Windows XP :: Attaching a file to an email message using Outlook ::
In Outlook Express, you can attach files to your e-mail messages to transmit information that you don’t want to appear in the body of the message. For example, you may need to send an Excel worksheet to a client in another office. To attach a file to an e-mail message in Outlook Express, follow these steps: 1. In Outlook Express, click the Create Mail button. Alternatively, from the Internet Explorer toolbar, click the Mail button and then choose New Message on the drop-down list that appears. A New Message window appears in Outlook Express. 2. Add the recipient(s) of the e-mail message in the To: or Cc: field(s), the subject of the message in the Subject: field, and any message text explaining the attached files in the body of the message. 3. Click the Attach button on the message window’s toolbar to open the Insert Attachment dialog box. 4. In the Look In drop-down list box, choose the folder that contains the file you want to attach. Click the filename in the main list box, and then click the Attach button. Outlook Express adds an Attach field under the Subject: field displaying the icon(s), filename(s), and size of the file(s) attached to the message. 5. Click the Send button on the Outlook Express toolbar to send the message to the recipient(s). If you opened a New Message window from Internet Explorer, after sending your message, the Outlook Express window closes, and you return to the Internet Explorer window. Adding an image to your message If you want to spice up your message even more, consider adding a graphic. To insert a graphic in the message that appears in front of your stationery, choose Insert -> Picture. Use the Browse button in the Picture dialog box to select the graphics file you want to use and then click OK. If the Insert -> Picture command isn’t available, you are sending messages in plain-text format, which doesn’t permit graphics to be sent inside messages. To be able to send your graphic, choose Format -> Rich Text (HTML). Formatting Your Messages Want to send your friends and colleagues a message they’ll remember or at least that they’ll find attractive? Then consider experimenting with the Formatting toolbar. This toolbar, which separates the header section of the message from the body window, becomes active as soon as you click the cursor in the body of the message. You can then use its buttons to format the text of your message. If you don’t see this toolbar when you click the message body area, this means that someone has changed the Mail sending format from its default of HTML to Plain Text. (See the next section, “Rich Text (HTML) messages versus Plain Text messages,” to see how to change it back.) Rich Text (HTML) messages versus Plain Text messages Outlook Express can use one of two file formats for the e-mail messages that you compose. The Rich Text (HTML) format can display all the formatting you see on Web pages on the Internet (including graphics). The Plain Text format can display only text characters (similar to a file opened in the Windows Notepad text-editing utility). When you first install Outlook Express, it uses the Rich Text (HTML) format for any new e-mail messages that you compose. This setting is fine as long as the e-mail program used by the recipient(s) of the message can deal with HTML formatting. (Many older e-mail programs, especially ones running under the Unix operating system, cannot.) If you send a message using the Rich Text (HTML) format to someone whose e-mail program can’t accept anything but plain text, the message comes to the recipient as plain text with an HTML document attached. That way, he or she can view all the HTML formatting bells and whistles that you added to the original e-mail message by opening the attached document in her Web browser. To make Plain Text the new default format for Outlook Express, follow these steps: 1. Launch Outlook Express. 2. Choose Tools -> Options to open the Options dialog box. 3. Click the Send tab and then select the Plain Text Settings button in the Mail Sending Format area. If you don’t want Outlook Express to put a greater-than symbol (>) in front of each line of the original message when forwarding it to another recipient, click the Plain Text Settings button to open the Plain Text Settings dialog box. Then deselect the Indent the Original Text With check box. If you want to change the greater-than symbol (>) to a vertical bar ( | ) or colon (:), choose the new symbol from the drop-down list to the right. 4. After making your changes, click OK or press Enter to close the Plain Text Settings dialog box. 5. Click OK to close the Options dialog box and put your new settings into effect. To change a message you’re composing to Rich Text (HTML) format so you can add formatting or a picture to your message, choose Format -> Rich Text (HTML) in the message window. Adding bold, italics, underline, and color to your text The Formatting toolbar in the Outlook Express New Message window makes it easy to add basic HTML formatting to your e-mail message. For example, you can highlight the text that you want to change and then click the Bold, Italics, and Underline buttons to change the way it looks. In addition to doing basic formatting, you can make your message a little fancier by changing the color of the text. To do so, simply select the text by dragging through it with the mouse pointer and then click the Font Color button on the Formatting toolbar. On the color menu that appears, choose the color that you want the text to be. Changing the font type and font size If you really want to make your point, try changing your font type or enlarging its size. To do so, highlight the text you’d like to change, and then choose the type and size you’d like from the two drop-down lists on the left side of the Formatting toolbar. Sending an E-Mail Message When you’re online (or are about to go online), you can send an e-mail message as soon as you finish writing (and, hopefully, spell-checking). Simply click the Send button in the New Message window (or press Ctrl+Enter or Alt+S) and away it goes, winging its way through cyberspace. This method doesn’t work at all, however, when you’re composing an e-mail message while traveling on a plane or train where you may not be able to connect your modem. For those times when you can’t send the message right away, you need to choose File -> Send Later on the New Message menu bar. When you choose this command, Outlook Express displays an alert box indicating that the message will be placed in your Outbox folder ready to be sent the next time you choose the Send and Receive command. When you click OK, the e-mail message you just composed goes into your Outbox folder. Then the next time you connect to the Internet, you can send all the e-mail messages waiting in the Outbox to their recipients by clicking the Send/Recv button. Printing a Message Sometimes, you may need to get a hard copy of a message to share with other less fortunate people who don’t have e-mail. To print the contents of an e-mail message, choose File -> Print and then click OK in the Print dialog box. Now you have your hard copy! Organizing E-Mail Addresses and Messages Getting e-mail is great, but it doesn’t take long for you to end up with a disorganized mess. If you don’t watch it, your Outlook Express Inbox can end up with hundreds of messages, some of which are still unread and all of which are lumped together in one extensive list. This article explains techniques for organizing e-mail. One of the first things you’ll want to do is add the names of all the people with whom you regularly correspond to your Outlook Express Address Book. That way, you’ll avoid retyping e-mail addresses each time you want to send a message. Instead, you can simply type the name of your intended recipient. This article also explains how to keep an address book in Outlook Express. |
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