In: Categories » Computers and technology » Microsoft office » Office 2003: Outlook Express: Getting Acquainted with Outlook
This article pulls back the curtain and gives you a first glimpse of Outlook, the e-mailer and personal organizer in the Office suite of programs. Read on to find out once and for all what Outlook does, how to get from folder to folder, and the different ways to view the stuff in folders. You can find advice about keeping folders well organized in this article. Finally, this article looks at how to maintain an address book in Outlook.
What Is Outlook, Anyway?
Outlook is not in character with the rest of the Office programs. It’s a little different you can tell as soon as you glance at the screen. The familiar Standard and Formatting toolbars are nowhere to be found. Toolbars change altogether when you click a Navigation pane button and go to a different Outlook window. Outlook can be confusing because the program serves many different purposes. To wit, Outlook is all of these:
- An e-mail program: You can use it to send and receive e-mail messages and files, as well as organize e-mail messages in different folders so that you can keep track of them.
- An appointment scheduler: Outlook is also a calendar for scheduling appointments and meetings. You can tell at a glance when and where you are expected, as well as be alerted to upcoming appointments and meetings.
- An address book: The program can store the addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of friends, foes, clients, and family members. Looking up this information in the Contact List is easy. (See “Maintaining the Contacts Folder” later in this article.)
- A task reminder: Outlook is a means of planning projects. You can tell when deadlines fall and plan your workload accordingly.
- A notes receptacle: The program is a place to jot down notes and reminders. Outlook is a lot of different things all rolled into one. For that reason, the program can be daunting at first. But hang in there. Soon you will be running roughshod over Outlook and making it suffer on your behalf.
Navigating the Outlook Windows
The Outlook Today window lists calendar appointments, tasks that need doing, and the number of messages in three folders that pertain to e-mail (Inbox, Drafts, and Outbox). Not that it matters especially, but all Outlook jobs are divided among folders, and these folders are all kept in a master folder called Personal Folders. Here are the ways to get from window to window in Outlook and undertake a new task:
- Navigation pane: Click a button Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, or Notes on the Navigation pane to change windows and use Outlook a different way.
- Go menu: Choose an option on the Go menu Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes to go from window to window. You can also change windows by pressing the Ctrl key and a number from 1 through 5.
- Folder List: Click the Folder List button to see all the folders in the Personal Folder, and then select a folder. For example, to read incoming e-mail messages, select the Inbox folder. The Folder List button is located at the bottom of the Navigation pane. You can also see the Folder List by pressing Ctrl+6 or choosing Go -> Folder List.
- Outlook Today button: No matter where you go in Outlook, you can always click the Outlook Today button to return to the Outlook Today window. You can find this button on the Advanced toolbar.
- Back, Forward, and Up One Level buttons: Click these buttons to return to a window, revisit a window you retreated from, or climb the hierarchy of personal folders. The three buttons are found on the Advanced toolbar. By the way, you can open a folder in a new window. To do so, right-click a Navigation pane button and choose Open in New Window. To close a window you opened this way, click its Close button (the X in the upperright corner). When you start Outlook, the program opens to the window you were looking at when you exited the program. If you were staring at the Inbox when you closed Outlook, for example, you see the Inbox next time you open the program. However, if you prefer to see the Outlook Today window each time you start Outlook, click the Customize Outlook Today button (it’s on the right side of the Outlook Today window). Then, in the Outlook Today Options window, select the When Starting, Go Directly to Outlook Today check box and click the Save Changes button.
Getting a Better View of a Folder
Because you spend so much time gazing at folders, you may as well get a good view. To find the items you’re looking for and help prioritize your work, Outlook offers different views of each folder. Each option on the menu gives you a different insight into the task at hand. Do one of the following to change views:
- Open the Current View drop-down list on the Advanced toolbar and make a choice.
- Choose View -> Arrange By -> Current View and an option on the submenu.
- Select a Current View option button in the Navigation pane
Finding Items in Folders
If you can’t locate an item in a folder by scrolling, changing views, or switching to By Category view, you have to resort to the Find command. Outlook offers two Find commands, a simple Find command that’s available on the Standard toolbar, and an Advanced Find command that requires more effort but can yield more exacting results. Keep reading. The Contacts folder offers a very convenient means of finding stray contact information. In the Find a Contact text box (you can find it on the Standard toolbar), enter a name or an e-mail address and press Enter. If the name or e-mail address can be found, you see the person’s Contact information.
Searching in the Find pane
Is it just me, or do others think “pain” instead of “pane” when they hear that the Outlook windows are composed of different panes the Navigation pane, Reading pane, and so on? As if you aren’t already in enough pain, you can follow these steps to conduct simple searches in the Find pane:
1. Click the Find button in any window.
2. If necessary, tell Outlook which folders to search by opening the Search In drop-down list and making a choice. Choose one of the options on the list or select Choose Folders and pick a folder name in the Select Folder(s) dialog box. You can search more than one folder by opening this dialog box and selecting multiple folders. In mail folder searches, Outlook searches the text in messages as well as the subject of messages, but if that kind of search produces too many messages to look through, open the Options drop-down list on the Find pane and deselect Search All Text in Each Message. This way, Outlook searches messages’ subjects only, and fewer messages appear in the search results.
3. Enter what you’re searching for in the Look For text box.
4. Click the Find Now button. If your search doesn’t bear fruit, click the Clear button and start all over, or open the Options drop-down list and choose Advanced Find to embark on an advanced search. (The next section explains advanced searching.) Click the Find button or the Close button on the Find pane to remove the Find pane from the screen.
Conducting an advanced search
Run an advanced search when a simple search doesn’t do the job, when you want to search using more than one criterion, or when you want to search in several different folders. In the Look For drop-down list, choose where you want to search. If the folder isn’t on the list, click the Browse button and choose it in the Select Folder(s) dialog box. Then choose options on the three tabs Contacts, More Choices, and Advanced in the dialog box. Which options are available depends on which folder you’re searching. The Advanced Find window offers handy commands for dealing with items after you find them. Select the items and choose Edit -> Move to Folder to move the items into a new folder. Choose Edit -> Delete to delete the items. Ctrl+click, Shift+click, or choose Edit -> Select All to select items in the Advanced Find window.
Deleting E-Mail Messages, Contacts, Tasks, and Other Items
Outlook folders are notorious for filling very quickly. E-mail messages, contacts, and tasks soon clog the folders if you spend any time in Outlook. From time to time, go through the e-mail folders, Contacts window, Task window, and Calendar to delete items you no longer need. To delete items, select them and do one of the following:
- Click the Delete button (or press the Delete key).
- Choose Edit -> Delete (or press Ctrl+D).
- Right-click and choose Delete. Deleted items e-mail messages, calendar appointments, contacts, or tasks land in the Deleted Items folder in case you want to recover them. To delete items once and for all, open the Deleted Items folder and start deleting like a madman. To spare you the trouble of deleting items twice, once in the original folder and again in the Deleted Items folder, Outlook offers these amenities:
- Empty the Deleted Items folder when you close Outlook: If you’re no fan of the Deleted Items folder and you want to remove deleted items without reviewing them, choose Tools -> Options, select the Other tab in the Options dialog box, and select Empty the Deleted Items Folder Upon Exiting.
- Empty the Deleted Items folder yourself: Choose Tools -> Empty “Deleted Items” Folder to remove all the messages in the Deleted Items folder. You can also right-click the Deleted Items folder in the Folder List and choose Empty “Deleted Items” Folder. You can search for items and delete them in the Advanced Find window. See “Conducting an advanced search,” earlier in this article.
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