Introduction
Life in the digital age seems so complicated to me. When I was younger, life was simple: Go to school, do your homework fast, then play, play, play until Mom calls you in for dinner. Then go back out and play until just past dark. We didn’t need a lot of fancy electronics — just something resembling a ball (even if it was a bit deflated), a set of ever-changing rules, and a big backyard.
As an adult, things have gotten much too hurry-up-and-wait, if you know what I mean. Sure, it’s nice to have all the latest gadgets — I don’t know what I’d do without my BlackBerry, or my notebook computer and its wireless Internet connection. But I find it ironic that the tools that were supposed to make life easier have made it more complex. Sure, having a cell phone means I can get through to my daughter when needed and get help in case of an emergency. It also means that my boss can find me even when I go out on the weekends, or that a client can track me down at all hours and give me new things to get done by the end of the day.
If your life runs nonstop like mine, you’re probably overwhelmed with lists, lists, lists. You keep notes to remind you to pick up milk on the way home and to keep track of your client’s cell-phone number, your best friend’s new address, and directions to that restaurant where you’re meeting your boss for an employee review. Rather than filling your purse, wallet, or pockets with a bunch of notes, I recommend turning the whole mess over to Microsoft Outlook. I’m pretty confident that Outlook is a much better organizer.
Outlook includes several parts, or modules; each module keeps track of an important aspect of your busy, busy life:
♦ Mail: Stores incoming and outgoing e-mail messages in folders you create. It also lets you quickly find e-mail based on content and re-sort messages however you want, and it provides a quick and easy way of previewing e-mail attachments without having to open them completely (and possibly infect your system with a virus).
♦ Calendar: Stores all your appointments, meetings, and day-long events and displays them in daily, weekly, or monthly format. It also displays the Daily Tasks List, in case you don’t have enough going on in your day.
♦ Contacts: Helps you remember the important facts about the people you know, such as their names, phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses, cell-phone numbers, and Web page addresses. This module also helps you track important trivia, such as the names of a contact’s spouse, children, and family pet.
♦ Tasks: Tracks all the things you need to get done, now or someday. Tasks are divided into two groups: To-Do items, which are basically quick notes about things to do, and tasks, which contain more detailed info (such as task start date, due date, number of hours spent on the task, status, percent complete, priority, and a reminder to do the task).
♦ Notes: Tracks small bits of stray info, such as your locker combination and super-secret decoder password. You can even post these notes on your Windows Desktop if you need them to be more in your face.
♦ Journal: A module wanna-be. Although the Journal was originally designed to track all sorts of activities, such as e-mails sent to and from a specific contact, appointments made with a contact, phone calls made to a contact, and Office documents associated with that contact (such as Excel workbooks and Word documents), most of this is done by automatically without the Journal’s help, and displayed almost everywhere in Outlook, through something called the People pane. To learn what you might still use the Journal for, check out Book I, Chapter 1.
You may be completely satisfied with the group of six hard-working modules described in the preceding list. But if you’re one of those people for whom nothing is ever enough, well, depending on your version of Office, Outlook comes with several companion programs that expand its functionality:
♦ OneNote: Notes on steroids. With this creature, you can create notebooks on any subject and fill their pages with text, graphics, sound recordings, screen captures, Web links, and links to Outlook items (such as appointments and tasks).
♦ Business Contact Manager (BCM to its friends): Can help you manage numerous hot and cold leads, important contacts and their accounts, and several money-generating projects.
About This Book
Even though Outlook is made up of a lot of parts, such as Mail, Contacts, and Calendar, most people use it at first only to manage e-mail. That’s okay; Outlook’s a big boy and can take the fact that you think it’s only an e-mail program. After you get used to using Outlook, though, you may figure out that it’s pretty handy for all sorts of things — except maybe taking out the garbage and clearing a drain.
Don’t let all those Outlook modules overwhelm you at first; you can get to each of them in your own sweet time. And the way this book is organized can help you. Each chapter is written with a kind of “I don’t know much” attitude, so if you want to jump over to one of the Calendar chapters and start there, you can. If something you need to know is located in a different chapter than the one you’re reading, I’ll tell you about it and point you in the right direction. Don’t worry.
Along the way, I offer a lot of hand-holding. Steps are written clearly, with explanations and a lot of pictures to help you figure out whether you’re getting it right.
Conventions Used in This Book
Discovering the Ribbon that runs along the top of the Outlook window may throw you at first, but Book I, Chapter 1, helps you get over any trepidations you may have. Frankly, I found the Ribbon a bit overwhelming at first because its purpose is to show you every command you might ever want to use. However, after a second or so, I found it the smartest design change Microsoft could have ever made, and I am ohhh so glad to see it incorporated throughout Outlook at last. The Ribbon makes it quite easy to locate the command you need, such as New E-Mail (for creating a message) or Reply (for replying to a message you’ve received).
The Ribbon doesn’t just hang out in the Outlook window. Nope — whenever you try to create something, the Ribbon continues to stick around by using a special window that Outlook calls a form. So, if you create a message or an appointment, you see the Ribbon. If you’re wondering what the Ribbon looks like, you can find a picture of it in Book I, Chapter 1, so the two of you can be properly introduced. Go ahead and take a look; the Introduction will still be here when you get back. On the Ribbon, the tabs along the top allow you to display different sets of buttons, and the group name appears below each group of similar buttons. And that big orange button on the far left edge of the Ribbon is called the File tab. The File tab is your gateway to something Microsoft calls the Backstage, where you can perform ancillary tasks, such as printing, creating e-mail accounts, and setting options.
Every book has its own way of showing you how to do stuff. In this book, if I want you to select a command on the Ribbon, I give you the sequence of things to do, like this:
Click the New Items button on the Home tab and select Contact from the pop-up menu that appears.
Pretty clear, I think: Start by clicking the Home tab on the Ribbon, which causes the Ribbon to display the Home tab buttons. Scan from left to right, and you’re sure to find the New Items button I’m talking about — the buttons are all generally large and easy to read. After you find the New Items button, click it to reveal a pop-up menu of items; select Contact from this menu by clicking it.
Occasionally, a button is so small that I don’t think you’re likely to locate it quickly. In such a case, I add the group name (the name that appears under a group of buttons on the Ribbon) to the instructions in order to help you find the particular button I mean:
Click the Meeting button in the Respond group on the Home tab.
Foolish Assumptions
Well, maybe it’s foolish for me to assume something about you because we’ve never actually met, but I’m betting that you’re a Windows user and therefore at least a little familiar with basic Windows stuff, such as windows, minimizing and maximizing, and using menus. I’m also assuming that you know how to use a mouse and how to click and double-click.
I guess I wouldn’t be far off in assuming that you have an e-mail account somewhere and that you want to send and receive e-mail messages. That’s what Outlook is more or less known for. I don’t assume, however, that you’ve set up Outlook to get messages; instead, I show you how to do that in Book I, Chapter 3.
Finally, when I show you something, I don’t assume that you know anything about Outlook other than its name or that you know how to use Outlook to do anything.
How This Book Is Organized
Although Outlook is actually a pretty complex, full-fledged program, don’t let its power overwhelm you. It’s remarkable how little you actually need to know to get started, and I’ve stuck it all in Book I, “Getting Started.” In fact, you don’t even have to read all four chapters in Book I. I recommend at least glancing through Chapters 1 and 2, though, because they teach you the basics of how to navigate and use Outlook.
So, with two little chapters, you’re off to the races. From there, you can skip around to whichever chapter deals with a topic of interest. Not sure where to find stuff? Don’t worry; I have this book pretty well organized so that you can find what you need quickly. This book is divided into minibooks — ten of them, in fact, each focusing on a particular aspect of Outlook. Each book contains chapters, numbered from 1 to whatever. So, when I say to go look in Book II, Chapter 4, I mean the fourth chapter in the second minibook. You can always tell what book and chapter you’re in by looking for that gray box on the right-hand page.
Book I: Getting Started
This minibook covers the basics of the Outlook window, such as how to use the Navigation pane, the Reading pane, the Ribbon, and Backstage. Chapter 2 shows you how to quickly create just about any item in Outlook, such as a quick message or appointment. Obviously, there’s more to creating items than what’s covered in Chapter 2, so from there, you can jump to the book that covers the item you’re working with in more depth, such as Calendar. This minibook also includes stuff you might not need to do because someone’s already done it for you, such as adding your e-mail account information and importing data from your old e-mail program.
Book II: E-Mail Basics
This minibook shows you how to use the Mail module. You can find out how to create more than just simple e-mail messages, read and reply to e-mail you get, make your messages look snappy, and repeat the same information (such as your name and phone number) in all outgoing e-mails without retyping it all the time.
Book III: Über E-Mail
This minibook covers more than the need-to-know stuff, moving into the cool-to-know area of e-mail. In this minibook, you can find out how to manage multiple e-mail accounts, control when e-mail is sent or received, use Outlook to send text messages (yes, you can!), and blanket the Internet with a single message. Don’t worry, I don’t show you how to generate spam (mass junk e-mail); I show you how to send a single message to multiple people in your Contacts list.
Book IV: Working with the Calendar
As you might expect, this minibook focuses on the part of Outlook that keeps track of appointments, meetings, and such: Calendar. You can find out how to display Calendar in a bunch of different ways; create appointments, meetings, and day-long events; make those items repeat in your calendar without retyping them; make changes to appointments, meetings, and events; share your calendar with other people in your company; add cool stuff, such as Internet calendars; and customize the way Calendar looks and operates.
Book V: Managing Contacts
This minibook focuses on the Contacts module, showing you the basics in adding contacts and displaying them in a variety of ways. You also can find out how to work your contacts, pulling up an associated Web site or a map of their location. I also show you cool stuff such as creating mock business cards and sharing contacts with colleagues and friends.
Book VI: Tracking Tasks, Taking Notes, and Organizing Life with OneNote
This minibook covers a lot of ground — the Tasks module, where you create tasks and To-Do items (think mini-tasks), and the Notes module, where you can create quick Post-It-like short notes. You can also find out how to use OneNote, a cool add-on program that allows you to gather Outlook items such as tasks and meeting details into one place, alongside your notes from the meeting, handouts, graphics, audio notes, and other minutiae.
Book VII: Working with Business Contact Manager
This minibook focuses on an Outlook add-on program called Business Contact Manager. You can find out how to use it to manage business contacts, business accounts, and the revenue they generate. You also can figure out how to keep track of the details surrounding large projects that involve multiple contacts, a myriad of tasks, and who knows how much record keeping.
Book VIII: Customizing Outlook
Jump to this minibook to see how to create categories for grouping Outlook items together; change your view of messages, tasks, contacts, appointments, and such; and customize the basic working window, the form (the window in which you create an item, such as an outgoing e-mail message or a new contact).
Book IX: Managing All Your Outlook Stuff
After you create tons of Outlook items, including contacts, e-mail messages, and tasks, you probably need to organize them. You can approach this problem in several ways, all of which are covered in this minibook. You can find out how to create new folders to put stuff in, move or copy items from folder to folder, and clean up your mailbox. You also can find out how to complete handy tasks, such as using rules to automatically sort incoming mail; deal with spam (junk e-mail); locate the stuff you’ve created; and make Outlook more secure.
Book X: Out and About: Taking Outlook on the Road
This minibook covers ways to manage the problem of getting e-mail when you’re out of the office (or away from home), how to deal with incoming messages automatically when you’re on vacation (or how to get someone to do it for you), and how to print stuff such as e-mail messages or contact info.
Icons Used in This Book
While you browse through this tome, your thoughts will occasionally be interrupted by little pictures (icons) in the margin. These icons point out important (or, in the case of Technical Stuff, simply fun) things you should know.
These paragraphs contain shortcuts and other tips that can help you get something done quickly and get back to enjoying life.
These icons point you toward other important information in the book, or they may just contain important things to make a note of.
Watch out for this information because it may very well prevent you from making a common mistake.
Technical Stuff paragraphs contain interesting but not vital information, such as the reasons behind a particular task or the ways to deal with a particular situation that applies to only a select few. Don’t feel compelled to read these tidbits unless you’re truly interested in the topic at hand.
Where to Go from Here
The best place to start if you’re new to Microsoft Outlook is Book I, Chapter 1. Then, move on to Book I, Chapter 2. Those two chapters give you the basic stuff you need to know to start using Outlook right away. From there, just jump around to the chapters that interest you or that point you to the ways to solve the problem you’re dealing with at the moment, such as how to get an appointment to appear somewhere else on your calendar (check out Book IV, Chapter 2) or change somebody’s e-mail address in the Contacts list (flip to Book V, Chapter 1).
