This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Sending email normally consists of the following two main steps:
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Create the email message. You create an email message in the Message form. You can either create a new message or reply to or forward a message that you've received.
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If the Send Immediately When Connected option is checked, and if a message is sent via a full-time connection or a dial-up connection that's already connected, the message will be sent immediately. You access this option by choosing Tools > Options, and clicking the Mail Setup tab (Figure 6.21).
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With an Exchange Server account working in online mode, messages are delivered immediately to the server, remaining in the Outbox only briefly.
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Transmit your email messages from the Outbox to their recipients.
When you click the Send button in the form, the message is initially stored in your Outbox folder. In the following two cases, however, a message is stored in your Outbox for only a few seconds, making it appear as if the message never reached your Outbox:
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Figure
6.21 Having Outlook immediately transmit messages as soon as you click
the Send button in the Message form.
Outlook makes a copy of each transmitted message in your Sent Items folder, provided that the Save Copies of Messages in Sent Items Folder option is checked. You access this option by choosing Tools > Options and clicking the E-mail Options button on the Preferences tab (Figure 6.22).
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Figure
6.22 Having Outlook save a copy of each transmitted message in your Sent Items
folder.
The instructions for completing these two steps are given in the following sections.
To create a new email message:
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Open a mail-item folder such as Inbox and click the New button on the Standard toolbar, or choose Actions > New > Mail Message, or press Ctrl+N.
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Complete the Message form and send the message, as explained in "To complete the Message form," later in the chapter.
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Press Ctrl+Shift+M. (Any folder can be open.)
Outlook will open an empty Message form (Figure 6.23).
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Figure
6.23 A blank Message form for creating a new outgoing email message.
To reply to or forward an email message:
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Open the folder containing the incoming message you want to reply to, or forward and select the message.
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Click one of the following buttons on the Standard toolbar in the Outlook window or in the form:
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Reply. The new message will be addressed to the sender of the incoming message, and its subject will contain the subject from the incoming message, prefaced with RE: (Figure 6.24).
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Reply to All. The new message will be addressed to the sender of the incoming message, and copies of the message will be sent to everyone who originally received a copy of the incoming message (that is, their addresses will be inserted in the Cc field, which you'll learn about later). The new message's subject will contain the subject from the incoming message, prefaced with RE:.
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Forward. The new message's subject will contain the subject from the incoming message, prefaced with FW: (Figure 6.25).
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Whichever button you click, the new message body (the large text box) will contain the header and text from the incoming message.
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Complete the Message form and send the message, as explained in "To complete the Message form," below. If you're replying to a message, type your reply above the original text. If you're forwarding a message, you can type a comment or explanation, if you wish, above the original text.
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Open the incoming message in the Message form.
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Figure
6.24 The Message form that is opened when you reply to an incoming email
message.
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Figure
6.25 The Message form that is opened when you forward an incoming email
message.
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You can modify the way Outlook formats the original text in a reply or in a forwarded message by choosing Tools > Options, clicking the E-mail Options button on the Preferences tab, and selecting options in the On Replies and Forwards area of the E-mail Options dialog box (Figure 6.26).
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Figure
6.26 Modifying the way Outlook formats the original text in replies and
forwarded messages.
To complete the Message form:
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Enter the message recipient or recipients in the To text box. For details on how to do this, see "To address a message" later in the chapter.
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If you want to send a copy of the message to one or more other people, enter them in the Cc text box. For details on how to do this, see "To address a message" later in the chapter.
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Type a message subject in the Subject text box. The recipient will see this text in his or her email program before opening the message.
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Type the body of the message in the large text box. See the section "Editing Items" in Chapter 3 for information on entering, editing, and formatting the text.
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If you want to attach a file to the message, click the Insert File button on the form's Standard toolbar, or choose Insert > File. Then, in the Insert File dialog box, select the file and click the Insert button (Figure 6.27).
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To select options for the message, click the Options button on the Standard toolbar, or choose View > Options. Then select the desired options in the Message Options dialog box (Figure 6.28) and click the Close button.
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Click the Send button on the form's Standard toolbar.
Figures 6.23 through 6.25 show several Message forms, before new information has been entered.
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Figure
6.27 Inserting a file into an email message.
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Figure
6.28 Selecting message options.
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Figure
6.29 A completed message, ready to send.
At this point, Outlook will normally place the message in your Outbox, and you'll need to transmit it to the recipient, as explained later in the chapter. (See the exceptions that were discussed at the beginning of "Sending Email Messages," earlier in the chapter.)
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If you have more than one email account, you can specify the account that will be used to send the message by clicking the Accounts button adjacent to the Send button on the form's Standard toolbar and choosing the name of the account from the drop-down menu (Figure 6.30). (If you just click the Send button, the message will be sent using your default email account.) This applies to new messages as well as replies and forwards.
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Figure
6.30 Choosing a specific account for sending a message.
The header for a message in your Outbox that's ready to transmit is formatted in italics (Figure 6.31). If you reopen the message before it's transmitted, be sure to click the Send button again. Otherwise, the message won't be transmitted (as indicated by its non-italic formatting).
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Figure
6.31 A message in the Outbox that's ready to transmit.
The forms and dialog boxes shown in this section are those displayed when you're using Word as your email editor. They are somewhat different if you use Outlook email editor and the Microsoft Outlook Rich Text format or select another email format. See "To change your email editor or format," later in the chapter.
To address a message:
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In the Message form, type the recipient's exact Internet email address directly in the To or Cc text box. If you want to enter several addresses in a single text box, separate them with semicolons (Figure 6.32).
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If Outlook finds a unique match, it completes the name (if necessary) and underlines it with a solid black line to indicate that the name has been verified (Figure 6.33). Outlook will use the email address (if any) associated with the contact to address your message.
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If Outlook finds more than one contact matching the name you typed, it underlines the name with a wavy red line. Right-click the name and choose the person you want from the pop-up menu (Figures 6.34 and 6.35).
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If Outlook finds more than one contact matching the name you typed, but you previously typed the same name and chose a name from the pop-up menu, it displays your previous choice and underlines it with a dashed green line. You can right-click the name and choose another name if you want.
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If Outlook doesn't find a match, it leaves the name as is, and you'll have to type another name or use one of the other addressing methods.
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Select a name in the list of contacts and then click the To, Cc, or Bcc button to copy the name to the To, Cc, or Bcc field in your message.
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To quickly locate a name in a long list of contacts, type the start of the name in the Type Name or Select from List text box at the top of the dialog box.
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If you have more than one contact-item folder, you can view the items in a particular one by selecting it in the list box.
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To look up an email address using an Internet directory service, select the directory service in the Show Names From The list box. Click the Advanced button and select Find from the menu. In the Find dialog box (Figure 6.37), type the person's name in the Display Name text box, and click the OK button. If matches are found, they are displayed at the bottom of the dialog box, and you can select the name you want and click the To, Cc, or Bcc button to copy the name and address to the corresponding field in your message.
or
If the recipient's email address is in your Contacts folder (or if you want to search for it using an Internet directory service), type part or all of the person's name as it appears in Contacts in the To or Cc text box. When you exit the field, Outlook automatically looks for the name in Contacts. Then:
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Figure
6.32 Two email addresses typed directly in the To text box.
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Figure
6.33 After I typed Fred in the To text box, Outlook found a unique
matching name in my Contacts folder. It then completed and underlined the
name.
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Figure
6.34 After I typed james in the To text box, Outlook found two matching
contacts and underlined the name with a red wavy line. I right-clicked the
name and chose the recipient I wanted, James Cooper, from the pop-up menu.
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Figure
6.35 The result of choosing the name from the pop-up menu shown in
Figure 6.34.
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Click the To or Cc button in the message header, or click the Address Book button on the form's Standard toolbar, or press Ctrl+Shift+B. Outlook will open the Select Names dialog box (Figure 6.36), which lets you transfer names to the To, Cc, and Bcc message fields from your Contacts folder or from an Internet directory service. Outlook will use the email address associated with each name you transfer. You work with this dialog box as follows:
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Figure
6.36 The Select Names dialog box.
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Figure
6.37 The Find dialog box.
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The Find box in directory services (Figure 6.37) allows searching with more fields than just a name. Use the Contains and Begins With options to specify how the information you enter is matched by Outlook against the LDAP server.
If you enter an address in the Bcc message field, a copy of the message will be sent to that address, but other message recipients won't see the address. (An address that's entered in the Cc field is generally revealed to all message recipients.) To display a text box for the Bcc field with Outlook as your email editor (Figure 6.38), choose View > Bcc Field. To display the Bcc field with Word as your email editor (Figure 6.39), choose the down arrow on the right of the Options button and choose Bcc from the menu.
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Figure
6.38 Click to show the Bcc field.
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Figure
6.39 Show the Bcc field for only the current message.
To have Outlook automatically check names in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields, the Automatic Name Checking option must be checked. You access this option by choosing Tools > Options, clicking the E-mail Options button on the Preferences tab, and then clicking the Advanced E-mail Options button (Figure 6.40).
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Figure
6.40 Turning on automatic name checking.
If automatic name checking is turned off, you can check names manually by clicking the Check Names button on the form's Standard toolbar.
In the main Outlook window, you can open the Address Book dialog box (Figure 6.41) by choosing Tools > Address Book or pressing Ctrl+Shift+B. Like the Select Names dialog box, it lets you access the items in your Contacts folder or search for people using any of your address lists
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Figure
6.41 The Address Book dialog box.
Rather than selecting an individual name from your Contacts folder, you can select a distribution list, which sends the message to an entire group of people. For information on defining distribution lists, see "Creating Contact Items" in Chapter 8, "Using the Contacts Folder."
If you have more than one email information service, the particular service that will be used to transmit the message depends upon which account is set as the default account (Figure 6.42). To change the default account, highlight the desired account and select Set as Default (Figure 6.43). That account is then displayed at the top of the order list.
or
Choose Move Up or Move Down to set the order of processing for the accounts. The account at the top automatically becomes the Default account.
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Figure
6.42 The top account sends outgoing messages by default.
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Figure
6.43 Setting a different default mail account.
To send a message from a specific service account, click on the Accounts button and choose the account desired (Figure 6.44). The email item will then be sent from that account.
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Figure
6.44 Selecting the outgoing account while composing the message.
Rather than selecting an individual address from your Contacts address list, you can select a distribution list, which sends the message to an entire group of people. For information on defining distribution lists in the Contacts folder, see "Creating Contact Items" in Chapter 8.