Outlook® 2019 For Dummies®
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Copyright © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954239
ISBN 978-1-119-51409-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-51411-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-51407-7 (ebk)
Microsoft Outlook has become an essential business tool in the years since I covered its first pre-release versions in 1996. If you work in a company that employs more than a dozen people, it’s virtually certain that most of your communications and time planning will take place in Microsoft Outlook. Knowing Outlook well can make you more successful at work. Whether you’re taking directions from your boss, giving directions to your employees, organizing meetings, collaborating on important projects, or just keeping up with business, Outlook is what you’ll use to get it done fast.
Not understanding Outlook is almost like not understanding how to get to work. Because Outlook is so popular, hundreds of millions of people now spend their entire workday using Outlook one way or another. Now that more companies encourage telecommuting and hire employees who work from home, Outlook is the virtual workplace for so many people.
I’ve had the pleasure of training literally thousands of people on all the different ways Outlook can improve their workflows and simplify their lives. People are often surprised to discover how much faster they can work when they know how to use Outlook effectively.
Microsoft Outlook was designed to make organizing your daily work blindingly easy — almost automatic. You already have sophisticated programs for word processing and number crunching, but Outlook pulls together everything you need to know about your daily tasks, appointments, email messages, and other details. More importantly, Outlook enables you to use the same methods to deal with many different kinds of information, so you have to understand only one program to deal with the many kinds of details that fill your life, such as:
Outlook is a personal information manager that can act as your assistant in dealing with the flurry of small but important details that stand between you and the work you do. You can just as easily keep track of personal information that isn’t business related and also keep business and personal information in the same convenient location.
As you read this book and work with Outlook, you discover how useful Outlook is as well as find new ways to make it more useful for the things you do most. If you fit in any of the following categories, this book is for you:
Even if you don’t fall into one of these groups, this book gives you simple, clear explanations about how Outlook can work for you. It’s hard to imagine any computer user who wouldn’t benefit from understanding Outlook better. If all you want is a quick, guided tour of Outlook, you can skim this book; it covers everything you need to get started. Getting a handle on most major Outlook features is fairly easy — that’s how the program is designed. You can also keep this book handy as a reference for the tricks you may not need every day.
Microsoft offers a choice in how to buy Microsoft Office: as a one-time purchase, or as a monthly or yearly subscription. If you (or your business) buy it as a one-time purchase, the product is called Office 2019. If you opt for the subscription, it’s called Office 365.
Fortunately, the applications are basically the same either way. The difference is mainly a marketing thing. You might see some minor differences if Microsoft rolls out updates to Office 365 subscribers, but that shouldn’t affect your ability to follow the steps in this book.
I assume you know how to turn on your computer and how to use a mouse and keyboard. In case you need a brush up on Windows, I throw in reminders as I go along. If Windows and Microsoft Office are strange to you, I recommend picking up (respectively) Andy Rathbone’s Windows 10 For Dummies or Wallace Wang’s Microsoft Office 2019 For Dummies. Or, if you’re of the senior set and more interested in home use than business, check out Faithe Wempen’s Microsoft Office 2019 for Seniors For Dummies. (All published by Wiley.)
If all you have is a copy of this book and a computer running Outlook, you can certainly do basic, useful things right away (such as send and receive email) as well as a few fun things. And after some time, you’ll be able to do many fun and useful things.
Outlook has many unique features, but it also has lots in common with other Windows programs: dialog boxes, drop-down menus, Ribbons, and so on. To be productive with Outlook, you need to understand how these features work and recognize the conventions I use for describing these features throughout this book.
You deal with more dialog boxes in Outlook than you do in many other Microsoft Office programs. You can call dialog boxes forms. Email message forms, appointments, name and address forms, and plenty of other common functions in Outlook use dialog boxes to ask you what you want to do. The following list summarizes the essential parts of a dialog box:
The easiest way to move around a dialog box is to click the part you want to use. If you’re a real whiz on the keyboard, you may prefer to press the Tab key to move around the dialog box; this method is much faster if you’re a touch-typist. Otherwise, you’re fine just mousing around.
Outlook features a colorful strip across the top called the Ribbon. It’s adorned with festive-looking buttons. Many of those buttons are labeled with the names of the things that happen if you click them with your mouse, such as Save, Follow Up, or Delete. A row of tabs appears just above the Ribbon, with each bearing a label, such as Home, Send/Receive, or View. Clicking any of those words reveals an entirely different Ribbon full of buttons for a different set of tasks.
This arrangement came about because people frequently call Microsoft and ask the company to add features to Outlook that don’t need to be added because they’ve been there all along. The Ribbon is supposed to make those mysterious, hidden features more obvious. I think a better solution is to get more people to read this book. As a public service, I’m doing what I can to make that happen. I hope you’ll join the cause.
Normally, you can choose any Windows command in at least two different ways (and sometimes more):
One rather confusing Outlook feature is the way many commands are hidden within the tabs on the Ribbon. If you don’t know which tab has the button you need, you have to click every tab until you find the command you want. That’s fine if you’re a speed-reader, but hunting for rarely used commands slows down most of us. Fortunately, after you’ve done a task once, you can usually find your way back to do it again.
Another fast way to get at your favorite Outlook features is the Quick Access Toolbar — a tiny strip of icons in the upper-left corner of your screen. In Chapter 10, I describe how that works and how to make it do what you want.
Sometimes, the fastest way to go through a book is to look at the pictures — in this case, icons that draw your attention to specific types of useful information. I use these icons in this book:
Part 1
IN THIS PART …
Learn how to use Outlook to read and send email, send attachments, and create appointments and tasks as well as how to use the calendar feature to help you meet important deadlines.
Explore the various parts of Outlook, including views, menus, and folders, as well as the search feature.
Discover how to create contacts and calendar appointments as well as how to use dragging, how to create and modify tasks, and how to further enhance your productivity.
Chapter 1
IN THIS CHAPTER
Reading and creating email
Sending files by email
Checking your calendar
Entering appointments and contacts
Managing tasks
Keeping notes
I’m kicking off this book with Outlook’s Greatest Hits — the things you’ll want to do with Outlook every single day. The list sounds simple enough: sending email, making appointments, and so on. But most people only use about 5 percent of Outlook’s power. Even if you move up to using 10 percent of Outlook’s features, you’ll be amazed at how this little program can streamline your life and spiff up your communications. People get pretty excited about Outlook, even if they take advantage of only a tiny fraction of what the package can do. But there’s more here than meets the eye; Outlook does ordinary things extraordinarily well. I know you want to do the same, so read on.
Millions of people use Outlook because millions of people use Outlook. That’s not redundant — Outlook is the standard tool for communicating, collaborating, and organizing for hundreds of millions of people around the world. When so many people use the same tool for organizing the things they do individually, it becomes vastly easier for everyone to organize the things they do together by using that tool. That’s the case with Outlook. It’s a powerful tool even if you work all alone, but that power gets magnified when you use it to collaborate with others.
Well, okay, maybe you can’t use Outlook to decipher hieroglyphics, but if you know a little about basic email techniques, you can do a lot in Outlook, such as click a button to do something, to view something, or to complete something.
Using Outlook is so easy, I can sum it up in just a few simple sentences to cover the most common tasks:
Does that seem too simple? No problem. If you have an itch to complicate things, you could try to use Outlook while hopping on a pogo stick or flying a jet plane. But why? These four tricks can take you a long way.
Outlook can also do some sophisticated tricks, such as automatically sorting your email or creating form letters, but you’ll need to understand a few details to take advantage of those tricks. The other 300-plus pages of this book cover the finer points of Outlook. If you only wanted the basics, I could’ve sent you a postcard.
Email is Outlook’s most popular feature. I’ve run across people who didn’t know Outlook could do anything but exchange email messages. It’s a good thing that Outlook makes it so easy to read your email, although it’s too bad so many people stop there.
When you start Outlook, you normally see a screen with three columns. The leftmost column is the Folder pane, which lets you switch between different modules in Outlook to perform different tasks. The second column from the left is your list of messages; the right column (called the Reading pane) contains the text of one of those messages. If the message is short enough, you may see its entire text in the Reading pane, as shown in Figure 1-1. If the message is longer, you’ll have to open it, or scroll down in the Reading pane, to see the whole thing.
To see an entire message, follow these steps:
Click the Mail button in the Navigation bar to make sure you are in the Mail module.
You don’t need this step if you can already see your messages.
Double-click the title of a message.
Now you can see the entire message on its own window.
Press Esc to close the message.
The message window closes. (Note that closing a message does not delete it.)
If you feel overwhelmed by the number of email messages you get each day, you’re not alone. Billions and billions of email messages fly around the Internet each day, and lots of people are feeling buried in messages. In Chapter 6, I show you the secrets of sorting and managing your messages, along with the Conversations feature, which makes it easy to deal with extended email discussions.
Anytime you’re reading an email message in Outlook, buttons labeled Reply and Reply All appear somewhere near the top of the screen. That’s a hint.
To reply to a message you’re reading, follow these steps:
If you’re reading a message sent to several people besides you, you have the option of sending a reply to everyone involved by clicking the Reply All button.
When you reply to a message, by default, Outlook includes the text of the message that was sent to you. Some people like to include original text in their replies, but some don’t. In Chapter 5, I show you how to change what Outlook automatically includes in replies.
At its easiest, the process of creating a new email message in Outlook is ridiculously simple. Even a child can do it. But if you can’t get a child to create a new email message for you, you can do it yourself.
If you see a button labeled New Email in the upper-left corner of the screen, just click it, fill out the form, and click the Send button. How’s that for simple? If you don’t see the New Email button, follow these steps instead:
In the Mail module, click the New Email button on the Home tab of the Ribbon.
The New Message form opens.
Fill out the New Message form.
Put the recipient’s address in the To box, type a subject in the Subject box, and type a message in the main message box.
Click the Send button.
Your message is on its way!
If you want to send a plain email message, these steps are all you have to do. If you prefer to send a fancier email, Outlook provides the bells and whistles — some of which are actually useful. For example, you might send a High Priority message to impress some big shots or send a Confidential message about a hush-hush topic. (Discover the mysteries of confidential email in Chapter 4.)
Some people swear they do nothing but exchange email all day. Swearing is exactly what I’d do if I were in their shoes — believe me. If you’re lucky, you probably do lots of things other than exchange email; you probably do most of your daily work in programs other than Outlook. You might create documents in Microsoft Word or build elaborate spreadsheets with Excel. When you want to send a file by email, Outlook gets involved, although sometimes, it works in the background.
You can share a file by sending a link to a file stored on your OneDrive. If the file isn’t on your OneDrive, you’ll be prompted to save a copy of it there before you share.
To email a file as a link, follow these steps:
Open the document in Microsoft Word.
The document opens on-screen.
If the Share dialog box appears, click OneDrive.
The Share dialog box pops up if the file isn’t already saved on your OneDrive. Your file has to be saved there before you can share a link. (If you don’t want to save it to OneDrive, see the next set of steps for another way to share.)
In the Share task pane, enter the email address of the person you want to send the file to.
To enter multiple addresses, separate them with semicolons.
If you don’t want the recipient to edit the file, click the Can Edit drop-down menu and choose Can View.
This setting determines whether or not the recipient will be able to make changes.
Type a message to the recipient if desired in the Include a Message (Optional) box.
This message will appear as the email message body. Figure 1-2 shows an example.
You can also send a copy of a document as an email attachment. This method sends a separate copy to each recipient, and doesn’t require the file to be stored on OneDrive.
To email a file as an attachment, follow these steps:
Open the document in Microsoft Word.
The document opens on-screen.
Click Share in the upper-right corner of the Word window.
This button provides a quick way to share; you can also use File, Share if you prefer.
If the Share dialog box appears, click Word Document.
OR
If the Share task pane appears, click Send as Attachment, and then click Send a Copy.
Either way, the New Message form opens with your document listed on the Attached line, as shown in Figure 1-3. If you want to type a message in the main part of the screen, you can, but it isn’t necessary.
Enter the email address of the person you want to send the file to.
To enter multiple addresses, separate them with semicolons.
Change the subject line text if desired.
By default it’s the filename.
Whew! When you’re just sending one Word file, these steps seem like a long way to go, but they’ll always get your document on its way. For some reason, the folks at Microsoft made this task more laborious as the years have passed. But don’t be discouraged. If you email documents frequently, I describe a more powerful way to attach files in Chapter 5.
Time management is a myth. You can’t get more than 24 hours in a day — no matter how well you manage it. But you can get more done in a 24-hour day if you keep your calendar current. Outlook can help you with that.
If you’ve ever used an old-fashioned paper planner, the Outlook Calendar will look familiar to you. When you click the Calendar button in the Navigation bar and then click the Day button on the Home tab, you see a grid in the middle of the screen with lines representing each segment of the day. You can adjust the length of the segments from as little as 5 minutes to as much as an hour, as shown in Figure 1-4.
To enter an appointment at a certain time, follow these steps:
If you want to enter more detailed information about your appointment — such as ending time, location, category, and so on — see Chapter 8 for the nitty-gritty on keeping track of all the details in your calendar.
Time management involves more than just entering appointments. If you’re really busy, you want to manage your time by slicing and dicing your list of appointments to see when you’re free to add even more appointments.
If you need a more elaborate collection of Calendar views, click the View tab on the Ribbon and then choose one of the views listed under the Change View button. To really master time management, check out Chapter 8 to see the different ways you can view your Outlook Calendar.
When it’s not what you know but who you know, you need a good tool for keeping track of who’s who. Outlook is a great tool for managing your names and addresses, and it’s just as easy to use as your “little black book.”
To enter a new contact, follow these steps:
Click the New Contact button on the Home tab of the Ribbon.
The New Contact entry form opens.
Fill in the blanks on the form.
Figure 1-5 shows an example.
Click the Save & Close button on the Ribbon.
Presto — you have a Contacts list.
Outlook’s Contacts feature can be a lot more than a physical address book — if you know the ropes. Chapter 7 reveals the secrets of searching, sorting, and grouping the names in your list — and of using email to keep in touch with all the important people in your life.
Knowing what you need to do isn’t enough; you need to know what to do next. When you’re juggling 1,000 competing demands all at once, you need a tool that shows you at a glance what’s up next so you can keep your work moving forward.
Outlook has several task management tools that help you organize your lengthy to-do list for peak performance. Those tools include the Tasks module, the To-Do list, and the To-Do bar. Chapter 9 describes all of them, but here’s a quick way to get started in a jiffy.
To enter a new task, follow these steps:
On the Home tab of the Ribbon in the Current View group, click Simple List to make sure the Task list is in Simple List view.
You can create new tasks from any view, but the wording of the next step is slightly different depending on what view you are in, so Step 2 is just to help you avoid any confusion as you are getting started with Outlook.
Click in the Click Here to Add a New Task Box and type the name of your task.
Remember in the previous step when I said the wording was a little different? In some of the views, the wording is Type a New Task, and in other views the box for adding a new task this way isn’t present at all. That’s why I had you start out in Simple List view in Step 2, to avoid that mess. You’re welcome.
Press Enter.
Your new task moves down to the Task list with your other tasks, as shown in Figure 1-6.
Outlook can help you manage anything from a simple shopping list to a complex business project. In Chapter 9, I show you how to deal with recurring tasks, how to regenerate tasks, and how to mark tasks as complete — and earn the right to brag about how much you’ve accomplished.
I have hundreds of little scraps of information I need to keep somewhere, but until Outlook came along, I didn’t have a place to put them. Now all the written flotsam and jetsam go into my Outlook Notes collection — where I can find them all again when I need them.
To create a new note, follow these steps:
Click Notes in the Navigation pane to switch to the Notes module if needed.
If you don’t see Notes in the Navigation bar, click the More button (…) and then click Notes.
Press Ctrl+Shift+N.
A blank note opens.
You could have also clicked New Note on the Ribbon in Step 2, but I wanted to show you an alternate method. A word about shortcuts: Ctrl+N starts a new item in whatever section you are working with; for example, in Mail it starts a new message and in Tasks it starts a new task. But Ctrl+Shift+N is special in that it always starts a new note, no matter which section of Outlook you are in.
Type the text you want to save.
The text you type appears in the note, as shown in Figure 1-7.
Press Esc.
The note you created appears in your list of notes.
After you’re in the habit of using Outlook to organize your life, I’m sure you’ll want to move beyond the basics. That’s what the rest of this book shows you. When you’re ready to share your work with other people, send email like a pro, or just finish your workday by 5 p.m. and get home, you’ll find ways to use Outlook to make your job — and your life — easier to manage.