Chapter 14
IN THIS CHAPTER
Configuring email account settings
Creating email
Adding file attachments
Reading email
Deleting email
Microsoft Outlook is the personal organizer portion of Office 2016 for tracking appointments, storing names and addresses of important people, and keeping a list of to-do tasks. However, the most popular uses for Outlook are reading, writing, and organizing your email.
The first time you run Outlook, you need to configure your email account information. To retrieve email from your account within Outlook, you may need to know the following:
[email protected]
)pop.microsoft.com
)smtp.microsoft.com
)Before you can use Outlook to manage your email, you must add your email account. The first time you run Outlook, the program will try to set up an email account to use.
If you want to add a new email account later, follow these steps:
Click Info and then click the Add Account button.
An Add Account dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 14-1.
Type in the appropriate information and click Next.
You may need to wade through several sets of questions before Outlook can properly configure your email account.
After you set up an email account, you can start sending email. The three ways to create and send email are
The most straightforward way to send a message is to type the recipient’s email address and then type your message. To create a new email message and type the email address, follow these steps:
Click the Home tab and then click the New Email icon.
Outlook displays a message window, as shown in Figure 14-2. Notice that the message window displays a Ribbon with File, Message, Insert, Options, Format Text, and Review tabs.
Click in the To text box and type the email address of the person you want to receive your message.
Make sure that you type the email address correctly. One incorrect character, and your message won’t go to your intended recipient.
Click in the Subject text box and type a brief description of your message.
Many people use spam filters that examine the Subject line of a message, so it’s a good idea not to type your subject text in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or use multiple exclamation points!!! Otherwise your recipient’s spam filter may inadvertently flag your message as spam and delete it before anyone can even read it.
Click in the message text box and type your message.
If you click the Save icon on the Quick Access toolbar (or press Ctrl+S), you can store the message in your Drafts folder so you can edit and send it at a later time.
Oftentimes, you may receive a message from someone else and want to send a reply to that person. When you send a reply, Outlook automatically copies the original message as part of your email; that way, the recipient can read the original message that you’re responding to.
Even better, when you reply to a message, you won’t have to retype the recipient’s email address and risk misspelling it. To reply to an email message, follow these steps:
Click the Home tab.
Outlook displays the Mail pane.
Click Inbox, then click a message that you want to reply to.
Outlook displays the contents of that message in a pane on the right side of the Outlook window.
Click the Reply icon in the Respond category.
Outlook displays a message window with the recipient’s email address and subject line already typed in, along with a copy of the original message.
If you click the Forward icon instead of the Reply icon, you can send a message to another person instead of the person who originally sent you the message.
Click in the message text box and type your message.
If you click the Save icon on the Quick Access toolbar in the upper-left corner of the screen, you can store the message in your Drafts folder so you can edit and send it at a later time.
If you send email to certain people regularly, you can type a particular person’s email address once, store it, and then have Outlook type that email address whenever you need it again.
To store an email address, follow these steps:
Click the Home tab and click the Address Book icon in the Find category.
The Address Book: Contacts window appears, as shown in Figure 14-3.
Choose File ⇒ New Entry.
A New Entry dialog box appears.
Choose New Contact and click OK.
A Contact window appears, as shown in Figure 14-4.
Click the Save & Close icon.
Your newly added name appears in the Address Book: Contacts window.
After you have stored at least one name and email address, you can retrieve that email address to send a message by following these steps:
Click the Home tab and click the New Email icon in the New category.
The Message window appears.
Click the To button.
The Select Names: Contacts dialog box appears, listing all your stored names and email addresses.
Click OK.
Outlook automatically enters your chosen email address in the To text box.
Click in the message text box and type your message.
If you click the Save icon on the Quick Access toolbar, you can store the message in your Drafts folder so you can edit and send it at a later time.
Rather than just send plain text, you can also attach a file to your message. This file can be anything from a picture, a song (stored as an audio file), a program, a video file, or even another email message.
If you want to send someone a picture, video, audio file, compressed file, or even an entire program, you need to attach that file to a message by following these steps:
Click the Attach File icon in the Include group.
A pull-down menu appears, listing the most recent Office 2016 files you opened, as shown in Figure 14-5.
Click the file you want to attach to your message. If you want to choose a different file that isn’t listed in the pull-down menu, click Browse This PC.
An Insert File dialog box appears. At this point, you can click on a file to attach it, and then click the Insert button. Outlook displays attached files in a box.
If you hold down the Ctrl or Shift key while clicking a file, you can select multiple files at once.
One of the biggest problems with receiving email is trying to sort through all the important messages. To help you organize your email, Outlook offers several ways to group related messages together and search for specific text in messages so you can find exactly what you need.
Outlook can display messages with the newest message on top and the oldest message at the bottom (or vice versa). In addition, Outlook can also group messages according to Date, Subject, Size, or even by email accounts.
To view and sort your email messages, follow these steps:
Click Inbox and then click the View tab.
The different ways to arrange email messages appears in the Arrangement category, as shown in Figure 14-7.
Click a category such as Date, Size, From, or Subject.
Outlook sorts your messages.
(Optional) Click Reverse Sort.
Outlook sorts your messages in reverse order, such as oldest to newest or newest to oldest.
To make reading email messages easier, Outlook can display your messages in three different ways:
To change the way Outlook displays your email messages, follow these steps:
Click the Reading Pane icon in the Layout category.
A menu appears, as shown in Figure 14-8.
Choose an option such as Right, Bottom, or Off.
Outlook displays your messages in your chosen configuration, as shown in Figure 14-9.
Rather than just send text, people may send you pictures, word-processor documents, or databases as file attachments. When you receive a message with a file attachment, Outlook displays a paper-clip icon next to the message.
To open a file attachment, follow these steps:
Double-click a message that displays a paper-clip icon.
Outlook displays the message’s contents with the file attachments listed, as shown in Figure 14-10.
Click the downward-pointing arrow that appears to the right of the file attachment.
A pull-down menu appears, giving you the option to open the file directly or save it, as shown in Figure 14-11. Unless you trust the file contents, it’s usually best to save the file in a directory and scan it with your antivirus program.
To keep your Inbox folder from getting too cluttered, you can always delete messages that you’re sure you’ll never need to read again. To delete a message, follow these steps:
Many Outlook activities are routine, such as replying to and deleting an email message or sending a mass email to the same group of people. To avoid forcing you to follow multiple steps to do repetitive tasks, Outlook offers a feature called Quick Steps.
The idea behind Quick Steps is that you can simply perform a repetitive task with one click of the mouse. Outlook displays a list of common Quick Steps in the middle of the Home tab, but you can also define your own Quick Step activity from a limited set of common tasks. To create a Quick Step, follow these steps:
Click Create New in the Quick Steps group.
An Edit Quick Step dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 14-12.
Click the Finish button.
Outlook displays your Quick Step in the Quick Steps group so you can access it in one click.
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