The Message Menu provides all manner of commands for dealing with messages, as you may have guessed. (Available in Mail and Newsgroup views only.)
Resends a selected message in the Sent Items folder. (If a message in the Outbox is selected, this command says Send Message Now instead.)
(Available when a message you’re composing is open in its own window and Entourage is online.) Sends an email or newsgroup message. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-Return.
(Available when a message you’re composing is open in its own window.) Places the email or newsgroup message in the Outbox. Keyboard shortcut: Shift-⌘-Return.
If you’ve selected a partially retrieved message, this command tells Entourage to receive the rest of the story.
Makes a previewed (or opened) message editable, so that you can change its text— even if you didn’t create the message (POP accounts only).
Creates an outgoing reply message for the selected message, with subject and address already filled in. If the message comes from a mailing list, the reply will be addressed to the mailing list. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-R.
Creates a reply to the selected message, preaddressed to every recipient of the original message. Keyboard shortcut: Shift-⌘-R.
Creates a reply to the selected message, preaddressed to the sender only. Keyboard shortcut: Option-⌘-R.
Forwards the message to a third party, first permitting you to add your own comments to it before you send it along to someone else. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-J.
Forwards the message to a third party as a file attachment, which is useful when you want to preserve the formatting of forwarded HTML messages. Keyboard shortcut:Control-⌘-J.
Redirects the selected message to someone else, making it appear as though it came from the original sender (see Redirecting messages). Keyboard shortcut: Option-⌘-J.
Marks the currently selected message so that it looks like you’ve already read it (it stops being bold). Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-T.
Marks the currently selected message as unread (it turns bold)—useful if you’ve already read it but want to pretend as if you haven’t. Keyboard shortcut: Shift-⌘-T.
Tells Entourage’s junk mail filter that messages from the sender of the selected message are always junk.
The submenu commands here let you insert, into an outgoing email or newsgroup message, one of the following items:
Picture. Opens a “Choose a File” window for you to choose a graphics file to attach to a message or, if HTML is turned on, to place in the body of the message.
Background Picture. Opens a “Choose a File” window as above, except that Entourage sizes the picture you use to fill the body of the message. Your typing appears over the picture, provided you choose a contrasting font color.
Sound. Opens a “Choose a File” window for you to choose a sound file, such as a WAV file, to attach to an email message as an attachment.
Movie. Opens a “Choose a File” window, exactly as for a sound. Entourage inserts the movie into an HTML email as in a Web page or attaches it.
Deletes a background picture, if you inserted one using the above command or if you received a message from someone else with a background picture.
Lets you select the signature for your outgoing message (see Step 5: Adding a signature).
Lets you set a priority for your outgoing Entourage message, which will be flagged accordingly in your recipient’s email program, if the program understands such priority settings. For messages you’ve received, this menu lets you set the priority of the selected message from one of five possible choices: Highest, High, Normal, Low, and Lowest.
This submenu, available when you’re composing a new message, lets you apply two encryption features that help prevent evildoers from reading your email during its electronic journey. Because you and your recipients need to share each other’s digital certificates (files that identify you as the sender and decode the encrypted messages), you’ll usually use this feature when a corporate administrator has gotten everyone set up for it.
Digitally Sign Message. Adds the file that digitally identifies you as you. Usually your administrator purchases these certificates for everyone using the network.
Encrypt Message. Scrambles the message so that only you and the others with the right certificates can read it.
Lets you add an attachment to an open message that you’re creating (see Step 6: Add any file attachments). Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-E.
Opens up a Save dialog box where you can save any file attachments to the currently selected message onto your hard drive (see Opening Attachments). This command is unavailable, of course, if a message doesn’t have any attachments. Keyboard shortcut: ⌘-E.
Removes any attachments to the selected message. Great for stripping away annoying VCF files.
Removes any attachments that Entourage deems to be potentially unsafe (see the box on When attachments don’t open).
Lets you set a destination folder for your outgoing message. Once you’ve sent it, Entourage will move the message to the selected folder.
Applies mail rules (Setting up message rules) to the selected message or messages, even if they’ve already been downloaded to your Mac. The submenu shows two things: your list of individual rules and All Rules, which applies all of your rules to the selected messages.
This menu command moves the selected message or messages to a folder in the list—a great feature when you’re slogging through a mass of messages, trying to clean them up. Its submenu shows a list of folders and a special Choose folder command.
Folder list. This is a list of Entourage folders to which you can move the selected message.
Choose folder. Opens a list of all of Entourage’s folders; you can move the selected message to any of them. You can also create a new folder using the controls in this window. Keyboard shortcut: Shift-⌘-M.
Adds the sender of the selected message to your Entourage Address Book. Keyboard shortcut: Option-⌘-C.
Reveals the Internet headers that show where the message has been on its travels through cyberspace. It works only when a message is open in its own window or selected in a list, not in the Preview pane. Keyboard shortcut: Shift-⌘-H.