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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. |