The popularity of the Internet and its usefulness to businesses and individuals make it almost imperative that software include features for accessing Web pages. Outlook 2007 offers such features, providing ways for users to access the Web without switching to a different program. This section describes how you can access the Web by specifying a Web page as a home page for a folder.
When you assign a Web page as a home page for a folder, you make it convenient and easy to access intranet or Internet resources. The primary reason to use a Web view in a folder is to access a Web site or an intranet resource without leaving Outlook 2007. As shown in Figure 30-14, you can open a folder that includes a Web page as a home page and then access another page from there. You no longer have to start a separate Web browser, such as Internet Explorer, to open the Web page.
You can assign a Web page to any folder in your Folder List.
To assign a Web page, follow these steps:
Right-click a folder in the Folder List, and then choose Properties.
Click the Home Page tab, as shown in Figure 30-15.
Set Web page view properties as necessary, using the following options:
Show Home Page By Default For This Folder. Select this check box if you want Outlook 2007 to display the Web page rather than the existing default folder view.
Address. Specify the URL of a local or remote HTML page or another Internet resource, such as a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site. In this example, the following URL for the MSDN® Web site is specified:
Browse. Click to browse for a URL.
Restore Defaults. Click to restore the default settings (no Web page).
For your folder that you want to assign a Web page to, type the URL (Internet or local address) for the Web page you want to display. You also can click Browse and then select a Web page in the Find Web Files dialog box. Click OK after selecting a page to return to the Home Page tab.
Click OK.
After a while, you might tire of using a Web view in a folder, or the Web page might become obsolete.
To remove a Web page from a folder, follow these steps:
Each time you open a folder with a Web page view, Outlook 2007 displays the specified Web page according to the Home Page options you selected. If the Web page includes hyperlinks, you can click them to navigate to other pages or sites. In addition, you can type a different URL in the Address box in Outlook 2007 and then press Enter to display a new Web page inside the Outlook 2007 folder.
Inside Out: Create shortcuts to Web pages
You can create shortcuts to Web pages by clicking the Shortcuts icon at the bottom of the Navigation Pane to open the Shortcut pane and then dragging a URL link (from Internet Explorer or another browser) to the Shortcut pane. An alternative to creating shortcuts is to create Outlook 2007 folders and then assign them a home page. This method has the advantage of making the pages available from the Folder List—just click on the folder in the Folder List to navigate to the associated Web page or FTP folder.