Useful Tips for using Outlook

Useful Tips for using Outlook

Track when your messages are read

If you’ve sent out an important e-mail and want to ensure that the recipient has received and read it, you can set an option in Outlook to do so. Once you’ve composed the message in Outlook 2007, go to the Options tab and the Tracking group. To know that your message was delivered, click Request a Delivery Receipt. To know that the message was read, click Request a Read Receipt.

Add Contacts quickly in Outlook 2007

From an open email message, you can add the name and email address of the sender to your Contacts. Right-click the name of the sender in the message and click Add to Contacts in the menu that appears.

Use the Mini toolbar for speedy formatting

The Mini toolbar in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (2007) helps you to format selected text in these programs—you can work with fonts, alignment, bullets, and other features. The toolbar is semi-transparent when you select text in any of these programs. You can take your pointer to the toolbar and click the option that you want to use.

Change the Font size of your message list

Do you have to strain your eyes to read your email headers in Outlook 2003? Click on the View menu. Under Arrange by, select Current View, and then Customize Current View. Now click on Other Settings. Select Row Fonts and change the font to the one that you desire. Click OK.

E-mail signature in Outlook

Go to the Tools menu and select Options. Under Options, click on the Mail Format tab. Go to the Signatures tab. Click New and type in a name for the new email signature you are creating. Click on Next. Type in your desired email signature; choose the font style and sizes. Click OK.

Change meetings or events created in Outlook 2007

Once you’ve scheduled a meeting or event using Outlook 2007, you can change its subject, location or time if needed. This can be done for a standalone event, for a whole series of recurring events, or one event of a series of recurring events.

To change the time, location or subject of an individual event, you first need to open the event. Go to the Appointment tab and make the necessary changes. Click Save and Close.

If you’re working with a series of events or a recurring event; open the event. In the Open Recurring Item dialog box, select Open this occurrence if you want to make changes to only the current occurrence. Select Open the series if you want to make changes to the entire series. For only the current occurrence, make the necessary changes in the Appointment tab and click Save and Close. To make changes for the entire series, use the Appointment tab again to change the location, time or subject. Then, if you want to change the recurrence options as well, click Recurrence in the Options group of the same tab. Change the options as needed and click OK.

Add or delete holidays in Outlook 2007

You may like your Outlook 2007 Calendar to display holidays for the current year. You can do this for not only your own region, but also the region in which key business partners operate.

To add holidays, go to Tools, click Options, and then click Calendar Options. In Calendar Options, click Add Holidays. You will see a list of countries—click the check box next to each country whose holidays you want to display in your calendar. Click OK.

To delete holidays, click Calendar. On the View menu, go to Current View and click Events. You will see a list of holidays. Click the calendar icon next to each row that you want to delete. To select multiple rows, keep the CTRL key pressed and click each row. Click Delete when you have finished selecting.

Add RSS feeds in Outlook 2007

There are several ways in which you can add an RSS feed to Outlook 2007. If you use Internet Explorer 7, you will see the RSS feed icon next to the Home button on the browser. Clicking the RSS feed icon will display the list of available feeds on the Web page. Click the feed that you want to add.

You can also do this within Outlook 2007. In the Tools menu, click Account Settings. On the RSS Feeds tab, click New. The New RSS Feed dialog box will open. You can type the URL of the RSS feed here or use CTRL+C and CTRL+V to copy and paste the URL from the address bar of your browser. Click Add and then click OK.

If you receive an invitation to an RSS feed via e-mail, you can click Add this RSS Feed on the Reading Pane to add it. If you’ve opened the message, go to the Share tab and the Open group. Click Add this RSS Feed and then click OK.

Schedule a new meeting in Outlook 2007

In Outlook 2007, go to File, click New, and select New Meeting Request. Type appropriate descriptions in the Subject and Location boxes, and choose start and end times of the meeting using the Start Time and End Time lists. You can also type any information or attach files that you want to share with the recipients of the meeting request. For help with scheduling the best time for your meeting, go to the Meeting tab, and click Scheduling Assistant in the Show group. Then, click Add Others and select Add Others from Address Book. You can now search and select attendees and resources for the meeting, by going to the Select Attendees and Resources dialog box and entering the name of the person in the Search box. The results list will show the concerned people—you can click Required, Optional, or Resources and click OK. After this, the Suggested Times pane will show the best times for your meeting, that is, the times at which most attendees are available. You can also manually pick a time from the free/busy grid. Go to the Meeting tab and click Appointment in the Show group. Click Send.

Print your Contacts in Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 gives you the option of printing out your list of Contacts in various styles—memo, visiting card, phone directory, small booklet or medium booklet. You can also customize these styles. You can print a single Contact, all your Contacts or some of them.

To print out all your Contacts, open the Contacts view, go to File and click Print. In the Print dialog box, select the style you want to print in using the Print Styles box. Click Define Styles to customize the printing style. Click OK to print, after setting the number of copies and other necessary options.

To print out some of your Contacts, open the Contacts view, go to the View menu, take your cursor to Current View and click Customize Current View. Click Filter and use the available options to narrow down the list of Contacts to only those that you want to print. Then, go to File, click Print and follow the same steps as above.

Redirect Incoming Email to your Mobile Phone

With Outlook 2007, you can redirect incoming email and calendar entries to your mobile phone, by configuring your Outlook Mobile Service account. To do this, you have to select the redirection conditions in Outlook Mobile Service. For this, go to Tools and click Options. On the Preferences tab, click Notifications under Mobile. Under Message Notifications, click the checkbox against Forward messages that meet all of the selected conditions. Select the conditions from those listed. In the Forward to mobile numbers box, type the mobile phone number(s) to which you want messages to be forwarded. Click OK.

Use Instant Search in Outlook 2007

You can quickly search for messages in Outlook. Click the folder you want to search in Mail. Type the text you want to search for in the Instant Search box. The Instant Search Results pane will display all messages that contain your search text.

Print an e-mail with attachment

Select the e-mail in the message list, but don’t open it. On the File menu, click Print. In Print options, click the Print attached files check box. Ensure that you don’t open the message when you want to print it, or the option to print the attachment will not be displayed.

Use Outlook 2007 to send a Word 2007 document for review

To e-mail a Word 2007 document for review, open and save the document and click Send for Review on the Quick Access Toolbar. A new e-mail message will open with the document attached; the default text in the message is "Please review the attached document". Make changes in the message if you want, type the addresses of the recipients in the To field of the message, and click Send.

Add commands to the Quick Access Toolbar

In Office 2007, you can customize the Quick Access Toolbar to contain your most frequently used commands. On the Ribbon, click the tab or group to display the command that you want. Right-click the command and click Add to Quick Access Toolbar.