Working with Contacts
Staying in contact with others is part of life and an important task in business. Whether it’s your best friend from high school, a client you’ve worked with for years, or a new customer, you need a way to store all the information about each one of them.
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007’s Contact feature enables you to save personal and business contact information, including phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses, Web site information, and personal data. Instead of being a glorified card file to store your information in, the Contacts folder is a full-featured database that lets you use automatic dialing to call a contact, import data from other contact managers or databases (such as Microsoft Access), create new messages to a contact, set up distribution lists for contacts, and more. Outlook gives you several ways to view your contacts as well. For example, you can view contacts using address cards, group contacts by category, or list them by their phone numbers. As with other folders, Outlook also lets you create custom views.
This section explores the Contacts folder. In it you learn how to create and sort contacts and use them for a variety of tasks. You learn how to send e-mail messages to contacts, work with contacts in your address book, add files to a contact, and much more.
You can add contacts to Outlook’s Contacts folder in three ways: by typing new information about someone, by using information you’ve entered for another contact, or by using information from an e-mail message. In the latter case, for example, you can quickly create a new contact by using the information from a message that you’ve received.
With the Inbox showing, select the message that has the contact information you want to save. If you don’t have the Reading Pane displayed, open the message to access the From field.
Right-click the name or address that appears in the From field.
Choose Add To Outlook Contacts from the shortcut menu that appears. A new contact card opens, with some of the new contact’s information already entered.Tip
Depending on how the From field is filled out in an e-mail message, you may need to modify the Full Name field when you create a new contact from a mail message. For example, if the sender’s name is not complete or does not appear at all, you need to manually enter the information in the address card.
- Click the Contacts icon on the Navigation Pane to display the Contacts folder.
- Double-click the contact you want to open.
Caution
When typing a contact’s e-mail address, be sure you type it correctly. An incorrect address will prevent your messages from being sent successfully. Take the time when typing a contact’s e-mail address to double-check it for accuracy. You can, of course, change it later, but it’s best to make sure it’s correct now.
- Type information about your contact in the appropriate fields.
From the File As drop-down list, select one of the choices of how Outlook can display the contact’s name, such as last name first, first name last, and so on.
Type any additional useful information in the Notes box at the bottom of the address card.
