In pathology, which is the study of diseases and how they are transmitted, a contact is a person who passes on a communicable disease, but in Outlook, a contact is someone about whom you keep information. Information about contacts is kept in the Contacts folder. This folder is a super-powered address book. It has places for storing peoples’ names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, Web pages, pager numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, nicknames, and other stuff besides. When you address an e-mail message, you can get the address straight from the Contacts folder to be sure that the address is entered correctly.

Entering a new contact in the Contacts folder

To place someone on the Contacts list, open the Contacts folder and start by doing one of the following:

 -  Click the New button.

 -  Press Ctrl+N (in the Contacts Folder window) or Ctrl+Shift+C.

 -  Choose File -> New -> Contact. You see the Contact form. On this form are places for entering just about everything there is to know about a person except his or her love life and secret vices. Enter all the information you care to record, keeping in mind these rules of the road as you go along:

 -  Full names, addresses, and so on: Although you may be tempted to simply enter addresses, phone numbers, names, and so on in the text boxes, don’t do it! Click the Full Name button on the General tab, for example, to enter a name. Click the Business or Home button to enter an address in the Check Address dialog box. By clicking the buttons and entering data in dialog boxes, you permit Outlook to separate out the component parts of names, addresses, phone numbers, and so on. As such, Outlook can use names and addresses as a source for mass-mailings and mass e-mailings. When entering information about a company, not a person, leave the Full Name field blank and enter the company’s name in the Company field.

 -  Information that matters to you: If the form doesn’t appear to have a place for entering a certain kind of information, try clicking a triangle button and choosing a new information category from the drop-down list. Click the triangle button next to the Business button and choose Home, for example, if you want to enter a home address rather than a business address

 -  File As: Open the File As drop-down list and choose an option for filing the contact in the Contacts folder. Contacts are filed alphabetically by last name, first name, company name, or combinations of the three. Choose the option that best describes how you expect to find the contact in the Contacts folder.

 -  Mailing addresses: If you keep more than one address for a contact, display the address to which you want to send mail and select the This Is the Mailing Address check box. This way, in a mass-mailing, letters are sent to the correct address.

 -  E-mail addresses: You can enter three e-mail addresses for each contact (click the triangle button and choose E-mail 2 or E-mail 3 to enter a second or third address). In the Display As text box, Outlook shows you what the To: line of e-mail messages will look like when you send e-mail to a contact. By default, the To: line shows the contact’s name followed by his or her e-mail address in parentheses. However, you can enter whatever you wish in the Display As text box, and if entering something different will help you distinguish between e-mail addresses, enter something different. For example, enter Lydia – Personal so that you can tell when you send e-mail to Lydia’s personal address as opposed to her business address.

 -  Photos: To put a digital photo on a Contact form, click the Add Contact Photo button and, in the Add Contact Picture dialog box, select a picture and click OK. Be sure to write a few words on the General tab to describe how and where you met the contact. When the time comes to weed out contacts in the Contacts folder list, reading the descriptions will help you decide who gets weeded and who doesn’t. When you’re done entering information, click the Save and Close button. If you’re in a hurry to enter contact information, click the Save and New button. Doing so opens an empty form so that you can record information about another contact. Here’s a fast way to enter contact information for someone who has sent you an e-mail message: Open the message, right-click the sender’s name on the To: line, and choose Add to Outlook Contacts on the shortcut menu. You see the Contact form. Enter more information about the sender if you can and click the Save and Close button.

Changing a contact’s information

Changing a contact’s information is a chore if you do it by going from field to field on the General and Details tabs of the Contact form. Fortunately for you, there is a faster way to update the information you have about a contact go to the All Fields tab in the Contact form. Choose an option on the Select From drop-down list, scroll in the form, and update fields as necessary.

 -  The scrollbar: Click the arrows or drag the scroll box to move through the list.

 -  Letter buttons: Click a letter button on the right side of the window to move in the list to a specific letter.

 -  Change views: Changing views often helps in the search. Choose a new view from the Current View drop-down list on the Advanced toolbar.

 -  Find a Contact text box: Enter a name or e-mail address in this text box and press Enter. The Find a Contact text box is located on the Standard toolbar.

 -  Find button: Click the Find button to open the Find pane and look for a contact.

 -  Search by category: Categorize contacts as you enter them and switch to By Category view to arrange contacts by category.