Changing Your View on Outlook

A common weakness for computer users is Screen Envy. Generally it can happen and strikes in your mind when you observe someone else desktop screen and notice that things are looking different or observe a little change in their screen. Unfortunately, some people accepts that different means better and take tension about how other’s computer screen is looking better as compared to their own computer’s screen.

Now, in this document we discuss about “How to Changing your Outlook Today”. The Outlook Today provides just a snapshot of the whole day you spend with the Outlook. It gives you the list of tasks and appointments, and a count of the unread email messages of various mailboxes.

You can directly access Outlook Today from the Navigation pane on clicking the Outlook Today icon that display next to the name of your data file as shown in the figure given below. Outlook Today icon appear left of the data file named as Tech Benders.

You can drill down by clicking the any item listed in Outlook Today. If you want more details about your appointments then click it and you are instantly migrate to the original calendar entry.

If you want to exit from the Outlook Today, click on any folder from the folder list. To return back to the Outlook Today click on the icon of Outlook Today once again. If you want to customize any feature of Outlook Today, click on the Outlook Today button and popup window will display on your screen.

The options given by the Outlook Today Customization dialog box are :

1. Start-Up: With this option you can start up your Outlook Today when you start your Outlook.
2. Messages: Select the mailboxes that you would like to include in it.
3. Calendar: Show the number of days if you would like to include it in calendar recap.
4. Tasks: Decided the sorted manner which you like as well as the tasks date range.
5. Styles: Choose the number of columns and color scheme for Outlook Today.

Customization of Quick Access Toolbar In Outlook

To control the Outlook we use commands and those commands are from the ribbon, placed in the top of the program window and each & every Outlook item window. As many people use Outlook most of the time so, they become familiar with the Outlook commands and their location. If you use many commands most of the time so to save your time you can add those commonly used commands to the Toolbar (Quick Access).The location of this toolbar is in the program window and upper left corner. To save more time, move the access toolbar above to below the ribbon from its default position.

Send/Receive and Undo button are displayed by the Quick Access Toolbar from the program window. If items are individually displayed by the Access Toolbar such as Redo, Save, Undo, Next and previous buttons.

• To customize the toolbar click the button at the end from right side of the Quick Access Toolbar. A menu will appear in the form of list including most frequent commands and popular Quick Print command.
• From the ribbon right click a command, and then click on the “Add To Quick Access Toolbar”. You can make a drop down menu by adding the options to the list or thumbnails gallery and add any type of command.

In “Outlook Options” dialog box from the Quick Access Toolbar page, you can modify the Access Toolbar in different ways:

1. Define custom a Quick Access Toolbar for specific document or for all documents.
2. Add a command from any tab or any group which includes tool tabs.
3. Use a separator between different types of button.
4. Quick Access Toolbar can be reset to its default configuration
5. Move the commands around Quick Access Toolbar until the commands are not in the order which you want.

If you are not using more than few buttons, than you can add those buttons to the Quick Access Toolbar and hide them by double clicking on the active tab to hide the ribbon. You can also do this by using the “Minimize The Ribbon” button. If you want to display the ribbon permanently, double click on any tab or click on the “Expand the Ribbon” button.

How to Create Macros with Outlook

Working with macros in Outlook will take you to the next level to understand the Outlook using macros. You can systematize the tasks which you regularly perform and enhance capability of Outlook functions along with your own planning.

You can simply say macro is a commands set which automatically run in a sequence. In terms of MS Office you can say that macros are small piece of VBA code, used to operate some of the office application. Each Office application includes its own IDE (integrated development environment) which allows you to write and run this code.  VBA is very easy to learn as its programming is simple to understand. IDE helps to create a code which has no error and quickly find the error in the code which you type.

If you want to learn about developing of complicated macros, search by using internet. There are many sources from which you can learn VBA. The following section will describe how to create macros.

Creating a Macro

• Start writing with macro by clicking on Tools and then select Macro.
• Choose the option “Macros”. And a Macros dialog box will appear on the screen.
• Now provide the name for Macro under Macro Name field. Like “Greetings From Outlook”.
• Then click on “Create” button.

Now Microsoft Visual Basic (IDE) appears on the screen. Have a look on the name you put in the Macros dialog box which is resulted in code added to the IDE. And you’ll see that a cursor has been blinking between sub header and End Sub.  Now type the code given below:

                MsgBox (“Greetings From Outlook”)

From the toolbar click on the play button looking like a green arrow pointing towards right, to view the output of your code. The output of code will appear in a dialog box. Click OK button to return to IDE.

 And save the macros by clicking the File menu and select Save.

Task Management in Outlook 2007

Today, many strategies and products are used for task management system that is possible to count and each one has at least one follower who swears by its merit. Most of the people use Outlook because of their convenience and simplicity. As many people use Outlook for email and calendaring purpose, so why not make it one stop for your to-do list as well?

Outlook improves its quality and offers numerous improvements over previous versions of the product. There are many topics to discuss about task such that how tasks in Outlook 2007 are managed, how to use new To-Do Bar, how to connect external program to Outlook tasks and many more.

Entering Task Item:

Outlook 2007 contains more simplicity to create a task in the system. First, Input panel for task is a simple way to enter a description in one line which item you want to track. The Task Input panel is the easiest and quickest way to do just that. Outlook 2003 widely used follow-up flags, which were operative as an email to-do list; however it was not provided to assimilate the deadline scheduling into that list. But Outlook 2007, associate with a date in an email which is simple to follow-up. Right-click on the flag placeholder alongside with each message and choose the reminded date for the item. Use the option “Hotlinks” which include Next Week, Tomorrow, Today and also by selecting the Custom define your own date.

Using To-Do Bar:

Outlook 2007 has no matter to put the entire task in the location of folder structure, on the To-Do Bar. But you may ignore the task from appearing into the certain folder on the bar to give a perfect and clear look or protect the complex task to be displayed in every view. To do so, follow these steps:

1. From To-Do Bar list, select “Arrange By header” and click the Custom.
2. Choose the Filter button in the Customize view dialog box.
3. Click on the advanced tab.
4. Under Fields, choose “All Task Fields”, and select the option “In Folder”.
5. Click the drop down list under Condition and choose Doesn’t Contain.
6. Type the name of the folder under “Value” which you want to ignore. And after providing the folder name, click on the button “Add to List“.

Creating and Editing of Outlook Notes

Working with Outlook Notes

Outlook provides a feature of Notes that designed specifically for fast and easy access to those small bits of information seem to be drowned with. You can say that these Notes are equivalent to those sticky notes that most people have pasted them on their monitor, refrigerator, wall, desk, etc. Notes are easy to understand and use.

Outlook Notes are designed with simplicity so, that it is easily used. They are designed for storing small amount of data or information. Outlook Notes does not contain large amount of information or organize information in an advanced way. They don’t contain any picture or items similar as picture. Notes only contain text and not allow for formatting. Many users use the notes for the following things:

• To maintain list of movies
• Keys of software installation
• Description of favorite things like restaurant, places, etc
• Bank, airline account number numbers

Creating a Note:

1. If you can view the Notes displayed in Outlook then click on the “New button” or press the keys Ctrl+N.
2. If you have seen the some different view is displayed, view the New menu and choose Notes. Or press the key Ctrl+shift+N.

Then a new blank note would be displayed by the Outlook. Now enter the title, to which your note belongs to and press Enter and then type the rest part of the note. Then click anywhere outside the note to save and close it or click the Note’s close button.

Open and Edit a Note:

Double click on the Note to open it. After opening the note you can made any change, which you want and by closing the notes save all the changes. Note title would be changed by changing the first line of the Notes.

After opening a note, you can take several actions by clicking on the menu icon from the top left corner and choose from the menu. The actions are as follows:

Save As: You can save the note in RTF file format without affecting the original note.

Delete: If you want to delete a particular note.

Forward: Forward the note with new email message by attaching the note file in it.

Categorize: Used to assign the note in an Outlook category or remove a note from previously assigned category.

Contacts: Associate more than one contact with the note.

Print: To print a note.

Apply Outlook Theme to All New Messages

Stationery and themes are two interrelated tools that provide a global design to an email message. Stationery contains background color and pattern whereas theme includes other elements such as fonts, list styles, effect along with background.  If you are using a theme or stationery it does not mean that message formatting is fixed. You can change the theme formatting according to your needs.

There are number of sources to get a theme:

• MS Word themes installed with Outlook.
• Themes you customize by yourself
• Themes download through Office Online.
• Themes defined that are built into Outlook.

The main difference between a Word theme and Outlook theme is that, you can customize a Word theme according to your needs but you cannot modified an Outlook theme. There is also a difference between both themes in applying them.

Steps to Apply an Outlook Theme to all New Messages

If you select a default theme it will automatically use all new HTML email messages.

1. Click on Tools then Options from the Outlook menu. And Options dialog box will appear.
2. If needed select the mail format tab.
3. To display the Stationery dialog box, click the Stationery & font button.
4. Click on Theme button to display the Theme or stationery.
5. To see the preview in sample area, click on your desired theme.
6. More than one options which depends on the selected theme are available in the bottom left corner of the popup box:

• Vivid Colors: It uses a bright color scheme.
• Active Graphics: It determines the active graphics in use contain by the theme.
• Background Image: If you want to use the theme without background image, turn off this feature.

To exit from the dialog box click OK three times.

Note: If you want to create a new message without a theme, remove the default theme by following the preceding step and select No theme in step 5.

Steps to Apply Theme to a Single New Message

By overriding the default theme you can apply a theme to a single new message:

1. Choose the Action after that click on New Mail Message from the Outlook’s main menu.
2. In next menu, click on the More Stationery option. A Theme or Stationery popup box will appear on the screen.
3. Select the theme of your choice.
4. And click on OK.

Applying a Word Theme to a Message

First create a new HTML message to apply the Word theme to an email message:

1. Click the body of the message.
2. Click on the “Theme” button from the Options ribbon and again click on the Themes from the menu. A menu will be shown by the Outlook. All Built-in themes are listed in the Built-in section of the menu. And Customs themes are listed in the Custom Section of the menu.
3. Choose your desired theme.

If you noticed that, there are several commands given at the bottom of the Theme menu. Their functions are described as follows:

• Reset to Theme from Template: If you have customized any selected theme, it reset to its original settings.
• More Themes on Microsoft Office Online: Its feature is to look for an additional theme on Microsoft Office Online.
• Browse for Theme: This feature provides you an additional theme available on your local network or computer.
• Save Current Theme: If you have customized the selected theme and want to save it. Through this feature you can save your customized theme into the disk.

Set Outlook to Start with Calendar Folder

Outlook Calendar Tricks

In today’s scenario everyone use email to connect to others. Also they can share information through email in which Outlook is the most popular emailing system used by most peoples. They maintain their appointments and meetings schedules in Outlook to remind their schedule timing in their regular work done between crises. Scheduling management makes our work easy to manage our meeting, appointments time and date. That’s where Outlook Calendar features come in. Calendar is just like as an electronic version of your day planner.

In other words we can say that Calendar helps in spending less time in scheduling process, which provide more time to do your work.  In this section we mention some tricks and techniques that help you to understand Outlook Calendar feature.

Starting Outlook in the Calendar Folder

When we start Outlook, by default it starts with Inbox folder because most of the people use Outlook for email. If you spend your most of the time with Outlook Calendar then we prefer to display the Calendar automatically when you start up the Outlook. Here are some steps describe how to do that:

1. Select Tools, click on Options. An Options dialog box will appear.
2. Choose the “Other” tab.
3. Click on Advanced Options and a dialog box will appear on the screen.
4. Select Browse. A “Select Folder” dialog box will open.
5. Choose Calendar folder.
6. Click OK and you’ll return on “Advanced Options” dialog box.
7. Click OK again and return to “Options” dialog box.
8. Click OK to save changes made for new setting.

Change the Number of Days Displayed by the Calendar

Outlook shows an option of Calendar in Navigation Pane, if click on that it will show you the calendar grid for today’s date. To view the other date, you select that date from the Date Navigator. The date selected by you, is shown by the Calendar in a grid view. This must be known as Day Calendar which is default view of the Calendar. Outlook provides you multiple patterns to view the Calendar. You can choose from those patterns that are suitable for your needs to work with. Here we mention some simple steps to change the number of days displayed in the Calendar grid.

• Choose View, Click on Work Week to view the Calendar in Work Week view, which shows Monday to Friday for whatever date was selected in the Date Navigator. For example: If today’s date was selected in the Date Navigator, and you want to switch to the Work Week view. Then it displays Monday to Friday for current week.
• Choose View and select Week to switch to Week view, which shows Sunday to Saturday for whatever date you had selected in the date navigator.
• Click View and select the Month to switch to the Month view. This view displays the five weeks surround whatever date was selected in the Date Navigator.
• Choose View and click on Day to switch to the Day view.

Modify and Add a New Category in Outlook

Introduction to Color categories

Category has a different meaning in Outlook. It mean that a keyword/phrase used to help you in monitoring and organizing Outlook objects, such as emails, contacts, appointments, tasks and notes. These objects of Outlook are simply called as items. The main reason behind category used in Outlook come from the ability to group items under a specific topic, such as these are related to private appointment and work task; then use the category to search, filter and sort data applicable to that topic.

Categories have changed meaningfully from Outlook 2013 and now displayed as vibrant color coded stamps that you can relate to basically every item that exists within your Outlook information store.

Using the Color Categories List

Using Outlook for first time, the categories accessible have generic names with the color codes of blue, green, orange, red, purple and yellow. It is advised you to begin by defining which category will need in your day to day activities and then re-define the default ones with meaningful names. For example: if you rename category in Red to urgent, then you will easily treat the items flashed with red immediately with appropriate level of attention.

In old version of Outlook this could be done by using Master Category list, which is quite complicated to operate as compared to color category. Color categories list are highly effective and easy to use in presenting groupings of like items in a way never before accomplished in Outlook.

You can access color categories list by selecting:

• Edit
• Categories
• All categories

You can create new categories to add color categories list as appointments arrive in your calendar or new items arrive in inbox.

Adding, Modifying and Using Categories

When you decide that you are using the categories, renaming those ones which you use since default name are slightly meaningless.

There are two options from which you can choose

1. In advance rename all required categories.
2. Rename each category, deciding upon its purpose when you assign it for first.

With an example of email, highlight email which you want to assign a category to, in in box right click the item and from the context menu choose Categories.

Adding and Modifying Categories

You can easily modify and add new categories to reflect the working context through the color categories dialog box. To start with the categories highlight every item like as emails, appointments or tasks. And then choose Edit >>categories>>All categories. You will immediately see the Color Categories list which shows the list of already defined categories.

You will see the three buttons that is New, Rename and Delete in the dialog box at the right side. If you want to delete a category, highlight it by clicking on it, in the dialog box and then click on Delete. By clicking the OK button confirm the intention. Similarly if you want to change the name click “Rename” and type the name in the textbox, then click on OK. If you want to add a new category, it is easy to create. Click on New, type the name for your new Category and assign a color for it and shortcut key, when you done all that, click on OK.

Import Outlook Express/ Windows Mail Email into Outlook on Same Computer

Importing Email from Outlook Express/Windows Mail

An email application Outlook Express comes with Windows and its free application. It is popular for its email handling. Whereas Windows Mail is Outlook Express but it comes up with different platform that is Windows Vista. The difference between Outlook and Outlook Express/Windows Mail is Outlook is not free but Windows Mail/Outlook Express is free email application. Outlook Express and Windows Mail Include Mail and contact list only as it does not includes Calendar, Tasks, Notes or Journal. Outlook provides you the facility of all these features and functionality.

If Outlook Express and Outlook is on the same computer, follow the given mentioned steps to import Outlook Express/Window Mail email and account information into Outlook.

• In Outlook, select File > Import and Export.
• Choose the option “Import Internet Mail and Addresses” and click on next.
• From the list choose Internet Mail Application to import or select Outlook Express 6.x. 5.x, 4.x.
• Choose the option Import Mail and click on Next.
• Now click on the Finish.

Grabbling Outlook Express/Window Mail account information

In Outlook Express/ Windows Mail email is the one part and another part is the information about your account. After all, it is compulsory to know that who is sitting there and manually type in POP3 & SMTP.

To take you’re all the stuff of your email account from Outlook Express/ Windows Mail to Outlook

1. In Outlook, Select File and click on Import and Export.

2. Choose the option Import Internet Mail Account Settings and then click on Next.

3. Choose Microsoft Windows Mail or Outlook Express from the Select the Email client to Import list. To move on to the next screen click on Next in the wizard from where you begin to import account setting.

4. Confirm the display name and click on Next.

5. Confirm your email address & click on Next.

6. Check your account information whether right or wrong. And click on Next to confirm more information about your account.

7. Check out your login information. And select the Next when you’re done.

8. Confirm a service, how you connect to email server: using a modem, through internet service or using a network connection. After making a selection of your choice, click on the Next.

9. And then click on “Finish” option.

Getting Instant Gratification with Instant Search Option in Outlook

In office 2007 there is a new feature “Instant Search” that helps you to find items more instantly. When you ran Outlook first, you noticed that a prompt message will open in a popup box asking you to index Outlook. If you probably clicked “Yes”, in which you just quite sure about what does that meant. Creating an index for Outlook means you will able to find things more quickly. Instant Search in Outlook is based upon accessing indexed content which contains all your items and attachments. Outlook continues to index new content in the background, when initial indexing takes place. Instant Search is accessible from Outlook Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, Folder List and Journals views. When you click any of these items you will see Instant Search bar displayed prominently at the top of your item list.

Enabling Instant Search

Instant Search involves certain MS Windows search mechanisms in order to function. If you have Windows Vista then you are in good luck, as Windows Vista already contains Desktop Search due to which Instant Search is enabled automatically. If you don’t have Windows Vista then Windows Desktop Search feature cannot be installed, when first time you ran Outlook a popup box will appear with prompt message to download the software. Go ahead and to do so. After downloading, restart the Outlook in order to use Instant Search feature to function. If you do not enable the Instant Search, so you are not able to search faster as compared to Instant Search feature.

Fiddling with Instant Search Options

If you want to change Instant Search Options, go to Tools and select Instant Search, then click on Search Options from the main menu bar. Click on the arrow from the Instant Search pane and then Select Search Options. A Search Options window will appear which is divided into several parts.

• Indexing:—Indexing is the main reason that Outlook Instant Search work faster, as it installed all the Outlook data and keep information about content of various item. When you search something using Instant Search feature, at that time this information speed up the process of searching.
• Search:— By default, search result will appear in Instant Search pane, the result list become much shorter when you type more. And you can also speed up your search by limiting the number of results. 
• Deleted Items:— When you select the check box in deleted item section of the Search Option dialog box, so you can have a look on Outlook through your deleted items. As this option is not enabled by default because Outlook thinks that you don’t need to search through deleted items. If you want to search through deleted item, first you place a check mark to this item.
• Instant Search Pane:— By default, Instant Search searches in your current folder, after the result will display you can select the other folder by clicking the” Try Searching Again in All Mail Item” option. If you choose the “All Folders” option, Instant Search looks into your entire Outlook folder without prompting you.

Outlook Data File Management and Working Process for your Outlook Profiles

If you view email in Outlook, and that email is spread through multiple folders, which would be similar as Windows Explorer when viewing the file system.

However, Outlook folders are nothing like file system folders. Besides this they are stored in database in single location, with the view in Outlook which is derived from metadata related with each item in data store. Outlook has many ways of storing data and it is very important to know the difference between each method in order to select what is good for you.

Three methods used to store data in Outlook are:

• Data store in a Personal folder (PST)
• Data store in an offline folder (OST)
• Data store on Microsoft Exchange Server machine

Data store in Outlook is a database which contains all emails, contacts, appointments, notes, calendar, tasks and account information. If you are using the standalone environment, then data store locally on your PC whereas data stored on the server in case your computer is connected to the Exchange Server.

When Outlook profile is first created, users are assigned to store data by default. For example: a user profile has been assigned on Exchange Server computer for corporate email.

Introducing Personal Folders

To store contacts, calendars, appointments, emails and tasks, you can use a personal storage folder (PST). As per your requirement you have multiple PST file and all are attached to your Outlook profile simultaneously. In user interface all these PST files are presented I a separate folder. The Outlook profile associated with default PST file is called Outlook.pst and store under the directory path of your user profile \Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst.

If you want to see the list of data store installed on your computer, go to the Start menu and right click on the Outlook icon, in context menu choose properties and click on “Data Files”.

After clicking the Data files, a dialog box will open as shown in above figure, in which you can add a new data file, or you can change the settings of an existing data file, Change data file which is set as default, remove a data file, and open the folder using Windows Explorer in which PST files are stored.

Adding New PST Files

In Outlook adding an extra PST file in data store is easy. You can easily do this from the Start menu using the Outlook icon. If you don’t know how to add new data store follow these given below steps:

1. From the Start menu right click the Outlook icon and select Properties.

2. In Mail Setup dialog box, click on “Data files” button.

3. Click on the Add button from the Toolbar. A New Outlook Data File dialog box will appear.

4. From the list select “Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)” and then choose OK.

5. In Create or Open Outlook Data File dialog box give a name to your data store file and select OK.

6. Now you will see the dialog box “Create Microsoft Personal Folders”. If you want to secure your .pst file in order to give a password to that file as only you can open that particular and no one can. You can give the name to identify new data store in Outlook interface but this name can be different from physical file name you entered in previous step. Click on Ok when you are ready to create data store.

How to Keep Secrets Safe with Outlook Security

Computer hackers know everything about your personal information like credit card balance, security number, what you are doing, where you are— everything. Most of the crimes that a hacker does involving theft of personal information that do not come from hackers informing into personal computers. To reveal or stole your password hackers makes a trick some poor slob and make a phone call.

But in Outlook there is a feature that allow you to keep your secrets or personal information secret that make your identity more secure and be sure about the message received by you is sent from the known people. To advance these security features, you need to add small programs to Outlook, but once you have installed all the features then you never hassle with them again. If you are connect with defense industry, law enforcement, financial work etc., then security is the big deal to handle all these tasks. Many high technology companies provide you a system that confirming identity and message security, using eye scanner, fingerprint reader, and gizmos that recognize you or your face.

In this discussion, we mention about the security features that Outlook offer right out of box.

Getting a Digital ID

You probably receive messages from the unknown people every day that you never met. And you open that message without spending much time to think about whether the message come from the people they seem to be. If you know the sender personally than you simple make a call to verify that what they sent and what you received. But there is much faster approach uses high technology feature that is called as “Digital Signature”. Digital Signature contains tiny piece of secret code mixed with your message to prove 3 things:

• The message comes from that person who seems to have sent it.
• The person who sends the message is the person he claims to be.
• The person who sends the message sent it intentionally like putting your signature on a check; it shows that you mean to send a message.

If you want to get an advantage from Outlook security features, the first step to take is to get yourself a Digital ID. To get the digital ID of your own, get it from that companies that maintain and issue digital services by following these steps:—

1. Click on tools and then select Trust Center.

2. Click on words “E-Mail Security”.

3. Click on the button “Get a Digital ID”.

Sending Digitally Signed Message

Once you have your Digital ID, when you send a message to someone, a Digital Signature is going with that message. With this digitally signed message you can assure about your recipient that you are yourself no one else can send this message. To send a message with digital signature follows these steps after getting a Digital ID:—

1. When you are creating a new message, click on the Options tab from the top of the message screen.

2. Click on the icon showing More Options.

3. Click on “Security Setting” button.

4. Enable the check box “Add Digital Signature to This Message”.

5. Click on Send and the OK.

Received Digitally Signed Message

When you receive a message contains a digital signature. You need not to do anything when you get this type of message just view a little red icon looks like as prize ribbon at upper right corner of the message which verifies that the message really came from the person it claims to have come from.

Encrypting Message

When you are sending an encrypting message to someone, both you and the receiver to whom you are sending a message need to have obtained a Digital certificate. When you select this technique the system hikes the contents of your message which you want to send, so that only recipient can view and read you message. To send an encrypted message to whom you want to send follow the given mentioned steps:—

1. Click on the Options tab while you are creating a message.

2. Click the More Options icon from the right.

3. Click the “Security Settings” button.

4. On clicking, enable “Encrypt Message Content and Attachments” option.

5. Click on Send and Select OK.

How to Creating an Email Shortcut for a Recipient

Introduction

Many users run Outlook program all day, which creates sense that you constantly send and receive messages. Sometimes users face problem against incessant interruptions caused by an email. They think that the continuous use for checking new messages reduce efficiency by making a state known as continuous partial attention, where most of the attention is on your primary task. But something more important or interesting happen, where you monitor several background tasks like as incoming email.

In the result it is observed that many people leave Outlook and they check their mail on Outlook only once or twice a day. If they need to send a message, then open Outlook, compose a new message, send mail and again close the Outlook. Sending a message in Outlook is a great deal to me to work with. If you have some people to whom you link regularly, so you can create email shortcuts for those recipients by save yourself. A new Outlook message window will appear when you launch a shortcut. The message is already addressed to the recipient, so you just type the message in the message field and send it which adds you message in the Outbox folder. This all would happen without the main Outlook program starting. When you start Outlook next time, it sends the message waiting in Outbox folder.

To create an Email Shortcut Follow the given mentioned Steps:

1. In which folder you want to create shortcut, open it. For quickly access, I recommend using the desktop, and choose the Quick Launch toolbar, or the start menu.

2. Right click on the folder and choose “New”, click on Shortcut a Create Shortcut dialog box will appear.

3. In “Type the Location of the item” text box type the recipient email address. 

4. Click on “Next”.

5. In “Type a Name” text box, type a name for your shortcut. Like, type a name for recipient or email address.

6. Now click on “Finish”.

How to Block Messages from a Particular Person in Outlook

Block a Particular Address or Domain

The particular address & domain name is the cause of spamming, and you notice that Outlook doesn’t catch them. At that time you block all the incoming messages coming from that particular address by telling the Outlook to block the particular domain or address. Then Outlook filters all those spam mails and kept them into the Junk E-mail folder. To see all the addresses or domains, Outlook maintains them in Blocked Sender List.

Following the given mentioned steps add the domain or address to the Blocked Sender list:

1. Select Actions, and then click on Junk E-mail, Junk Email Options.

2. From Junk Email Options dialog box click on Block Senders tab.

3. Click on Add. A Domain and Add address dialog box will appear

4. Enter the domain name and individual address. Now Click on OK button.

5. If you want to add more addresses in your Blocked Senders list, repeat 3-4 steps.

6. And click on OK.

Block Foreign or Non English Messages

As you know that 22 percent of all spam mails are comes from United States which is number one spam producing country, but still 78 percent is left. The remaining spam mails are comes from the foreign countries, in which most of the spam mails are written other language than English.

With this information you can block the incoming messages that originate from a particular country and kept them in Junk Email filter. By using the top level domain Outlook restrict the spam mail, which is the final suffix that displays in a domain name. There are 2 types of domain: generic top-level like com, edu, net and country code top level like kr (South Korea) ch (China). Outlook has an ability to filter those messages that are written in foreign languages. The special encoding is used to displays the character set of foreign language. The Outlook uses this encoding scheme to filter the spam mail written in a specified language.

Some steps are given to block messages come from a specific country and language:

1. Click on Actions and select Junk Email. Choose Junk Email Options to open this dialog box.

2. Select the International tab.

3. To block one or more than one country choose Blocked Top Level Domain List; enable the check-box beside each country which you want to filter. Then click on OK.

4. Click on “Blocked Encoding List” to block one or more language by activating the check-box which language you want to filter. Then click on OK.

How to Setting the Junk E-mail Protection Level

If you are using the internet to send and receive emails from an email application like Outlook, then you get spam. And if you have most of the people adding in your account, then you gets one or two dozen of email beside one or two spam mails in a day. It is not the topic to surprise as spam is now the accounts for the billions of messages sent every day and one day it accounts for 90 per cent of sent messages.

There is no solution to avoid these spam mails, but you can do one thing by minimizing the chances of getting these spam mails.

1. For newsgroup account don’t use your actual email address. The spammers get the address to harvest them from newsgroup posts which is the common method used by them. You can alter your email address by adding text that invalidates the address but it is still understandable by the other people.

2. If it is possible use a fake address whenever you sign up for something online. Make sure that you deactivate any option that asks you to receive any promotional offer, if you want or send an email from a company and you are using your real address. An alternative method to minimize the spamming is to use an address from a free Web based account, so that spam mail goes on that mail address not in your main account.

3. Sometimes the spammer notice that you are opening the suspected mail or display them in the Reading pane, if you open them the spammer confirms that your address is legitimate. So never open those mails for which you are not sure.

In spite of these precautions, if you get spam the Outlook Junk Email feature is another option to cover. Spam filter is that feature which examines each and every message received to look for significant sign of spammers. If Outlook decides that a message is spam then it automatically put that message in the Junk email folder so that you don’t deal with that message directly. If you find that Outlook is doing something wrong that it put lots of spam mail in inbox folder or Outlook is generating too many false result as positive. Then go through the following settings:

Choose Actions, Junk Email, Junk E-mail Options, select the Option tab from the Junk Email Options dialog box and select any one from the following protection levels:

No Automatic Filtering—after shut off the Junk email filter still moves the messages from block sender to the Junk email folder. You should select this level when you handle spamming using your own message rules.

Low—this is a default protection level that moves messages with spam content to the Junk Email folder.

High—it move slightly spam content messages to the Junk email folder. This level catch all incoming spam mail but also sometimes makes few false results positive.

Safe Lists Only—these lists are called as "white list" that defines who can send you an email. This level is useful if you receive non-spam messages from those people you know.

How to Repair a Damaged Data File in Outlook

Managing Auto-Complete Lists and Suggested Contacts

If you are using the Outlook for a long time, then you possibly have seen its Auto-Complete feature at work. For a new email message, when you start typing in an address field suddenly a list of email address and suggested are displayed below the field. You can click to accept one of these Auto-Complete suggestions.

Sometimes Auto-Complete option creates problems, when you carelessly select an incorrect mail address that was potentially saved as a shortcut for you. Also when a recurrent correspondent changes mail addresses, making his or her name incorrect saved as Auto-Complete entry.

Single incorrect “Auto-Complete” entry is easy to fix: Start typing until an incorrect entry is shown to you, and at the end of the list item click on the X that deletes it immediately.

Auto complete list was saved in a file of your PC with file extension .nk2 in old version of Outlook. Now in Outlook 2010 these entries are saved in Outlook data file. To clear this Auto-Complete list, open the “Options” dialog box and select the “Mail” tab. Click on Empty Auto-Complete list, under the heading of Send Messages. To stop the suggestion amongst name by Outlook, clear the “Auto-Complete List To Suggest Names When Typing in the To, Cc and Bcc” box in the same location.

Also the Auto-Complete list draws names from the suggested contact folder for an account. This is a new feature in Outlook 2010, adds a Contact item to this folder any time you respond to an e-mail message whose sender is not in an Outlook address book. Add a Contact item by drag it from suggested Contacts to your main Contacts folder and if you find that contact is important than fill the extra details for it. If work involves lots of email messages to unfamiliar person, this feature is more confusing than helpful. In this case, disable the behavior from Outlook Options dialog box, and clicking the Contact tab. Under the Suggested Contacts heading clear the option.

Repairing a Damaged Data File

If you are in doubt that your Outlook file is damaged, when profile should not properly open and some items are displayed incorrectly. So, you need to repair the Outlook data file by using the “Inbox Repair Tool”, scanpst.exe. After closing the Outlook application, open the Window Explorer and browse to the Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14 folder on your system drive. If you have 32-bit Office on 64-bit Window machine then this folder is in Program Files (x86).

To Open the Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair tool double click on Scanpst.exe and browse the file which you want to diagnose. The scanning takes few minutes to diagnose a file. If errors are finds in it then, it displays them here and offers a repair option for the file.

By default “The Make Backup Of Scanned File Before Repairing” option is selected. If you have a good backup of file, so you can clear this check box and save your few seconds. But if you are not sure about that, so take an advantage for the opportunity to make backup here. The repair option can be destructive.

Some Outlook Tips to Manage Your Outlook Account

Favorite Outlook Tips and Tweaks

In this article, we discuss about some of our favorite tips for Outlook, one’s that don’t fit anywhere else but are too good useful not to mention.

Changing Default Formatting for New E-mail Messages

When you create a new e-mail message, reply to and forward an e-mail message and the text you enter uses the default font size of 11 points in Calibri. You can select a different font & font size of your choice, and also you can change the font color and choose a style like Italics or bold. Make a choice for different settings to create a message, replies and forwards.

Click on File, and then select Options. From the Mail tab, click “Stationery And Fonts” buttons to open “Signature And Stationery” popup box. 

If you want to include body and heading fonts along with background images, horizontal rules and colors, then choose an Office-wide themes by clicking on Theme. If you want to desire to select your own fonts, you can choose the option “Always Use My Fonts” in the Theme or Stationery for New HTML E-mail Message section. If you do not want to choose any theme, click on the Font button under New Mail Messages & Replying or Forwarding Message to select fonts, colors & sizes for each of those settings.

Attaching Pictures to Contact Records

Contact records with attaching pictures plays potentially an emotional and amusing part, but it has many uses in everyday life. If you are meeting with a colleague first time, so you can send Outlook business card to the other person that contain your picture. The picture attached to your Outlook item can be synchronizing with your phone also. From Options group on the Contact tab select Picture and Add Picture. If a picture is already connected with contact item, so there is an option to remove and change the picture. If you want to crop that picture which you want to decide to use, then crop it before using it in Outlook.

Juggling Multiple Time Zones

Outlook has a feature to edit and create appointment by setting up the time zone, mentioning starting and End Time fields. This feature come in use along with Outlook 2007 and solved a big problem for travelling across the world and country. But also gives a problem. For example: if you are in Los Angeles on Friday, and go to Sydney, Australia by flight. At 10:30PM your flight leaves and you arrive on Sunday at 6:30AM. And your meeting held on Tuesday. When you see the time, Outlook shows you the time you set in that time zone. As Outlook assumes that the time you mentioned is the current time zone but it is not. So, that appointment or meeting time makes you late by 18 hours.

The solution for the problem is to click on the Time Zones command on the Meeting or Appointment tab and then select the current time zone for both start time and end time. That displays you the meeting or appointment time according to the Sydney time zone.

You can select additional time zone to show in the calendar, which is useful to you when you are traveling and also work with peoples all over the world. Seeing both time zones updates you by telling whether you are trying to call a business in Moscow at midnight or Hong Kong at 3:00 AM, when no one is there to receive the call.

Step by Step Method For Archiving Outlook Data

Without regular cropping Outlook files have a way of growing huge proportions keeping data file in manageable file size improves performance & makes it easier to maintain other task and improves overall performance.

Outlook provides a number of huge varieties of tools that you can use them to clean up only single fie or the entire file manually. For fast access to the toolkit, Click on File, choose a mailbox from the list under the Account Information heading, and then click on Cleanup Tools from the Info tab to view the menu.

 Note: If you are connected to Exchange server and your administrator restricted the size of mailbox, then under the Mailbox cleanup heading you’ll see a bar that display the detail of sever quota is available and how much is in use.

Click on the Mailbox Cleanup, a dialog box will appear which provides integrated access to the information about the current selected mailbox content along with variety of management tools.

Mailbox Cleanup tools have five parts with each part have at least one button:

1. Mailbox Size: Click to open the Folder Size dialog box, which displays you that how much space each folder are occupying in the current file. For MS Exchange account, this dialog box includes a second tab which shows you that how much server quota is in use.
2. Find: Select Find Items options and choose settings for archive items based on their size or age. Then, to open Advanced Find popup box, click on Find. Click on “Find Now” to run the search.
3. Auto Archive: Moving and deleting items quickly from the current account, click on Auto Archive button.
4. Delete Item Folder: Click “View Deleted Items Size” to view that how much space is being used by item sent to trash or click Empty to permanently & immediately delete the content of the Deleted Items folder.
5. Conflicts: This contains the item that server was unable to synchronize properly and display the size of conflicts folder. To view item of this folder, switch to the list of folder and under the Sync Issues folder.

Automatic Option of Archive

If you want to concern by manual maintenance tasks, then Outlook allows you to do work for archiving old items for automatically on a schedule determined by you. On an each folder basis, Auto Archiving setting is allowed to be customization. To display the dialog box of Archive settings, select any folder from the navigation pane and click on Auto Archive settings.

The custom option for setting Auto Archive is useful for those folders that contain messages which you don’t need to archive like daily e-mail updates from newspaper or sales pitches from online merchants.

 By default Auto Archive option delete items which are older than six months. If you want to change this setting, start by selecting Archive items In This folder Using the Default setting and click on “Default Archive Setting” to display the popup box as shown in fig.

How to Import and Export Files in Outlook

Outlook provides an option to import and export files from a range of sources & in a range of formats.

Steps to Import Files

1. Open Outlook, click on File from the top of the main menu. After that select Open from the drop down menu.

2. Then click on Import.

3. In the Import and Export wizard option, make a selection of your choice what you want to import and click on Next. Following are option shown 

• Import A VCARD File (.vcf)
• Import An iCalendar Or vCalendar File (.vcs)
• Import From Another Program Or File
• Import Internet Mail Account Settings
• Import Internet Mail And Addresses
• Import RSS Feeds From An OPML File or The Common Feed List

4. Follow the steps and complete them as instructed to import file of your choice.

Steps to Export Files

Like you can Import files, also you can export files so, that you can use the exported file with other programs.

1. Click File, select Open & click on Import.

2. From Import and Export Wizard, click on “Export to a File”. And click on Next.

3. Choose the file type which you want to export. After that click on Next.

4. Choose the folder of your choice that wants to export within the Outlook.

5. If you want to filter out some of the messages while exporting to a .pst, click on Filter. A Filter window will appear from which a particular word is searched for specified fields to filter out certain messages. If you want to filter out certain messages with subject in subject field, message send directly to you, etc. Click on More Choices & Advanced tabs for extra filtering options. Then click on OK when you’re done.

6. Click on Next. Select the location to export and choose a file name for file. Then Select how you want to replace previously exported items and duplicate items. Then click on Finish.

7. After that “Create Outlook Data File” window will appear on the screen from which you can set the password for your exported data file in order to make file secure that no one can open it without your password.

8. Make a password of your choice and click on OK. The files selected by you are exported. This process takes some time, depending on the exported number of files.

Import Messages from Outlook Express to MS Outlook

As you know that Outlook Express contains their mail file into different single folder like inbox.dbx, outbox.dbx etc. This information helps you to copy & find the right folder which you want to import in Outlook.

Select the right procedure to import e-mail messages whether you import file from Outlook Express to Outlook installed on different computer or on same computer.

For Outlook Express and Outlook are installed on Same Computer

1. Open Outlook, select File and click on “Import and Export”.

2. Click on “Import Internet Mail and Addresses". Then select Next.

3. Then choose Outlook Express.

4. Select “Import Mail” check-box.

5. Then “Next” and click on “Finish”.

6. If you want to save a copy of import summary in Inbox, then click on “Save in Inbox.”

When Outlook Express and Outlook are on Different Computers

To transfer e-mails use Import and Export Wizard, but first you copy and locate the exact files from your computer in which Outlook Express is installed to that computer in which Outlook is set up.

Copy folder of Outlook Express

1. Click on Tools menu where set up of Outlook Express is reside, and then select “Options”.

2. Click on Maintenance tab.

3. Then select Store Folder. Note down the path shown in Store Location popup box.

4. If needed, in Windows Explorer modify the view which is set as default so all the hidden are displayed. Folder of Outlook Express is placed in hidden folder.

Import Messages from Outlook Express to Outlook

1. In Outlook select File menu and click “Import and Export” option.

2. Click the “Import Internet Mail and Addresses”. Then choose Next.

3. Select Outlook Express.

4. Click the check-box “Import mail”.

5. Click the option Next. And then “Finish”.

6. To save summary of import copy in your Inbox folder, select “Save in Inbox" option.

How To Stop Spamming By Using Filters

Filters deal with unwanted mail known as spam mail. If you are using filters, it deals with unsolicited spam mails. Message rules or Filters calls by Outlook Express, which basically reads those email which are not available in Inbox or in other words you can say that before putting emails in the inbox. They do specific task from blocking undesirable emails to organizing them into single folder. It is most important utilized feature of Outlook Express, and save your time and trouble if you have few basics filters. Now get started with the steps that set filter to stop spamming.

Step1. Open Outlook Express and click on Tools from the main menu at the top of the title bar. Select Message Rule from the drop down menu and then click on Mail.

Step2. When you click on Mail a “New Mail Rule” popup window will appear. It is the core of the many filter created by you. You can select the condition to make a particular rule under the “Select Conditions for your rule” which stop certain names or email address from coming in. Second box tell that “what to do with that mail” like move it to any folder or directly delete it.

Step3. After selecting particular options, click on OK. Then “Message Rules” window will appear to add more rules, remove or modify the existing rules.

Creating rules for email account is simple process. Anything you do for setting filter to put specific person email in a folder along with their names or block spam ad or unsolicited emails.

Steps to Quickly Block a Sender

In above mentioned discussion we discuss about how to set filter to stop spam mails to block specific people. But we have another option to quickly block a person.

Step1: First you have to select the mail whose sender you want to block. Make sure it is highlighted. Then go to the main menu at the top and click on “Message”. Select Block Sender from the drop down list. By selecting this mail address will put in the block sender list & delete all future mails of that person. This method is work for both IMAP and POP3 accounts.

Note: If you have a Hotmail account, then to set filter you have to go to Hotmail site & from there you will able to add filter to your Hotmail account.

How to Set Follow Up Flags and Reminders

In this section, we discuss about how can Flag an e-mail messages, tasks, contacts for follow-up so that these items are prioritized in any view. We also discuss about how to set reminders, so that you don’t miss any important tasks or appointments and manage multiple calendars of other and yours.

Receiving new email messages and data synchronization with server is an automatic procedure in Outlook, but there are conditions under which send/receive schedules makes a sense to interfere. We also explain the essential exporting, archiving and importing your data of Outlook.

Outlook 2010 has a feature that allows you to directly get data from web to Outlook. Outlook 2010 also use as a feature called the Outlook Social Connector which show you information about what your friends are doing up to on social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Setting Follow-up Flags and Reminders

You can follow up those items which deserve extra attention, just clicking the Follow Up from the Tag group on the Home tab for contacts and email messages. The Follow Up option gives an opportunity to add an item in To-Do list and set its due Date optionally using any of the half dozen options at the top of the menu.

Due Date field has an effect of Choosing Tomorrow and Today on it. By choosing Next Week or This Week, Due Date sets by Outlook to the last day of work week-Friday, except change this as default. If you work on Saturday, these options have a sudden unexpected effect on Outlook which considers the last day of week. In such a case, from the Follow Up menu click on This Week sets the Due Date to Friday of the current week, or in other words it set to yesterday.

Flag has four properties, including Reminder time and date. Custom dialog box show you all these four setting options. Click Custom option from the Follow Up menu, then a dialog box will appear without changing any settings. Custom dialog box will open when you click on Add Reminder option and choose Reminder check-box, if necessary. The text that appears in the reminder window can also be changed if you want.

The following are the four properties of Flag that you can edit are as follows:

Flag To: By default the text is Follow Up, and most of the work it is possibly fine. If you want to give a detailed description of why you flagged an item, then choose an option in the list or you can enter your own text. This text seems at the top of flagged item in the InfoBar and at the top of Reminder window for selected item.

Start Date: This field is used as rudimentary form for project management. If you guess that project will complete in two weeks than fill the start date based on the due date. To make use of this field, click the Arrange By heading in the Task list.

Due Date: When you choose Tomorrow, Today, Next Week or This Week, this field is automatically filled. Use Calendar control to choose a date, with other date related field. Choose a date by clicking the arrow on the right of the Due Date field. Fill the today’s date by using the Today button or remove the due date by clicking None.

Reminder: When reminder check box is selected by you, enter exact time and date on which you want Reminder window will pop out with a link to flagged item & plays a sound. Click the down arrow from the date field to view the drop down list with intervals at round half hour increments or you can type an exact time.