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All about Message Formats
Outlook offers three formats for sending e-mail messages: HTML (HyperText Markup Language), plain text, and rich text. What are the pros and cons of the different formats? These days, almost all e-mail is transmitted in HTML format, the same format with which Web pages are made. If HTML is the default format you use for creating messages in Outlook and it is unless you tinkered with the default settings the e-mail messages you send are, in effect, little Web pages. HTML gives you the most opportunities for formatting text and graphics. In HTML format, you can place pictures in the body of an e-mail message, use a background theme, and do any number of sophisticated formatting tricks. However, the HTML format has its share of detractors. First, the messages are larger because they include sophisticated formatting instructions, and being larger, they take longer to transmit over the Internet. Some e-mail accounts allocate a fixed amount of disk space for incoming e-mail messages and reject messages when the disk-space allocation is filled. Because they are larger than other e-mail messages, HTML messages fill the disk space quicker. Finally, some e-mail software can’t handle HTML messages. In this software, the messages are converted to plain-text format. In plain text format, only letters and numbers are transmitted. The format does not permit you to format text or align paragraphs in any way, but you can rest assured that the person who receives the message will be able to read it exactly as you wrote it. The third e-mail message format, rich text, is proprietary to Microsoft e-mailing software. Only people who use Outlook and Outlook Express can see rich text formats. Choosing the rich text format is not recommended. If formatting text in e-mail messages is important to you, choose the HTML format because more people will be able to read your messages. When someone sends you an e-mail message, you can tell which format it was transmitted in by looking at the title bar, where the letters HTML, “Plain Text,” or “Rich Text” appear in parentheses after the subject of the message. Outlook is smart enough to transmit messages in HTML, plain text, or rich text format when you reply to a message that was sent to you in that format. Follow these instructions if you need to change the format in which e-mail messages are transmitted:
- Changing the default format: Choose Tools -> Options and, in the Options dialog box, select the Mail Format tab. From the Compose in This Message Format drop-down list, choose an option.
- Changing the format for a single e-mail message: In the Message window, open the Format menu and choose HTML, Plain Text, or Rich Text.
- Always using the plain-text or rich-text format with a contact: To avoid transmitting in HTML with a contact, start in the Contacts folder, double-click the contact’s name, and, in the Contact form, double-click the contact’s e-mail address. You see the E-Mail Properties dialog box. In the Internet Format drop-down list, choose Send Plain Text Only or Send Using Outlook Rich Text Format.
Stationery for Decorating E-Mail Messages
Apart from the standard formatting commands, the other way to decorate e-mail messages is to do it with stationery. In Outlook lingo, stationery is a background design meant to give an e-mail message the appearance of having been written on real-life stationery. Some kinds of stationery Holiday Letter, Party Invitation are designed for sending certain kinds of notices or invitations. As you choose stationery for your e-mail messages, remember that some people find the stuff extremely annoying. Follow these steps to choose a stationery for the e-mail messages you send:
1. Choose Tools -> Options to open the Options dialog box.
2. Select the Mail Format tab.
3. Click the Stationery Picker button. You see the Stationery Picker dialog box.
4. Click a stationery name to see a preview of it in the Preview box; select the stationery you like and click OK.
5. Click OK again in the Options dialog box. To quit using stationery in your e-mail, return to the Mail Format tab of the Options dialog box, open the Use This Stationery by Default dropdown list, and choose <None>.
Receiving E-Mail Messages
Let’s hope that all the e-mail messages you receive carry good news. These pages explain how to collect your e-mail and all the different ways that Outlook notifies you when e-mail has arrived. You will find several tried-andtrue techniques for reading e-mail messages in the Inbox window. Outlook offers a bunch of different ways to rearrange the window as well as the messages inside it.
Getting your e-mail
Here are all the different ways to collect e-mail messages that were sent to you:
- Collecting the e-mail: Click the Send/Receive button, press F9, or choose Tools -> Send/Receive -> Send/Receive All.
- Collecting e-mail from a single account (if you have more than one): Choose Tools -> Send/Receive and, on the submenu, choose the name of an e-mail account or group.
- Collect e-mail automatically every few minutes: Press Ctrl+Alt+S or choose Tools -> Send/Receive -> Send/Receive Settings -> Define Send/ Receive Groups. You see the Send/Receive Groups dialog box . Select a group, select a Schedule an Automatic Send/Receive Every check box and enter a minute setting. To temporarily suspend automatic e-mail collections, choose Tools -> Send/Receive -> Send/Receive Settings -> Disable Scheduled Send/Receive. If you’re not on a network or don’t have a DSL or cable Internet connection, you shortly see a Connection dialog box. Enter your password, if necessary, and click the Connect button. The Outlook Send/Receive dialog box appears to show you the progress of messages being sent and received.
Being notified that e-mail has arrived
Take the e-mail arrival quiz. Winners get the displeasure of knowing that they understand far more than is healthy about Outlook. You can tell when e-mail has arrived in the Inbox folder because A) You hear this sound: ding! B) The mouse cursor briefly changes to a little envelope. C) A little envelope appears in the system tray to the left of the Windows clock (and you can double-click the envelope to open the Inbox folder). D) A pop-up “desktop alert” with the sender’s name, the message’s subject, and the text of the message appears briefly on your desktop. E) All of the above. The answer is E, All of the above, but if four arrival notices strikes you as excessive, you can eliminate one or two. Choose Tools -> Options and, on the Preferences tab of the Options dialog box, click the E-Mail Options button. Then, in the E-Mail Options dialog box, click the Advanced E-Mail Options button. At long last, in the Advanced E-Mail Options dialog box, select or deselect the four When New Items Arrive in My Inbox options. To make desktop alerts stay longer on-screen, click the Desktop Alert Settings button and drag the Duration slider in the Desktop Alert Settings dialog box. While you’re at it, click the Preview button to see what the alerts look like.
Reading your e-mail in the Inbox window
Messages arrive in the Inbox window. Unread messages are shown in boldface type and have envelope icons next to their names; messages that you’ve read (or at least opened to view) are shown in Roman type and appear beside open envelope icons. In the Folder List, a number beside the Inbox tells you how many unread messages are in the Inbox folder Later in this article, “Techniques for Organizing E-Mail Messages” explains how to organize messages in the Inbox folder. Meanwhile, here are some simple techniques you can use to unclutter the Inbox folder and make it easier to manage:
- Hiding and displaying the Reading Pane: Click the Reading Pane button to make the Reading pane appear or disappear. With the Reading pane gone, column headings From, Subject, Received, Size, and Flagged appear in the Inbox window. You can click a column heading name to sort messages in different ways. For example, click the From column name to arrange messages by sender name.
- Hiding and displaying the Navigation pane: Choose View -> Navigation Pane or press Alt+F1. By hiding the Navigation pane, you get even more room to display messages.
- “Autopreviewing” messages: Click the AutoPreview button or choose View -> AutoPreview to read the text of all on-screen messages in small type. The message text appears below the subject heading of each message.
- Changing views: Choose an option on the Current View menu to reduce the number of messages in the window. For example, you can see only unread messages, or messages that arrived in the past week. Suppose you open an e-mail message but you regret doing so because you want it to look closed. You want the unopened envelope icon to appear beside the message’s name so you know to handle it later on. To make a message in the Inbox window appear as if it has never been opened, rightclick it and choose Mark As Unread.
Handling Files That Were Sent to You
You can tell when someone has sent you files along with an e-mail message because the word “Attachments” appears in the Reading pane along with the file names. The word “Attachments” and a filename appears as well in the Message window. And if columns are on display in the Inbox window (see the previous section of this article) Files that are sent to you over the Internet land deep inside your computer in a subfolder of the Temporary Internet Files folder. This is the same obscure folder where Web pages you encounter when surfing the Internet are kept. The best way to handle an incoming file is to open it or save it right away to a folder where you can more easily find it when you need it. To save a file that was sent to you in a new folder:
- Right-click the filename and choose Save As.
- Choose File -> Save Attachments -> Filename. To open a file that was sent to you, do one of the following:
- Double-click the filename in the Reading pane or Message window.
- Right-click the filename and choose Open.
- Right-click the paper-clip icon in the Inbox window and choose View Attachments -> Filename.
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