Outlook 2007 Tips and Tricks

Outlook 2007 Tips and Tricks

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  © Copyright 2007,Tech For You
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  Contents Top Tips forLiving with Outlook 2007, 2nd Edition ....................................................................................... 1 Assumptions.............................................................................................................................................. 1 Part I: Top Tips .............................................................................................................................................. 2 General Keyboard Shortcuts ......................................................................................................................... 3 Tips for Working with Email .......................................................................................................................... 4 Email keyboard shortcuts for when you are not working in a Message window ..................................... 4 Email keyboard shortcuts for when you are working in a Message window ........................................... 4 About Ribbon Keyboard Shortcuts ........................................................................................................... 5 Attach Reminders to Messages ................................................................................................................ 5 Set a Reminder on a Closed Message ................................................................................................... 5 Set a Reminder on an Open Message ................................................................................................... 6 Clear Out Old Auto-Complete Entries ....................................................................................................... 6 Deleting Addresses from the Auto-Complete List ................................................................................ 6 Adjust Automatic Picture Download Settings ........................................................................................... 7 Check and Set Automatic Picture Download Settings .......................................................................... 7 Preview PDF Attachments ........................................................................................................................ 8 Download and Install Acrobat Reader 8.1 ............................................................................................ 9 Save More than One Mail Attachment at a Time ................................................................................... 12 Saving More than One Mail Attachment at a Time ............................................................................ 12 Tips for Working with the Calendar ............................................................................................................ 14 Calendar Keyboard Shortcuts for when you are not working in an Appointment window ................... 14 Calendar keyboard shortcuts for when you are working in an Appointment window .......................... 14 Color Code Your Calendar to Find Stuff Easier ....................................................................................... 14 Adding Color to Existing Calendar Items ............................................................................................. 15 Selecting Colors for New Calendar Items............................................................................................ 15 View Multiple Calendars ......................................................................................................................... 15 View Multiple Calendars Side By Side ................................................................................................. 16 View Multiple Calendars Overlaid ...................................................................................................... 16 View Non-Consecutive Days in the Calendar .......................................................................................... 17 Send Calendar Info in Email Messages ................................................................................................... 18
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  Change an Appointmentinto an All Day Event and Vice Versa .............................................................. 19 Other Top Tips for Living with Outlook 2007 .............................................................................................. 20 Zoom the Text of Outlook Items ............................................................................................................. 20 Select the Outlook Startup Folder .......................................................................................................... 21 Hide or Show the Ribbon Instantly ......................................................................................................... 22 Customize the To-Do Bar ........................................................................................................................ 22 Customizing the To-Do Bar for a View ................................................................................................ 22 Options that Appear in All Views ........................................................................................................ 23 Take Advantage of the Shortcuts Pane ................................................................................................... 24 Dissecting the Shortcuts Pane............................................................................................................. 25 Using the Shortcuts Pane .................................................................................................................... 26 Multiple Windows Make for Fast Switching ........................................................................................... 27 Opening Multiple Outlook Windows .................................................................................................. 27 Transform Items from Type to Type ....................................................................................................... 27 Transforming Items ............................................................................................................................. 27 Understanding InfoBar Messages ........................................................................................................... 28 Empty the Deleted Items Folder Automatically...................................................................................... 30 Make Full Menus Appear ........................................................................................................................ 30 Take Control of Outlook Reminders ....................................................................................................... 31 Changing the Default Appointment and Meeting Reminders ............................................................ 31 Changing the Default Task Reminders ................................................................................................ 32 Understanding the New Item Button ..................................................................................................... 32 Part II: Outlook and Web-Based Email Accounts ........................................................................................ 34 Outlook Web Mail Account Access Simplifies Life .................................................................................. 35 Google Gmail and Outlook 2007 ............................................................................................................. 36 Get a Gmail Account ........................................................................................................................... 36 Configure Gmail for POP3 Access ....................................................................................................... 37 Configuring Outlook 2007 for Gmail Account Use .............................................................................. 38 Hotmail and Outlook 2007 ...................................................................................................................... 40 Getting a Hotmail Account That Works With Outlook........................................................................ 40 Configuring Outlook 2007 to Work with Your Hotmail Account ........................................................ 41
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  Yahoo! Mail andOutlook 2007 ............................................................................................................... 43 Converting a Free Yahoo! Mail Account into a Mail Plus Account ..................................................... 43 Configuring Outlook and Yahoo! Mail Plus or Yahoo! Business Email Account ................................. 43 Port 25 and Problems Sending Email ...................................................................................................... 45 The End! ...................................................................................................................................................... 46
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  Top Tips forLiving with Outlook 2007, 2nd Edition Face it. You spend more time with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 than you do with your best friend or significant other. Isn't it time to improve your relationship? Like the first edition, this eBook is full of tips and ideas and suggestions for how to make living with Outlook easier. With the information and step-by-step instructions here, you will soon be able to get things done faster and easier, leaving you more time and energy for the parts of your life that involve living without Outlook. Like that best friend or significant other we were talking about before. For this edition, I've added more top tips, along with an entire new section on connecting Outlook to web-based email systems like Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. Or how about getting a free Google Gmail account (they used to be hard to get, but now anyone can have one) that can work perfectly with Outlook? If you've ever wanted another email address, you'll love this section of the eBook. It has step- by-step procedures for getting an account on each service, connecting it to Outlook, and testing to see that everything is working properly. These procedures are the same ones (modified for their version of Outlook) I share with my students in the Outlook 2003 course I teach online. Check them out in Part II. Assumptions We all know what happens when you make assumptions, but sometimes you have to do it anyway. Here are the assumptions we made when we created this eBook. 1. You are already using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (Outlook 2007). If not, you need to learn the basics of Outlook 2007 before reading the rest of this book. If you would like to learn about Outlook 2003 by reading a book, I strongly recommend my book for beginning to intermediate Outlook 2003 users, How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. 2. You want to make your relationship with Outlook 2007 work better by learning new ways to make it do what you want it to, without writing scripts or doing any programming. 3. If you are using Outlook 2007 at work, you will follow any corporate guidelines that they give. Your company's policies and guidelines always trump anything you read in this book. I hope you enjoy this eBook and find it to be helpful in improving your relations with our dear friend Outlook 2007! --Bill P.S. If you haven't been there yet, please check out my Living With Outlook website (http://www.living- with-outlook.com) This is where I post the latest Outlook information and a great place to find even more tips and techniques for keeping your relationship with Outlook sane and healthy. 1
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  Part I: TopTips 2
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  General Keyboard Shortcuts Usingthe mouse to tell Outlook what to do is easy. But it isn't always the best way to get things done. Every time you take your fingers off the keyboard, it slows you down. And if the ergonomics of your desk aren't right, using that mouse can literally be a pain. Fortunately, Microsoft has created a way to do many common actions without having to use the mouse. Keyboard shortcuts are a way to keep your fingers on the keyboard and get things done faster. By pressing the right combination of keys on the keyboard, you can eliminate a lot of pointing and clicking. For example, did you know that you can go to any of the main views in Outlook by simply holding down the CTRL key and pressing a number key? If you know the right key combinations to press, this is far faster than using the mouse. Of course, you have to memorize the keyboard shortcuts, but it isn't hard, and every one you learn saves you a little bit of time and effort (and perhaps saves you from some pain). Try to learn a few of these keyboard shortcuts now and put them to use. If you find them helpful, come back and learn some more. In the table of shortcuts, when it says something like CTRL-1, you should press down the CTRL (Control) key on the keyboard, then, while holding down the key, press the 1 key. When it says something like, CTRL-SHIFT-M, you should press do down the CTRL (Control) and SHIFT keys on the keyboard, then, while holding down those keys, press the M key. Shortcut Action CTRL-1 Go to the Mail view. From wherever you are in Outlook, go to the Mail view. This view will usually open to the Inbox or the Unread Mail folder. CTRL-2 Go to the Calendar view. CTRL-3 Go to the Contacts view. CTRL-4 Go to the Tasks view. CTRL-5 Go to the Notes view. CTRL-6 Go to the Folder List in the Navigation pane. CTRL-7 Go to the Shortcuts list in the Navigation pane. A little later in this book, I show you how to use the Shortcuts list as an easy, but little-known way to keep track of stuff. CTRL-N Open a new default item for this view. If you are in a Mail view and press CTRL-N, Outlook opens a new Message window. In a Calendar view, CTRL-N opens a new Appointment window, and so on. CTRL-SHIFT-M Open a new Message window from any view, without first going back to a Mail view. Sometimes you want to create a new message without leaving the current view. CTRL-SHIFT-A Open a new Appointment window from any view, without first going back to a Calendar view. Note: You can find even more keyboard shortcuts if you visit the tips section of my website at: http://www.living-with-outlook.com/outlook-tips.html 3
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  Tips for Workingwith Email For most of us, Outlook is first and foremost an email program. I use the Calendar a lot, and can't imagine what I would do without Notes and Tasks, but I live in Mail, and I bet you do too. So… …here are some top tips for dealing with email in Outlook 2007. Email keyboard shortcuts for when you are not working in a Message window These keyboard shortcuts are useful when you are working in the main Mail view, whether the Inbox, the Unread Mail folder, or one of the other mail folders. Shortcut Action F9 Check for new mail. I know you probably have Outlook set up to automatically check for mail every so often, but this is a good one to know for those times when you need to see some incoming message now. CTRL-N Open a new Message window. CTRL-R Reply to the selected message. This opens a Message window that's set up for a reply to the selected message. In a default setup, the To and Subject fields will already be filled in for you, and the message you are replying to will appear at the bottom of the new message window. CTRL-SHIFT-R Reply to all the recipients of the selected message. This opens a Message window that's set up for a reply to all. In a default setup, the To, Cc, and Subject fields will already be filled in for you, and the message you are replying to will appear at the bottom of the new message window. CTRL-F Forward the selected message. This opens a Message window that has the Subject field filled in, and includes the message you are forwarding in the body of this new message. Email keyboard shortcuts for when you are working in a Message window These keyboard shortcuts are useful when you are working inside a message window. You'll be using the Ribbon here, so the keyboard shortcuts work a little differently. If you don't know how to use keyboard shortcuts in the Ribbon yet, check out About Ribbon Keyboard Shortcuts following this section before trying any of the shortcuts in this table. Shortcut Action ALT, H, M Check Names. This checks that all the email addresses in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields (when visible) are valid. They must be names in the Contacts folder, an Address Book that Outlook has access to, or must be formed like a valid email address. ALT, H, S, S Start the spelling checker. This causes Outlook to check ALT, O, Q Open the Zoom dialog box. Use this to change the zoom level of the editing area of the Message window. This is a major bonus for us folks with bad eyes! ALT, H, U Opens the Bullet Library so you can turn the selected paragraphs in the editing area into a bulleted list. ALT, H, N Opens the Numbering Library so you can turn the selected paragraphs in the editing area into a numbered list. 4
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  About Ribbon KeyboardShortcuts Ribbon shortcuts differ from the old-style ones in that they all begin by pressing and releasing the ALT key. When you do this while the Ribbon is visible, Outlook treats the next several keys you press as part of the shortcut. You press and release keys until the complete shortcut is entered and Outlook does whatever the shortcut directs it to. Note: If you want to cancel a shortcut you are entering, press and release the ALT key again. Attach Reminders to Messages Often the messages you receive require some sort of action. For each message like this, you could create a new task or appointment, then enter the relevant information from the message into the task or appointment, and save the new item. Or you could just set a reminder on the message itself. Note: This is one of those areas where a small change to Outlook 2007 made a big difference. In Outlook 2003, this tip only worked for messages in your Inbox. If the message you wanted to work with was in another folder, you could add the reminder no problem, but the reminder would never appear. In Outlook 2007, this is fixed. Set a Reminder on a Closed Message Here's how you set a reminder on a closed message: 1. Select the message in the Unread Mail pane or the Inbox. 2. Use the CTRL-SHIFT-G keyboard shortcut. The Custom dialog box opens. 3. Select a Due by date (and optionally a time using the box to the right of Due by) for the reminder to appear. 4. Click OK when done. The message is automatically flagged for follow up, and the reminder is set to go off at the date and time you selected. 5
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  Set a Reminderon an Open Message Here's how you set a reminder on an open message. 1. With the message window open and active, use the CTRL+SHIFT+G keyboard shortcut. The Custom dialog box opens as in the previous procedure. 2. Select a Due by date (and optionally a time using the box to the right of Due by) for the reminder to appear. 3. Click OK when done. The message is automatically flagged for follow up, and the reminder is set to go off at the date and time you selected. Clear Out Old Auto-Complete Entries Outlook's auto-complete feature can help you get things done faster, but sometimes you need to delete old entries to keep it as useful as possible. There is a simple trick to doing exactly that and this page tells you how. Let's begin at the beginning: When you start to enter addresses into Outlook, you will often see a list of possibilities. Outlook looks at what you have typed so far, and displays a list of possible addresses that match what you have typed so far. Outlook creates the list by remembering the addresses you have entered into the TO:, CC: or BCC: fields previously. This can be a great time-saving tool, but there's one big problem with it: old addresses. Outlook has no way to know if an address is crucially important to you, or one that you no longer want. It turns out that it's easy to remove addresses from this list once you know the trick. Here's how it is done: Deleting Addresses from the Auto-Complete List The trick to deleting addresses from the Auto-Complete list is that you must do it using the keyboard, and not the mouse. Follow these steps: 1. Make the address you want to delete visible by opening a message and entering characters of the address until Outlook displays the one you want to delete in the Auto-Complete list 2. Use the Up and Down arrow keys on the keyboard to select the address you want to delete. You must do this with the arrow keys, not the mouse. 6
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  3. Instead ofpressing the Enter key to use this address, press the Delete key to delete the address from the list. See what I mean? This is nice and easy, once you know the trick. Adjust Automatic Picture Download Settings By default, Outlook 2007 is set to automatically block pictures in HTML messages. This is to protect you from two kinds of problems: Junk email (spam) often includes hidden images in HTML messages that are used to identify email addresses where someone opens the junk message. Spam messages sometimes display pornographic images when you view them. To protect against either of those things, Outlook defaults to not displaying pictures in HTML messages unless one of these conditions is true: The message sender and recipient are listed in the 'Safe Senders' and 'Safe Recipients' lists used by Outlook's junk email filter The pictures come from a web site that is in the 'Trusted Zone' security zone Without going into the details of junk email filter lists and security zones, let's leave it that I strongly urge you to use the default settings. The rest of this tip tells you how to check and set those settings. Check and Set Automatic Picture Download Settings You manage the Automatic Download settings in Outlook 2007 using the Automatic Downloads pane of the Trust Center. Follow these steps: 1. In the Outlook main window, click Tools, then Trust Center to open the Trust Center. 2. In the left Trust Center pane, click Automatic download. 7
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  3. Set allsix of the checkboxes that appear in the dialog box. You must set the Don't download pictures automatically in HTML email messages or RSS items option before the other options can be set. Note: I know that some of the options here pertain to RSS items and SharePoint Discussion Boards and not to email. Still, the same risks apply to these types of items, and unless you have a strong reason not to, you should be as cautious with pictures in them as you are with pictures in email messages. 4. Click OK once to return to the main Outlook window. Preview PDF Attachments On its own, Outlook 2007 can't preview PDF (Adobe Acrobat) attachments. Adobe has released the free Adobe Reader 8.1, which allows you to preview PDF attachments in Outlook 2007. It's a very useful feature, and is easy to set up. How do you know if you need to install this? In Outlook 2007, select a message that has a PDF file attached to it. In the Reading Pane, you will see something like this: 8
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  Follow these stepsto download and install Adobe Reader 8.1 and gain the ability to preview PDF file attachments. Download and Install Acrobat Reader 8.1 This is all standard stuff. Go to the Adobe website, www.adobe.com and search around until you find a link or button that says "Get Adobe Reader" or something similar. Click that and follow the instructions that appear to download and install the latest version of Adobe Reader. Note: One thing to be aware of is that you will probably have to close your web browser and Outlook and perhaps other programs while you install Adobe Reader. So don't do this while you are in the middle of something important. Once you finish installing Adobe Reader, restart Outlook 2007. Select a message that includes an attached PDF file, and look in the Reading Pane. You should see something like this: 9
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  You preview thefile the same way you would any other previewable file attached to a message. That is, you click the icon for the file in the Reading Pane. Note: You can also preview the attachment by opening the message in a separate window and clicking the icon. That can increase the amount of screen space available for the preview and make it easier to read. The preview PDF file appears in the Reading Pane like this: 10
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  While previewing aPDF, you can scroll through it with the mouse or arrow keys on the keyboard. You can also use the arrows at the bottom of the preview that let you walk through the document page by page. 11
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  Save More thanOne Mail Attachment at a Time If you ever received more than one mail attachment in a single message, you may have wondered how to save them simultaneously instead of one at a time. Here are the steps you need to follow: Saving More than One Mail Attachment at a Time Follow these steps to save more than one mail attachment at a time. In Step 2, be sure you follow the specific steps for the version of Outlook you are using. 1. Open the message that contains the attachments. 2. Click Other Actions, then Save Attachments in the Actions panel of the Ribbon. 3. The Save All Attachments dialog box appears. In the Attachments list, select the attachments you want to save, then click OK. 12
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  1. A standardfile save dialog box appears. Navigate to the folder where you want to save the attachments and click OK to save them. That's it. The attachments are now saved in the folder you selected. 13
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  Tips for Workingwith the Calendar The Calendar is probably the second most used view in Outlook. The Calendar turns out to be a lot more flexible than most people realize. There are lots of interesting things you can do. Let's start with some more keyboard shortcuts. Calendar Keyboard Shortcuts for when you are not working in an Appointment window These keyboard shortcuts are useful when you are working in the main Calendar view. Shortcut Action CTRL-2 Go to the Calendar view from anywhere in Outlook ALT-1 through View 1 through 9 consecutive days, beginning with the selected day. This lets you do 9 things like check your Calendar for the 4 days you are on vacation, without having to see what you are scheduled to do when you return to work the following day! ALT-HYPHEN Switch to Week view from the selected Day/Week/Month view. ALT-EQUAL Switch to Month view from the selected Day/Week/Month view. CTRL-SHIFT-A Open a new Appointment window. Calendar keyboard shortcuts for when you are working in an Appointment window These keyboard shortcuts are useful when you are working in an Appointment window. Shortcut Action ALT, H, I Turns an Appointment into a Meeting. Adds a To box to the Appointment window so you can invite people to attend this meeting. ALT, H, C Changes a Meeting into an Appointment by removing the To box. ALT, H, U Shows the Scheduling pane of the window so you can look for an open time for the Meeting or Appointment. ALT, H, P Shows the Appointment pane of the window. Gets you out of the Scheduling pane. ALT, N, A, F or Attach a File (F), or Item (M) or Business Card (A) to the Appointment. Particularly M or A useful when you want to send documents to Meeting invitees while setting up the Meeting. Color Code Your Calendar to Find Stuff Easier If your schedule isn't very full, you may not find this tip interesting. However, if your life is busy, you should find this Outlook Calendar tip particularly useful. Applying color to items in your Calendar can make it easier (and more fun) to deal with your overloaded life. 14
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  Note: You canchange the background color of your Calendar as well as the colors of particular items. For more on that, search the help system for "Background Color". Ten colors are available for use. Each color also has a label that can be used to describe what the color means, but I suggest you ignore that and just apply the colors you want to your items, regardless of the label. Adding Color to Existing Calendar Items To add (or change) color for an existing item, do this: 1. Right-click the item in the Calendar. This opens a shortcut menu. 2. Select Label in the menu to see the available colors and their labels. 3. Click the color you want to apply. Selecting Colors for New Calendar Items This is even easier than adding color to an existing item. To choose a color for an item, simply select the color from the Labels list in the new item window before you save the item. View Multiple Calendars If you have access to multiple Outlook Calendars, or have set up multiple Calendars of your own, Outlook allows you to look at them simultaneously. You can have several Calendars appear side by side, which makes it a lot easier to compare schedules. New in Outlook 2007, you can overlay Calendars one on top of the other, so all your appointments for a given day appear together. It takes a bit of getting used to, but can be very useful once you get the hang of it. Each approach has its pros and cons, but combined, they give you lots of flexibility to look at your schedule in the way that makes the most sense at any moment. 15
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  Here are instructionson how to view multiple Calendars. They assume that you already have two or more Calendars in Outlook. You get multiple Calendars by clicking File, New, Calendar to create new ones, or by subscribing to existing ones. Information on subscribing to Calendars starts on page 200 of my book, How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. View Multiple Calendars Side By Side To view multiple Calendars side by side, all you need to do is select the Calendars you want to view in the My Calendars or Other Calendars sections of the Navigation pane. In the following figure, two Calendars, my default Calendar and Jenn's Calendar, appear side by side. All the information is there, but because the calendars are side by side, things are hard to read. View Multiple Calendars Overlaid The new way to view multiple Calendars simultaneously is be overlaying them. Look at the preceding figure closely. Notice the little button with an arrow in the tab of Jenn's Calendar? If you click that button, Outlook will overlay Jenn's Calendar on my default Calendar, giving us the results in the following figure. 16
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  In this view,it is easier to read the individual items, since they're not smashed together side by side, but you have to deal with the fact that there are two separate calendars on top of each other. Also, you will notice that some of the items from Jenn's Calendar are no longer visible here, since the overlaid Calendars too on the style of my default Calendar, which includes the Tasks pane and, in effect, hides the afternoon events from Jenn's Calendar. Note: Clicking a button with a right-facing arrow will put the Calendars side by side again. View Non-Consecutive Days in the Calendar You can use the Date Navigator to select individual days you want Outlook to display side by side (it won't overlay the days you select with this technique). These can be consecutive days (the 24 and 25 th of the month, for example) or non-consecutive days (any two or more days). Note: The Date Navigator is the small calendar that appears at the top of the To-Do Bar, or the top of the Navigation Pane if the To-Do Bar is closed and you are in a Calendar view. 17
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  Here are thesimple steps required to view up to 14 non-consecutive days in the Calendar: 1. In the Date Navigator, click the first date you want to display. 2. Hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard, and click each additional date you want to see in the Calendar. As you click each date, it appears in the Calendar. Note that if the Calendar is in a weekly or monthly view, using this technique doesn't cause the rest of the week or month to disappear from view. Send Calendar Info in Email Messages When you're trying to make plans with someone who isn't using Outlook for email, you sometimes get into one of those, "so what does your schedule look like for Thursday" conversations, and end up having to type in your availability to speed things up. Outlook 2007 can include a copy of your Calendar information in a message with only a few clicks. The result looks nice, eliminates the chance of mistakes while retyping, and saves you time. Follow these steps to try it for yourself: 1. In the editing area of the Message you want to contain Calendar information, click at the position you want the Calendar to appear. The cursor needs to be in this part of the message window or the rest of the steps will fail. 2. Use the ALT, N, O, C keyboard shortcut to open the Send a Calendar via E-mail dialog box shown below. 3. Using the options available in this dialog box, tell Outlook which Calendar you want it to send, the Date Range (Today, Next 7 Days, Whole Calendar, and other options), along with the level of 18
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  Detail of informationyou want to share. If you wish to show only your activities during your working hours, set the Show time… check box as well. 4. Click OK when done setting options. The dialog box closes, and after a moment, Outlook inserts the Calendar information into the Message. Change an Appointment into an All Day Event and Vice Versa All Day Events (events) are Appointments that last the entire calendar day. It's easy to create an Appointment where you should have created an event, or vice versa. It's also easy to convert one into the other. If you want to convert an Appointment into an event, drag the Appointment to the heading of the day and drop it there. Outlook converts the Appointment into the event, and displays it with the rest of the day's events at the top of that day on the Calendar. If you want to convert an event into an Appointment, drag the appointment from its location at the top of the Calendar and drop it at the time and date you want the Appointment to occur. Outlook converts the event into an Appointment, and displays it where you dropped it in the Calendar. 19
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  Other Top Tipsfor Living with Outlook 2007 This last section contains an assortment of other interesting and useful Outlook 2007 tips that don't fall into the main Mail and Calendar categories. Zoom the Text of Outlook Items Outlook 2007 gives you the ability to zoom in or out on the body text of email messages, calendar entries, tasks, and contacts. This is an easy-to-use feature that takes only a few minutes to learn and could save you some eyestrain. The ability to zoom like this can be a huge benefit for anyone who has trouble reading the text on the screen. As always, there are a few things to be aware of when you use this feature. If you look carefully at the two figures, you will notice that the text and image in the body of the message zoomed, but the Subject line didn't. Only the part of the item where you could enter large amounts of text and images zooms. The body of a message, calendar entry, or task will zoom, as will the notes field of a contact. The menus and toolbars and buttons and anything else stay the same size regardless of how you zoom. Additional things you need to know to be able to use zoom: The item you want to zoom must be open in its own window. The cursor must be in the zoomable area of the item. Clicking in that area enables zooming. The Zoom command appears in the Other Actions menu for messages, and in the Zoom group of the Format Text tab of the Ribbon for other Outlook items. Just select the level of zoom you want to use from the available options. This dialog box comes from Word 2007, so some of the options aren't available in Outlook. Whenever you select a zoom level, the Preview area changes to give you some idea of what text will look like if you use that zoom level. 20
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  Click OK toclose the dialog box and apply the new zoom level. You'll be glad you did. Select the Outlook Startup Folder The startup folder determines what you see when Outlook starts. You can control whether you see the Inbox, Unread Mail, Calendar, whatever. Any Outlook folder can be made to appear first, and the steps are the same for Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. Here are the steps to follow for changing the folder that appears when you start Outlook: 1. Click Tools, then Options. This opens the Options dialog box. 2. Click the Other tab. 3. In the General section of the Other tabbed page, click Advanced Options. This opens the Advanced Options dialog box. 21
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  4. In theGeneral settings section you will find a Startup in this folder field. Click the Browse button to the right of it. This opens the Select Folder dialog box. 5. Select the folder you want to have appear when Outlook starts, then keep clicking OK until you are back at the main Outlook window. The next time you start Outlook, it will open in the folder you selected. Hide or Show the Ribbon Instantly The Ribbon is a great addition to Outlook 2007. However, it does take up a chunk of screen space and sometimes it is in the way. You can make the Ribbon disappear and reappear with a simple keyboard shortcut. Press CTRL-F1 (the CTRL key and the F1 key) to hide the Ribbon or make it reappear. Of course this won't work in places where you don't normally see the Ribbon, but you wouldn't really expect it to! Remember, CTRL-F1 to make the Ribbon disappear and reappear. Customize the To-Do Bar The To-Do Bar is meant to be the main way to keep track of things you need to get done. To make it as useful as possible, Microsoft has made it highly customizable. You can control: which views the bar appears in whether it is minimized or not in each view which things appear in each view options that appear in all views Customizing the To-Do Bar for a View To customize the To-Do Bar for a specific view, you must be in that view. For example, if you want the bar to be minimized in Contacts view, then you need to set that up in Contacts view. Follow these steps to customize the bar for a particular view: 1. Switch to the view where you want to customize the bar. 2. Click View to open the View menu. 3. Click To-Do Bar to see a menu of customizations. 22
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  4. Make yourchanges using this menu. Don't pay attention to the Options selection right now. That's where you make global changes. You need to return to this menu after each change if you want to make more than one change. Any changes you make in this way go into effect immediately, and remain in effect until you change them again. But remember that the changes apply just to the current view. Only the global changes that we talk about in the next section apply across all views. Options that Appear in All Views The To-Do Bar has some options that are global. That is, they affect the way the bar works in ALL views. You can set these options from any view and the changes will appear in all views. For example, you can be in Contacts view and set the bar to show two rows of months in the Date Navigator. If you then go to the Mail view and look at the bar, you will see two rows in the Date Navigator section as well. Follow these steps to set options that apply regardless of the view you are in: 1. Switch to the view where you want to customize the bar. 2. Click View to open the View menu. 3. Click To-Do Bar to see a menu of customizations. 4. Click Options to open the To-Do Bar Options dialog box. 23
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  5. Click OKwhen done making changes. The changes you made here take effect immediately across all views and remain in effect until you change them again. Take Advantage of the Shortcuts Pane It is time to learn about the Shortcuts pane. Most of your work in Outlook has to do with using and managing Outlook items. But what about all the other stuff you need to keep track of, or that you want to be able to get to easily? This is exactly where this little-known component of Outlook comes into play. This handy pane is a place to stash shortcuts to almost anything: Outlook folders Files on your PC Files on other computers on the network 24
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  Folders on thenetwork Web pages Applications like Microsoft Office Word or Internet Explorer The easiest way to open the Shortcuts pane is to use the CTRL-7 keyboard shortcut. When you open the pane, you'll immediately notice something different. Unlike when you open other Outlook panes, when you open this one, the rest of the panes don't change. This allows you to put things into the Shortcuts pane without losing track of whatever else you were doing in Outlook at the time. Dissecting the Shortcuts Pane The Shortcuts pane can hold individual shortcuts as well as groups of shortcuts. In addition, you can use the links in the lower part of the pane to add new shortcut groups or create new shortcuts. When you first open the pane, you will likely see a Shortcuts group in the pane, with some shortcuts already in place, like one leading to Outlook Today and another leading to the Microsoft Office Online web page. You may also see a My Shortcuts group. If you don't, I suggest creating one as a place to store shortcuts that you always want to be able to find quickly (like the shortcut to Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild in the figure at the top of this page). The Add New Group link does exactly that. Click it to create and name a new group heading in the Shortcuts pane. Similarly, the Add New Shortcut link allows you to add new shortcuts by opening the Add to Navigation Pane dialog box. Select a folder and click OK to add it. 25
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  However, there's agotcha here. The Add to Navigation Pane dialog box only offers you the option to add shortcuts that point to Outlook folders. So how do other kinds of shortcuts get into the pane? That question leads us into the general topic of how to use the Shortcuts pane. Using the Shortcuts Pane Using this pane is straightforward. Use the CTRL-7 keyboard shortcut to open the pane if it isn't already open. Open and close groups by clicking the plus or minus sign to the left of the name of the group. Use a shortcut by clicking it once (no double-clicks required in this pane). This opens the folder or file, launches the application, or takes you to the associated web page. Add a new group by clicking the Add New Group link and entering the name of the new group. Add a shortcut to an Outlook folder by clicking the Add New Shortcut link, which opens the Add to Navigation Pane dialog box. Add a shortcut to something other than an Outlook folder by dragging the item to onto the name of the group that will contain the shortcut and dropping it. This creates a shortcut to that item. Once the shortcut exists, you can rename it by right-clicking its name and selecting Rename Shortcut in the menu that appears. 26
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  Note: Rearranging theorder of groups in the pane, and the shortcuts within groups is a little clumsy. You need to right-click the group or shortcut you want to move, then select Move up in list or Move down in list from the menu that appears. Multiple Windows Make for Fast Switching If you're like me, you do a lot of switching between Outlook folders, in particular between Mail and Calendar and Tasks. Clicking the appropriate one in the Navigation pane gets the job done. But there's an easier, faster way. You can open multiple Outlook windows at the same time. With a Mail window, a Calendar window, and a Task window all open on the desktop at once, you can jump back and forth almost instantly using the ALT-TAB keyboard shortcut. Plus, you can set each window up exactly the way you want it. I only keep the Navigation pane open in the Mail window. I also adjust the width of the various panes in the other windows for my convenience. Note: This general Outlook tip becomes even more useful when you want to change an item from one form to another. See the following tip for more information. Opening Multiple Outlook Windows To open multiple Outlook windows at the same time, do this: 1. In the Navigation pane, right-click the folder you want to open in its own window. A shortcut menu appears. 2. Click Open in New Window. The new window appears. 3. Adjust the new window to suit your preferences. 4. Repeat for any other windows you want to open. Transform Items from Type to Type Do you ever need to create a task based on a message you receive? Or turn a task (Set up physical) into an appointment (Dr. Appointment, Thursday at 9AM)? You can do it by manually creating the new item, copying information from the old into the new, then perhaps deleting the old item. Or you can use Outlook's drag-and-drop abilities to save a bunch of work. Transforming Items Follow these steps to transform an Outlook item from one type to another: 1. Right-click and drag the item you want to transform. 2. If the correct window is visible, drop the item on it. If it isn't, drop the item on the correct button in the Navigation pane. A menu appears. 27
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  3. In themenu, select the option you want to use. You can copy the item to the new location or move it there. Once you select an option, a dialog box appears containing the information from the original item. 4. Fill in any additional information needed, then save the item. That's all it takes. If you are using Outlook with multiple windows open on the desktop at the same time, this process can take just seconds. Understanding InfoBar Messages The InfoBar is a banner near the top of the Reading pane or an open message, contact, appointment, or task. It gives you status information about the item. It also allows you to take actions related to the item by clicking the bar. For example, if the message "You replied..." appears, clicking the bar lets you search for all related messages. As Outlook service packs have come along, the number and variety of messages that can appear in this area has grown. Here are some of the common or particularly puzzling InfoBar messages, what they mean, and what you can do if you see them: Click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of some pictures in this message. When you look at the item, it contains boxes with some text and a red X in place of the pictures that were included in the original message. Click the InfoBar to get a set of options related to displaying the pictures and changing how Outlook handles pictures in the future. Click here to turn on links. To help protect your security, links are turned off in this message. The links in the item are there, but they do not work. I frequently find myself clicking a link in a message, then snarling at my "slow" computer before realizing that Outlook has turned off the links. Click the InfoBar to turn on the links in the message. Do Not Forward - (recipients can read this message, but cannot forward, print, or copy content)Permission granted by: john_doe@xyz.com 28
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  If IRM (InformationRights Management) is in effect on your computer, you may see this message. It indicates that the item in question is under IRM control, and that you cannot do anything with the item except read it. The email address of the person who granted you permission to view the content (john_doe@xyz.com in this example) is listed so you can contact them if necessary. Extra line breaks in this message were removed. Outlook has removed what it considers to be extra line breaks (carriage returns for those of us who still remember the phrase) in the message. This may make the message easier to read--or harder to read, depending on the particular message. Click the InfoBar to restore the line breaks Outlook has removed. This message has extra line breaks. If you restored the "extra" line breaks that Outlook removed from a message, this message will be visible. Click the InfoBar to hide the "extra" line breaks. This message was converted to plain text. Outlook has converted this message, which arrived in HTML format, to text format. It will commonly do this with messages that it believes are junk mail, to help protect you against the possible dangers lurking in an HTML-formatted message. Click the InfoBar to convert this message back to HTML format if you want to reactivate its "potentially-dangerous" HTML content. This message will be sent via... Shows which account Outlook will use to send a message. Clicking the bar doesn't change this. To change the account Outlook will use, you must click the Accounts button in the message and select the new account from the menu that appears. You replied on... Indicates that you have replied to this message, and when you did so. Click the InfoBar for the option to see all related messages (the reply you sent and any others in the same message thread). 29
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  While this wasn'tan exhaustive list of all the possible messages, these are some of the messages you're most likely to see or be puzzled by. Empty the Deleted Items Folder Automatically Do you empty the Deleted Items folder? There are differing philosophies on dealing with this, but many people like to empty their Deleted Items folder regularly. It isn't hard to do (right-click it and select Empty "Deleted Items" folder) but it is another thing you have to remember to do. If you do empty this folder, are tired of doing it manually, you can set Outlook to empty the folder whenever you exit Outlook. Here's how you do it: 1. Click Tools, then Options. This opens the Options dialog box. 2. In the Options dialog box, click the Other tab. 3. In the General section of the Other page, set Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting. This will get Outlook to delete the contents of the folder whenever you exit. However, Outlook will ask you if you really want to delete the files. If you don't want to have to answer this question every time you close Outlook, do this: 1. In the General section of the Other page, click Advanced Options. This opens the Advanced Options dialog box. 2. In the General Settings section, clear the Warn before permanently deleting items option. Click OK until you get back to the main Outlook window. From now on, when you close Outlook the Deleted Items folder will be emptied for you. Make Full Menus Appear By default, Outlook 2007 (and Office 2007) do not show full menus when you click on the Menu bar. Instead, they show partial menus that change as you use differing commands and require you to click at the bottom of the menu to see the full menu. Menus that change themselves drive me crazy. One of the first things I do whenever I install Microsoft Office is set it so that full menus appear instead of the self-modifying ones. This is how you make the full menus appear all the time: Note: When you make this change, it will affect all the Microsoft Office applications on your computer. Change it here, change it everywhere. Likewise, change it in Word or Excel, and you change it here. 1. In the main menu, select Tools, then Customize. This opens the Customize dialog box. 2. On the Options tabbed page, set the Always show full menus check box. 30
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  3. Click Closeto make the change. Take Control of Outlook Reminders Outlook not only tracks your appointments and tasks, it can give you reminders of them. These reminders are useful, but you may find yourself changing the settings to match the way you like to do things. If so, you can the default settings that Outlook automatically uses whenever you create a new Appointment (including Meetings) or Task. The following sections show you how to change these default values. Changing the Default Appointment and Meeting Reminders By default, Outlook reminds you of Appointments and Meetings 15 minutes before they are scheduled to start. You can change when the default reminders appear, and you can turn them on or off. To change the defaults for Appointments and Meetings by following these steps: 1. In any Outlook view, click Tools, then Options to open the Options dialog box. 2. On the Preferences tabbed page, find the Calendar section. 3. Make sure that the Default reminder checkbox is set if you want to automatically be reminded, and cleared if you don't. 4. Set how long before the Appointment or Meeting you want the reminder by selecting a default time from the list to the right of the checkbox. 5. Click OK if you are not going to change the defaults for Tasks, or Apply if you are. That's all it takes to change the default values for Appointments and Meetings. 31
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  Changing the DefaultTask Reminders Reminders for Tasks are slightly more complicated than for Appointment and Meeting. By default, all Task reminders appear at the same time of day, on the Due Date of the task, and they only appear if you set a Due Date. Changing the default Task reminders requires making changes in two places, but it is still easy. Follow these steps to make the changes: 1. If you are not already there, get to the Preferences tabbed page of the Options dialog box by clicking Tools, then Options, then the Preferences tab. 2. On the Preferences tabbed page, find the Tasks section. 3. Tell Outlook when reminders should appear by setting the Reminder time to the time of day on which you want it to appear. 4. To control whether they appear at all, click the Options button to the right of the Reminder time. This opens the Task Options dialog box. 5. In the Task Options dialog box, make sure that the Set reminders on tasks with due dates checkbox is set if you want Task reminders, and cleared if you do not. 6. Click OK until you return to the Outlook view you started from. That's all it takes to take control of Outlook reminders. Understanding the New Item Button Have you noticed anything odd about the New Item button? Most of the time, the button does exactly what you would expect it to. If you are in a Mail view, it is a New Mail Message button. In Calendar views, it is a New Appointment button, and in Contacts views, a New Contacts button. But that isn't always the case. If you click a Task in the To-Do Bar, then New Item button changes to a New Task button when you are working on one of these three views. Presumably the idea is that if you have selected a Task in the To-Do Bar, you are more likely to want to create a new task than a new message, calendar item, or contact. That makes a kind of sense. However… …when you click an Appointment in the To-Do Bar, the New Item button doesn't always turn into a New Appointment button. Instead, doing this causes the New Item button to revert to whatever form it would normally have for the current view! 32
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  It's more thana little confusing the first time you see the New Item button doing these things, but now at least you know what's happening. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. Now you don't have to. 33
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  Part II: Outlookand Web-Based Email Accounts 34
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  Outlook Web MailAccount Access Simplifies Life This part of the site covers Outlook web mail account access. It shows you how to use Outlook to send and receive messages through web mail accounts. What are web mail accounts? They're Yahoo! mail, and Hotmail, and AOL mail, and Google's Gmail. They are email accounts that you can connect to through your web browser. With a little work, you can set up Outlook to work with those accounts. Why bother? I think you will really like the convenience of having access to all your mail messages in one place. You will also like being able to use Outlook's familiar interface for everything, rather than the mish-mash of different tool you face when you deal with each account separately. Or maybe you don't have a personal email account, and now that you have Outlook, you want to create one you can use with it. In either case, this part of the eBook is for you. Here you'll learn how to connect your accounts (whether existing or new) to Outlook. In some cases (like Google's Gmail) this will be free. In others you will need to pay a small monthly or yearly fee for the privilege of reading your mail in Outlook instead of through your web browser. While it would be better not to have to pay of course, if you have a Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail account, the convenience of having all your email in one place may well be worth the small fee you will be charged. While you are mulling that over, please read on to see what's involved in connecting your favorite web mail account to Outlook 2007. We'll start off with Google Gmail. 35
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  Google Gmail andOutlook 2007 Gmail is Google's free mail service. Gmail provides over 2.5GB of storage, Google-style searching of messages, and automatic grouping of messages by conversation. It is a quality, fully-functional service that is now available to anyone. The basic idea with Gmail is you get so much storage, and Gmail can search it so efficiently for you, that you don't have to ever delete a message. Whether you want to keep all your messages forever is a different question (which we'll talk about in a bit), but that's the basic idea. The Gmail service is supported by ads, but the ads themselves are small and not an in-your-face annoyance. Plus, because this is Google, the ads are targeted toward the subject of each message, so there's a reasonable chance they will be of interest to you. Gmail works with Outlook for free too, making Gmail a great way to get a personal Outlook email account if you don't already have one. Where most other companies are charging a fee to get POP3 access to your account, Google is free. Of course there is no guarantee that POP3 access to Gmail will remain free once the beta period is over, but since everything seems to be free from Google, I think we're safe on this. To use Gmail, you need to do three things: 1. Get a Gmail account if you don't have one 2. Configure Gmail for POP3 access 3. Configure Outlook 2007 to work with your Gmail account Get a Gmail Account It used to be that you needed to have an existing Gmail user send you an invitation before you could get a Gmail account. Then Google added this process that involved using a mobile phone to get an account. All that stuff is done with. Anyone can now get a Gmail account simply by going to the Google Mail home page (mail.google.com) and clicking the Sign up for Gmail link. Fill in the blanks on the form that appears on your screen and you are off and running. However, you do want to think about two things before you sign up. On the signup page, Gmail offers the option to keep a Search History for you. The history records what web pages you've searched for using Google, and gives you access to that history and information like when you last visited each page, from any computer with an Internet connection. Some privacy groups are warning that Search History will be a target for hackers who can make money from knowing where you go online. They suggest that you clear the Enable Search History checkbox when you create an account. You'll need to balance the additional convenience and information against the potential privacy risk before you sign up for the account. 36
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  The other thingto think about is whether you want to allow Gmail to keep copies of all your email in your Gmail mailbox. While there are advantages to that, if you want to centralize all your email in Outlook, and you don't want to deal with the headaches of duplicate copies of your messages in different locations, I advise that you don't let Gmail keep a copy of your messages once they are downloaded to Outlook. When we reach the right spot in the process, I'll let you know how to set it up this way. Configure Gmail for POP3 Access Once you have an account, you need to configure Gmail POP3 access. POP3 is a set of rules for how two computers communicate about email. Outlook uses POP3 to communicate with other programs, so doing this tells Gmail how to behave when Outlook contacts it. There are only a couple of settings, but if you've been using this Gmail account for a while, you should think a minute before you start. You can tell Gmail to enable POP3 for all mail, or only mail that arrives from this point on. It doesn't really make a difference if you have just created your Gmail account. If you have been using Gmail for a while, you could already have dozens, hundreds, even thousands of messages stored in your Gmail account. If you enable POP3 access for all mail, when Outlook connects to Gmail for the first time, it will download all those old messages. This could take a long time and flood your Outlook Inbox with old messages. In this case you probably want to enable POP3 access only for messages that arrive from now on. The other thing to consider is what you want Gmail to do with messages once Outlook downloads a copy of them. The default is to allow Gmail to keep a copy of each message even after Outlook downloads them to your computer. If you like the idea of keeping a copy of all your messages in Gmail forever, then this option is right for you. If not, and you wish to have Outlook as the place where your messages are stored, you can have Gmail archive copies of the messages, or trash (delete) them after Outlook downloads a copy of them. Now that you've had a chance to consider those issues, follow these steps to configure your Gmail account for POP3 access: 1. On any Gmail page, click Settings. The Mail Setting dialog box appears. 2. Click the Forwarding and POP link. This displays the page containing the POP Download (POP3) options. 37
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  3. In step1, POP Status, select an option to enable POP3 and tell Gmail which messages are available by POP3. 4. In step 2, tell Gmail what to do with messages after Outlook downloads a copy of them. 5. Skip step 3 and click Save Changes. Gmail POP3 connections are now enabled. All you need to do now is configure Outlook for POP3 access to Gmail. One of the really nice things about Outlook 2007 is the way it can automatically configure email accounts at many of the major services. Gmail is one of those services. Compare the instructions for automatically configuring a Gmail account in Outlook 2007 to those further down the page for earlier versions. Nine steps instead of 19. That's a major reduction in the work required to configure Outlook for Gmail. Configuring Outlook 2007 for Gmail Account Use Follow these steps to configure Outlook for Gmail account use: 1. In the Outlook main menu, click Tools, then Account Settings. This opens the Account Settings dialog box. 2. Click New to launch the Add New E-mail Account wizard. 3. On the Choose E-mail Service screen, select Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP, then click Next. 38
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  4. On theAuto Account Setup screen, enter your name (as you want it to appear in the From field of messages) into the Your Name field. 5. Enter your full Gmail email address, which is your username followed by "@gmail.com", in the E-mail Address field. 6. Enter your Gmail password in the Password field. 7. Enter your Gmail password again in the Retype Password field, then click Next. 8. Outlook connects to the Gmail servers, and assuming you entered your account information correctly, after a moment it displays the Congratulations! screen. 9. Click Finish. Your Gmail account is configured. That's the last step in the procedure to configure Outlook for Gmail. Now use the CTRL-1 keyboard shortcut to go to the Mail view, and press F9 to send and receive all mail. This will download messages from Gmail. Seeing them in the Inbox will show that you were able to successfully configure Gmail as an Outlook email account. 39
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  Hotmail and Outlook2007 Hotmail email (now part of the MSN brand) is a web-based mail service from Microsoft. Because it uses the HTTP protocol instead of POP3 like Gmail and other services do, there are some benefits to a Hotmail Outlook connection compared to other mail services. Specifically, you can create folders on the Hotmail server to manage and store your messages there. When you connect Outlook to Hotmail, these folders are automatically replicated in Outlook. Any changes you make to these folders and the messages in them automatically get synchronized when Outlook next connects. For example, if you create a new Hotmail folder on the server (using the normal Hotmail web interface), that new folder will appear in Outlook the next time Outlook connects to the Hotmail server. Similarly, if you do something to a Hotmail folder or a message in a Hotmail folder using Outlook, that change gets synchronized to the Hotmail server the next time Outlook connects. There's a free version of Hotmail, as well as two versions that charge a fee. Only the versions that charge a fee allow you to connect to the account with Outlook, or any other mail client. Fortunately, the fee for Hotmail Plus (the less expensive of the two fee plans) is only $19.95/yr, which isn't outrageous. Here's what you need to do to get Hotmail and Outlook working together: Get a type of Hotmail account that works with Outlook Configure Outlook to work with your Hotmail account Getting a Hotmail Account That Works With Outlook Getting a Hotmail account that works with Outlook is pretty simple. If you have a free account, you can upgrade it. If you don't have a Hotmail account yet, you can sign up for an appropriate one directly. 40
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  To upgrade anexisting free Hotmail account: 1. Log in to Hotmail on the Web. 2. At the top of any Hotmail page, click Options to open the Options page. 3. On the left side of the Options page, click Upgrade to open the Upgrade Options page 4. On the Upgrade Options page, click MSN Upgrade Opportunities. 5. Review the possible plans. You need at lest the Hotmail Plus plan to connect to Outlook. 6. Click the Get it now button for the plan you want, and follow the instructions that appear. You're done. Skip ahead to Configuring Outlook 2007 to Work with Your Hotmail Account. To sign up for a new Hotmail Plus account you can use with Outlook: 1. Go to the Microsoft Online Services sign up page (join.msn.com). 2. Click MSN Hotmail Plus in the E-Mail section. 3. Review the features of the plan, then click the Get it now button and follow the instructions that appear. 4. When done signing up, close that window and this one to configure Outlook to work with your new account. Configuring Outlook 2007 to Work with Your Hotmail Account Follow these steps to configure a Hotmail Outlook connection: 1. In the Outlook main menu, click Tools, then Account Settings. This opens the Account Settings dialog box. 2. On the E-mail tabbed page, click New to launch the Add New E-mail Account wizard. 3. On the Choose E-mail Service screen, select Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP, then click Next. 41
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  4. On theAuto Account Setup screen, enter your name (as you want it to appear in the From field of messages) into the Your Name field. 5. Enter your full Hotmail e-mail address, which is your username followed by "@hotmail.com", in the E-mail Address field. 6. Enter your Hotmail password in the Password field. 7. Enter your Hotmail password again in the Retype Password field. 8. Click Next. Outlook connects to the Hotmail servers, and assuming you entered your account information correctly, after a moment it displays the Congratulations! screen. 9. Click Finish. Outlook creates your Hotmail folders. Your account is now configured. When you are done configuring Outlook, press CTRL-1 to go to the Mail view. Next press F9 to send and receive all mail. This sets up Hotmail folders and downloads messages. Seeing the Hotmail folders in your Navigation Pane will show that you were able to successfully configure Outlook for Hotmail. 42
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  Yahoo! Mail andOutlook 2007 You're here to make the connection between Yahoo Mail and Outlook. You can only use Outlook with your Yahoo account if you have a premium mail account. In other words, you must be using either: A Mail Plus account ($19.99 per year) A Yahoo Business Email account ($9.95 per month) If you don't have one of these account types, you cannot connect Yahoo Mail and Outlook. Converting a Free Yahoo! Mail Account into a Mail Plus Account Converting your Yahoo! Mail account into a Mail Plus account is easy. Just go to the Yahoo! Mail Plus web page (mailplus.mail.yahoo.com), click the Get Started button, and follow the directions that appear on the screen. When you're done, come back here and we'll configure your Mail Plus account to work with Outlook. Configuring Outlook and Yahoo! Mail Plus or Yahoo! Business Email Account The process of configuring Outlook and Yahoo! Mail Plus or Yahoo! Business Email accounts to work together almost the same. The following steps walk you through the process, with clear indications where the steps differ: Note: As part of the process for configuring Outlook to work with Yahoo Mail you will tell the Yahoo mail servers not to keep copies of messages on the server once you view them with Outlook. This means they will not be visible from the Web once you read them with Outlook. This is most likely the way you want things to work anyway (having multiple versions of a message floating around is a recipe for confusion), but is something to be aware of. Outlook 2007 has this great Auto Account Setup feature. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work with Yahoo Mail. So we're going to have to do this manually. The procedure is similar, but not identical to configuring earlier versions of Outlook. Please follow these steps to get Outlook configured: 1. In the Outlook main menu, click Tools, then Account Settings. This opens the Account Settings dialog box. 2. On the E-mail tab, click New. This launches the Add New E-mail Account wizard. 3. On the Choose E-mail Service screen, select Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP, then click Next. 4. On the Auto Account Setup screen, set the Manually configure server settings of additional server types checkbox and click Next. 5. On the Choose E-mail Service screen, select Internet E-mail, then click Next. 43
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  6. Enter yourname as you want it to appear in messages in the Your Name field. 7. Enter your full Mail Plus address (user@yahoo.com) or Business Mail address (for example, user@yourdomain.com) in the E-mail Address field. 8. Select POP3 in the Account Type list. 9. For a Mail Plus account, enter "pop.mail.yahoo.com" in the Incoming mail server (POP3) field and "smtp.mail.yahoo.com" in the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) field. 10. For a Business Mail account, enter "pop.bizmail.yahoo.com" in the Incoming mail server field and "smtp.bizmail.yahoo.com" in the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) field. 11. For a Mail Plus account, enter "pop.mail.yahoo.com" in the Incoming mail server field and "smtp.mail.yahoo.com" in the Outgoing mail server (SMTP) field. 12. Enter your Yahoo user name in the User Name field. For a Mail Plus account, enter your mail address without the "@yahoo.com". For a Business Mail account, enter your mail address including the "@yourdomain.com". 13. Enter your Yahoo Mail password in the Password field, then enter it again in the Retype Password field. 44
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  14. Set theRemember password check box if you don't want to have to enter your password manually each time Outlook checks your mail. 15. Make sure that the check box next to Log on using Secure Password Authentication is CLEARED. 16. Click More Settings to open the Internet E-mail Settings dialog box. 17. Click the Outgoing Server tab. 18. Set the My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication check box. 19. Select Use same settings as my incoming mail server. 20. Click the Advanced tab. 21. Make sure that Leave a copy of messages on the server is NOT checked. 22. Make sure that This server requires a secure connection (SSL) is NOT checked under either Incoming server (POP3) or Outgoing server (SMTP). 23. Click OK to return to the Internet E-mail Settings screen. 24. Click Test Account Settings. The Test Account Settings dialog box appears and Outlook sends a test message using the settings you have just entered. If all is well, a Congratulations! message appears in the dialog box. Click Close to close this dialog box. If you didn't see the Congratulations! message, go back through this procedure from the top to check all your settings. 25. Click Next then Finish. Note: If the Test Account Settings dialog box reports that Outlook cannot send the test message, and you have checked that you have completed all other steps correctly, your ISP may be blocking Port 25. To find out what that means and how to fix the problem, see the Port 25 and Problems Sending Email topic below. You should now have a functional Yahoo Mail to Outlook 2007 connection, and Outlook should start downloading mail from your Yahoo account. Port 25 and Problems Sending Email In addition to the physical ports (connection points) on the body of your computer, there are 65,000+ virtual ports that Windows recognizes. Port 25 has been defined as the standard port for sending email messages when your mail program uses protocols like POP3. In an effort to reduce the amount of spam (junk email) being sent through their systems, many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have begun blocking access to Port 25, thereby forcing email programs to 45
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  use Port 587,which is the port for authenticated email. When using this port, Outlook must be configured for authentication, and your mail server must as well. Note: The procedures for configuring mail that I provide here are configured for authentication. You may run into the Port 25 issue when configuring Outlook to work with Yahoo! mail accounts. If you do, you will know because you will have followed all the steps properly, but Outlook won't be able to send the test message. If that happens, work through the procedures again until you get to the Advanced tab. There, change the number in the Outgoing server (SMTP) field to 587, then complete the rest of the steps. This should resolve the problem. The End! You've reached the end of Top Tips for Living with Outlook 2007, 2nd Edition. I hope you've found this eBook useful and interesting and maybe even had some fun with it. I recommend you print a copy if you haven't already, and keep it by your computer as a reference, particularly where it comes to the keyboard shortcuts. If you want the latest Outlook 2007 news, more tips, tricks, or information, please visit the Living With Outlook website (www.living-with-outlook.com). While there, don't forget to sign up for the free LWO blog where I keep you updated on breaking news and changes to the site. Click the link at the bottom of any page to sign up. And if you are new to Outlook 2007, consider ordering a copy of my book, How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. It's a guide for beginner to intermediate Outlook 2007 users that will get you up and running quickly, without drowning you in excess information. Thank you for buying Top Tips for Living with Outlook 2007! 46