you wish to publish your form. 3. In the Display Name box type the text you want to appear in the form's title bar. This text will automatically populate the Form Name box (you can change this entry if you want to). 4. Click the Publish button. Keep in mind that if you want to publish a form to a public or private folder, you must have editor, publishing editor, or owner permission. MY OFFLINE PUBLIC FOLDER IS MY FAVORITE One of the drawbacks to working remotely is that you can't open public folders because they're located on the server. However, you can get around this restriction by using public folder favorites. To set up public folder favorites: 1. Choose Folder List from the View menu. 2. Expand the Public Folder list and the All Public Folders list. 3. Highlight the folder you want to access while offline. 4. Choose Add To Public Folder Favorites under the File--Folder menu. 5. Click Add when the Add To Favorites dialog box appears. 6. Expand the Favorites Public Folder. 7. Right-click the entry you just created and then click Properties. 8. Click the Synchronization tab. 9. Click When Offline Or Online under the This Folder Is Available menu. 10. Click OK. This folder is now available for work offline as well as online. PROPERTIES OF OUTLOOK CONTROLS Each control on an Outlook form has associated properties. These properties determine how the control looks and feels. You can open the Properties page for a control by: * Right-clicking the control and choosing Properties. * Clicking the Properties button on the Form Design toolbar. * Choosing Properties from the Form menu. If you have selected more than one control when you open the Properties page, Outlook will display information for the first control you selected. You can always double-check which control you are viewing by referring to the Name and Caption entries on the Properties page. SHARING A FAX MODEM If you have more computers than you do modems, you can share modems between several users. Once you do this, several users can send their faxes through a single device. To share a modem with other users: 1. Click the Modem tab in the Microsoft Fax Properties dialog box and then check Let Other People On The Network Use My Modem To Send Faxes. 2. When the Select Drive dialog box appears, select the drive on your local machine that you want the network fax service to use. 3. Click OK. 4. Click Properties and Outlook will display the NETFAX dialog box. 5. Click Shared As and change the share name as needed. 6. Select the Access Type you want to grant. (Read Only limits others to viewing, Full allows others full access to the fax server folder, and Depends On Password allows some users to have full access and others to have read access.) SHUFFLING TASKS IS EASIER IN OUTLOOK THAN IN REAL LIFE If you want to reassign a task that you've already assigned to someone, you can create an unassigned copy of the task and assign it to someone else. For this to work, you must have selected the Keep An Updated Copy Of This Task On My Task List check box on the Task tab of the original task request. When you create this unassigned copy of a task, the original task you assigned stays on the task list of the person you assigned it to, but an updated copy of the original task will not appear on your task list. The people who formerly received task updates will no longer receive them; however, if anyone who was assigned the original task requests a status report, it will be sent when the owner marks the task complete. To reassign a task: 1. Open the task you want to reassign. 2. Click the Details tab. 3. Click the Create Unassigned Copy button. 4. Click OK. 5. Choose Assign Task from the Actions menu. 6. In the To box, enter the name of the person you want to assign the task to, and click Send. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR OUTLOOK CONTROLS A control is an object that you place on a form to perform a function. For instance, a text control allows you to display or enter text. When a form has multiple controls it can be cumbersome to work with; however, there are many shortcuts that you can use to make working with controls easier. * To select a single control on a form, click on it. * To select all of the controls on the form, choose Select All from the Edit menu. * To select all of the controls in one area of a form, drag a rectangle around them with the mouse. * To select several controls at various positions on the form, hold down [Ctrl] while you click each control. * To select a sequence of controls, click the first control and hold down [Shift] while you click on the last control. TELL THE SPAM TO SCRAM Off the shelf, Outlook is very good at managing spam--unwanted junk e- mail. To manage spam, Outlook applies a built-in set of rules to determine what qualifies as junk mail, allows you to manually add e- mail addresses to the junk senders list, and allows you to create junk mail rules where you tell Outlook to automatically delete, flag, or move these messages. To manage the junk mail list: 1. Click the Inbox folder. 2. Click Organize on the standard toolbar. 3. Click Junk E-mail. 4. Click the Click Here link. 5. Click E-mail Junk Senders. 6. To edit or delete an entry, select the address from the list and click Edit or Delete. To add an e-mail address, click Add. To expand these features, you can download additional shrink-wrapped junk mail filters at: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/articles/junkmail.htm THE OUTLOOK EXPRESS AND ISP CONNECTION If you've set up Outlook Express to send messages immediately and to automatically dial, it will connect to your ISP to send your messages. If you want Outlook to disconnect from your ISP after it sends messages, select the Hang Up When Finished check box. Otherwise, you can select Work Offline from the File menu to disconnect your session. Keep in mind that if you select the Hang Up When Finished check box and you use Internet Explorer as your default Web browser, your browsing connection will be terminated after Outlook Express sends and receives its mail. USING OUTLOOK TO MERGE MAIL If a user has a form letter that needs to be sent to select Outlook contacts, he or she can take advantage of a feature called Mail Merge. To set up a mail merge: 1. Create a new Contacts folder by clicking the Contacts icon in the Outlook bar and selecting File | New | Folder from the menu bar. 2. Select Folder List from the View menu. 3. In the main Contacts window, select the contacts to which you want to send the mail merge, and drag the names to the folder you just created. 4. Switch to Microsoft Word, open the document you want to mail merge, and select Tools | Mail Merge from the menu bar. 5. In the Mail Merge Helper dialog box, click Create and select a type of document (Form Letters, Mailing Labels, Envelopes, or Catalog). 6. Click Active Window. 7. Click Get Data then select Use Address Book | Outlook Address Book and click OK. 8. In the Mail Merge From Contacts dialog box, select the folder you created in step 1 and click OK. 9. Select Tools | Mail Merge | Merge from the menu bar, choose from the sending options in the Merge dialog box, and click the Merge button to activate the merge. WHEN ARE THE HOLIDAYS? Outlook comes with the most popular holidays already noted in the calendar. To add other holidays, just follow these steps: 1. Select Options from the Tools menu. 2. Click the Preference tab. 3. Select Calendar Options. 4. Click Add Holidays. 5. Select the dates of the holidays to add to your calendar. 6. Click OK three times. When you select the Calendar folder, you'll notice that the holidays have been entered into your calendar. ATTENTION! MILITARY TIME IN OUTLOOK As you probably know, military time format is based on 24-hour cycles, rather than repeating 12-hour time periods. Time occurring after 12:59 P.M. does not restart at 1:00, but continues through 23:59. For example, 1 P.M. is displayed as 13:00 in this format. To set the Calendar in Outlook to military time, follow these steps: 1. Select Settings from the Start menu. 2. Open Control Panel. 3. Double-click Regional Settings. 4. Click the Time tab. 5. From the Time Style drop-down list, select the format HH:mm:ss. 6. Click OK. 7. Close Control Panel. Times in the Calendar will now be displayed in the 24-hour cycle format. BEEFING UP SECURITY FOR ATTACHMENTS Microsoft has updated its Outlook 98 Email Attachment Security Update to address a problem that occurred when installing the patch on Windows NT systems. The O98attch.exe patch steps up the warnings users see when they open a message that includes an attachment. The patch also prevents them from opening attachments that are executables (users must save such attachments to their hard drives instead), which offers at least a modicum of protection against unleashing viruses that might be harbored by an .exe file. http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadDetails/O98attch.htm CONTACTS ARE EASY TO FIND IN OUTLOOK Your users can store a variety of information about the people they interact with by using Outlook's Contacts feature. Outlook saves the information about each contact--a person or an organization--in the Outlook Address Book. So, if your users intend to use contacts, they must add the Outlook Address Book service to their profile. When a user receives an e-mail from someone they want to add to their contact list, they should take the following steps: 1. Open the message. 2. Right-click the sender's e-mail address in the From field. 3. Select Add To Contacts from the shortcut menu. When a user adds a contact who has the same name as an existing contact, Outlook will show a dialog box that warns of the possible duplication and offers the alternative of adding the person as a new contact or updating the existing contact with the new information. If you choose to update the information, the original details are backed up to the Deleted Items folder. CONVERTING YOUR CALENDAR TO HTML Outlook 97 does not include a method of saving Outlook items or folders as HTML files. However, you can convert your calendar to a Word 97 document and then from Word, save the calendar in HTML format. 1. Download Olcalndr.exe from the Microsoft Software Library, and save it on your hard drive. 2. In Windows Explorer, double-click Olcalndr.exe to expand the compressed file. Olcalndr.exe will create two files, Olcalndr.dot (a Word 97 template) and Readme.txt (usage instructions). 3. Move the Olcalndr.dot template file to your \Program Files\MicrosoftOffice\Templates folder. 4. Start Word 97 and click New on the File menu. 5. On the General tab, click Olcalndr.dot and click OK to create a new document based on the Olcalndr.dot template. 6. In Calendar Setup, click or type to fill in your choices and click OK. After the template creates your calendar, you can modify the calendar as desired before saving it in HTML format. 1. With your calendar open in Word, on the File menu, click Save As HTML. 2. In the File Name box, type a name for your HTML file. Use HTM as your file extension or let Word assign the extension. 3. Make sure the Save As Type box lists HTML Document. 4. Click Save and then click OK to the message regarding loss of formatting. 5. After saving the calendar in HTML format, on the Standard Toolbar, click the Web Page Preview button to open your calendar in your Web browser program. DESIGNING FORMS THAT DON'T ALLOW REPLY TO ALL As we discussed in a previous tip, you can prevent Reply To All abuses on a case-by-case basis by entering the recipients in the Bcc text box instead of the To text box. But if you want to make sure Reply To All is out of the picture completely, you can create a form that disables that option altogether. 1. Click New Mail Message on the Standard toolbar. 2. Choose Forms from the Tools menu and select Design This Form. 3. Click the Actions tab, double-click Reply To All, deselect the Enabled check box, and click OK. 4. Choose Forms from the Tools menu and select Publish Form As. 5. Specify a location for the form, type a name in the Display Name text box, and click Publish. 6. Close the form (no need to save changes). Now, any message that's based on the form won't include Reply To All functionality. FOLLOW UP ON IMPORTANT E-MAIL When users receive e-mails that require follow-up, they can tell Outlook to remind them later that the matter requires attention. To do this: 1. Right-click the message. 2. Select Flag For Follow Up from the shortcut menu. 3. Select the type of action you want to perform from the Flag To drop- down list. 4. From the Reminder drop-down calendar, select the date Outlook should remind you to follow up on the e-mail and click OK. By default, when you choose a date, Outlook automatically shows the time that corresponds to the end of your workday. You can replace the time Outlook displays with whatever time is appropriate. HIDE ADDRESSES WITH Bcc You normally send e-mail to recipients (To) whom you expect to take action on the contents of the message, and you carbon copy (Cc) people who should know about the message. By default, everyone who is included in the To or Cc fields can see everyone else's name in either of those fields. However, sometimes you'll want to send a group message--for example, a mailing list of your customers--and it just won't be appropriate to display the roll call of every recipient. In such cases, you can use Outlook's Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc) feature, which prevents individual recipients from seeing addresses of others who received the mail. By including everyone's name in the Bcc field, no one will be able to see anyone else. If this field is not available on your message, simply select Bcc Field from the message's View menu. HOW TO CLEAR THE CUSTOM FORMS CACHE Recently we had occasion to research the way Outlook handles custom forms because we had multiple users receiving the message that the form required to view a message could not be displayed. This error can result from corruption in the form itself or in the data file in the client's form cache. Assuming the construction of the form was sound, then the problem more than likely resides in the frmcache.dat file in the Windows\forms directory. To clear the forms cache, exit Outlook and delete the frmcache.dat file. Once you restart Outlook, a new frmcache.dat file will be created. If your problem persists, repeat the steps above, but this time delete not only the .dat file but the directories for each form. KEEP A JOURNAL FOLDER IN OUTLOOK Users can keep a record of all their Microsoft Office activities in the Outlook Journal folder. The Journal identifies each action and records the date and time it was performed. It can even isolate activities as they relate to a particular individual; a manager can track all transactions with a lead project developer, for example. To set up the Journal: 1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. 2. Select the Preferences tab. 3. Click Journal Options. 4. In the For These Contacts list box, select the contacts for whom you want Outlook to record activities. 5. In the Automatically Record These Items list box, select the Outlook activities you want to record. 6. Click OK. OUTLOOK TO OUTLOOK VIA THE WEB What does it take to successfully send an Outlook item, such as a meeting request or voting button form, to another Outlook user via the Internet? First, if the item is a custom form, the recipient must have that form published to his or her Personal Folders Library (unless the form was created with the Send Form Definition With Item option selected in design mode). Second, the sender's Exchange server has to have RTF enabled. Third, the message must be sent in rich-text format. Senders can ensure that an Internet mail message goes out as RTF by clicking Check Names and then double-clicking each underlined recipient in the To text box and selecting Always Send To This Recipient In Microsoft Outlook Rich-Text Format. PRINTING OUTLOOK CALENDAR TEXT When users view or print Outlook Calendar information in the Daily or Weekly styles, the subject text doesn't wrap within each day. If the text exceeds one line, it gets truncated. To maximize the space for printing the subject text in Daily and Weekly styles, follow these steps: 1. Go to File | Page Setup | Daily Style. 2. On the Format tab of the resulting Page Setup: Daily Style (or Weekly Style) dialog box, deselect the TaskPad and Notes Area (Blank) options. PROFILES IN THE OUTLOOK ADDRESS BOOK Outlook saves the information about each contact--a person or an organization--in the Outlook Address Book. So, if your users intend to use contacts, they must add the Outlook Address Book service to their profile. To do so, follow these steps: 1. Select the Contacts folder. 2. Choose File | Folder | Properties. 3. Click the Outlook Address Book tab. 4. Select the Show This Folder As An E-mail Address Book check box. If you add the Address Book Service but forget to define any contact folders, you will see Outlook Address Book as a choice in the Select Names dialog box, but when you choose it, you will get the message No Entries in this Address Book. SAVE TIME WITH ABBR. When users enter appointments in the Calendar, they can save time by typing abbreviations and allowing Outlook to fill in the rest. For example, if you want to enter a 4:45 P.M. meeting in the Calendar, open a new appointment window and type 445p. You can also use phrases such as "tomorrow" or "next Monday," and Outlook will automatically insert the correct date. Other examples of such shortcuts include: * 5m--five minutes from now * 10d--10 days from now * 3w--three weeks from now * 2mo--two months from now * 4y--four years from now Keep in mind that in each of these examples, "now" is the date shown in the Start Time box, not necessarily the current date and time. SAVING REVISIONS IN THE PERSONAL FORMS LIBRARY A user may create and publish a new form to the Personal Forms Library and then make changes to the form and save the revision to a different library. When the user opens an item requiring the custom form for the first time, Outlook loads the older version--the one in the Personal Forms Library--because of Outlook's retrieval order. Obviously, the solution is to delete the copy of the form in the Personal Forms Library and increment the version number of the remaining form. You can access the Manage Forms dialog box by taking the following steps: 1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. 2. Click the Other tab. 3. Click Advanced Options. 4. Click Custom Forms. 5. Click Manage Forms. 6. Highlight the form and click Delete. 7. Highlight the remaining form and click Properties. 8. Increment the version number. THE SERVER RULES REMOTE ACCESS Even when there's a very secure and complex remote access solution, some users still insist on forwarding their corporate Outlook e-mail to their AOL or other external e-mail account. To do help them do this, you can set up a server rule within Outlook. While logged on to the user's Outlook profile, take the following steps: 1) Create a contact that contains the user's external Internet mail address. The Exchange administrator can also create a Custom Recipient to the Internet address if more than one user will need to send mail to it. 2) Create a rule that forwards e-mail to the contact (or custom recipient). Remember, your Exchange administrator must configure the Internet Mail connector to allow this type of automatic forwarding. It is turned off in a default Exchange installation. THERE'S A MEETING... PASS IT ON When users open an existing meeting and invite additional attendees, Outlook sends the meeting request to everyone, including those originally invited. Rather than opening and sending the existing meeting item, users can forward it to the new attendees so those who've already seen it won't receive it again. To forward the meeting request, follow these steps: 1. In the Calendar, select Go | Go To Date. 2. Select the date of the meeting and the view to display, then click OK. 3. Right-click the meeting and select Forward from the shortcut menu. 4. Add the e-mail addresses of the new attendees and click Send. THINK TWICE BEFORE REMOVING WINFAX SE We all know that sometimes users trying to clean up settings in Outlook can inadvertently delete a setting, and then you get a support call. Case in point: If your users are having trouble sending faxes in Outlook 2000 installed as Internet Mail Only, you may want to check that the Symantec Fax Starter Edition is still listed as a mail account and that its connection type is Local Area Network. It's important that users don't select this account and choose Remove unless they are positive they don't want to use WinFax SE. If they remove WinFax in this fashion, they will have to totally reinstall it by using the Add/Remove Programs applet in Control Panel. The reason: WinFax SE requires MAPI support, and when Outlook is installed for Internet Mail Only, it only supports TAPI. So, the WinFax setup wizard installs WinFax SE as if it were an e-mail account. TO WHOM SHOULD YOU REPLY? When a user sends e-mail on behalf of another user, he or she may want any replies to be sent to that other user. For instance, an administrative assistant sending out a confidential survey for an HR manager would want replies to go directly to the manager. The problem is, many users don't pay attention to the address to which they're replying. They just click Reply and go from there. Fortunately, Outlook allows users to dictate the Reply address on a message-by-message basis. To set up this option, open the message and click Options. Select the Have Replies Sent To check box and type the e-mail address where the replies should go. (Or, you can select the name from the Select Names list.) WEEKEND COLUMNS IN THE CALENDAR When the Calendar is in Month view, each weekday has its own column, but Saturday and Sunday share a column. This arrangement is designed to give more room to the weekdays, when people typically are at work. However, if users with weird schedules want to give the weekend days their own columns, it's an easy operation. 1. Go to the Calendar. 2. From the View menu, select Current View | Customize Current View. 3. Click Other Settings. 4. Deselect Compress Weekend Days. Once you do this, Outlook will give both Saturdays and Sundays their own columns. However, be warned that the weekday displays will be compressed. Exchange Server Update Tip of the Week: Add Outlook Bar Shortcuts to Files and Internet URLs (Contributed by Sue Mosher, exadmin@slipstick.com and Rick Liagn) Here's a tip for speeding up access to your favorite Web site using one of Outlook 2000's new features--the ability to add Outlook Bar shortcuts to files and Internet URLs, not just to folders. 1. Open Outlook. If the Outlook Bar is not visible, choose View, Outlook Bar. 2. Open Internet Explorer (IE), and connect to your favorite Web site. 3. Position your mouse pointer over the IE icon at the upper-left corner of the IE window, then hold down the left mouse button and drag until the pointer is over the button for Outlook in the Windows task bar at the bottom of your screen. (Don't release the mouse button yet!) 4. When the Outlook window appears, continue dragging until you have the mouse pointer (which should now show a horizontal line) positioned where you want the new shortcut to appear. Now you can release the mouse button. 5. You can edit the display name for the shortcut to remove the http:// prefix by right-clicking the shortcut and choosing Rename Shortcut from the pop-up menu. This shortcut opens the Web page within Outlook, not by launching your default browser. CALENDAR'S PRINT STYLE DEPENDS ON VIEW Reader R. Strautman asks, "When printing a calendar in Outlook 98, is it possible to make the program default to something other than daily? I nearly always want a monthly calendar and must manually reset the type of calendar." Outlook defaults to printing a daily calendar only if you select the Print command while Calendar is in the Day view. If you switch to the Month view and THEN select the Print command, you'll find that the Monthly Style calendar is selected. (Of course, either way, it takes an extra click to get what you're after!) CHANGE CONTENTS OF OUTLOOK SHORTCUTS B. Brown writes, "When I start Outlook, the Outlook Bar always displays 'Outlook Shortcuts.' I would like the default display to be my own shortcuts folder instead. How can I accomplish this?" We don't know of a way to change the default folder or group, but how about moving all of your shortcuts from the My Shortcuts group into Outlook Shortcuts, and vice versa? To move a shortcut from one group to another, click and drag it directly over the destination group's name. When that group expands, drop the shortcut in your location of choice. The Outlook Bar will still display Outlook Shortcuts at startup, but all of your favorites will be there! And you can still access the old standbys inside My Shortcuts. COLOR-CODE YOUR MESSAGES Is there a certain someone whose messages are more important than those of others (for example, a contact at your big account)? Make sure you never overlook them by coloring those messages a nice shade of, say, lime green. >From inside your Inbox or Sent Items folder, click the toolbar's Organize button on the right side of the toolbar. On the left side of the organizing area, click Using Colors, then complete the necessary information to the right. For example, you might create a rule that says, "Color messages from Paul Palumbo in Lime." Click Apply Color. The next time you receive a message from (or send one to) the specified person, it will appear in that color in the message list. (Note: The change is retroactive--you just need to close and reopen Outlook before existing messages appear color-coded.) CREATE NEW SHORTCUT GROUP ON OUTLOOK BAR When you display the Outlook Bar on screen (select View, Outlook Bar), you see two groups in which to store your shortcuts--Outlook Shortcuts and My Shortcuts. Want to divide them up even further? Create a new group. Right-click a blank area of the Outlook Bar and select Add New Group. At the bottom of the bar, you'll see the words New Group highlighted. Type a name for the group, then press Enter. You can now add shortcuts to (or delete them from) this group as you would in any other group. DELETE ALL HOLIDAYS AT ONCE Reader D. Ang writes, "I followed your tip on adding holidays to my Calendar, but now I've changed my mind and want to remove them. I could delete them one by one, but I find this too time consuming. Is there a way to remove them all at once?" Yes, but it isn't obvious. Pull down the View menu and select Current View, Events. Then click the Location column to sort the holidays by country. Click the first holiday you want to delete, then hold down Shift as you click the last. Right-click the selection and choose Delete, or click the toolbar's Delete button. Later, alligators. FINDING THE RIGHT NEWSGROUP We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multipart series that answers these questions and more. In our last tip, we introduced newsgroups--collections of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about a given topic. To get started, select Go, News, click the Read News button, and when you see a message asking if you'd like to view a newsgroup list, click Yes. (Note: If you've already followed these steps once, select the Newsgroups button to access the list of newsgroups directly.) A little overwhelmed by the selection? Before you start scrolling through thousands of abbreviations, narrow your search a bit. Type some search criteria on the Display Newsgroups Which Contain line. For example, you might type "baseball" or "woodworking." When you're finished typing (or sooner), Outlook starts the search. (Don't press Enter, or you'll close the dialog box altogether.) See a group that looks interesting? Click the Go To button and wait as Outlook downloads the headers, or list of messages, from that group. Then select any message to read it, as you would in your Inbox. To return to the Newsgroups dialog box, click the Newsgroups icon or select Tools, Newsgroups. Exiting the Outlook Express newsreader removes any previewed newsgroups from your folder list--that is, unless you subscribe to them, an option we'll discuss in our next tip. INTRO TO NEWSGROUPS We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multipart series that answers these questions and more. For starters, a definition: A newsgroup is a collection of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about any--and we mean any--given topic. You can simply browse a newsgroup by reading its posted messages, or you can become a participant by submitting your own messages. To get a feel for exactly how many newsgroups are out there, download the list of groups available to your server. Select Go, News, and Outlook 98 will launch a news-only version of Outlook Express. For information on installing this component if it isn't there already, point your Web browser to http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/1/67.asp Select Read News, then follow along with the Internet Connection wizard to enter all the necessary news server information. (Note: You can obtain this information from your ISP or network administrator). Click Finish, and you'll see a message asking if you'd like to see a list of all available newsgroups. Click Yes, wait for the list to finish downloading, and you'll find yourself in the Newsgroups dialog box with a very long list (we're talking thousands of names). Fortunately, you only have to wait for this list to download once. >From now on, selecting Go, News and clicking the Newsgroups button will take you directly to the Newsgroups dialog box. Our next tip will show how to search out the right newsgroup for YOU. JUMP TO THE INBOX USING THE KEYBOARD Want to jump directly to your Inbox folder without the Outlook Bar or folder list? Press Ctrl-Shift-I on your keyboard. Even your mouse missed that one. MAKE YOUR OWN HOLIDAY SET In our last tip, we showed you how to delete a set of holidays you've added to Outlook's Calendar: Select View, Current View, Events; click the Location column (to sort the holidays by country); select the holidays you want to delete; then click the Delete button. Just for fun (and because you want to be so organized this year), want to create your own set of holidays--for example, the birthdays of everyone you know? All it takes is some quick typing additions to the outlook.txt file. Open any Windows folder window and navigate your way to the Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office folder. Inside, you'll find outlook.txt. Open this file using a text editor, such as Notepad. At the end of the file, type a name for the holiday set, such as Birthdays, in brackets. Then type a space and the number of holidays you plan to create. Press Enter, then type each holiday using the following format: Description, yyyy/mm/dd So for example, you might type the following: [Birthdays] My Birthday, 1999/12/15 My Birthday, 2000/12/15 Bill's Birthday, 1999/5/02 Bill's Birthday, 2000/5/02 Joe's Birthday, 1999/10/07 Joe's Birthday, 2000/10/07 (Note that you need to type an entry for each year.) When you're finished, close and save outlook.txt. Then apply the new holiday set to your Calendar as you would any other: Inside Outlook, select Tools, Options; click the Calendar Options button; click Add Holidays; select your holiday set; then click OK. MORE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS: ADDRESS BOOK AND NEW FOLDER In our last tip, we showed you how to jump directly to your Inbox folder without the Outlook bar or folder list: Press Ctrl-Shift-I on your keyboard. Whole you're at it, here are two more Ctrl-Shift shortcuts you should know about. Press Ctrl-Shift-E to create a new folder inside the currently active one. Press Ctrl-Shift-B to open your Address Book. SEND SOMEONE A VIRTUAL BUSINESS CARD, OR VCARD Can't figure out how to get your business card through your computer screen and into your e-mail message? The next time someone asks for your card, send a vCard attached to an Outlook message. The vCard format is (according to Microsoft, anyway) "the Internet standard for creating and sharing virtual business cards." First, enter yourself as a new contact (unless you're already in there): Select File, New, Contact, fill in the resulting dialog box, and click Save And Close. From inside the Contacts folder, right-click yourself and select Forward As VCard. Presto--the new message dialog box opens with your business card, or vCard, attached as a *.vcf file. Finish the message as usual and send it off, card included. SAVE RECEIVED VCARD AS CONTACT In our last tip, we showed you how to attach your business card, or vCard, to an e-mail message: Enter yourself as a contact, if you haven't done so already; then, from the Contacts folder, right-click yourself and select Forward As VCard. The resulting message has the card attached. So now the question is, what do you do if you receive a vCard? Assuming you want to keep the information around, you can add it to your Contacts folder in a simple drag-and-drop operation. First, make sure you can see your folder list. (If you can't, select View, Folder List.) Then, with the message that contains the vCard open in a separate window (not the preview pane), click and drag the vCard icon over to the Contacts folder and let go. A Contacts dialog box appears. Complete any other desired fields for the contact, then click Save And Close. SUBSCRIBING TO NEWSGROUPS We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multipart series that answers these questions and more. In the first tip in this series, we introduced newsgroups -- collections of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about a given topic. To get started, select Go, News, click the Read News button, and when you see a message asking if you'd like to view a newsgroup list, click Yes. (Note: If you've already followed these steps once, select the Newsgroups button to access the list of newsgroups directly.) Type some criteria in the box next to Display Newsgroups Which Contain (to narrow your search), then preview any newsgroup by selecting it and clicking Go To. Find a newsgroup that really interests you? Then by all means you'll want to subscribe to that group (for free, of course), to make it a permanent part of your newsreader's folder list. (Previewing a newsgroup only adds it to the newsreader's folder list temporarily, until you exit this window.) If you're already previewing the newsgroup, right-click it in your newsreader folder list and select Subscribe To This Newsgroup. To subscribe to a group from inside the Newsgroups dialog box, select the newsgroup and click Subscribe. Click Go To, and Outlook 98 proceeds to download new headers for that group. Any subscribed-to newsgroups appear in list form under your main newsreader folder, and also on the Subscribed tab of the Newsgroups dialog box. To unsubscribe to a newsgroup, right-click the group in the folder list, select Unsubscribe, and click Yes to confirm. Or open the Newsgroups dialog box, click the Subscribed tab, select the newsgroup, and click Unsubscribe. In our next tip, you'll learn how to set the number of headers your newsreader downloads at one time. SET MAXIMUM NUMBER OF NEWSGROUP HEADERS TO DOWNLOAD We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multi-art series that answers these questions and more. In the first tip in this series, we introduced newsgroups--collections of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about a given topic. To get started, select Go, News, click the Read News button, and when you see a message asking if you'd like to view a newsgroup list, click Yes. (Note: If you've already followed these steps once, select the Newsgroups button to access the list of newsgroups directly.) Type some criteria in the box next to Display Newsgroups Which Contain (to narrow your search), then preview any newsgroup by selecting it and clicking Go To. If you find a group to which you'd like to subscribe, right-click it in the folder list and select Subscribe To This Newsgroup. You'll notice that when you preview a newsgroup, Outlook 98 downloads only the 300 most recent headers (if there are that many) for the newsgroup. But look to the status bar, and in most cases, you'll see a "XX headers not downloaded" message. To download the next batch of headers, select Tools, Get Next 300 Headers, and so on, until you've downloaded all messages. To set the maximum number of headers your newsreader will download at a time, select Tools, Options, click the Read tab, and adjust the number next to Download. Or deselect this option entirely to allow the newsreader to download an unlimited number of messages. (Note: Opening a newsgroup folder downloads any new messages for that group.) Now that you have all those messages in your newly subscribed-to newsgroup, how do you get rid of them? We'll show you how in our next tip. SPACEBAR TO PAGE DOWN IN PREVIEW PANE Here's a trick you may wish to try while viewing multiple messages in the preview pane: To scroll down through the message a page at a time (this is the same as pressing the PgDn key in a word processing document), press the spacebar. From the end of a message, press spacebar, and you jump to the beginning of the next message. Note: If this trick doesn't work for you, select Tools, Options, select the Other tab, click the Preview Pane button, and make sure "Single key reading using space bar" is selected. SHIFT-SPACEBAR TO MOVE BACKWARD THROUGH MESSAGES In our last tip, we showed you a shortcut for scrolling through messages in the preview pane: Press the spacebar repeatedly to page down through the message. Or, from the end of a message, press spacebar, and you jump to the beginning of the next message. Want to go backward through messages (still in the preview pane)? Don't reach for that mouse just yet. Press Shift-spacebar to jump to the beginning of the current or previous message. Note: If this trick doesn't work for you, select Tools, Options, select the Other tab, click the Preview Pane button, and make sure "Single key reading using space bar" is selected. TASKS LIST ON OUTLOOK TODAY REALLY IS SIMPLE P. Bair writes, "I have the Simple List of Tasks displayed in Outlook Today. The tasks in the list seem to arrange themselves in a haphazard order, not conforming to the manner in which they are ordered in Tasks or any other logical order. I would like to put them in order as I do in Tasks--that is, by priority, then date due. Is there any way to set this order?" Unfortunately, tasks that appear on the Outlook Today page appear in the order in which you created them. Period. (When they say simple, they mean it.) The only change you can make to this list is to display today's tasks only (anything overdue or due today). For those of you who aren't familiar with this technique, switch to the Outlook Today page, click Options, select Today's Tasks, then click Back To Outlook Today. GETTING THE MESSAGE OUT OF OUTLOOK EXPRESS Outlook and Outlook Express are different programs with different capabilities, and you can't synchronize the information stored in the two programs. If you have an e-mail message stored in Outlook Express, that e-mail message is not automatically available in Outlook. To export the messages from Outlook Express, follow these steps: 1. Open Outlook and Outlook Express. 2. In Outlook Express, choose File | Export | Messages. 3. Click OK to the message, "This will export messages from Outlook Express Mail to Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange." 4. Select either All or Selected Folders to export and click OK. The folders and contents will appear in the Inbox of the selected Profile in Outlook. Each message will display the date and time you exported the messages from Outlook Express. A PERSONAL PASSWORD In Outlook, you can prevent others from accessing your personal folders by adding a password. To add a password to your personal folders, follow these steps: 1. Open Control Panel. 2. Double-click the Mail And Fax icon. 3. On the Services tab, select Personal Folders and click Properties. 4. In the Personal Folders dialog box, click Change Password. 5. In the Change Password dialog box, type your new password, and verify it by typing it a second time. 6. Make sure that the Save This Password In Your Password List check box is cleared to prevent the password from being cached. You will need to type it each time you run Outlook. 7. Once you have entered the password successfully, click OK three times to return to Control Panel. The next time you start Outlook, you will be prompted for your password before viewing the contents of the personal folder. SHARING CONTACTS There are two ways to share contact information between Outlook Express and Outlook. If, during Outlook Active Setup, you choose to upgrade Outlook Express, Setup will do a conversion of the address entries to the Contact format used by Outlook. If you choose not to convert during Setup, you may do so later using the Import and Export Wizard. 1. Start Outlook. 2. Go to File | Import And Export. 3. Select Import Internet Mail And Addresses and click Next. 4. Select Outlook Express and select which items you would like to import. Click Next. 5. Select a destination for the imported data. The destination should depend on the type of Outlook installation you initially selected. The Internet Mail Only installation of Outlook allows only the Contacts folder as the destination. The Corporate or Workgroup option allows the options of Personal Address Book or Outlook Contacts. 6. Select the appropriate duplicate items option. 7. Click Finish to complete the import. IT'S MORE FUN TO SHARE In our last tip, we told you how to import Outlook Express contact information into Outlook. But you can also share Outlook contacts between Outlook Express and Outlook if you have the Internet Mail Only option of Outlook installed. 1. Open Outlook Express. 2. Go to File | Tools | Address Book. 3. Select Address Book Tools | Options. 4. Select Share Contact Information Among Microsoft Outlook And Other Applications. 5. Click OK and close the Address Book. 6. Exit and restart Outlook Express for the changes to take effect. You can now use the Outlook contact list in both Outlook and Outlook Express. IMPORT YOUR CONTACTS BY ACT!-ING Outlook 97 does not include a converter for importing contacts from Symantec Act! 3.0. The Act! Converter in Outlook will only import Act! 2.0 files. To import Act! 3.0 files, follow these steps: 1. Open the Import And Export Wizard by selecting File | Import And Export. 2. Select Import From Another Program Or File and click Next. 3. Select dBase and click Next. 4. In the File To Import box, type the path and filename of your Act! 3.0 file, or click Browse to find the file. 5. Under Options, select how you want to control duplicate items and click Next. 6. Select the folder where you want to store your contacts and click Next. 7. Click Map Custom Fields if you want to specify how your Act! fields map to your Outlook Contacts fields. 8. Click Finish to start the import process. QUALIFY YOUR HYPERLINKS Hyperlinks behave differently depending on which editor you happen to be using in Outlook. If you're using either the HTML or Word editors, Outlook turns fully qualified links or text that appears to be a link into a live link. For example, http://www.techrepublic.com (fully qualified) and www.techrepublic.com (appears to be a link) will both be turned into a live link. But if you're using the Rich Text Format or Plain Text editors, Outlook will only turn fully qualified links into live links. Therefore, http://www.techrepublic.com will be turned into a link, but www.techrepublic.com will not. When sending messages, keep in mind that other clients and configurations may not recognize these so-called "apparent links," so it's always best to use fully qualified links. BENEFITS OF USING WORD AS YOUR E-MAIL EDITOR In our last tip, we showed you how to use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor (assuming you have Word installed on your system): Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; select Microsoft Word next to Send In This Message Format; then click OK. What's so great about using Word as your editor? For starters, you have access to Word's spelling checker features--they check your spelling as you work (this is different from Outlook, which only checks when you're finished, and only if you've asked it to do so.) Also, you can use Word's highlighter to draw attention to important points in your outgoing message. Click the down arrow on the Highlight icon, select a color, then click and drag to highlight text with the mouse. To turn the highlighter off, simply click the Highlight icon again. Bullets and numbering, tables--the list goes on. If you want formatting options, Word's got 'em. (Note: If you send a Word-formatted message to someone who does not use WordMail, formatting unique to Word changes to plain text.) DELETING ALL HEADERS INSIDE A NEWSGROUP We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multipart series that answers these questions and more. In the first tip in this series, we introduced newsgroups -- collections of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about a given topic. To get started, select Go, News, click the Read News button, and when you see a message asking if you'd like to view a newsgroup list, click Yes. (Note: If you've already followed these steps once, select the Newsgroups button to access the list of newsgroups directly.) Type some criteria in the box next to Display Newsgroups Which Contain (to narrow your search), then preview any newsgroup by selecting it and clicking Go To. If you find a group to which you'd like to subscribe, right-click it in the folder list and select Subscribe To This Newsgroup. If you've downloaded quite a few headers (by previewing a newsgroup and/or by clicking Tools, Download Next 300 Messages a few times), you may find your newsgroup folder overwhelmingly full. To delete all the headers inside, select Tools, Options, click the Advanced tab, and click Clean Up Now. Next to Local File(s) For, click the down arrow and select the newsgroup you want to clean out. Click Delete, click Yes to confirm, click Close, then click OK. The next time you open that newsgroup, you'll find its header list clean as a whistle (aside from brand new messages). GROUP NEWSGROUP MESSAGES BY THREAD We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multi-art series that answers these questions and more. In the first tip in this series, we introduced newsgroups--collections of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about a given topic. To get started, select Go, News, click the Read News button, and when you see a message asking if you'd like to view a newsgroup list, click Yes. (Note: If you've already followed these steps once, select the Newsgroups button to access the list of newsgroups directly.) Type some criteria in the box next to Display Newsgroups Which Contain (to narrow your search), then preview any newsgroup by selecting it and clicking Go To. If you find a group to which you'd like to subscribe, right-click it in the folder list and select Subscribe To This Newsgroup. As you're reading through downloaded headers (select a header and that message appears in the preview pane), you're certain to come across a topic or two that interests you. Rather than waste time and energy scanning the header list for related postings, ask the Outlook Express newsreader to sort the messages by thread. Select View, Sort By, Group Messages By Thread, and all related messages will appear as one header with a plus sign next to it. Click the plus sign to expand the thread. MAKE WORD YOUR E-MAIL EDITOR T. Hanley writes, "How do I make Word my e-mail editor? I have it as my editor at home, but not in the office." Assuming you have Word installed on your system, select Tools, Options, and click the Mail Format tab. Next to Send In This Message Format, click the down arrow, select Microsoft Word, then click OK. The next time you compose a new message, you'll find yourself in a Word-style window--check out all those new commands and toolbar buttons! (Note: If you send a Word-formatted message to someone who does not use WordMail, formatting unique to Word changes to plain text.) In our next tip, we'll show you a few things that make Word a great editor. PROBLEMS WITH USING WORD AS YOUR E-MAIL EDITOR In the first tip in this series, we showed you how to use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor (assuming you have Word installed on your system): Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; select Microsoft Word next to Send In This Message Format; then click OK. We also pointed out that if you send a Word-formatted message to someone who does not use WordMail, formatting unique to Word changes to plain text. In other words, text highlighting, tables (but not the text in them), and so on will disappear. Even a WordMail recipient may not be able to view the document as you created it. To make sure the recipient can view a document the way you created it--again, assuming he or she is also using WordMail--do the following: While you're still in the New Message dialog box, select File, Properties, select Send In Microsoft Outlook Rich Text Format, and click OK. REPLY TO NEWSGROUP POSTING We frequently receive questions about newsgroups--how to access them, what to do when you get there, and so on. Back by popular demand, here's our multi-art series that answers these questions and more. In the first tip in this series, we introduced newsgroups--collections of messages (from subscribers like you and me) about a given topic. To get started, select Go, News, click the Read News button, and when you see a message asking if you'd like to view a newsgroup list, click Yes. (Note: If you've already followed these steps once, select the Newsgroups button to access the list of newsgroups directly.) Type some criteria in the box next to Display Newsgroups Which Contain (to narrow your search), then preview any newsgroup by selecting it and clicking Go To. If you find a group to which you'd like to subscribe, right-click it in the folder list and select Subscribe To This Newsgroup. Just read a posting to which you'd like to reply? You have three choices. You can reply to the author, to the newsgroup, or to both. For the first two options, click the appropriate toolbar button--Reply To Group or Reply To Author. To reply to both the author and the group, select Compose, Reply To Newsgroup And Author. Regardless of which option you choose, you'll find yourself in a New Message dialog box with the appropriate address already filled in for you. Type your message, just as you would any other e-mail, click Post (or Send, if you're replying to the author only), and off it goes. ADDING LDAP SUPPORT If you're using Outlook with the Internet Mail Only option, you can implement Outlook's support for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) to access user information using the X.500 directory. By implementing this protocol, you can search much faster than if you were just using Directory Access Protocol (DAP). To add LDAP support: 1. Go to Tools | Address Book. 2. Click Accounts and click Add. 3. Enter the server name of the LDAP directory service you want to configure and click Next. 4. Click Yes if you want this directory to check e-mail addresses and click Next. 5. Enter the name you want to call this service and click Next. 6. Click Finish. SENDING A vCALENDAR ENTRY Outlook's vCalendar function is used to exchange information about appointments and schedules with others who are not in your Exchange organization. To send someone a vCalendar entry: 1. In the Calendar folder, select an appointment. 2. Select File | Save As. 3. From the Save As Type drop-down list, select vCalendar Format (*.vcs). 4. From the Save In drop-down list, choose where you want to save the .vcs file and click Save. 5. Attach the .vcs file to an e-mail, and send it as you normally would. If you receive a vCalendar file from someone: 1. Double-click the vCalendar file. 2. Click Save And Close to add the appointment to your default Calendar. MAKE YOUR OWN WORDMAIL TEMPLATE In the first tip in this series, we showed you how to use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor (assuming you have Word installed on your system): Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; select Microsoft Word next to Send In This Message Format; then click OK. Then, in our last tip, we showed you how to change your WordMail template: Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; click the down arrow under WordMail and select a template; then click OK. Can't find a template you like? Well then, make your own! Open Microsoft Word to a blank document and design to your heart's content. For example, you might use clip art, backgrounds, and formatted text to spiff up the page. When you're finished, select File, Save As and navigate your way to the Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office folder. Select Document Template (*.dot) under Save As Type, name the file, and click Save. You can now select your new WordMail template as you would any other, right on the Mail Format tab. USE WORDMAIL TEMPLATES In the first tip in this series, we showed you how to use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor (assuming you have Word installed on your system): Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; select Microsoft Word next to Send In This Message Format; then click OK. Once you make Word your editor, you'll have access to WordMail templates. Similar to Outlook stationary, these templates offer different looks for outgoing messages. Assuming you've set Word as your e-mail editor, select Tools, Options and click the Mail Format tab. The options under WordMail templates will no longer appear grayed-out. To change the default template, click the down arrow next to Email, select one of the templates listed, and click OK. To view the template, click the New Mail Message button. OPTIMIZE LDAP SEARCHES If your users are getting slow response from a directory server or if the server does not respond, they should optimize their LDAP searches. They can do so by following these steps: 1. Go to File | Tools | Accounts. 2. Select a service to optimize. 3. Click Properties and click the Advanced tab. 4. Moving the slide to the right will increase the time the Address Book takes to search the directory service. 5. If the LDAP directory provider provides a starting point, enter the information in the Search Base field. 6. Click Use Simple Search Filter. Keep in mind that the default port for LDAP service is set at 389. If your users aren't getting results, check with your network administrator to make sure the firewall isn't blocking this port. PUBLISH YOUR FREE/BUSY INFORMATION Just like your corporate Outlook users, your Internet Mail Only users can publish their availability for meeting requests. To publish Free/Busy information on the Internet: 1. Install the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Web Publishing Wizard add-on component. 2. Go to Tools | Options. 3. On the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options. 4. Click Free/Busy Options. 5. Select Publish My Free/Busy Information. 6. In the Publish At This URL: dialog box, type in the fully qualified path to the Free/Busy server. If the server has anonymous logons disabled, you must use the following format to allow logon when publishing: ftp://user:password@ftp.server.com/userfolder/freebusy/name.vfb 7. Click OK to close out of all dialog boxes. ACCESS YOUR CONTACTS' AVAILABILITY Users can view the free/busy information for any of their contacts who publish their data on the Internet. To do this, you must specify the server for Outlook to do a search on. If all the contacts use the same server, it's easier to set up because you can set a search path for all contacts. If the server varies by contact, you can set the search path for each contact, but this can be more time-consuming. To set the default free/busy search path for all contacts: 1. Go to Tools | Options. 2. On the Preferences tab, click Calendar Options. 3. Click Free/Busy Options. 4. Select Publish My Free/Busy Information. 5. In the Search At This URL box, type the fully qualified path to the location you would like to search for the free/busy information. 6. Click OK to close out of all dialog boxes. To set the path for a specific contact: 1. Open a Contact. 2. Click the Details tab. 3. Type the fully qualified path to the location you would like to search in the Directory Server box. Once these steps are completed, the contact's free/busy time will be displayed on the Attendee Availability tab when planning a meeting. COLOR CODE YOUR CONTACTS Starting with Outlook 98, you can color code Contacts who meet certain criteria so you can visually identify a set of Contacts without grouping or sorting them. Before you can color code your Contacts, however, you must assign a category code to each Contact. Follow these steps: 1. Open the Contacts folder. 2. Select Tools | Organize. 3. Click Using Categories. 4. Select the category you want to add the Contacts to or create a new one. 5. Select the Contact you want to add to the category. You can select multiple Contacts by holding down the [Ctrl] key. 6. Click Add. Now you can assign a color to each category code. Follow these steps: 1. Open the Contacts folder. 2. Select Tools | Organize. 3. Click Using Views. 4. Select the view you wish to see your Contacts in. You will be able to use only this view to see your colors unless you set them up separately. 5. Click Customize Current View. 6. Click Automatic Formatting and click Add. 7. Type the name for this new rule. 8. Click Condition. 9. On the More Choices tab, click Categories. 10. From the Available Categories list, select the category to color code and click OK. 11. Click Font and choose a color from the Color drop-down list. 12. Click OK to close out of all dialog boxes. CREATE A SHORTCUT TO A CONTACT When you create an appointment with one of your contacts, you may wish to refer to information stored within the contact's object. You can do this by creating an appointment with a shortcut to the Contact. Follow these steps: 1. Open the Contacts folder. 2. Right-click the desired Contact and drag it to the Calendar folder. 3. Select Copy Here As Appointment With Shortcut from the shortcut menu. 4. Save and close the appointment as you normally would. Now, whenever you open the appointment, you can double-click the Contact shortcut (located in the Notes field) to display the Contact. CAN'T CUSTOMIZE TOOLBAR FROM INSIDE WORDMAIL MESSAGE A while back, we showed you how to display a toolbar button's keyboard shortcut (if one exists) inside its ScreenTip (a small, yellow box that appears when you hold your mouse pointer over a toolbar button): Select View, Toolbars, Customize; click the Options button; select Show Shortcut Keys In ScreenTips; then click Close. In response, we received mail from a number of readers who said that when they selected View, Toolbars, there was no Customize option. And we couldn't figure out why, until now. We've solved the mystery. When you have Word set as your default e-mail editor, as discussed in the last few tips, the Customize option is unavailable from an open message window (although it is available from the main Outlook window). MORE ON MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS In the first tip in this series, we showed you how to add a second e-mail account to Outlook 98: Select Tools, Accounts; on the Mail tab, click Add, Mail; follow along to complete the Internet Connection wizard; then click Close. We also pointed out that once you have multiple accounts, clicking Send And Receive (or allowing Outlook 98 to send and receives messages automatically as defined on the Mail Delivery tab of the Tools, Options dialog box) retrieves messages from all accounts. Want Outlook 98 to send and receive messages from one account all the time and use another account only rarely? Remove the rarely used account from Outlook 98's Send And Receive operation, and it will remain inactive until you say otherwise. Select Tools, Accounts to open the Internet Accounts dialog box. Select the account you want to deactivate, click the Properties button, and deselect "Include this account when doing a full Send And Receive." Click OK, then click Close. From now on, clicking the Send And Receive button sends and receives mail from all accounts but this one. To send and receive mail from the inactive account, select Tools, Send And Receive, [Account Name]. RECEIVE MAIL USING MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Just subscribe to a second ISP? No need to decide which account Outlook 98 will manage. Outlook can handle both. Just enter all the information for the new account, just as you did the first time around, and Outlook 98 will send and receive e-mail through both servers. Select Tools, Accounts to open the Internet Accounts dialog box. On the Mail tab, click the Add button, then choose Mail in the pop-out list. Now just follow along as the Internet Connection wizard walks you through the process of setting up the new account (enter your e-mail address, server name, and so on). When you're done, click Finish, and back in the Internet Accounts dialog box, you'll see the new account. Click Close. >From now on, whenever you click Send And Receive (or whenever Outlook 98 sends and receives messages automatically as defined on the Mail Delivery tab of the Tools, Options dialog box), Outlook will check all accounts for messages. RECEIVE MAIL ON ONE OF MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS In our last tip, we showed you how to add a second e-mail account to Outlook 98: Select Tools, Accounts; on the Mail tab, click Add, Mail; follow along to complete the Internet Connection Wizard; then click Close. We also pointed out that once you have multiple accounts, clicking Send And Receive (or allowing Outlook 98 to send and receive messages automatically as defined on the Mail Delivery tab of the Tools, Options dialog box) retrieves messages from all accounts. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't pick and choose. To check a single account for messages, pull down the Tools menu, select Send And Receive, and in the resulting menu select the desired account. (Tip: If you plan to check accounts separately all the time, you should disable the "Check for new messages every XX minutes" option on the Mail Delivery tab of the Tools, Options dialog box.) SEND MAIL FROM ONE OF MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS A couple of tips back, we showed you how to add a second e-mail account to Outlook 98: Select Tools, Accounts; on the Mail tab, click Add, Mail; follow along to complete the Internet Connection Wizard; then click Close. Then in our last tip, we showed you how to check a single account for messages: Select Tools, Send And Receive, then select the account you want to check. Just the opposite, you can select the mail account you use to SEND a message. (After all, a message's return address on the message reflects the account sending the message.) Click the New Mail Message button and complete your message as usual. Then, assuming that the account you want to use is not already the default (the one Outlook 98 uses automatically when you click the Send button), select File, Send Using, [account name]. TIME ZONE SETTINGS AND APPOINTMENTS When users change the time zone setting on their workstations, the times of their appointments will be adjusted to the new time zone. For example, if an appointment were at 9 A.M. Eastern time and the time zone changed to Pacific time, the appointment would be changed to 6 A.M. This can be useful for users who travel with their computers. To change the time zone without changing the times for each of your appointments, you must export the data in your Calendar folder, change the time zone setting, and then import your data back into Outlook. This is especially handy if a user entered appointments in the Calendar under the wrong time zone. AUTOMATIC NAME CHECKING The Advanced E-mail Options dialog box offers you many useful options. One of these is the Automatic Name Checking feature. You can access this dialog box by choosing Tools | Options. On the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options, and then click Advanced E-mail Options. When this check box is selected, Outlook checks the names in the To, Cc, and Bcc boxes of a message header against your address books. If a name doesn't appear in one of your address books, Outlook marks the name with a wavy, red underline. If you do not want this feature turned on by default, you can check a name manually by either choosing Tools | Check Names or by pressing [Alt]K. CORRECTION Our last tip, "Automatic Name Checking," (Feb. 28, 2000), incorrectly said that a red, squiggly line will appear under a name in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields of a message if the name does not appear in one of the address books in Outlook. Actually, if a name is not recognized by Outlook, NO line will appear under the name. The red line will appear if there are multiple possible matches for the name. We regret the error and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. BACK UP YOUR DIGITAL ID Once you receive your Digital ID from the certifying authority, you should always remember to back it up. Follow these steps: 1. Select Tools | Options. 2. Click the Security tab. 3. Click Import/Export Digital ID. 4. Select Export Your Exchange Or S/MIME Security Information. 5. Click Select. 6. Select the certificate you want to back up and click OK. 7. Type in the password for the certificate. 8. Browse to where you want to save the Digital ID. Outlook will save the ID as a .pfx file. CREATE A PERSONAL DISTRIBUTION LIST If you have a group of people you send e-mail to on a regular basis, you don't have to type in every name every time. Instead, you can group addresses together in a Distribution List. When you select the list as the message recipient, the message is sent to every member of the group at one time. To set up a Personal Distribution List, follow these steps: 1. Open your Address Book. 2. Click the New Entry button on the toolbar. 3. Select Personal Distribution List in the Select The Entry Type box. 4. Choose Personal Address Book from the Put This Entry In The drop- down list and click OK. 5. In the Name text box, type in a name for your list. 6. Click Add/Remove Members to open the Edit Members Of dialog box. 7. Select the names you want to add to the list and click Members. 8. Click OK to close out of all dialog boxes. ENCRYPTED MESSAGE ERROR You send an encrypted e-mail and receive this error message: "None of the recipients can process an encrypted message. You can either proceed with an unencrypted message or cancel the operation." You probably mistakenly addressed the message using the Global Address List or a non-contact address source. To send an encrypted message, you must use the contact record containing the recipient's Digital ID to address the message. MOVE YOUR DIGITAL ID TO YOUR NEW WORKSTATION If you have to re-image a workstation, and you want to use the same Digital ID as your old workstation, follow these steps: 1. Make a copy of the original ID. 2. Copy the .pfx file to a disk. 3. Re-image the workstation. 4. Open Outlook. 5. Select Tools | Options. 6. Click the Security tab. 7. Click Import/Export Digital ID. 8. Select Import Existing Exchange Or S/MIME Security Information. 9. Click Browse and choose the .pfx file on your disk. Make sure you've entered your password. 10. In the Keyset text box, type your keyset (which is normally your mailbox). The Digital ID will now be available on your new workstation. RECALL A MESSAGE Outlook will allow you to recall a message you sent over your corporate Microsoft Exchange network to recipients who are logged on but have not read or moved the message. To recall a message: 1. Find the message in your Sent Items folder. 2. Open the message by double-clicking it. 3. Choose Actions | Recall This Message. 4. Select Delete Unread Copies Of This Message. To find out if the operation was successful, select the Tell Me If Recall Succeeds Or Fails For Each Recipient check box. SEND AN E-MAIL MESSAGE FROM WORD With Office 2000, you don't need to open Outlook to send a message--you can send a message from any of the Office applications. In Word, you can create and send a document to an e-mail recipient. Follow these steps: 1. Open Word and create a document. 2. Choose File | Send To | Mail Recipient. 3. You'll now see the To, Cc, and Subject text boxes at the top of your document. Click To to open the Select Names dialog box. 4. Select the recipients for your document and click OK. 5. Choose Send A Copy in the form's toolbar to place the document in Outlook's outbox. The document will actually be sent the next time you send messages from Outlook to your mail server. SENDING A DIGITALLY SIGNED MESSAGE To send someone an encrypted message, you need a copy of the person's Digital ID. The easiest way to do this is to have the person send you a "signed" message. Once you open the message, you can add the contact information to your Contacts. Keep in mind that digitally signed messages can be sent either clear signed or opaque signed. By default, Outlook will send messages as opaque. To allow recipients whose mail clients don't support S/MIME signatures to read your encrypted messages, go to Tools | Options. Select the Security tab, and select the Send Clear Text Signed Message check box. Otherwise, clients that don't understand S/MIME will receive the message as an attachment named smime.p7m. SENDING MAIL THAT'S NOT RICH TEXT FORMAT When you send Internet mail from Outlook, a file named Winmail.dat may automatically be attached if the recipient's client can't receive messages in Rich Text Format (RTF). This file contains Exchange Server RTF information for the message; however, it's not useful to non- Exchange Server recipients. To prevent this file from being attached to mail going to recipients in your Personal Address Book, go to your Address Book and select Personal Address Book. Select the recipient from the list and choose File | Properties. Deselect the Always Send To This Recipient In Microsoft Exchange Rich Text Format check box on the SMTP - General tab. Of course, users can always send Internet mail to people not in their Personal Address Book by addressing the message to an Internet address. If the message is addressed as "SMTP: info@techrepublic.com," the message will be sent in Rich Text Format. If the address is not preceded by "SMTP:," the message will be sent in plain text. SAVING CONTACT INFORMATION WITHOUT CLOSING (contributed by Ric Liang, rliang@wei.org) Many people find that when they are entering or changing Contact information in Outlook, they don't want to close the screen every time they need to save the changes. On the toolbar, the default button says Save and Close. If you want to save the information and keep the Contact screen open, select File/Save or press Ctrl+S. Also keep in mind that if you want to create a new contact from the same company, select Actions/New Contact from Same Company. ENTERING PARTIAL RECIPIENT NAMES Here's a timesaving tip to pass on to your busy users. Instead of entering the complete names of a recipient, you can enter a partial name. For instance, you can enter Wayne instead of Meadows, Wayne. Outlook will then search your Address Book. If it finds only one Wayne, it will display the full name and underline it. If there is more than one Wayne in your Address Book, and you haven't sent e-mail to any of them, Outlook will place a squiggly red line under the name, which signifies that you have a decision to make. If you right-click the name, Outlook will display all the Waynes found in the Address Book. Click the one you want. If there is more than one Wayne and you have previously sent e-mail to any of them, Outlook will assume you want to send e-mail to the most recent address used. To select a different address, right-click the name and select the proper one. CHANGE FONT OF OUTGOING MESSAGES Two tips ago, we showed you how to change the font of incoming messages: Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; click Fonts; click the third Choose Font button; select a new font; then click OK three times. Just the opposite, you can change the font of outgoing messages (assuming you compose them in HTML). Follow the steps above, but when you get to the Fonts dialog box, select the FIRST Choose Font button (under "When composing a new message"). Select a new Font, then click OK. Not to state the obvious, but to change the font when you're replying to or forwarding a message, follow the above steps, but select the SECOND Choose Font button, under "When replying and forwarding". CHANGE THE FONT SIZE OF INCOMING MESSAGES In our last tip, we showed you how to change the font of incoming messages: Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; click Fonts; click the third Choose Font button; select a new font; then click OK three times. Based on your selection, does the message text now appear too small or too large for comfort? If so, then change the font size. Go back to the Font dialog box, as described above, and under Size, select a new point size. (While you're at it, select a new Color, too.) Click OK three times to keep the change. Ah, change is good. CHANGE THE FONT OF INCOMING MAIL Did you know that you can change the font of incoming messages? Depending on your style or mood, select one that will make your e-mail a bit more interesting (not that your mail isn't incredibly exciting already). Select Tools, Options, and click the Mail Format tab. Under Stationary And Fonts, click the Fonts button, then click the third Choose Font button (under "When composing and reading plain text"). Select a new font, then click OK three times. Note: You'll notice that outgoing, plain-text messages appear in this font as you're composing them. However, the recipient still receives plain text.) IMPORT INFO FROM ANOTHER PROGRAM Need to get some messages (or folders of messages) from another e-mail program, such as Outlook Express? There's no need to type it all in manually--take advantage of Outlook's Import feature. Select File, Import and Export. Under "Choose action to perform", select Import Internet Mail And Addresses. Click Next, select the program from which you want to import the information, and deselect any of the three import options (if desired). Click Next, set any options you want in the Import Addresses dialog box, if applicable, then click Finish. Easy as pie. In our next tip, we'll show you where to find the imported data. WHAT IS NETIQUETTE? A few weeks ago, we ran a series on finding and participating in newsgroups using Outlook 98. However, no newsgroup discussion would be complete with a mention of Netiquette. In case you haven't heard the word, Netiquette is a set of rules on good manners with respect to newsgroups. Here's an example: Before you dive in and start responding to the first message you see or drafting a message about a topic that's been on your mind, lurk for a while. Hang around for a few days and simply read the postings. That way, you learn what the common topics are and you don't risk posting an irrelevant or recently answered question. Our next tip offers more Netiquette guidelines. MORE ON NETIQUETTE In our last tip, we told you that a set of rules called Netiquette outlines good manners with respect to newsgroups. For example, before jumping right into a newsgroup, you should lurk for a while--eavesdrop silently to make sure you're aware of the latest topics and don't ask a recently answered question. Here's another guideline: When replying to a posting, avoid quoting the entire message--only include the part that relates to your response. For more on Netiquette, point your Web browser to Zen and the Art of the Internet-Usenet News at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_6.html and scroll down to Usenet Netiquette. RETURN FLOATING TOOLBAR TO WINDOW In our last tip, we showed you how to turn the standard toolbar into a floating palette--for example, if you're working in a very small New Message window and still want access to every tool: Hold your mouse pointer over the left edge of the Standard toolbar, then click and drag it right out of the window. Want to return that toolbar to the window? Simply double-click the palette's title bar. SEND MESSAGES USING ANOTHER ACCOUNT In the first tip in this series, we showed you how to add a second e-mail account to Outlook 98: Select Tools, Accounts; on the Mail tab, click Add, Mail; follow along to complete the Internet Connection wizard; then click Close. That way, clicking Send And Receive retrieves messages from all accounts and sends messages from the default account. Want to change this default so Outlook always sends messages using another account? Select Tools, Accounts, and on the Mail tab, select the desired default account. Click the Set As Default button and the selected account will now say Mail (Default) in the Type column. Click OK. TRANSFORM THE TOOLBAR INTO A FLOATING PALETTE Can't see all your toolbar buttons while working in a smallish New Message window? Instead of fiddling with the size of that window, make a palette. Assuming you've already opened a new message window (select File, New, Mail Message), hold your mouse pointer over the left edge of the Standard toolbar, then click and drag it out of the window (or double-click a blank area of the toolbar.) The toolbar expands to full size, completely separate from the message window. To reposition the bar onscreen as a floating palette, click and drag it by the title bar. (Note: This trick works in any open Outlook window.) ENTERING PARTIAL RECIPIENT NAMES Here's a timesaving tip to pass on to your busy users. Instead of entering the complete names of a recipient, you can enter a partial name. For instance, you can enter Wayne instead of Meadows, Wayne. Outlook will then search your Address Book. If it finds only one Wayne, it will display the full name and underline it. If there is more than one Wayne in your Address Book, and you haven't sent e-mail to any of them, Outlook will place a squiggly red line under the name, which signifies that you have a decision to make. If you right-click the name, Outlook will display all the Waynes found in the Address Book. Click the one you want. If there is more than one Wayne and you have previously sent e-mail to any of them, Outlook will assume you want to send e-mail to the most recent address used. To select a different address, right-click the name and select the proper one.
  • CHANGE A MESSAGE'S IMPORTANCE
    Some users are really into prioritizing the importance of the messages they receive. But many users don't change the default priority when they send messages. If your users want to change the priority of messages they receive, it's an easy process.
    Follow these steps:
    • 1. Open the message.
    • 2. Select File | Properties.
    • 3. In the Options For This Item section of the Properties dialog box, select either Low, Normal, or High from the Importance drop-down menu.
    • 4. Click OK.
    When the message is reopened, it should reflect the change in importance.
    CREATING A SIGNATURE
    Your users may grow tired of constantly typing their names at the end of e-mails. But you can teach them this easy tip to set up a signature that will be placed at the end of all outgoing mail. They can design it any way they like and include their name, title, and contact information.
    To create a new signature, tell your users to follow these steps:
    • 1. Go to Tools | Options.
    • 2. Select the Mail Format tab.
    • 3. Click Signature Picker and click New.
    • 4. Type a name for the new signature in the text box.
    • 5. Select either Start With A Blank Signature, Use This Existing Signature As A Template, or Use This File As A Template. Click Next.
    • 6. In the text box, type the text for the signature in the desired format.
    • 7. Click Finish and click OK to exit all dialog boxes.
    The next time your user begins a new message, Outlook will automatically include the signature at the end of the e-mail.
    REPAIRING YOUR PERSONAL FOLDER FILES
    If you're having problems with a personal folder, the Inbox Repair Tool can probably fix them. The Inbox Repair Tool, Scanpst.exe, is automatically installed on your computer when you install Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT.
    To use the Inbox Repair Tool:
    • 1. Close Outlook.
    • 2. Open Windows Explorer and locate Scanpst.exe.
    • 3. Double-click Scanpst.exe, and you'll be prompted to enter the name of the file you want to scan.
    • 4. Click Browse to navigate to your .pst file and click Open.
    • 5. Choose Start to scan the file for errors.
    After it's finished scanning your file, the Inbox Repair Tool will display a summary of what it found and what it did. Click OK to close the summary.
    THE INBOX REPAIR TOOL'S LOGGING OPTION
    Last time, we introduced you to the Inbox Repair Tool, which can help fix problems with personal folders. The Inbox Repair Tool, Scanpst.ex, is automatically installed on your computer when you install Windows 95, 98, or NT.
    The tool scans your .pst file for error and gives you a summary of its actions when finished. But if you would like the tool to automatically create a log file, you can set this up before you begin the scan. In the Inbox Repair Tool dialog box, click Options. Select either Replace Log or Append To Log and click OK. Now you can enter the name of the file you want scanned and click Start.
    Once the scan is complete, you can open the log file, Outlook.log, with any text editor.
    COPY AN ADDRESS BOOK TO A REMOTE COMPUTER
    If your users intend to send e-mail while working remotely, they need to have a list of e-mail addresses available. You can do this by copying the Global Address List from your Exchange server to the remote computer.
    To copy the Global Address List, follow these steps:
    • 1. Open Outlook while connected to the network but running in Offline mode.
    • 2. Choose Tools | Synchronize | Download Address Book.
    • 3. Open the Choose Address Book list, and select the address book you want to download.
    • 4. Click OK.
    DISPLAY THE SIZE OF OUTLOOK ITEMS
    Your Exchange Organization probably has size limitations on the amount of space your mail can take up in the Exchange Information Store. Therefore, it becomes crucial that you keep track of the size of Outlook items.
    Finding the size of your Outlook items is easy. Follow these steps:
    • 1. Under View, activate the Folder List option.
    • 2. Click the top level of your mailbox. It should be labeled Outlook Today - [Mailbox - Your Name].
    • 3. Right-click the item or folder you'd like to check and choose Properties.
    • 4. Click Folder Size.
    Outlook will display a box with each of your folders in the information store and its size. You can perform the same steps on a personal folder.
    IMPORT DATA FROM AN EXCEL WORKBOOK
    The only way to import information from an Excel workbook into Outlook is to first put the information into a named range. The top row of the named range must contain field names that correspond to Outlook field names.
    Keep in mind that the name you give the range must not be the same as any of the field names, and it cannot contain spaces.
    IMPORT INFORMATION FROM AN UNLISTED PROGRAM
    If there's an application that you want to import from and export to but the application isn't listed in the Import And Export dialog box, what do you do? For example, suppose you've been keeping your contact information in a Paradox database and you want to import that information into your Contacts folder.
    There are two ways to solve the problem:
    • 1. Use an intermediate file format. In the example above, you can use Microsoft Access to convert the Paradox files into an Access database. Then you can import the Access database files into Outlook.
    • 2. Use a common format that both applications support, such as comma delimited or tab delimited text files. In the example above, you would export the Paradox database to a comma delimited text file and then import the text file into Outlook.
    LARGE TABLES IN PERSONAL FOLDERS
    When creating a personal folder, you can select Allow Upgrade To Large Tables. If you don't select this check box, Outlook is limited to 16,000 folders and 16,000 items per folder. If you do select this option, Outlook's capacity goes up to 64,000 folders and 64,000 items per folder for each personal folder file.
    However, by selecting the Allow Upgrade To Large Tables check box, you change the format in which Outlook saves items to the personal folder. Therefore, personal folders created with large table support can't be exported and imported into Outlook on another computer in which large table support is not enabled. This is important because Outlook 97 does not support large tables. So, be aware that files are not compatible between Outlook 98 (and later) and Outlook 97 if you have enabled large table support.
    OUTLOOK TEMPLATES
    Instead of creating every Outlook item from scratch, you can create templates from items and produce other Outlook items based on these templates. For example, if your users must submit a weekly report of their activities and the report has the same basic format from week to week, you can create and save a template for them. Then all they have to do each week is fill in the blanks.
    You can create templates for e-mail messages in Outlook the same way you create normal messages. But instead of creating the complete message, create only the shell containing anything that won't change. Then instead of choosing Send, select File | Save As. Type a name for the template, select Outlook Template from the Save As Type drop-down menu, and click Save.
    Your users can access this new template by selecting Tools | Forms | Choose Form. From the Choose Form dialog box, select Templates in File System from the Look In drop-down list. Select the template and click Open.
    QUOTATION MARKS CAN CAUSE PROBLEMS
    Last time, we told you how to export and import information from a program not listed in Outlook. One method is using a common format such as comma or tab delimited text files. If you've exported information to a comma or tab delimited text file from an application and want to import it into Outlook, you could have a problem depending on how the application exported the information.
    If the application exported the file and enclosed the information within quotation marks, Outlook won't regard commas or tabs within the quotes as field separators. But if the file does not enclose information in quotation marks, and that text includes commas or tab characters, Outlook will treat them as field separators, and you'll encounter problems.
    CLOSE IT TO ARCHIVE IT
    When you open Outlook, it checks to see if it should AutoArchive your items. But if you leave your computer running with Outlook open all the time, Outlook will never check to see if AutoArchiving is due. Therefore, you should close Outlook and reopen it periodically to activate AutoArchiving.
    To set up the AutoArchive feature, choose the folder whose items you wish to archive. Select File | Folder | Properties For. On the AutoArchive tab, you can choose how long Outlook will wait before archiving items in increments of months, weeks, or days. You can also choose to permanently delete items or move them to a specified area.
    MESSAGE FORMAT IMPACTS SIZE
    Do your users know that a message's format can have a significant effect on its size? Messages created and received in Plain Text Format are much smaller than messages in HTML or Rich Text Format. For instance, a 25-line message in Plain Text Format could occupy 1 KB. The same message in HTML or RTF could occupy 8 KB.
    Therefore, if you've set up limits on the amount of space users can take up in the Exchange Information Store, make sure your users know they should use RTF and HTML formatting sparingly.
    CUSTOMIZE OUTLOOK'S DEFAULT MASTER CATEGORY LIST
    A category is a word or phrase that you can assign to any Outlook item in order to easily group items together. Outlook has a Master Category List. To access this list, select Edit | Categories. In the Categories dialog box, click Master Category List. More than likely, the default Master Category List included with Outlook does not include exactly what your users want or need. But you can easily change this list to include more appropriate categories. To add a category, type its new name in the text box and click Add. Or select a category that isn't useful and click Delete. Once you've modified this list on one computer, you can duplicate the list on other computers by saving the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Categories registry key to a file and then copying the file into the registry on other machines. Note: Please remember that editing your registry is potentially risky; always have a verified backup before you begin.
    MANUALLY ARCHIVE ITEMS
    If you haven't turned on AutoArchiving or if you've turned it on but want to archive items before they're due, you can use manual archiving. And although AutoArchiving doesn't archive contacts, you can manually archive them. To manually archive items, follow these steps: 1. Select File | Archive. 2. Select either Archive All Folders According To Their AutoArchive Settings or Archive This Folder And All Subfolders depending on your preference. 3. If you want to archive a specific folder, highlight the folder and select a date from Archive Items Older Than. 4. Select the Include Items With "Do Not AutoArchive" Checked check box if you prefer. 5. Click Browse and navigate to the location to store your archive file. 6. Click OK. If you choose Archive All Folders According To Their AutoArchive Settings, Outlook will use all the settings previously decided when you configured AutoArchiving.
    ACCESS EMAIL VIA THE SYSTEM TRAY
    Do you get frustrated when you receive an email message you want to read, but you're in the middle of performing a function within Outlook, such as reading or composing a message? Rather than switching back to the Inbox, simply click the envelope icon on your system tray. That will take you automatically to the most recent message in your Inbox. If you've enabled the Preview Pane, you have the added benefit of being able to read the message without having to double-click to open the message.
    OUTLOOK AND CC:MAIL
    Because Outlook is a more versatile mail client than the cc:Mail client, many companies prefer to use Outlook. But if you would like to connect Outlook to your cc:Mail system, it's not a difficult process. Follow these steps: 1. Install the cc:Mail Vendor Independent Messaging files. You can download these files from the Lotus Support File Library FTP site. http://ftp.support.lotus.com/ftp/pub/comm/ccmail/dev_tools/ 2. Open Outlook and select Tools | Services. 3. On the Services tab, click Add. 4. Select MS Outlook Support For Lotus cc:Mail and click OK. 5. In the Configure cc:Mail Service dialog box, click Browse and navigate to the cc:Mail post office. 6. Enter your username and password in their respective boxes. 7. You can select the When Logging On, Automatically Enter Password check box if you don't want to have to enter your password each time. In our next few tips, we'll discuss cc:Mail and Outlook in further detail.
    ADVANCED OUTLOOK CONFIGURATIONS FOR CC:MAIL, PART 1
    In a three-part series, we'll look at some of the more common Outlook features you can configure with cc:Mail. You can configure the cc:Mail information service just as you would any other service. Select Tools | Services. On the Services tab, highlight cc:Mail and click Properties. In the Configure cc:Mail Service dialog box, there will be three tabs: Logon, Delivery, and Addressing. On the Delivery tab, you'll find the Send Using Microsoft Exchange Rich Text Format check box. This check box will be unselected. If you select this box, you can create messages that use Outlook features such as Rich Text Formatting and embedded objects. Note that only other cc:Mail users who use Outlook as a client will be able to see these features.
    ADVANCED OUTLOOK CONFIGURATIONS FOR CC:MAIL, PART 2
    Continuing our three-part series on some of the more common Outlook features you can configure with cc:Mail, let's look at the Addressing tab (accessed by Tools | Services | cc:Mail | Properties). In the Configure cc:Mail Service dialog box on the Addressing tab, you'll find the Use Local Copy check box. By default, this check box is deselected so you have access to the cc:Mail address book only while connected to your post office. By selecting this check box, you can access the list from a local drive. But before it will work, you must copy the address book from the post office to your local drive. To do so, type the path to where you wish to store the file and click Create/Update Local Copy.
    ACCESSING ARCHIVED MESSAGES
    Two tips ago, we showed you how to archive a folder's contents: Select File, Archive, select "Archive this folder and all subfolders", and select the folder you want to archive. Under Archive File, type a name for the archive file you're about to create, enter a date in the "Archive items older than" box, and click OK. Need to access archived messages? One way is to open the archive as described in our last tip: Select File, Open, Personal Folders File (.pst). Select the file you want to open, click OK, and the file now appears as a folder in your Folder list (inside an Archive Folders folder). Select it, and a message list appears. To close the archive, right-click Archive Folders (in your folder list) and select Close Archive Folders. If you want permanent access to the archived messages, you may wish to import them back into their original Outlook folder. Select File, Import Or Export. With "Import from another program or file" selected, click Next. Select Personal Folder File (.pst) and click Next again. Click Browse, select the file that contains the items to import, then click Open. Choose a duplicates option, if desired, then click Next again. Select the folder to import from (the archive file), then select "Import items into the same folder in Personal Folders" (or choose your desired destination) and click Finish. Those messages end up right back where they started! (Note: You can archive folders other than message folders, too--we'll tell you more in upcoming tips.)
    ADVANCED MESSAGE SEARCHING BY CC FIELD
    In our last tip, we showed you how to search any given folder for a message: Switch to that folder, click the Find button, type some text you know appears in the message, select "Search all text in the message", and click Find Now. The resulting list will include all messages that meet your search criteria. Still can't find that missing message? All is not lost. Outlook 98 offers advanced search capabilities that will sniff out a message based on just about any piece of data you can remember. After clicking the Find button, click Advanced Find (in the upper-right corner of the Find window). Now just fill in the information you know about the message. For example, let's suppose all you can remember is that you carbon-copied a certain someone on the message you're trying to find. Click the Advanced tab, click the Field button, and select Address Fields, CC. Leave "contains" selected under Condition; then, in the text box under Value, type the e-mail address of the person to whom you sent a CC. Click Add To List, define any other desired criteria, then click Find Now. Good luck!
    ARCHIVE FOLDERS MANUALLY
    In our last tip, we introduced archiving, a process for moving an Outlook folder's contents--all the files or just those before a certain date--to an archive file. Now we show you how to archive a message folder's contents. Select File, Archive. Inside the Archive dialog box, select the "Archive this folder and all subfolders" option, then choose the folder containing the items you want to store. Under Archive File, type a name for the archive file (*.pst) you're about to create (or click Browse, navigate your way to the desired location of the file--or example, a floppy disk--type a file name, and click OK). Finally, enter a date in the "Archive items older than" box. Click OK, and the items you've chosen to archive disappear from Outlook! (When the process is complete, you'll see an Archiving Complete message in the lower right corner of the screen.) Our next tip covers retrieving messages from an archive file. (Note: You can archive folders other than message folders, too--we'll tell you more in upcoming tips.)
    AUTOARCHIVE TO DELETE OLD ITEMS
    In our last tip, we showed you how to change AutoArchive options for individual folders (to determine if and how often Outlook moves outdated items into an archive file). In the folder list or the Outlook Bar, right-click any folder and select Properties. Click the AutoArchive tab, select "Clean out items older than", and adjust which items to archive (for example, those older than six weeks). Under "Move old items to", type the name of the file to which Outlook should move the outdated items, then click OK. You can also use AutoArchiving to DELETE old items, rather than moving them to an archive file. Just follow the steps above, but instead of typing a file name under "Move items to", select "Permanently delete old items". Click OK. When AutoArchiving occurs, now it moves outdated items to the Deleted Items folder.
    CHANGE AUTOARCHIVE SETTINGS FOR FOLDER
    In our last tip, we showed you how to turn Outlook's AutoArchive feature on so that it archives outdated items in your Calendar, Tasks, Journal, Sent, and Deleted folders. Select Tools, Options, select the Other tab, click the AutoArchive button, and select "Archive every 14 days" (feel free to change the number of days). Under default archive file, type the name of the archive file. Select or deselect any remaining options, and click OK. Now Outlook will archive any Calendar, Tasks, and Journal information older than six months, and any Sent and Deleted items over two months old. Not happy with these default six- or two-month settings? Want to set up AutoArchiving for other folders? You can set AutoArchive options individually in each folder's Properties dialog box. In the folder list or the Outlook Bar, right-click any folder, select Properties and click the AutoArchive tab. Select the "Clean out items older than" option, then adjust which items to archive (for example, those older than six weeks). Under "Move old items to", type the name of the file to which Outlook should move the outdated items, then click OK. Repeat these steps for each folder you want to keep clean. From now on, as long as you have AutoArchive turned on, Outlook will remove any items older than the specified age out of their respective folders.
    COMPOSE MESSAGES OFFLINE
    Are you particularly long-winded? If you pay by the hour for online time, you'll be happy to know that you can compose your messages offline. Select File, Work Offline, and if prompted, click Yes to confirm that you want to disconnect from your dial-up connection. (If not, disconnect manually--for example, by right-clicking the dial-up icon in your taskbar and selecting Disconnect.) Now compose your messages as usual. No pressure--take as long as you want. Each time you finish a message, click Send to move it to the Outbox as always. The next time you connect or whenever you're ready to send your messages, click the Send And Receive button, and Outlook delivers your mail.
    CREATE MULTIPLE SIGNATURES
    In our last tip, we showed you how to add a signature--name, e-mail address, and so on--to the bottom of your outgoing messages: Select Tools, Options. Click the Mail Format tab, click Signature Picker, and click New. Type a name for the signature and click Next. Type the signature, click Finish, and click OK twice. Do you have a couple of different versions in mind--for example, one signature for personal notes and another for business associates? Just follow the steps above to create as many different signatures as you want. Each one will appear in the drop-down list next to "Use this signature by default" on the Mail Format tab of the Options dialog box. To change the default signature, just select a new one in the list mentioned above. If you can't remember which is which, click the Signature Picker button and select any signature in the list, and its preview appears. Select the signature you want to use, then click OK twice to make it the default.
    ENTER A NEW CONTACT IN THE ADDRESS BOOK
    Just receive a message from someone you'd like to add to your list of contacts? Don't waste time typing that person's e-mail address into your Address Book. As long as the address is part of the message header, Outlook will enter it for you. With the message that contains the address in a separate window, right-click the address and select Add To Contacts. A new contact window appears with that address already entered. Complete the other fields as necessary, then click the Save And Close button.
    ESTABLISH DIAL-UP CONNECTION WHEN OUTLOOK STARTS
    Wish Outlook 98 would connect to the Internet using a dial-up connection whenever you start the program? Launch Outlook 98 and select Tools, Options. Click the Mail Delivery tab, and under Dial-Up Options, select "Automatically dial when checking for new messages". Click OK, and from now on Outlook will establish a connection whenever you start the program (or, assuming you've disconnected, whenever Outlook checks for new messages as defined on the Mail Delivery tab). Note: This tip does not apply if you've deselected "Check for new messages every XX minutes". If you DON'T want Outlook to establish a dial-up connection until you say so--for example, by clicking the Send And Receive button--deselect "Automatically dial when checking for new messages".
    FANCY FORMATTING FOR SIGNATURES
    Two tips ago, we showed you how to add a signature--name, e-mail address, and so on--to the bottom of your outgoing messages: Select Tools, Options. Click the Mail Format tab, click Signature Picker, and click New. Type a name for the signature and click Next. Type the signature, click Finish, and click OK twice. Assuming you send your messages in a format other than plain text, you can use fonts and colors to personalize your signature even more. Follow the steps above to access the Signature Picker dialog box, select your signature, and click the Edit button. Select the text you want to edit, then click Font and take your pick of options. To change the alignment of your signature, select all of it, click the Paragraph button, select an alignment option, and click OK. Click OK three more times to close all open dialog boxes. Then make the signature you just edited the default.
    IMPORTED FOLDERS DON'T APPEAR ON THE OUTLOOK BAR
    In our last tip, we showed you how to import messages and their folders (among other things) from another e-mail program, such as Outlook Express: Inside Outlook, select File, Import and Export; choose Import Internet Mail And Addresses, and so on. If you use the Outlook Bar, not the Folder List, to navigate your folders, it may appear that the imported folders didn't make it over during the import operation. Not true--it's just that imported folders don't appear on the Outlook Bar. To view the folders, you'll need to display your folder list--select View, Folder List, and there they are.
    INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVING
    Need to keep Outlook information around, but don't want it cluttering up your hard drive? Archiving an Outlook 98 folder copies its contents--all the files, or just those before a certain date--to an archive file in your location of choice, such as a floppy disk. Unlike exporting, archiving leaves the original folder in place, even if it's empty, so the same folder structure is present in the archive file and your mailbox. (This consistency makes it easy to move the messages back into Outlook if necessary.) Over the next five tips, we'll show you all the ins and outs of archiving your message folders. In our next tip, we'll discuss manually archiving a folder. (Note: You can archive folders other than message folders, too--more on this in upcoming tips.)
    OPEN ARCHIVE FILE
    In the first tip in this series, we introduced archiving, a process for moving an Outlook folder's contents--all files, or just those before a certain date--to an archive file. Then, in our last tip, we showed you how to archive a folder's contents: Select File, Archive, select "Archive this folder and all subfolders", and select the folder you want to archive. Under Archive File, type a name for the archive file you're about to create, enter a date in the "Archive items older than" box, and click OK. Need to go back and read an archived message? There are two ways to access this item: Either open the archive file (*.pst), or import the file's contents back into Outlook. Assuming all you want to do is read the message and then close the archive again, go with the first option--opening the file. Select File, Open, Personal Folders File (.pst). Navigate your way to and select the file you want to open, then click OK. The file you chose now appears as a folder in your Folder list (inside an Archive Folders folder). Select it, and a message list appears, just as in any other Outlook folder. When you're done with the archive, close it again. With your folder list displayed, right-click Archive Folders and select Close Archive Folders. (Note: You can archive folders other than message folders, too--we'll tell you more in upcoming tips.)
    PROTECT INDIVIDUAL MAIL MESSAGE(S) FROM AUTOARCHIVING
    Two tips ago, we showed you how to change AutoArchive options for individual folders (to determine if and how often Outlook moves outdated items into an archive file). In the folder list or the Outlook Bar, right-click any folder and select Properties. Click the AutoArchive tab, select "Clean out items older than", and adjust which items to archive (for example, those older than six weeks). Under "Move old items to", type the name of the file to which Outlook should move the outdated items, then click OK. So what happens if you have items you don't want archived, regardless of their age? For example, perhaps you have some ancient e-mail messages that you want to keep right where they are (while still archiving the rest of the folder's contents). For exactly this purpose, Outlook offers a setting that protects individual messages. Double-click any message you'd like to protect, and in the resulting message window, select File, Properties. Select "Do not AutoArchive this item" and click OK. Archive all you want--that message won't budge.
    SEND A MESSAGE AT A SPECIFIED TIME
    Just complete a message you don't actually want to send until next week? You could always save it in the Draft folder and hope you remember to send it, but there's a much safer route. Ask Outlook 98 to hold the message in your Outbox until a specified date and time. When that time arrives (or the next time you perform a Send And Receive operation after that time), off it goes. Assuming you've just composed a message you want to send later, click the Options button (or select View, Options). Select "Do not deliver before", then click the down arrow and select a date. Change the time if desired, then click Close. And don't worry, Outlook won't forget!
    SIGN OUTGOING MESSAGES
    Ever receive a message with the recipient's name, e-mail address, and maybe even a quote at the bottom of the message? Don't think they spent all that extra time typing all that info for you. Chances are, Outlook adds this signature to all of their messages automatically. Here's how to do so. Select Tools, Options, and click the Mail Format tab. Click the Signature Picker button, then click New. Type a name for the signature, click Next, and in the Signature text box, type all the text you want to include. Click Finish, click OK, and back on the Mail Format tab, you'll see the signature name next to "Use this signature by default". Click OK, and from now on, every time you compose a new message, you'll see this signature at the end. To send a message without the signature, just delete part or all of it from the actual message.
    TURNING ON AUTOARCHIVE
    A few tips ago, we showed you how to archive a message folder's contents by hand: Select File, Archive, select "Archive this folder and all subfolders", and select the folder you want to archive. Under Archive File, type a name for the archive file you're about to create, enter a date in the "Archive items older than" box, and click OK. We also mentioned that you can archive folders other than message folders. For example, perhaps your Calendar is jam-packed full of information and you'd like to clean it out. Before you start messing about with archiving options for Calendar, get a load of this: As long as you have AutoArchive turned on, Outlook 98 automatically archives any Calendar information that's older than six months. It's also set to archive Tasks and Journal items after the same time period, and it archives Sent Items and Deleted items after two months. Just create one simple setting, and Outlook does the rest. To turn AutoArchive on, select Tools, Options and select the Other tab. Click the AutoArchive button and select the "Archive every 14 days" option. (Note: You can change the number of days to any number you want.) Under Default Archive File, type the name of the file to which Outlook should move archived items (or click Browse, select a file, and click OK). Assuming you want a prompt when AutoArchive is about to begin (so you have the option of canceling the operation), leave "Prompt before AutoArchive" selected. And finally, if you want AutoArchive to delete expired items from an e-mail folder, select "Delete expired items". Click OK, and you set the AutoArchive settings mentioned above (for Calendar, Tasks, and so on) into motion. In our next tip, we'll tell you about AutoArchive options for these and other folders.
    USE FIND TO TRACK DOWN MESSAGE
    Need to find one particular e-mail in a sea of messages? Outlook 98 can track it down for you--that is, assuming you know at least ONE piece of text that appears in the message. Switch to the folder containing the message (for example, the Sent Items folder) and click the Find button. Type some text that appeared in the message--say, part of the subject line, a person's name, even a word. Select "Search all text in the message" (unless you're sure the text doesn't appear in the message body), click Find Now, and Outlook goes to work. When you see the word Done next to the Find Now button, check the list of messages in the message list. Chances are you'll find what you were looking for. If not, stay tuned for our next tip, where we'll show you how to fine-tune your search.
    DELAY SENDING YOUR MESSAGES
    Microsoft Mail, the predecessor to Exchange/Outlook, had a default period of time before a message you sent actually moved out of your mailbox. Before the message left your mailbox, you could modify it, delete it, or change the intended recipients. This feature proved useful if you were in the habit of sending flame mail that you later regretted.
    With Outlook, if you're online, when the message moves to the Outbox, it's only a few seconds before the message is on its way. Although this speeds message delivery, it also hampers your ability to modify or delete the message if you have second thoughts. With Outlook 2000 (build 9.0.0.3821) and Office 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1), you can set a default delay for your messages. Select Tools, Options, then click the Global Send tab. Under Exchange Server Send, change the setting for Always send in...to a delay that suits your needs. I recommend about 5 minutes. Each message remains in your Outbox for that delay period before the Exchange Server processes it. This delay gives you time to retract that potentially embarrassing message before it becomes a career-limiting move.
    contributed by Ric Liang, rliang@wei.org
    ADVANCED OUTLOOK CONFIGURATIONS FOR CC:MAIL, PART 3
    Wrapping up our three-part series on some of the more common Outlook features you can configure with cc:Mail, let's look at another feature of the Addressing tab, which is accessed by Tools | Services | cc:Mail | Properties. In the Configure cc:Mail Service dialog box on the Addressing tab, you'll find the Add cc:Mail Private Mail Lists To PAB button. If you have private mail lists in the cc:Mail post office, you can use this feature to copy the information to Outlook. Click this button to have Outlook copy the cc:Mail lists to your Personal Address Book in Outlook. Then you won't have to worry about needing an address that you can't immediately access.
    COPYING AN OUTLOOK PROFILE
    You can create a new profile by copying an existing profile, or you can create a new profile from scratch. If the profile you want to create is similar to one that already exists, it's easier to just copy the existing profile and then make the necessary changes. To create a profile based on an existing one, follow these steps: 1. Open Control Panel and double-click the Mail icon. 2. Click Show Profiles. 3. Highlight the profile you wish to base the new profile on and click Copy. 4. Type the name of the new profile in the New Profile Name text box and click OK. 5. With the new profile highlighted, click the Properties button. You can then modify the profile as necessary.
    DIALING WITH OUTLOOK AND A CALLING CARD
    Because many users want to use their telephone calling cards when dialing with Outlook, Microsoft has made it quite easy. Follow these steps to set it up: 1. Select Tools | Services. 2. Select Microsoft Exchange Server and click Properties. 3. Click the Dial-Up Networking tab and click the Location button. 4. Select the For Long Distance Calls, Use This Calling Card check box. 5. Select your type of calling card from the drop-down list. 6. Click the Calling Card button. (In Windows 95 and NT, the button is called Change.) 7. Enter your PIN number in the Personal ID Number text box. 8. Click OK to close out of all dialog boxes.
    OUTLOOK 2000 UPGRADES ITS CALENDAR PRINTING
    A common complaint of Outlook users is that they don't like the way the Calendar prints. Outlook 2000 has significantly improved Calendar printing over previous versions. Older versions of Outlook truncated text that didn't fit into the available space in the Calendar, but Outlook 2000 automatically wraps the text. Also, when using the monthly print style, Outlook 2000 offers the ability to print exactly one month per page, an option that wasn't available in previous versions. It also gives you the choice of printing or not printing weekend days. But if your users require even greater flexibility in printing Outlook items, they can use Seagate Crystal Reports to print Outlook items. Crystal Reports has access to all the data fields in Outlook and provides more flexibility in designing reports than Outlook alone. http://www.seagatesoftware.com/
    OUTLOOK AND CC:MAIL ON THE SAME WORKSTATION
    Can Outlook and the default cc:Mail client exist together on the same workstation? If you've been using cc:Mail 7.x or 8.x and then install Outlook, you'll probably receive an error message when you try to use the cc:Mail client. This is because Outlook replaces some of the MAPI files that the cc:Mail client is using. To solve this problem, you need to have both sets of files on the workstation. Follow these steps: 1. Close Outlook. 2. Open Windows Explorer and copy Mapisp32.exe from the %system root%\system directory into the directory that contains the Wmail32.exe file. 3. Copy Mapi32.dll from where you installed Office 97 to the directory that contains the Wmail32.exe file. 4. Restart the computer. You will now have the Outlook version of the Mapi32.dll and the Mapi32.exe in your %system root%\system directory, and the same version of Mapi32.exe and an older version of Mapi32.dll in the directory that contains the cc:Mail-related files. This workaround should make it possible for Outlook and cc:Mail to coexist on the same workstation.
    OUTLOOK SUPPORT FOR MIME AND UUENCODE
    Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) and UUencode are both standards that allow binary data to be sent by a messaging system intended to support only text. For this to work, however, both the sender and the recipient must be using the same standard. By default, Outlook uses MIME. If you're sending messages to someone whose mail system can't support MIME, you can make Outlook use UUencode if you have the Internet E-mail service installed in your Outlook profile. Follow these steps: 1. Select Tools | Options. 2. Click the Internet E-mail tab. 3. Highlight the Plain Text Message format. 4. Choose Settings. 5. Select the UUencode check box and click OK.
    RESETTING A VIEW
    Sometimes users have a habit of playing with things and then expecting you to fix it. When you ask what they did, most of the time they can't tell you because they don't know. If they've changed their Outlook view and want to go back to the original one, Outlook provides that capability. Give your users these instructions so they can fix it themselves and you can get back to work. To reset a view to its original state: 1. Select View | Current View | Define Views. 2. Select the view you want to reset. 3. Click Reset and click OK. The view will now be reset to the way it was when Outlook was first installed.
    SELECT THE TRANSPORT FOR YOUR INTERNET MAIL
    When looking at the installed Outlook information services, you can check out the lower part of the Delivery tab to see how your computer sends e-mail messages. In most cases, Outlook automatically sends messages by way of the appropriate messaging system--but one exception is if you have both the Microsoft Exchange service and the Internet Mail service installed and you try to send a message to an Internet address. Outlook will choose which way to handle Internet e-mail messages according to the order in which these services are listed. If Internet Mail is above Microsoft Exchange Server in the list of services, Outlook attempts to send your Internet mail directly to your Internet Mail server. To set the order in which you want Outlook to attempt to send e-mail messages, adjust the order of the services in the list box on the Delivery tab. Select one of the services and then click either the up or down arrow (located to the right of the list box).
    SEND A MESSAGE ON ANOTHER USER'S BEHALF
    To send a message on someone else's behalf: 1. Open a new message. 2. Select View | From Field. This will add a From text box to the message form. 3. In the From field, enter the address of the person on behalf of whom you want to send the message. 4. Complete the message as normal. If you attempt to send a message on behalf of someone who hasn't given you delegate permissions to do so, you will not be able to send the message. When you click Send, you will receive the message, "You do not have the permission to send the message on behalf of the specified user." It might also initially appear that you have been able to send the message. But soon after you send it, you'll receive an error message in your Inbox that says, "The originator does not have permission to submit the message." The person you sent the message to will not receive it.
    SHOULD YOU USE MULTIPLE CONTACT FOLDERS?
    Outlook will allow you to create as many folders as you want to store contacts. Some people like to create multiple folders to separate the different kinds of contacts they have. For instance, you could have one folder for business contacts, one for personal, and one for charity- related contacts. Having only one contacts folder, however, is more convenient and easier to manage. You can then assign categories to your contacts. By doing so, if a contact falls into multiple groups, you can assign it to multiple categories instead of duplicating the contact information in two or more folders.
    TROUBLESHOOTING OUTLOOK'S CONNECTION TO CC:MAIL
    If you're having problems accessing your cc:Mail from Outlook, you should first check the version of cc:Mail that you're using. If you're using cc:Mail 6.x, you need to get Transend's ConnectorWare software. This is the enhanced version of the software included in Outlook. http://www.transend.com/ Then make sure that you're using the latest Vendor Independent Messaging files from Lotus. You can download the latest from the Lotus Support File Library FTP site. http://ftp.support.lotus.com/ftp/pub/comm/ccmail/dev_tools/ If it still isn't working, make sure the path to the cc:Mail program files is correct. You can do that by looking at the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Transend\CCMSVC registry key. (Remember that editing your registry is potentially risky; always have a backup before you begin.) And if all else fails, you can try to uninstall and reinstall the cc:Mail information service.
    USE VOTING BUTTONS
    If your users are tired of the constant e-mails back and forth between everyone in the company when an issue needs to be decided, teach them to use the voting buttons in Outlook. This feature will let your users send a message that asks a question and makes responses easier. In a new message, select View | Options. Under the Voting And Tracking Options section, select the Use Voting Buttons check box. When your users select this option, they'll see three default choices in the drop-down list: Approve/Reject, Yes/No, and Yes/No/Maybe. What if these options aren't what your users are looking for? They can create custom buttons rather than using the default choices. All they have to do is type the new voting button names in the text box of the drop-down list. Make sure they don't include spaces and that names are separated with a semicolon. When a recipient responds to a message using voting buttons, your users will receive a message in their Inbox informing them of the selection.
    WHO SHOULD RECEIVE MEETING REQUESTS?
    If one of your busy users wants to have a delegate keep track of his Calendar but doesn't want to receive any requests or responses himself, the user can easily take himself off the meeting request and response carousel. To set this up, tell your user to follow these steps: 1. Go to Tools | Options. Click the Delegates tab. Double-click the delegate. 2. In the Delegate Permissions dialog box, select Editor (Can Read, Create, And Modify Items) from the Calendar drop-down list. 3. Select the Delegate Receives Copies Of Meeting-Related Messages Sent To Me check box and click OK. 4. On the Delegates tab, select the Send Meeting Requests And Responses Only To My Delegates, Not To Me check box. 5. Click OK to exit all dialog boxes.
    ADDING AND REMOVING NET FOLDER SUBSCRIBERS
    When users first set up a Net Folder, they can use the Net Folder Wizard to share a folder with specific people. They can subsequently remove or add people to the list of subscribers by following these steps: 1. Open the Folder List view. 2. Select the shared folder for which you want to change the subscriber list. 3. Choose File | Share | This Folder. 4. Click the Next button to display the current subscribers. 5. To remove a subscriber, select the subscriber and click the Remove button. To add a new subscriber, click the Add button, select who you want to add, click the To button, and click OK.
    INSTALLING NET FOLDERS
    A Net Folder is an Outlook folder that's shared by way of the Internet or an intranet. You can create a folder, make it shareable, and give permission to other users to access the folder. A person to whom you offer access to a Net Folder can choose whether to subscribe to it. If the person agrees to subscribe, the Net Folder appears on the subscriber's Outlook Folder List. In order to share a folder as a Net Folder or to access a Net Folder, you must first install the Net Folders add-in on your workstation. To install the Net Folders add-in, follow these steps: 1. Choose Tools | Options and click the Other tab. 2. Click Advanced Options. 3. Click Add-In Manager. 4. If Net Folders is listed, but not checked, select it. If Net Folders is not listed, click Install. 5. Select Fldpub.ecf and click Open. 6. Now select Net Folders and click OK to close out of all dialog boxes.
    TROUBLESHOOTING NET FOLDERS
    Most problems with Net Folders can be solved if the owner of the Net Folder cancels the subscription and issues a new invitation. One problem that can't be solved this way, however, is the duplication of posted messages. This can happen if a subscriber who has permission to add or modify items in the shared folder has two or more profiles that allow connection to the same store. If the subscriber uses one profile and accesses the Net Folder on the owner's computer, the local copy of the folder is updated. If the subscriber subsequently uses another profile to access the Net Folder, the local copy is updated again. The result is that the local copy now has duplicates of any new postings. Therefore, when Outlook synchronizes the Net Folder on the local computer with the Net Folder on the owner's computer, the duplicate postings are then copied to all other Net Folder copies when they synchronize. Because Microsoft doesn't have a fix for this problem, it's important for people to use only one profile to access Net Folders.
    ADD A NOTE TO ANY FOLDER
    In previous tips, we've discussed Outlook's Notes folder, where you can create and store as many sticky notes as you want. But the Notes folder isn't the only place for notes. You can stick a note on any message folder. Inside the folder where you'd like to place a note, press Ctrl-Shift-S (or select File, New, Post In This Folder). Enter a subject, type the body of the note, then click Post (or press Ctrl-Enter). Your note now appears as an item in the message list, complete with a yellow sticky-note icon.
    ADJUST WORK AND NONWORK HOURS
    Do you work longer (or different) hours than the traditional nine-to-five workday? Then you'll want to change Calendar's color-coding to match. By default, only the area between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, appears white (to indicate work hours), while the rest is gray. Change these settings to reflect your schedule so you don't feel like you're working when you shouldn't be! Select Tools, Options, and click the Calendar Options button. Under Calendar Work Week, select only the days that you work. Then adjust the Start Time and/or End Time to match your typical workday. Click OK twice. Back on your Calendar, you'll see your days colored accordingly.
    ADVANCED SEARCHING--FIND YOURSELF IN CC FIELD
    Two tips ago, we showed you how to search any given folder for a message: Switch to that folder, click the Find button, type some text you know appears in the message, select "Search all text in the message", and click Find Now. Still can't find that missing message? Try some of Outlook 98's advanced search capabilities. In our last tip, we showed you how to track down a sent message by the person you sent a CC on that message: Click the Advanced tab, click the Field button, select Address Fields, CC. Leave "contains" selected under Condition. In the text box under Value, type the e-mail address of the person to whom you sent a CC. Click Add To List and click Find Now. You can do just the opposite--search for an Inbox message where you were one of many people who received a CC. After clicking the Find button, click Advanced Find (in the upper-right corner of the Find window). On the Messages tab, select Where I Am, then click the down arrow in the field next to that option and select "On the CC line with other people". Click Find Now, and Outlook tracks down all the messages that meet those criteria.
    ATTACH A BUSINESS CARD TO MESSAGES
    Want to include everything anyone could want to know about you inside every message? In the past, we've shown you how to attach your business card, or vCard, to the bottom of a single message. If you want, Outlook 98 will add it to each and every one as part of your signature. Select Tools, Options, click the Mail Format tab, and click Signature Picker. Click New, type a name for the signature, and click Next. At the bottom of the Edit Signature dialog box under vCard options, click New vCard from Contact, select yourself in the list, click the Add button, then click OK. Click Finish, then click OK twice. The next time you compose a new message, you'll see your vCard attached. (To delete it, right-click the *.vcf file and select Remove.) To add your business card to an existing signature, click the Signature Picker button (on the Mail Format tab of the Tools, Options dialog box), select the signature, click Edit, then set your vCard options.)
    CLICK PUSHPIN TO SHOW OR HIDE THE FOLDER LIST
    Do you keep the folder list hidden to allow maximum viewing of your message list and preview pane? If you ever change your mind and want the folder list back on your screen, there's no need to go anywhere near that View menu. Just click the name of the currently open folder to display the drop-down folder list, then click the pushpin in the upper-left corner to make it stick. When you're done, click the X in the folder list's upper-right corner to send it back into hiding.
    CLOSE MORE THAN ONE ITEM
    In our last tip, we showed you how to open more than one message--or contact, or task, or whatever--at the same time. Hold down Ctrl as you click each item you want to open, then right-click the selection and choose Open Selected Items. All done with those open items? Before you start closing each one individually, try this: Select File, Close All Items. All open windows disappear in one fell swoop.
    CONVERT HTML MESSAGE TO PLAIN TEXT
    In our last tip, we showed you how to convert an in-progress, plain-text message to HTML (complete with all your formatting defaults: In the new message dialog box, select Format, Rich Text [HTML]; then select any existing body text and select Format, Style, Normal. Say you want to do just the opposite--convert a half-completed, Fuschia, Desdemona, HTML message to plain text. You can make the switch even faster than converting from plain to HTML. Simply select Format, Plain Text, then click Yes to confirm. The entire message goes back to basics.
    CONVERT PLAIN-TEXT MESSAGE TO HTML
    In a previous tip, we showed you how to change the default font (and other options, if you choose) of outgoing HTML messages: Select Tools, Options; click the Mail Format tab; click Fonts; click the third Choose Font button; select a new font; then click OK three times. Then, as long as your message format is set to HTML (on the Mail Format tab of the Tools, Options dialog box), any time you compose a new message, Outlook 98 will use these new formatting defaults. But now let's suppose you've set your message format to Plain Text (most likely because your recipients prefer this format). You're halfway through a plain text message, and suddenly you remember--this recipient can receive HTML messages without a problem. Do you start over, or apply all your favorite formatting options--font, size, color, and so on--by hand, one at a time? Neither. Just switch to HTML, and you can apply all of your defaults to the in-progress message in one easy step. >From inside the new message dialog box, select Format, Rich Text [HTML]. Select all of the existing body text, then select Format, Style, Normal. Presto--the text now sports the default font, color, and so on. Complete your message (any new text you type will display the same defaults) and send it off as usual.
    DOUBLE-CLICK TO CREATE NEW MESSAGES
    Reader P. Diamond writes: "Here is an Outlook 98 tip I discovered. You can double-click the blank area at the bottom of the message pane--the one that lists messages in a folder--to create a new message quickly. (If you have a lot of messages in a folder, you would have to scroll to the bottom of the folder to find a blank area to double-click. Otherwise you end up selecting a message.)" Thanks for the tip, P.! Actually, this technique works in other folders, too--not just message folders. For example, inside the Notes folder, double-click a blank area at the bottom of the Notes list to create a new note.
    OPEN MORE THAN ONE ITEM
    In our last tip, we showed you how to open more than one Outlook folder at the same time: Using the Outlook Bar or the folder list, right-click any folder you want to open in a separate window and select Open In New Window. In the same way, you can open more than one message--or contact, or task, or whatever--at the same time. Hold down Ctrl as you click each item you want to open, then right- click the selection and choose Open Selected Items (or press Ctrl-O).
    SELECT SOUND(S) FOR INCOMING MESSAGES
    In our last tip, we said you can make Outlook 98 play a different sound when you receive mail from each of multiple accounts: Just set the Rules Wizard to check incoming messages, and based on the sent-to address for each one, Outlook plays the sound of your choice. We also pointed out that to use this technique, you must first turn off the option that instructs Outlook to play a sound when you receive new mail: Select Tools, Options, and on the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options. Click Advanced E-mail Options, deselect Play A Sound, then click OK repeatedly to exit all dialog boxes. Now for the technique: Select Tool, Rules Wizard, select "Check messages when they arrive", and click Next. Click the check box next to "With specific words in the recipient's address". Under Rule Description, click the Words link. In the Search Text dialog box, type a unique portion of your address (for one of your three accounts), click OK, and click Next. Select Play A Sound, and under Rule Description, click the link labeled A Sound. In the "Select a sound to play" dialog box, navigate your way to and select a sound, click the Open button, then click Next. Click Next one more time (unless you want to set any exceptions), type a name for the rule, and click Finish. Back in the Rules Wizard dialog box, click New and repeat the above steps for each of your other accounts. When you finish, click OK to close the Rules Wizard. >From now on, you'll have sound-coded incoming messages! Outlook will play a different sound, depending on which account received the message.
    STAY ONLINE AFTER CHECKING MAIL
    Want to stay online after a Send And Receive operation? (By default, when you click Send And Receive, Outlook connects you to the Internet, checks your mail, and disconnects you.) You can prevent Outlook from hanging up with one simple setting change. Select Tools, Options, and click the Mail Delivery tab. Deselect "Hang up when finished sending, receiving or updating" and click OK. From now on, once you're online, you'll stay there (unless you disconnect manually).
    TRACK DOWN A MISSING NOTE
    Over the last three tips, we discussed Outlook 98's Find features in reference to locating mail messages. But messages aren't the only items that Outlook can track down. Looking for something you wrote in a note, but can't remember which one you put it in? Before you start reading through every item in your Notes folder, call upon Outlook 98's Find feature. Switch to your Notes folder and click the Find button. Type any text you know appears in the note, click Find Now, and Outlook will present you with a list of all notes that include this text. Still can't find the note? Try an advanced search. Click Advanced Find (in the upper-right corner of the Find window), then use the options on the resulting three tabs to define your search further. For example, if you know that you modified the note last Friday, click the down arrow next to Time (on the Notes tab) and select Modified. In the next field to the right, click the down arrow and select Last Week. Click Find Now, and Outlook will hunt down all notes modified during the previous week.
    TURN OFF DEFAULT SOUND FOR INCOMING MESSAGES
    Want Outlook 98 to play a different sound when you receive mail from each of multiple accounts? You can set the Rules Wizard to check incoming messages, and based on the sent-to address, Outlook will play the sound of your choice. First, though, you must do some preparation. By default, Outlook plays Windows' default sound when you receive new messages. To use the technique we're about to demonstrate, you must turn off the setting that tells Outlook to play this sound. Select Tools, Options, and on the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options. Click Advanced E-mail Options, deselect Play A Sound, then click OK repeatedly to exit all dialog boxes. In our next tip, we'll describe the rest of the technique.
    VIEW MESSAGE PROPERTIES
    Want to view a message's properties? In Outlook Express, you can simply right-click a message (in the message list) and select Properties. In Outlook 98, you'll need to open the message first. To view a message's Properties, double-click the message to open it (in a separate window). Now pull down the File menu and select Properties.
    VIEW MORE THAN ONE FOLDER AT A TIME
    Did you know Outlook 98 offers an Open In New Window command, just like your favorite browser? That means you can view the contents of more than one folder--for example, Inbox and Calendar--on the screen at the same time. Switch to the first folder you want to open; then, using the Outlook Bar or the folder list, right-click the second folder you want to open and select Open In New Window. (Note: You must have the folder list stuck to the screen in order to access its right-mouse commands.) Repeat these steps for each folder you want to open, then size or move the open windows as necessary to view their contents. (Tip: Right-click the Taskbar and select one of the window-arranging options.)
    VIEW MESSAGE PROPERTIES
    Want to view a mail message's properties? If you're used to Outlook Express, you might try to right-click a message and select Properties, but in Outlook 98 this command isn't available. To view a message's Properties, double-click the message to open it (in a separate window), then pull down the File menu and select Properties.
    Easter Egg for 98
    As you may know, Microsoft's programmers are fun-loving people and often include Easter Eggs (bits of hidden code) in their applications. (This could explain why ship dates often come and go without an application release.) Outlook 98 has one of these Easter Eggs--find it and you can get to know those crazy programmers who brought you Outlook. Follow these steps: 1. Create a new contact. 2. In the Full Name text box, type Ren Hoek. 3. Click Save And Close. 4. Select the new contact. 5. Go to Help | About Microsoft Outlook. 6. Pressing [Ctrl][Alt][Shift], click OK. When you do this, Outlook displays the software credits and a link to the Microsoft Outlook Team Credits Web site, where you can see pictures of the team who worked on Outlook 98.
    CHANGING PERMISSIONS TO A NET FOLDER
    By default, Outlook gives Reviewer permissions to a new Net Folder subscriber. Reviewer permissions only allow a subscriber to read the contents of the shared folder. But if you wish to allow your subscribers more access than that, you can easily change permissions for Net Folder subscribers. Follow these steps: 1. Open the Folder List view. 2. Select the shared folder for which you want to change the subscriber list. 3. Select File | Share | This Folder. 4. Click Next to display the subscribers. 5. Highlight the subscriber for whom you want to change the permissions. 6. Click Permissions. 7. Select the new permission level for the subscriber. 8. Click OK to close out of all dialog boxes.
    FIND MISSING NOTE
    Looking for something you wrote in a note, but can't remember which one you put it in? Before you start reading through every item in your Notes folder, call upon Outlook 98's Find feature. Switch to your Notes folder and click the Find button. Type any text you know appears in the note, then click Find Now, and Outlook will present you with a list of all notes that include this text. Still can't find the note? Try an advanced search. Click Advanced Find (in the upper-right corner of the Find window), then use the options on the resulting three tabs to define your search further. For example, if you know you modified the note last Friday, click the down arrow next to Time (on the Notes tab) and select Modified. In the next field to the right, click the down arrow and select Last Week. Click Find Now, and Outlook will hunt down all notes modified during the previous week.
    ASSOCIATING OUTLOOK FOLDERS WITH WEB PAGES
    As society becomes more and more dependent on the Internet, the line between normal e-mail usage and Internet browsing can become fuzzy. Outlook 2000 gives you the option of associating an Internet home page with an Outlook folder that can be displayed (either automatically or manually) with the folder. To associate a folder with a Web page, right-click the folder and choose Properties. Select the Home Page tab. In the Address text box, type the URL to use for the home page. It can be an HTML file on your local computer or on the Internet. Make sure you include the http:// before the Web address. If you select the Show Home Page By Default For This Folder check box, the home page will be displayed every time you view that folder. Once you associate a folder and a home page, the View menu includes an extra entry when you're in that folder: Show Folder Home Page. This option toggles the view of the home page on and off.
    GET UPDATED
    Missing some add-ins in Outlook? Wish you had some proofing tools or Microsoft Mail 3.x support? Check out Microsoft's Outlook 98 Component Install Web page. This is an interactive site that offers the latest in Outlook 98 component updates and add-ins. When you go to the site, the Outlook 98 Active Setup dialog box asks you if it's OK to determine what components are installed on your computer. Click Yes to continue, and Active Setup determines which components are installed on your system. Look at the Status column on the right to see what it found. If you're unsure of what a specific component is or why you need it, click the red triangle for more information. You can also see the size of the file and the approximate download time for each component. You can download a component by selecting its check box and clicking Next. Select the site that's closest to you, and click Install Now to begin the download. http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/outlook/addcomp/addcom.htm
    CHECK SPELLING IN INDIVIDUAL MESSAGES
    This is the real world. Spelling counts. When you send an e-mail loaded with typos, you don't make the best impression. If you don't have time to look your messages over before sending them (or even if you do, but you aren't the best speller in the world), ask Outlook 98 to check your spelling for you. In the open message window, select Tools, Spelling (or press F7). The spelling checker kicks in and stops at the first misspelling (if any). Inside the Spelling dialog box, select a Suggestion (or type a correction on the Change To line), then click the Change button. Or if you disagree and think the word is spelled correctly, click Ignore. When the spelling checker finishes, send your message as always. In our next tip, we'll show you how to make Outlook check all outgoing messages automatically.
    DISPLAY WEEK NUMBERS IN CALENDAR
    Do you work in a field where it's important to know week numbers? Ask Outlook to display week numbers in Date Navigator (the mini calendars to the right of the current day [or week] in Outlook's Calendar). Select Tools, Options and click the Calendar Options button. Under Calendar options, select Show Week Numbers In The Date Navigator, then click OK twice. Now switch to Calendar if you aren't there already, and you'll see week numbers along the left edge of each month in Date Navigator.
    ACCESSING HOTMAIL FROM OUTLOOK
    Unlike Outlook Express, Outlook 2000 does not have an option to use Microsoft Hotmail e-mail accounts. But Microsoft offers this workaround: Create a folder in Outlook and associate the Hotmail Web page to the folder. Follow these steps: 1. In the folder list, right-click the folder and select Properties from the shortcut menu. 2. On the Home Page tab, type http://www.hotmail.com in the Address text box. 3. Select the Show Home Page By Default For This Folder check box. 4. Click OK to close all dialog boxes. 5. You can add a folder shortcut to your Outlook Bar by clicking and dragging the Hotmail folder to the Outlook Bar. Now, when you click the Hotmail folder in your Folder List, you will see the option to log on to your account. But stay tuned: Microsoft is beta-testing an Outlook patch that will allow users to access Hotmail from Outlook 2000.
    BE FLEXIBLE WITH ADAPTIVE MENUS
    With Outlook 2000, Microsoft took the old system of long and short menus one step further by implementing adaptive menus. This means that some of the menu items are hidden by default. Outlook uses complicated algorithms to determine when to make an item hidden. This is based not only on how long it's been since you last used an item, but also on how often you used the item in the past. But if you want to see the whole picture, you can turn off adaptive menus and shift to a mode where the entire menu appears. Go to Tools | Customize. In the Customize dialog box, choose the Options tab. In the Personalized Menus And Toolbars section, deselect the Menus Show Recently Used Commands First check box. Keep in mind that this change will take effect in all Office 2000 applications.<\font>
    JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME: THE DO NOT FORWARD FLAG
    Outlook allows you to flag messages with different options, such as Follow Up or No Response Necessary. One option that's particularly useful is the Do Not Forward flag. You can attach this flag to a message by clicking Actions | Flag For Follow Up. Select Do Not Forward from the Flag To drop-down list. Although putting this flag on a message does not automatically prevent it from being forwarded, Outlook will put a Do Not Forward reminder above the To field if the recipient is using Outlook. While you should always assume someone other than your intended audience could see the contents of your message, this flag allows you to tell the recipient that you don't want the message to be forwarded.
    MAKE IT SOMEONE ELSE'S PROBLEM
    If your users frequently send e-mail on behalf of another person or if they're going on vacation and want responses to their mail forwarded to another account, Outlook has a nifty little option that can make life a little easier. When sending a message, you can arrange that replies are sent to a specific address other than your own. Follow these steps: 1. In a new message, select View | Options. 2. In the Delivery Options section, select the Have Replies Sent To check box. 3. Type the address where you want the replies to go, or click Select Names to choose them from your Address Book. 4. Click Close and send the e-mail as normal. You may notice that the Have Replies Sent To field doesn't support address completion in the same way the To and Cc fields do. If this is a feature you depend on, never fear: Enter a partial name (or several separated by semicolons) and then click Select Names. Outlook will complete all the addresses as long as each item is unique. If one of the names is not unique, Outlook won't complete any of them, and you will have to do it manually through the Address Book.
    OUTLOOK 2000 SOUNDS OFF LOUD AND CLEAR
    Outlook 2000 has four groups of sounds that you can configure. 1. A sound can be played when a new message arrives. The sound Outlook uses is defined in the Sounds applet of Control Panel under the Windows group; it's called New Mail Notification. You can turn this sound on or off by going to Tools | Options | Preferences | E-mail Options | Advanced E-mail Options. In the When New Items Arrive section, either select or deselect the Play A Sound check box. 2. A sound can be played when a reminder is due. You can configure this option and turn it on or off by clicking Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options | Reminder Options. Select or deselect the Play Reminder Sound check box. 3. The Office Assistant can make sounds. These sounds can be turned on or off by right-clicking the assistant and selecting Options. Select or deselect the Make Sounds check box. 4. Other miscellaneous sounds can be turned on or off by going to Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options. A word of warning: The sound files used by Outlook 2000 are not installed by default, nor are they found on the Office 2000 CD. You have to download them from Microsoft's Web site. Download the file named Sounds.exe. Running it adds the sound controls to the Sounds applet in Control Panel. http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/downloaddetails/sounds.htm
    OUTLOOK FILE TYPES: AN OVERVIEW
    Although Outlook data is stored in .pst files, Outlook uses other files as well. In case you've seen these extensions floating around and wanted to know what they meant, here's a quick list: * .pab: This file stores your Personal Address Book. * .fav: Files with this extension store customizations of the Outlook Bar. * Views.dat: This file is a cache of your custom views. * Outcmd.dat: This is the toolbar and menu customization file. * OutlPrnt: This file is where any customized print styles are stored. * .rwz: Files with this extension contain rules. * .nick: Files with this extension store cached short names that you've used in address auto-completion. * .oft: Files with this extension are Outlook templates. * vbaproject.otm: This file contains any custom macros you've created for Outlook. You can usually find these files stored in C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.
    RECALLING MESSAGES BETWEEN DIFFERENT OUTLOOK VERSIONS
    We've got some bad news for you. Say after a long lunch on a Friday afternoon, you send an e-mail from your Outlook 98 machine to your boss, who uses Outlook 2000. In the e-mail, you compare him to Scrooge because you haven't received a raise in two years. When you come to your senses and decide that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, you're in for a surprise--you can't recall the message before your boss reads it. Microsoft has confirmed that when you attempt to recall a message sent from Outlook 98 to a recipient who uses Outlook 2000, the recall will fail. Outlook uses a special message format to designate the recall message. This format is different in Outlook 2000, and it can't recognize the old system. So next time, double-check yourself before you hit that Send button!
    SOMETIMES IT'S BEST TO BE BORING
    If your users come to you, complaining that they're sick and tired of using the same old Times New Roman or Arial fonts in their mails and want to use a new, dramatic, cutting-edge font to fully express themselves, then teach them this quick tip for changing their fonts. Go to Tools | Options | Mail Format and click Fonts. By selecting any of the three Choose Font buttons, they'll find the Font dialog box and be able to alter their fonts in their mails however they like. But a word of warning to pass on: When choosing fonts to use with the RTF or HTML formats, they need to know that neither format embeds the fonts in the message. Recipients must have the fonts installed to see the message as it was sent. So it might be worth it to suggest your users restrict themselves to the built-in Windows fonts (Arial, Courier New, and Times New Roman) or the Internet Explorer fonts (Comic Sans, Tahoma, and Verdona). Then they can be reasonably sure that the recipient will have these fonts installed, even if their full creativity won't be expressed.
    WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?
    Your company has offices on both coasts, and you usually spend a few good minutes before clicking Send on that e-mail to your coworker, trying to calculate if anyone is even in the office on the other side of the country. Stop wasting time: Outlook 2000 will allow you to display two different time zones at once. To set it up, go to Tools | Options, select the Preferences tab, select Calendar Options, and then click the Time Zone button. Choose the other time zone that you want Outlook to display. Keep in mind that picking a new time zone from the drop-down list in the Changing Current Time Zone section of the dialog box also adjusts the time zone in Windows and your system clock, so it affects all of your other programs as well--not just Outlook.
    WHY ARE YOU REPLYING TO YOURSELF?
    As you know, when you click Reply To All on a message, Outlook transfers everyone from the To and Cc lists on the original message to the reply message. If you appear by name in the original message's address list, Outlook will delete you from the list of recipients in the reply. However, if only your e-mail address appears in the original message, you won't be spared--you'll automatically be added to the reply. So, if you don't want to have replies to all messages that you send appear in your own Inbox, make sure you delete yourself from the recipients' list.
    BACK AND FORWARD BUTTONS
    Did you know that you can navigate your way through Outlook 98, just as you can through your browser window? Select Go, Back, and you'll jump back to the last folder you were viewing. Continue selecting this command and you'll keep jumping backward through the current work session. Now select Go, Forward (repeatedly, if necessary), and you'll jump ahead again to wherever you started.
    CHECK SPELLING IN MESSAGES AUTOMATICALLY
    In our last tip, we showed you how to check an individual message for spelling errors: In the open message window, select Tools, Spelling (or press F7). If the checker finds any misspellings, select a Suggestion (or type a correction on the Change To line), then click the Change button. Or if you don't agree that the word is misspelled, click Ignore. Do you frequently forget to check spelling in your messages? Ask Outlook 98 to do it for you whenever you send a message. Select Tools, Options and click the Spelling tab. Select Always Check Spelling Before Sending and click OK. The next time you send a message, the spelling checker kicks in, as if you had pressed F7. When the checker finishes, Outlook proceeds to send the message as always.
    CLEAR OUT DELETED ITEMS AUTOMATICALLY
    By default, deleting an Outlook 98 e-mail message moves it to the Deleted Items folder, where it stays until you manually empty this folder. However, if you don't need this safety net, you can instruct Outlook to empty it whenever you exit the program. Select Tools, Options and click the Other tab. Select the Empty Deleted Items folder upon exiting, then click OK. From now on, exiting Outlook wipes that folder clean (so make sure you've retrieved everything you need before you exit).
    DISABLE NEW MAIL NOTIFICATION
    Tired of seeing the pop-up message, You Have New Mail (and so on)? Then disable it. This message can be annoying--especially if you have Outlook set to open the Inbox, where you can see and access your new messages immediately anyway. Pull down the Tools menu and select Options. Click the E-mail Options button, and in the resulting dialog box, deselect Display A Notification Message When New E-mail Arrives. Click OK twice, and that message won't bother you again.
    DISPLAY BACK AND FORWARD BUTTONS
    In our last tip, we showed you how to jump backward or forward through recently visited folders: Select Go, Back to jump back one folder at a time; then use the Go, Forward command to move ahead again. Wish you had back and forward buttons in your Outlook 98 window, just as you do in your browser? You do--they just aren't visible at the moment. Select View, Toolbars, Advanced, and in the toolbar that appears between the menu bar and the standard toolbar, you'll see two buttons with arrows on them--these are the Instant Back and Forward buttons. (The Forward button appears grayed out, since you can't move forward until you move back.) You can also click the arrow on the right side of the Back button for a drop-down list of all folders. Select one, and off you go.
    DISPLAY KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS IN SCREENTIPS
    Do you prefer keyboard shortcuts to menu commands or buttons? If you can't always remember them, Outlook offers some good reminders. By default, when you hold your mouse pointer over a toolbar button, a small yellow box called a ScreenTip appears with that button's name inside. You can ask Outlook to display that button's keyboard shortcut, if any, inside its ScreenTip. Select View, Toolbars, Customize and click the Options button. Select Show Shortcut Keys In ScreenTips, then click Close. To try out this new option, hold your mouse pointer the over Send and Receive button--there's that F5 shortcut we all know and love.
    MOVE INCOMING MESSAGES TO FOLDER
    Do you store all messages from a certain recipient in a folder other than Inbox? Rather than moving messages individually as they arrive, ask Outlook to put them in the appropriate folders from the start. Inside your Inbox folder, select Tools, Organize. Now just fill in the Create A Rule line to match what you want to do. When you're finished, this line might read something like Move New Messages From Sarah@anything.com Into Messages From Sarah. To set this rule into motion, click Create, then click the X in the upper-right corner of the Organize box to close it. Can't figure out why you aren't getting any messages from Sarah anymore? You are--they just never make it to your Inbox. They go directly to your Messages From Sarah folder.
    RIGHT-MOUSE DOESN'T WORK ON FOLDER LIST
    Ever try to right-click an item in your folder list and find that nothing happens? Don't worry--you haven't broken anything. If you don't have your folder list showing permanently (in other words, you have to click the current folder's name to display the folder list, which then disappears after you select one), these commands don't work. If you want right-mouse control over your folder list, you'll need to stick it to the screen: Either select View, Folder List, or click the pushpin icon at the top-right corner of the list (as described in a previous tip).
    SEND REPLIES TO SOMEONE ELSE
    Say you're sending out a group message but don't want to deal with the replies (for example, an office survey your assistant will tally). Outlook 98 can direct responses to the recipient of your choice. Compose the message as usual, but before sending it off, click the Options button (or select View, Options). Under Delivery options, select Have Replies Sent To. Click the Select Names button, select a recipient, and click the Reply To button. (Repeat these steps to select multiple recipients if desired.) Click OK, then click Close and send the message off as usual. When a recipient clicks the Reply button, the return message's To field lists the address to which you directed replies. As long as the recipient doesn't redirect the message to you, you'll never lay eyes on that response--just the way you want it.
    SPELLING CHECKER CAN BYPASS NUMBERS AND CAPS
    In our last tip, we showed you how to add words to Outlook's custom dictionary (so that Outlook's spelling checker will view these words as correct): Either click the Add button whenever the spelling checker stops at one of these words; or select Tools, Options, click the Spelling tab, click Edit, type any additions to the dictionary, save your changes, and close the Notepad window. If your e-mail messages frequently include lots of uppercase abbreviations or words with numbers in them (for example, invoice numbers), adding each and every one of them to the custom dictionary isn't possible. But that doesn't mean you'll have to click Ignore to make the spelling checker bypass them. You can ask Outlook to ignore all uppercase words, all words with numbers, or both. Select Tools, Options, and click the Spelling tab. Select Ignore Words In UPPERCASE or Ignore Words With Numbers (or both options), then click OK.
    SQUEEZE ADVANCED BUTTONS INTO THE TOOLBAR
    In our last tip, we showed you how to display Back and Forward buttons in your Outlook window, for easy navigating back and forward through previously visited folders: Select View, Toolbars, Advanced, and you'll see Back and Forward buttons in the toolbar that appears. Not willing to sacrifice a whole row of toolbar space for these buttons? Before you hide that Advanced toolbar again, try squeezing all your buttons into one row. See the two vertical bars on the left edge of the Advanced toolbar? Click them, then drag the toolbar straight down to the Standard toolbar. Presto--the first five icons from the Advanced toolbar appear on the left side of the Standard bar. (Note: If you drag the Advanced toolbar to the right and then down, its icons appear on the right side of the bar.)
    WRITE YOUR OWN DICTIONARY
    In our last tip, we suggested that you have Outlook check spelling in your messages for you before sending them off: Select Tools, Options and click the Spelling tab. Select Always Check Spelling Before Sending and click OK. If the spelling checker is always pointing out certain words as misspelled even when they aren't--for example, an acronym or slang term you use frequently--add them to Outlook's custom dictionary. From then on, Outlook will view these words as correct. Whenever the spelling checker stops at what you think is a correctly spelled word, just click the Add button (instead of Ignore). If you prefer, you can add a whole bunch of words to Outlook's dictionary at the same time. Select Tools, Options, click the Spelling tab, and click the Edit button. Inside the custom.dic file, type any additions to the dictionary, pressing Enter after each. (You can also delete words from the custom dictionary by deleting them from this file.) Save your changes, close the Notepad window, then click OK.
    PROVIDING SOUND FEEDBACK IN OUTLOOK
    Outlook, along with all the other components of Microsoft Office, has a feature called "Provide feedback with sound." This feature lets you play a sound when you perform actions such as deleting a message or opening a file. To activate the sound feature, select Tools, Options, Other. Click the Advanced Options button, and select Provide feedback with sound. If you have not already installed the sound options with Office, you'll receive the following error message: "Microsoft Office Sounds are not installed on your system. To install them, point to the Help menu and click Office on the Web to connect to Office Updates." If your installation of Outlook has this feature disabled, you can go directly to the Office Updates site at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.asp. Select Microsoft Office Sounds for Office and download SOUNDS.EXE. There's a version for Office 97 and one for Office 2000. When you run SOUNDS.EXE, you'll see a list of new sounds under Control Panel, Sounds, in the section labeled Microsoft Office. You can customize these sounds the same way you would customize any Windows sound properties.
    ACCEPT MEETING AND TASK REQUESTS WITHOUT OPENING THEM
    Outlook's Preview Pane makes it easy to read your mail without having to open any messages. But it's not as easy to accept meeting and task requests--the pane can't display Accept or Reject buttons. Still don't feel like opening your mail? There's an easy way to accept these requests without opening them. To accept a meeting or task request, drag the request from your Inbox to the Calendar (or Task) icon in the Outlook Bar; you can also drag the message to the appropriate folder in the Folder List. Outlook will send an acceptance notice to the originator of the request just as if you had opened the request and clicked Accept.
    PRINTING BOOKLETS ON NON-DUPLEX PRINTERS
    Outlook's built-in booklet styles are intended to be printed on both sides of a piece of paper. When you try to print them on a printer that only prints single-sided, you'll receive a message box that reminds you that booklets should be printed double-sided and asks you to verify that you want to print with your selected settings. If you have a duplex printer that prints on both sides, double-sided printing is automatic. To print a booklet from Outlook on a non-duplex printer, follow these steps: 1. Choose File | Page Setup and select the style you want. 2. Select the booklet type you want. 3. Click Print. 4. In the Copies section, select Odd from the Number Of Pages drop-down list. Click OK. 5. After the first part has printed, reinsert the paper in the printer upside down. 6. Choose File | Page Setup and select the style you want. 7. Select the booklet type you want. 8. Click Print. 9. This time, select Even from the Number Of Pages drop-down list. Click OK.
    PUBLISH YOUR CALENDAR TO THE WEB
    Outlook 2000 lets you create a Web page from the contents of any Calendar folder. Because Outlook uses the calendar you're currently viewing to create the Web page and provides no opportunity to edit out events, you may want to set up a new Calendar folder with only the events you want to publish to the Web. To publish a calendar as a Web page, select File | Save As Web Page. If you don't see this option, you may need to install this feature from the Office 2000 CD. The only tricky part of the Save As Web Page dialog box is the Include Appointment Details check box. Regardless of whether this option is selected, the Web calendar includes the Appointment And Event Details pane. If you select this check box, the Web page will also include the information in the Notes section of the appointments.
    SOME CLARIFICATION ON LDAP
    A while ago we ran a tip called "Optimize LDAP searches" (Feb. 11, 2000). That article sparked many questions and comments from our readers, so we thought we would clear up some confusion. One reader was particularly confused as to what LDAP was and where to find an LDAP server. The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a software protocol that enables you to locate organizations, people, and other resources on the Internet or an intranet. There are a number of public LDAP servers, several of which normally come configured with Outlook 2000. Here are a few of the public sites you can check out: * Bigfoot Internet Directory http://ldap.bigfoot.com/ * InfoSpace Internet Directory http://www.infospace.com/ * Switchboard Internet Directory http://www.switchboard.com/ * WhoWhere Internet Directory http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/ * Yahoo! People Search http://people.yahoo.com/ You can add and configure the LDAP servers from the Directory Services tab on the Internet Accounts dialog box (accessed by choosing Tools | Accounts when Outlook is in Internet Only mode). To add a new LDAP account: 1. Click Add and then select Directory Service. 2. On the first screen of the Internet Connection Wizard, type the address of the LDAP server. 3. If the LDAP server requires you to log on, select the check box at the bottom of the first screen. You will then be prompted for a username and password. 4. When prompted to use the new LDAP server for address auto completion, choose Yes only if the server you're adding is on your local network. 5. Click Next and click Finish.
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