PART I

Inside Microsoft(R) Outlook(R) 2000

By: Hosam Hammady 

Today we are going to discuss a very favorite application for most Windows users, Outlook.
Microsoft developed two sibling-applications as email clients. The first is Outlook Express, which is a simple program that let you manage your emails and contacts. It is bundled with Internet Explorer, you can optionally choose to install it.
The second one is Microsoft Outlook, an integral part of Microsoft Office. It is much more professional and sophisticated than the Express buddy! Not just a simple email client.

Some Additional Features In Microsoft Outlook:

· Address Book, easily manage your contacts.

· Calendar, which can be considered a complete replacement of the prior application, Microsoft Schedule. You use it to organize your appointments.

· Notes, which you can find in the Folders List at the left. This is merely where you place small notes as if you do with simple text files.

· Rules Wizard, create rules to automatically send, reply to, move and delete messages according to previously prepared conditions.

· And a lot more features you will discover when you get closer to Outlook.

Note: If you don't see the Folders List choose 'Folders List' from the View Menu.

Setting Up Your E-mail Account For The First Time:
When you start Outlook for the first time, you will be driven through simple steps to create your personal email account information;
Specify both your name and email that will appear in outgoing emails.
Specify both incoming (POP3 / Post Office Protocol Version 3) and outgoing (SMTP / Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) email server addresses, so that Outlook will be able to send/receive emails. Contact your ISP to get both addresses
If you are using Yahoo! Mail, The incoming server address is pop.mail.yahoo.com
Specify both your user name and password of your email.

Example:
Name: Anon Nymous
Email: anon@yahoo.com
User name: anon
Password: ****
POP address: pop.mail.yahoo.com
SMTP address: (depends on your ISP)

Note: any time you wish to modify this information click on Tools Menu/Accounts, then choose the account you want to modify and click on properties. If you have multiple email accounts you can add them with the 'Add' button.

Creating Your Address Book:
The first thing you will need to do is to make up your address book by adding your contacts to it. If you select 'Contacts' from the Folders List, you will see existing contacts, which are initially none! Double-click on any blank area, a 'New Contact' dialog window will be displayed, supply his/her details then click on 'Save and Close'.
You can also click on 'New Contact' on the standard toolbar to bring this window.
To modify any contact's details, just double-click his/her name.

Sending Emails:
On the standard toolbar click on 'New Mail Message'. A new window will appear:

Specify the recipients by writing their email addresses separated with commas, or you can pick up contacts from the Address Book by clicking on the 'To' button.
Optionally do the same thing with the Cc and Bcc fields.
When finished composing your message click on 'Send' at the top. If you are online the message will be sent immediately, if not it will be saved in the 'Outbox' folder for later delivery.
It's much time-saving to compose all your emails offline then send them once when you are online.

Formatting Messages and Inserting Pictures:

Well, you may notice that the formatting toolbar is similar to that of Microsoft Word. Easily change font type, color and size, apply bold, italic, underline effects, align text, bullet/number paragraphs. You can also insert horizontal lines and change background color of your message.

To insert a picture inline with your email message, click on Insert Menu/Picture... then browse to your image file.

Notice: these formatting facilities are only available if the message format is 'HTML' not 'Plain Text'. To switch between these two formats, click on Format Menu and choose one of them.

Receiving Emails:
Make sure you are connected to the Internet then click on 'Send/Receive' button on the standard toolbar. This sends all previously composed messages in your Outbox folder and downloads/receives all incoming messages.

Upon receipt of new email messages, a new icon appears in the system tray at the bottom-right of the screen. A sound also may be played in the background! The cursor can also change briefly to attract your attention! These options can be customized from Tools Menu/Options/Preferences/E-mail Options/Advanced E-mail Options:

You can notice that new messages are saved automatically in the Inbox folder. You can change this by applying automatic 'Rules' to messages on their receipt. We will discuss this later. Messages appear at the right of the Folders List organized in what is called Items List. 'Unread' messages appear bold. They are automatically marked as 'Read' after the message is shown for a short time.

Inserting Attachments:
You attach files to your outgoing messages simply by clicking the 'clip' button on the standard toolbar when you write your message. Another way is from Insert Menu/File... An easier way is to drag the desired file from Windows Explorer directly to the message window.

Adding Your Signature:
As in attachments you can find the signature icon beside the clip icon. Also you can get it from the Insert Menu/Signature.
For the first time you will have to supply a signature to use. Click on Tools Menu/Options/Mail Format/Signature Picker (at the bottom). Click on 'New' button then compose your signature or specify an HTML file to use. Consequently it may contain any simple html content! Images or even animated GIFs! After that you can choose to 'Edit' your signature.
Note: if you specified a signature from the Signature Picker as we have just did, it is automatically inserted at the end of every new email message.

Replying to Incoming Messages:
Simply select the email you want to reply to and click on 'Reply' on the standard toolbar. It's worth mentioning that there is another button; 'Reply to All'. The only difference is that if someone sent you an email as one recipient among many that appear in the To or Cc fields, this button replies not only to the sender but to the recipients list as well.

Forwarding Incoming Messages:
Exactly like replying, the Forward icon is beside it. To configure forwarding options click on Tools Menu/Options/E-mail Options.

Available options when replying to or forwarding a message:

· Do not include original message.

· Attach original message.

· Include original message text.

· Include and indent original message text.

· Prefix and indent original message text.

And that's it for now. We have covered standard features in Outlook, and in any e-mail client as well! Next issue we will discuss more advanced features. So... Stay tuned!