4. Basic Email Tasks

It’s high time we started emailing. You’ve got your email services set up and squared away, you’ve figured out how to maneuver around the program window with confidence, and now it’s time to communicate with the outside world—or, if you work in an office, send a message to your coworker inquiring about where you’re eating lunch later.

Basic emailing tasks involve composing and sending messages and receiving and reading messages. That really is the gist of it—send some, get some sent to you. Ah, but it’s the subtle nuances of the activity of emailing that require explanation. In this chapter, we explore all those nuances and make sure you can handle all the incoming and outgoing communications with true finesse.

A Message window looks a lot like the main Outlook window, with a title bar, ribbon of tools, and window controls. Naturally, the title bar tells you the name of the window; in this case, it’s the Message window. As soon as you fill in a subject for the message, the title bar displays the subject as its title, too.

You can use any of these methods to open a new Message window:

• Click the New Email button on the Home tab (see Figure 4.1).

• Press Ctrl+N on the keyboard.

• Click the New Items button in any Outlook module and choose E-mail Message from the drop-down menu.

To fill out your empty form, shown in Figure 4.2, start by addressing your email. Do you know the recipient’s email address? Good, then you can type it into the To field. Is the recipient already someone in your contacts list—the digital Address Book you use to store information about people you contact? If so, you can click the To button and grab the person’s name from the Select Names dialog box, shown in Figure 4.3. Simply double-click the name of the person to insert it into the To field, and click OK to close the dialog box.

Do you need to address the message to more than one person? That’s easy; use a semicolon to separate email addresses in the To field. If you use the Select Names dialog box to add names, Outlook automatically inserts a semicolon for you, even if you insert only one name from your Address Book. (To learn more about building your contacts list in Outlook, see Chapter 8, “Contacts.”)

Do you want to carbon copy someone else on the message? The term carbon copy is a remnant of the days in which you had to use a sheet of carbon paper inserted between two sheets of paper in a typewriter to make a copy of a memo or letter. To Cc someone, click in the Cc field and type in the email address, or click the Cc button and choose people from your contacts list.

After you enter the email address or addresses, you can move on to the Subject field and type in a title or subject heading for the message. This text identifies the message content for recipients; it’s a heads up regarding what the message is about. In turn, the subject title is what they’ll see when they view their incoming messages. It’s a good practice to keep your subject titles brief and to the point.

Finally, click in the large, empty area of the Message window to type in your message text. If you’re interested in formatting the text (applying attributes such as bold, italic, different fonts, sizes, and text color) or adding other features, flip over to Chapter 6, “Advanced Email Features,” to read more. Not everybody’s email services can read all message formatting, so keep that in mind before you start trying to format a message like a Microsoft Word document. You can choose between three overall message formats in Outlook:

• HTML—This format, which is a web page format, supports text and paragraph formatting (such as bold, italic, text alignment, fonts and sizes, background colors, and the like). Most email readers support HTML, and if one doesn’t, the message appears as plain text.

• Rich Text—This format supports more attributes than HTML, such as borders and shading. On the downside, this format is usually compatible only with Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server. The text is converted to HTML for other email readers.

• Plain Text—This is the most basic of the formats; no attributes appear in plain text messages, just straight up text. This format is supported by all email readers.

You can control the message’s format by clicking the Format Text tab on the ribbon, then making your selection from the Format group of buttons.

After you’ve completed your message, click the Send button or press F9. If you’re connected to the Internet, Outlook immediately sends the message. If not, the message hangs out in the Outbox folder until you’re ready to send and receive messages.

And that’s how you compose and send an email.

If you turn off the Reading pane, you can see more details about the messages displayed across the width of the viewing area (aka Information Viewer), such as date and time sent, message size, priority levels, or flagging. You can also see tiny paper clip icons representing file attachments. Figure 4.4 shows an example of the message list expanded.

Notice that the message details are organized into columns with labels. If you want, you can resize the columns if you need to view more or less of a certain detail. Click and drag the column label’s border to resize the column. You can also use the column headings to perform sorts on a particular column. For example, you can sort your list by date or sender, and so on. You might choose to sort your list alphabetically by sender name, for example, to help you see who sent you what. Outlook displays two buttons at the top of the list to view all the message or just the unread messages.

You can tell which messages are read or unread based on their appearance in the list. If they appear bold and in blue, they’re unread. If they are not bold and have no color, you’ve read the message already (see Figure 4.4). If the Reading pane is displayed and the message list is less wide to accommodate it, a blue vertical bar on the left side of the message indicates an unread message.

To select a message, click it. This makes it active, and you can perform actions on it. To open it entirely, double-click it. This opens the message in a Message window, similar to Figure 4.5. The window is the same as the one you use to compose new messages. To close it and return to viewing your message list, click the window’s Close button.

If the Reading pane is open, you can also view a selected message’s content there. Figure 4.6 shows an example of the Mail module with the Reading pane displayed (the pane can be displayed to the right or at the bottom of the window—your choice). If the People pane is displayed, you can see contact information pertaining to the sender. You can reply directly in the Reading pane, which I’ll show you in a bit. To toggle the pane on or off, click the View tab, click the People pane button, and choose a setting.

From the Reading pane, you can navigate messages using these techniques:

• You can scroll through longer messages using the scrollbars, or you can click the scroll arrows.

• To move up or down a long message one page at a time, press the spacebar on the keyboard. At the end of the message, press the spacebar again to open the first page of the next message.

• You can use the Zoom tool on the status bar to zoom your view of the Reading pane display; drag the slider left to reduce the size of text, or drag the slider right to magnify the text.

• Don’t forget—you can choose between displaying the Reading pane on the right side of the pane or at the bottom of the pane. (Press the View tab, click the Reading Pane button, and make your selection.)

To check for new messages manually, use one of these methods:

• Click the Send/Receive All Folders button on the Quick Access toolbar; you can do this no matter which Outlook component you’re viewing.

• Click the Send/Receive All Folders button on the Home tab when viewing the Mail module (see Figure 4.7).

• Click the Send/Receive tab and click the Send/Receive All Folders button.

• Press F9 on the keyboard.

Of course, you must be connected to the Internet to receive messages from your email services. That’s a given.

To set up an automatic email check or to change the default setting, click the File tab to visit Backstage view, and then click the Options category. This opens the Outlook Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 4.8. Click the Advanced category, and then scroll down to the Send and Receive group of options. Click the Send/Receive button to open the Send/Receive Groups dialog box, shown in Figure 4.9. Here you can turn off automatic mail retrieval or specify a different interval for downloading messages. You can even set options for retrieving email from individual email accounts.

To turn off the default retrieval, deselect the Schedule an Automatic Send/Receive check box. You can also reset the interval to another setting, such as every 60 minutes. You can tell Outlook to retrieve mail whenever you exit the program window, too. Click Close to exit the dialog box, and click OK to exit the Outlook Options dialog box.

New to Outlook 2013, you can reply directly to a message from the Reading pane without opening a Message window. With the Reading pane turned on, select the message from the list to view it in the pane, as demonstrated in Figure 4.10, and then click the Reply or Reply All button at the top of the pane. Reply sends a response to the sender, whereas Reply All sends the response to everyone referenced on the sender’s list (the To field).

Outlook displays mini form window fields, and you can type in your reply, similar to Figure 4.11. Outlook also automatically adds an RE: prefix to the subject title, which stands for Reply, Regarding, or Referencing (depending on whom you ask). After typing in your reply text, click Send.

You can click the Pop Out button to pop out the reply into its own window, which lets you access all the additional message tools. If you decide you don’t want to carry through with creating a reply message, click the Discard button to remove it.

You can also reply to a message by double-clicking it in the message list to open it in its own window, and then click the Reply or Reply All button.

To forward a message from the Reading pane, click the Forward button at the top of the pane. This command displays the same mini form window fields that appear when you click Reply or Reply All. You can type in any message text you want to include with the forwarded text, and click Send.

To forward a message from a message window, double-click the message from the list and click the Forward button on the ribbon’s Message tab.

To delete a message, select it and use one of these methods:

• On the right side of the highlighted message (see Figure 4.13), click the Delete button.

• Right-click the message and choose Delete.

• On the Home tab, click the Delete button.

You can empty the Delete Items folder periodically to clean out messages. See Chapter 5, “Managing Email,” to learn how to permanently delete messages.

This feature is handy when you want to work on a message and keep it around temporarily until it’s ready for sending. You can reopen it anytime and work on it more. Click the account’s Drafts folder and double-click the message you want to edit. When it’s finally ready to go out, click the Send button.

When saving a message as a file, you have the option of controlling what sort of file format is used. You can save it in any of these formats:

• Text Only—The simplest of formats, this saves just the text, no formatting (attributes you assign to make the text look nice).

• Outlook Template—Use this option if you’re creating a message template to use over again in your emailing tasks. It saves all the formatting controls and attachments associated with the message. (Learn more about formatting in Chapter 6).

• Outlook Message Format—The default format, this saves all the attributes and attachments, too. However, the only way to read this file type is in Outlook.

• Outlook Message Format—Unicode—Sort of the international flavor of file formats, this file type saves the message and attributes for easy reading with other versions of Outlook that use different languages.

• HTML—This saves the message as a web page, which means it can be viewed in a web browser or other programs that read web pages. When you use this option, an additional folder is also created with the file, containing support files for HTM (Hyper Text Markup).

• MHT files—This is the same as HTML, but without an additional folder for support files.

To save a message, use these steps:

1. With the Message window open, click the File tab.

2. Click Save As.

3. Navigate to the folder and drive to which you want to store the file (see Figure 4.15).

4. Click the File Name box and type in a name for the file.

5. Optionally, click the Save as Type drop-down arrow and specify a file type.

6. Click Save.

Outlook saves the message as directed.

File attachments increase the overall size of your email message. This is something to consider if your email service sets limits to how much data you can send. Some files are obviously bigger than others, with picture files often being the largest.

At the other end of the spectrum, you can open attachments you receive from others and save them on your computer for viewing and using. You can easily see if a message in your list has an accompanying attachment; Outlook displays a tiny paper clip icon when a message has a file attachment.

1. From the Message window, click the Message tab (if it’s not already displayed).

2. Click the Attach File button (see Figure 4.16).

3. In the Insert File dialog box (see Figure 4.17), navigate to the folder or drive containing the file you want to attach and select the filename.

4. Click Insert.

Outlook attaches the file. Now you can send the message when you’re ready.

If you’ve chosen HTML or Plain Text as the email’s format, the attached file’s name appears in the Attached box in the message header area, just below the subject title, as demonstrated in Figure 4.18. If the message format is in Rich Text, the attachment appears as an icon in the message body, as shown in Figure 4.19.

To open a file attachment in its own program-appropriate window, double-click the file attachment. Depending on the file type, a program window opens to view the file.

To save the attachment onto your computer and work with it later, right-click the attachment and choose Save As. You can then navigate to the folder or drive you want to save to and activate the Save command.

Occasions may arise when you want to mark a read message as unread to remind yourself to view the message again. Or you might want to mark an unread message as read so you don’t have to stop and view (maybe it’s another joke email from your Uncle Roger that you’re trying to avoid).

To change the message status, use one of these methods:

• Click the blue vertical bar to mark the message as read (see Figure 4.21).

• Right-click the message and choose Mark as Unread or Mark as Read.

• Select the message, and on the Home tab, click the Unread/Read button.

• Press Ctrl+Q to mark a selected message as read.

• Press Ctrl+U to mark a selected message as unread.

• To mark everything in a folder as read, right-click the folder name and choose Mark All as Read.

You can also mark groups of messages by selecting the group first before applying a new status.

You can flag messages with dates and reminders. For example, if you want to tell yourself to deal with the message the following day, choose the Tomorrow flag. If you want to assign a reminder, choose the Reminder option and fine-tune the start and due dates.

To flag a message, use one of these techniques:

• Hover the mouse pointer over a message until you see a Flag icon (see Figure 4.22); click it and choose how you want to mark the message.

• Right-click the message and choose Follow Up; then click a flag.

• Click the Home tab, click the Follow Up button, and then click a flag.

To remove a flag, hover over the flag icon in the message list and click it to turn it off.

Select the message you want to categorize, then click the Categorize drop-down arrow on the Home tab. Click a color category and Outlook immediately assigns it to the message, adding a color box to the listed item and adding a color bar to the message content, as shown in Figure 4.23. The first time you use the feature, Outlook may prompt you to give the color category a unique name. You can do so then, or you can change it later (see Chapter 14).

You can also right-click a message in your list and choose Categorize, and then specify a color.