Whether you are a seasoned user of earlier versions of Outlook or completely new to the program, you will appreciate Microsoft's efforts to streamline the program's interface. By default, the program displays the Mail component, consolidating it with your calendar, upcoming appointments, and tasks on a single screen.
In addition to enabling you to send and receive e-mails, Outlook is designed to help you keep track of appointments, manage your contacts, maintain a to-do list, keep a journal to track your time, and more.
Of course, Outlook contains many basic-level tools designed to make you more efficient. More advanced tools, however, can really help you stay organized. For example, you can categorize your Outlook items so you can color-code them. Outlook's automatic journal tools enable you to track the time you spend on a project. If you find yourself overloaded, you can delegate a task you create in Outlook to someone else. You can also use Outlook's Contacts map feature to pinpoint an address contained in a contact record and map out how to find the location.
With Outlook 2010, sharing your information with others has never been easier. For example, you can easily create an electronic business card, which you can exchange with others in much the same way paper-based cards are shared. In addition, you can send a snapshot of your calendar to another Outlook 2010 user.
Create an Electronic Business Card. 298
Locate an Address with Map It. 302
Categorize an Outlook Item. 304
Send a Calendar Snapshot. 306
View Two Calendars in Overlay Mode. 308
Record Journal Entries Automatically. 310
Delegate a Task. 311
Just as you likely exchange paper-based business cards with others, you can also exchange business cards created with Contacts. You can send your business card to others via e-mail, either as an attachment or as part of your e-mail message's signature.
The first step in creating an electronic business card is to create a contact entry in Outlook for yourself. To do so, click the Contacts button in Outlook's Navigation pane, click New Contact on the Ribbon's Home tab, and enter your contact information in the window that appears. Once you have created your own contact, you can proceed to turning the information into an e-card.
In addition to including vital information such as your name, phone number, e-mail address, and so on, your electronic business card can include a photo and/or a logo. You can also customize the design of your electronic business card. For example, you can change the font size and text alignment of elements on the card. You can also add extra fields of text to the card for quotes or taglines.
Note
You can quickly double-click a contact in the Contacts list to quickly open the contact window.
The Edit Business Card dialog box opens.
Note
By default, the layout image appears on the far left side of the card.
The Color dialog box opens.
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Did You Know?
In addition to creating an electronic business card that contains your contact information to share with others, you can display all of your contacts in electronic business card form, much the way Rolodexes of old stored paper-based business cards did. To view your contact entries as electronic business cards, click the Home tab and click Business Cards in the Current View gallery. If the option does not appear, use the scroll arrows (
Customize It!
Rather than choose a background color from Outlook's Basic colors palette, display the custom color palette and choose a softer color shade from the various shades available for the selected color choice. Just click the Define Custom Colors button in the Color dialog box to expand the palette, and then choose another hue from the bar at the far right.
Outlook adds a default graphic design to your business card. You can certainly use the default graphic and choose how you want it positioned on the card, you can even control the size of the element. However, if you have another graphic in mind, you can replace the default graphic with something more appropriate, such as a company logo, a product picture, or even a photograph of yourself.
You can also assign a background color to the card. Keep in mind that solid colors and small business card text are not always a good match. Legibility is often an issue, so choose your background color wisely. If you pick something too dark, you may not be able to see the business card text on the card. You may need to make some adjustments to the text color or background color to get just the right effect.
In addition to an image, consider adding an extra field to your card to type up, such as a slogan. For example, if your company's tagline is "over 50 years' experience" you can add this to your card as a blank line and type the tagline.
The Add Card Picture dialog box opens.
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You need not use a photograph on the card; an image file containing, say, your company's logo would also work.
The business card is saved in your contact record.
Note
If you make too many changes to your card, or are unhappy with the way it turned out, you can click the Reset Card button to reset the card to the way it first appeared when you opened the Edit Business Card dialog box.
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More Options!
Instead of having a separate field for, say, your job title, you might add that information as a label to the Full Name field. Labels let you add another design element to the card that appears separately from the main information. To do so, specify in the Edit Business Card dialog box whether the label should appear to the left or the right of the existing text, type the label, and choose the desired font color.
Apply It!
To attach your business card to an e-mail message, open the message window and compose your message. Then click Attach Item on the window's Message tab, click Business Card, and choose the card you want to include with the message. Outlook adds it to the message window and as a file attachment.
If you plan to visit someone listed in Contacts, and if that person's contact record includes an address, you can use the Contacts map feature, called Map It, to pinpoint the person's location. With an online connection and a little help from the Bing Web site, you can quickly locate an address from any contact in your list.
By default, the Contacts map feature opens your browser window to the Bing Web site and displays the address in Road view, like a typical map. You can, however, switch to Aerial view, which is a satellite image of the location. The tools in the top left corner of the map let you change views, switching between Road and Aerial. In addition, the Contacts map can be displayed in Bird's Eye view, which combines elements of the Road and Aerial views. To switch views, click Aerial and then click Bird's Eye. You can also choose to view the map in 2-D or 3-D modes.
In addition to enabling you to view a map pinpointing the contact's location, you can obtain driving directions from your location to your destination, as well as fine-tune those directions to show the shortest route or the quickest route. You can even forward the information to your mobile phone.
The Directions pane opens.
The map changes to show your route.
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More Options!
You can also find your way to the Outlook Map It feature through the Communicate group of tools on the contact window's Contact tab. Click the More button and click Map It.
More Options!
In order to use Outlook's mobile features, you must first configure a text messaging account. Outlook can help you with this by walking through the required steps to set things up. To start the process, click the File tab to open Backstage view, then click Options. From the Outlook Options dialog box, click the Mobile tab and click the Mobile Options button. Follow the on-screen prompts to set up your account.
Do you like to keep your Outlook items really organized? Then consider using categories. If several Outlook items pertain to a particular project, company, or what have you, you can create a category for those items. Outlook items in the same category are color-coded so you can easily tell what the item pertains to at a glance. The process for categorizing an Outlook item is essentially the same regardless of what type of item it is.
One of the best things about categorizing Outlook items is that you can then sort them by category. To sort tasks and contacts by category, display the Home tab and click a category in the Current View gallery. To sort e-mail messages, click the Arrange By heading at the top of the message list and choose Categories. (Note that Calendar entries cannot be sorted by category.)
To expedite the categorization process, Outlook provides a Quick Click function, which enables you to apply a category to an Outlook item with the click of a button.
The Color Categories dialog box appears.
The Add New Category dialog box appears.
Note
If you associate a shortcut key with a category, then you can simply press that key combination to apply the category to a selected Outlook item.
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Try This!
If you frequently use the same category, or need to add several items to a category in one sitting, you can use Outlook's Quick Click feature. To do so, choose Set Quick Click in the Categorize submenu and, in the Set Quick Click dialog box, click the down arrow and choose the desired category. Then simply click an Outlook item's Categories column to apply the selected category. To turn off Quick Click, choose No Category in the Set Quick Click dialog box.
Important!
The Categorize menu contains categories used most recently. If the category you want to apply does not appear in the list, choose All Categories and select the desired category in the Color Categories dialog box that opens.
You can e-mail a calendar snapshot to others — that is, a static view of your calendar as it appears at the moment it is sent. When you create a calendar snapshot, you are creating a graphical representation of your calendar. If the recipient of your calendar snapshot also uses Outlook, he or she can drag items from your calendar snapshot into his or her own calendar. If the recipient does not use Outlook, he or she can still view your calendar.
In addition to sending calendar snapshots to others, you can view calendar snapshots sent to you. To do so, click Open This Calendar in the e-mail message containing the snapshot. When prompted, click Yes to confirm that you want to add the snapshot to Outlook; Outlook displays it side by side with whatever calendar was already displayed. To copy an entry from one calendar to the other, click the entry and drag it.
Note that calendar snapshots are static. When the owner of the calendar makes a change to it, the change is not reflected in the calendar snapshot.
The Send a Calendar via E-mail dialog box appears.
Outlook launches a new message window.
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More Options!
You can also save your Outlook calendar in the iCalendar file format and share it with others. To do so, click the File tab to open Backstage view and click the Save As option. This opens the Save As dialog box you are used to seeing in all the other Office 2010 programs. Edit the calendar file name, if desired, and choose a destination folder for the saved file. Click the More Options button in the Save As dialog box to open the same dialog box described in steps 2 to 4 of this task. You can fine-tune the settings as needed. Click Save; the calendar is saved and you can share the file with others.
Caution!
When you create a snapshot of your calendar, Outlook assumes you are free during the before and after periods of your regular work hours. If you do not want the recipients to know you are available during the early morning or late evening hours, make sure you check the Show Time Within My Working Hours Only check box (
You can use multiple calendars in Outlook. For example, you might keep track of a calendar for work appointments and a completely separate calendar for home or personal appointments. You can then flip from one to the other to view calendar items. You can also view those multiple calendars either side by side or in overlay mode.
In overlay mode, the calendars appear transparent and stacked, enabling you to see the appointments, events, and meetings in both. The active calendar appears highlighted in brighter color than the calendar at the bottom of the stack. To make the other calendar active, click an appointment or click the calendar name at the top of the viewing area.
If the calendars are displayed in overlay mode, you can revert to side-by-side mode by clicking the arrow button in the tab of either calendar. You can also close one of the calendars by clicking its Close button. At least one calendar must always be displayed on-screen. You can display up to 30 calendars in Outlook and view them all side by side or in overlay mode.
A check mark indicates the calendar is shown.
Outlook displays the calendars in overlay mode.
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More Options!
When viewing multiple calendars, you can use Outlook's Arrange tools on the Home tab to change the way in which you view calendar dates, just as you do with the regular calendar view. For example, you can view the calendars by day, work week, or month.
More Options!
Just a reminder — if you need more viewing area on-screen for your Outlook calendars, you can always collapse the Navigation pane and free up some space. Simply click the Minimize the Navigation Pane arrow button (
To keep track of your interactions with contacts and other activities, such as the amount of time spent on a particular project, you can use Outlook's Journal feature. Perhaps the most efficient way to use this feature is to configure it to log certain activities automatically.
In addition to configuring Outlook to log journal entries automatically, you can enter them manually. These journal entries can pertain to Outlook items or activities relating to other files on your computer. To manually record an Outlook item, click the Home tab, click Journal Entry, and enter the desired information in the window that appears.
To ensure that your journal entries do not consume more than their fair share of space, Outlook archives them automatically using default archive settings. Clicking the AutoArchive Journal Entries button in the Journal Options dialog box opens the Journal Properties dialog box, where you can change these AutoArchive settings.
The Outlook Options dialog box opens.
The Journal Options dialog box appears.
You can delegate a task to another person, who can accept or decline the assignment. When someone accepts a task, that person becomes the task's "owner"; only he or she can make changes to the task. If a task is declined, the person who created the task can revert ownership back to him- or herself.
When the person to whom you delegate a task updates the task, all copies of the task — including the version in your Outlook — are also updated automatically (assuming you checked Keep an Updated Copy of This Task on My Task List). When the person marks the task complete, you are automatically sent a status report notifying you of the task's completion (assuming you checked Send Me a Status Report When This Task Is Complete).
To view tasks that you have delegated to other users, click the View tab while in Task mode, click Change View, and click Assigned.
The task window changes to a message window.