1. Outlook 2016 basics

Practice files

No practice files are necessary to complete the practice tasks in this chapter.

Electronic messaging keeps many of us in contact with colleagues, clients, friends, and family members. For people who are dependent on electronic communications—and even more so for those who work in enterprises that use Microsoft Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Skype for Business to manage collaboration—Outlook 2016 offers an ideal solution. From one place, you can quickly create, store, organize, manage, and retrieve messages, address books, calendars, task lists, and more. More importantly, Outlook makes this information available to you when and where you need it.

The elements that control the appearance of Outlook and the way you interact with it are collectively referred to as the user interface. Some user interface elements, such as the color scheme, are cosmetic. Others, such as toolbars, menus, and buttons, are functional. You can modify cosmetic and functional user interface elements to suit your preferences and working style.

This chapter guides you through procedures related to starting Outlook, working in the Outlook user interface, and managing Office and Outlook settings.

In Windows 10, you can start Outlook from the Start menu, the All Apps menu, the Start screen, or the taskbar search box.

In Windows 8, you can start Outlook from the Apps screen or Start screen search results.

In Windows 7, you can start Outlook from the Start menu, All Programs menu, or Start menu search results.

You might also have a shortcut to Outlook on your desktop or on the Windows taskbar.

When you start Outlook, it checks your default app settings on the computer. If Outlook isn’t the default email app, it displays a message and an option to set it as the default so that any email you initiate from outside of Outlook—for example, from a Microsoft Word document or from File Explorer—is created in Outlook from your primary Outlook account.

To start Outlook on a Windows 10 computer

1. Click the Start button, and then click All apps.

2. In the app list, click any index letter to display the alphabet index, and then click O to scroll the app list to the apps starting with that letter.

3. Scroll the list if necessary, and then click Outlook 2016 to start the app. (If Outlook 2016 isn’t in the list, it might be in a Microsoft Outlook folder in the M section.)

To start Outlook on a Windows 8 computer

1. From the Start screen, display the Apps screen.

2. Sort the Apps screen by name, and then click any index letter to display the alphabet index.

3. In the alphabet index, click O to scroll the app list to the apps starting with that letter. Then click Outlook 2016 to start the app.

Send, receive, read, respond to, organize, and archive email messages.

Create attractive business graphics and incorporate and edit external images in your communications.

Send documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pictures, and other files as message attachments, and preview attachments you receive from other people.

Schedule events, appointments, and meetings; invite attendees; and reserve conference rooms, projectors, and other managed resources.

View upcoming appointments and tasks, and receive reminders for them.

Share schedule information with other people, inside and outside your organization.

Store contact information in a transferable and easily accessible format.

Keep track of tasks you need to complete, schedule time to complete your tasks, and assign tasks to co-workers.

Organize and easily locate information in messages, attachments, calendars, contact records, tasks, and notes.

Filter out unwanted and annoying junk messages.

Have information from favorite websites delivered directly to you.

Outlook has multiple modules—Mail, Calendar, People, Tasks, Notes, and Folders—in which you display and manage specific types of information. All of the modules are displayed within an app window that contains all the tools you need to add and format content.

Individual Outlook items such as email messages, appointments, contact records, and tasks are displayed in item windows. Like the app window, an item window has a title bar and ribbon, but it doesn’t have a status bar. The title bar and ribbon content is specific to the type of item displayed in the window.

The Quick Access Toolbar at the left end of the title bar can be customized to include any commands that you want to have easily available. The default Quick Access Toolbar in the Outlook app window displays the Send/Receive All Folders and Undo/Redo buttons. In the item windows, the Quick Access Toolbar includes the Save, Undo, Redo, Previous Item, and Next Item buttons. On a touchscreen device, the Quick Access Toolbars also include the Touch/Mouse Mode button.

You can change the location of the Quick Access Toolbar and customize it to include any command you want to have easy access to. You’re more likely to do this in the app window than in the item windows, but in Outlook, you can customize user interface elements for each window and view.

Four buttons at the right end of the title bar serve the same functions in all Office apps. You control the display of the ribbon by clicking commands on the Ribbon Display Options menu, temporarily hide the app window by clicking the Minimize button, adjust the size of the window by clicking the Restore Down/Maximize button, and close the active item window or exit the app by clicking the Close button.

You can customize the Quick Access Toolbar and ribbon for each item type. This is more common in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint than in Outlook because Outlook has individual ribbons that contain commands focused on the item type. For information about customizing Outlook functionality and command interfaces, see Chapter 12, “Manage window elements,” and Chapter 13, “Customize Outlook options.”

In any window, the ribbon is located below the title bar. The commands you’ll use when working with Outlook items are gathered together in this central location for efficiency.

Across the top of the ribbon is a set of tabs. Clicking a tab displays an associated set of commands arranged in groups.

Commands related to working with items and item content are represented as buttons on the remaining tabs of the ribbon. The Home tab, which is active by default, contains the most frequently used commands.

When a graphic element such as a picture, table, or chart is selected in an item window, one or more tool tabs might appear at the right end of the ribbon to make commands related to that specific object easily accessible. Tool tabs are available only when the relevant object is selected, and are differentiated from other tabs by a Tools heading above the tab name.

On each tab, buttons representing commands are organized into named groups. You can point to any button to display a ScreenTip that contains the full command name (which is often longer than the button label), a description of its function, and its keyboard shortcut (if it has one).

Some buttons include an arrow, which might be integrated with or separate from the button. To determine whether a button and its arrow are integrated, point to the button to activate it. If both the button and its arrow are shaded, clicking the button displays options for refining the action of the button. If only the button or arrow is shaded when you point to it, clicking the button carries out its default action or applies the current default formatting. Clicking the arrow and then clicking an action carries out the action. Clicking the arrow and then clicking a formatting option applies the formatting and sets it as the default for the button.

When a formatting option has several choices available, the choices are often displayed in a gallery of images, called thumbnails, that provide a visual representation of each choice. When you point to a thumbnail in a gallery, the Live Preview feature shows you what the active content will look like if you click the thumbnail to apply the associated formatting. When a gallery contains more thumbnails than can be shown in the available ribbon space, you can display more content by clicking the scroll arrow or the More button located on the right border of the gallery.

Related but less common commands are not represented as buttons in a group. Instead, they’re available in a dialog box or pane, which you display by clicking the dialog box launcher located in the lower-right corner of the group.

The View Shortcuts toolbar, Zoom Slider tool, and Zoom button are at the right end of the status bar. These tools provide you with convenient methods for changing the display of module content.

For example, when sufficient horizontal space is available, the buttons on the Home tab of the Outlook app window are spread out, and you can review the commands available in each group.

If you decrease the horizontal space available to the ribbon, small button labels disappear and entire groups of buttons might hide under one button that represents the entire group. Clicking the group button displays a list of the commands available in that group.

When the ribbon becomes too narrow to display all the groups, a scroll arrow appears at its right end. Clicking the scroll arrow displays the hidden groups.

The width of the ribbon depends on these three factors:

Window width Maximizing the app window provides the most space for the ribbon.

Screen resolution Screen resolution is the size of your screen display expressed as pixels wide × pixels high. The greater the screen resolution, the greater the amount of information that will fit on one screen. Your screen resolution options are dependent on the display adapter installed in your computer, and on your monitor. Common screen resolutions range from 800 × 600 to 2560 × 1440 (and some are larger). The greater the number of pixels wide (the first number), the greater the number of buttons that can be shown on the ribbon.

The magnification of your screen display If you change the screen magnification setting in Windows, text and user interface elements are larger and therefore more legible, but fewer elements fit on the screen.

You can hide the ribbon completely if you don’t need access to any of its buttons, or hide it so that only its tabs are visible. (This is a good way to gain vertical space when working on a smaller screen.) Then you can temporarily redisplay the ribbon to click a button, or permanently redisplay it if you need to click several buttons.

If you’re working on a touchscreen device, you can turn on Touch mode, which provides more space between buttons on the ribbon and status bar. (It doesn’t affect the layout of dialog boxes or panes.) The extra space is intended to lessen the possibility of accidentally tapping the wrong button with your finger.

The same commands are available in Touch mode, but they’re often hidden under group buttons.

You can switch between Touch mode and Mouse mode (the standard desktop app user interface) from the Quick Access Toolbar. Switching any one of the primary Office apps (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word) to Touch mode turns it on in all of them.

To maximize the window

1. Do any of the following:

• Click the Maximize button.

• Double-click the title bar.

• Drag the borders of a non-maximized window.

• Drag the window to the top of the screen. (When the pointer touches the top of the screen, the dragged window maximizes.)

To change the screen resolution

1. Do any of the following:

• Right-click the Windows 10 desktop, and then click Display settings. At the bottom of the Display pane of the Settings window, click the Advanced display settings link.

• Right-click the Windows 8 or Windows 7 desktop, and then click Screen resolution.

• Enter screen resolution in Windows Search, and then click Change the screen resolution in the search results.

• Open the Display Control Panel item, and then click Adjust resolution.

2. Click or drag to select the screen resolution you want, and then click Apply or OK. Windows displays a preview of the selected screen resolution.

3. If you like the change, click Keep changes in the message box that appears. If you don’t, the screen resolution reverts to the previous setting.

To completely hide the ribbon

1. Near the right end of the title bar, click the Ribbon Display Options button.

2. On the Ribbon Display Options menu, click Auto-hide Ribbon.

To display only the ribbon tabs

1. Do any of the following:

• Double-click any active tab name.

• Near the upper-right corner of the app window, click the Ribbon Display Options button, and then click Show Tabs.

• In the lower-right corner of the ribbon, click the Collapse the Ribbon button.

• Press Ctrl+F1.

To temporarily redisplay the ribbon

1. Click any tab name to display the tab until you click a command or click away from the ribbon.

To permanently redisplay the ribbon

1. Do any of the following:

• Double-click any tab name.

• Near the upper-right corner of the app window, click the Ribbon Display Options button, and then click Show Tabs and Commands.

• Press Ctrl+F1.

To optimize the ribbon for touch interaction

1. On the Quick Access Toolbar, click or tap the Touch/Mouse Mode button, and then click Touch.

To specify the items that appear on the status bar

1. Right-click the status bar to display the Customize Status Bar menu. A check mark indicates each item that is currently enabled.

2. Click to enable or disable a status bar indicator or tool. The change is effected immediately. The menu remains open to permit multiple selections.

3. When you finish, click away from the menu to close it.

The Office Account page of the Backstage view displays information about your installation of Outlook (and other apps in the Office suite) and the resources you connect to. This information includes:

Your Microsoft account and links to manage it.

The current app window background and theme.

Storage locations and services (such as Facebook and LinkedIn) that you’ve connected Office to.

Your subscription information and links to manage the subscription, if you have Office through an Office 365 subscription.

The app version number and update options.

You can quickly personalize the appearance of your Outlook app window by choosing an Office background and an Office theme. (These are specific to Office and aren’t in any way associated with the Windows theme or desktop background.) The background is a subtle design that appears in the title bar of the app window. There are 14 backgrounds to choose from, or you can choose to not have a background.

At the time of this writing, there are three Office themes:

Colorful Displays the title bar and ribbon tabs in the color specific to the app, and the ribbon commands, status bar, and Backstage view in light gray

Dark Gray Displays the title bar and ribbon tabs in dark gray, and the ribbon commands, status bar, and Backstage view in light gray

White Displays the title bar, ribbon tabs, and ribbon commands in white, and the status bar in the app-specific color

There are rumors that another theme will be released in the near future, but it hasn’t yet made an appearance.

From the Connected Services section of the page, you can connect Office to Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube accounts to access pictures and videos; to SharePoint sites and OneDrive storage locations; and to LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to share information. To connect Office to one of these services, you must already have an account with the service.

Until you connect to storage locations, they aren’t available to you from within Outlook. For example, when inserting a picture into an email message, you will have the option to insert a locally stored picture or to search online for a picture. After you connect to your Facebook, SharePoint, or OneDrive accounts, you can also insert pictures stored in those locations.

The changes that you make on the Office Account page apply to all the Office apps installed on all the computers that are associated with your account. For example, changing the Office background in Outlook on one computer also changes it in Outlook on any other computer on which you’ve associated Office with the same account.

Some of the settings on the Office Account page are also available in the Outlook Options dialog box, which you open from the Backstage view. This dialog box also contains hundreds of options for controlling the way Outlook works. Chapter 13, “Customize Outlook options,” provides in-depth coverage of these options. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the dialog box content so you know what you can modify.

To display your Office account settings

1. Start Outlook.

2. In the app window or in any item window, click the File tab to display the Backstage view, and then click Office Account.

To manage your Microsoft account connection

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. In the User Information area, click any of the links to begin the selected process.

To change the app window background for all Office apps

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. In the Office Background list, point to any background to display a live preview in the app window, and then click the background you want.

To change the app window color scheme for all Office apps

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. In the Office Theme list, click Colorful, Dark Gray, or White.

To connect to a cloud storage location or social media service

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. At the bottom of the Connected Services area, click Add a service, click the type of service you want to add, and then click the specific service.

To change or remove a social media service connection

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. In the Connected Services area, click the Manage link to the right of the service you want to modify. A webpage opens and displays information about the account you’re connected to and the information that is available from that account.

3. Modify or remove the connection from this page, or close the page to return to Outlook.

To disconnect from a cloud storage location

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. In the Connected Services area, click the Remove link to the right of the storage location you want to modify.

3. In the confirmation message box, click Yes.

To manage your Office 365 subscription

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. In the Product Information area, click the Manage Account button to display the sign-in page for your Office 365 management interface.

3. Provide your account credentials and sign in to access your options.

To manage Office updates

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view.

2. Click the Update Options button, and then click the action you want to take.

To open the Outlook Options dialog box

1. In the left pane of the Backstage view, click Options.

Start Outlook

Work in the Outlook user interface

Manage Office and Outlook settings

1. Using the technique that is appropriate for your operating system, start Outlook.

1. On each tab of the ribbon, do the following:

• Review the available groups and commands.

• Display the ScreenTip of any command you’re not familiar with. Notice the different levels of detail in the ScreenTips.

• If a group has a dialog box launcher in its lower-right corner, click the dialog box launcher to display the associated dialog box or pane.

2. Change the width of the app window and notice the effect it has on the ribbon. When the window is narrow, locate a group button and click it to display the commands.

3. Maximize the app window. Hide the ribbon entirely, and notice the change in the app window. Redisplay the ribbon tabs (but not the commands). Temporarily display the ribbon commands, and then click away from the ribbon to close it.

4. Use any of the procedures described in this chapter to permanently redisplay the ribbon tabs and commands.

5. Display the status bar shortcut menu, and identify the tools and statistics that are currently displayed on the status bar. Add any indicators to the status bar that will be useful to you.

1. Display the Office Account page of the Backstage view and review the information that is available there.

2. Expand the Office Background list. Point to each background to display a live preview of it. Then click the background you want to apply.

3. Apply each of the Office themes, and consider its merits. Then apply the theme you like best.

4. Review the services that Office is currently connected to. Expand the Add a service menu and point to each of the menu items to display the available services. Connect to any of these that you want to use.

5. Click the Update Options button and note whether updates are currently available to install.

6. On the Update Options menu, click View Updates to display the What’s New and Improved in Office 2016 webpage in your default browser. Review the information on this page to learn about any new features that interest you.

7. Return to Outlook and open the Outlook Options dialog box.

8. Explore each page of the dialog box. Notice the sections of each page and the settings in each section.

9. Review the settings on the General page, and modify them as necessary to fit the way you work. Then close the dialog box.