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Category Archives: Outlook 2010

Free Microsoft Outlook 2010 articles

How To Utilize Quick Steps in Outlook 2010

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Ever have to create the same e-mails or other actions in Outlook over and over?  It gets a bit tedious doesn’t it?

Everyone knows I am all about saving time and keystrokes, so it should not come as a surprise that I like to utilize Quick Steps in Outlook 2010.

I mean why would you want to recreate the wheel every time you need one of these e-mails?  Why not use Quick Steps to mark an e-mail as read, move it to a folder, reply, or even delete it?  You can do all this in one quick step using Quick Steps!

This feature in Outlook helps you to keep your e-mail organized and do everything efficiently. Once you start using Quick Steps you will very quickly become a believer!

Follow the steps below to get started:

  1. Quick Steps are found in the Quick Steps group in the Home tab of your Ribbon.
  2. Click on the down arrow at the very bottom of the bar below to see more choices.

QuickSteps

  1. So we want to click on Manage Quick Steps to see all the actions of one that  already  resides in your Quick Steps.

Manage Quick Steps

  1. First, let’s have a look at a simple Quick Step that is already listed called Reply/Delete. This Quick Step will reply to an e-mail and then delete the message. One click instead of two or three – saving time and keystrokes!
  2. Click on the Reply & Delete found under the Quick Step column.
  3. Now click on Edit found on the right under Description.
  4. The Manage Quick Steps window will display.
  5. Under the Name area you will find a name that appears on the Outlook Toolbar in the quick Steps group.
  6. Under the first Action, you will notice Reply. The second Action is Delete Message.
  7. In the Tooltip text area you will find details that show up when you hold your mouse over the name of the Quick Step.
  8. You can just click Cancel because we didn’t make any changes.

That particular Quick Step was only two actions, but you can set up a Quick Step with even more actions.

Now that I have introduced you to Quick Steps, I challenge you to explore and create different ways to save yourself time and keystrokes!

 

Outlook 2010 Calendar Tips

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Appointments versus Meetings:

  • An appointment becomes a meeting automatically when you Invite Attendees.

Quick Appointments:

  • Click in your Calendar and on the correct Date/Time | Type the Appointment subject | click Enter.

Change your Calendar View:

  • Click the View tab | Overlay to lay a calendar on top of another calendar.
  • Click the View tab | Daily Task List to display Tasks below your personal calendar.
  • Click the view tab | Color to select different colors for each calendar you open.
  • Click the View tab | click the dialog launcher in the Arrangement group to make changes to the Calendar Options.

Print One Page Only of your Outlook 2010 Message

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Sometimes it is necessary to print a long e-mail, BUT, you may not need ALL the pages!

Follow the steps below to save paper and ink:

  1. Open your Message in Outlook 2010 and click on File | Print or, as I do, use the shortcut CtrL + P.
  2. Select the printer you would like to use and then click the Print Options button.
  3. In the Print Options window under Page Range, select pages.
  4. Key in the Page numbers you would like to print.
  5. If you only need to print out one page, just key in that number.
  6. Then click the Print button!

Outlook 2010 Keyboard Shortcuts

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Keyboard Shortcut
Function
Ctrl + Shift + I Switch to Inbox
Ctrl + Shift + O Switch to Outbox
Alt + Enter Display message properties
Ctrl + A Select All
Ctrl + C Copy selected Text
Ctrl + V Paste text
Ctrl + Shift + B Open Address Book
Ctrl + D Delete selected message
Ctrl + E Opens People Search Dialog
Ctrl + F Forward selected message
Ctrl + Shift + F Open Message Search Dialog Box/Advanced Find
Ctrl + N Create new message
Ctrl + P Print selected messages
Ctrl + R Reply to the author of selected message
Ctrl + Shift + Reply to author and all recipients of selected message
Ctrl + U Marks message as unread
Esc Close window

How to Create Additional Calendars in Outlook 2010

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A lot of folks are not aware that you can create additional calendars, separate and apart from your work calendar in Outlook 2010. You could create a personal calendar if you like or any other sort for that matter,

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. In your Calendar on the Folder tab, in the New group, click New Calendar.
  2. If you happen to be in Mail, Contacts, Tasks, Journal, or Notes, click in the Folder tab in the New group and click New Folder. In the Folder Contains list, click Calendar Items.
  3. In the Name area, key in a name for your new calendar.
  4. In the Select where to place the folder list, click Calendar.
  5. Click OK.

Your new calendar will appear in the Calendar Navigation Pane.

To view your calendar, select the check box for for the calendar.

When multiple check boxes have been selected, the calendars will appear in a side-by-side view and can be changed to the calendar overlay view.

To delete a calendar, simply right-click the calendar name in your Navigation Pane and click Delete.

Reply with Inline Comments in Outlook 2010

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When you find you are responding to lengthy e-mail messages, it can be very helpful to you if you know how to utilize Inline Comments. It can prove useful to the original sender as well.

I don’t know about you, but I very often receive e-mails that are full of questions! It is much easier for me to answer each individual question by inserting my answer in line with the posed question.

The good news is that Outlook makes it fairly simple for you to utilize Inline Comments in your e-mail replies.

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. On the File tab, click Options.
  2. Select Mail in the left pane.
  3. In the Replies and Forwards, area, select the Preface Comments With check box.
  4. Key in the text you want used to identify your comments, such as your name. MS Outlook will include this text inside brackets next to your inline replies.

To add an inline comment to a message:

  • Open the e-mail and click Reply.
  • Click inside the message where you would like your response appear and begin keying in your text.

How to Find Outlook 2010 Folders Using a Keyboard Shortcut

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Lots of folks have long lists of folders in Outlook, especially in an office setting such as a law firm. Law firms typically have an Outlook folder for each active client. It can be a pain scrolling through every folder to find the one you want. Luckily, there is a keyboard shortcut to save you lots of time and effort!

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Select the active folder in your Navigation Pane by clicking Shift + Tab or simply clicking the folder.
  2. Once the folder has been selected, enter the first character in the target folder’s name.
  3. There is no specific area to key the letter into, so just start keying it in, for instance if you are looking for Bratt, just key in the letter "b."
  4. With the new folder selected, click Spacebar + Enter which will open the folder for you.

As with anything else, there are a couple of caveats with this shortcut.

  • First, it will only find expanded folders.
  • Secondly, it will find the first folder in the list that starts with the character you key in. So, if you are looking for Bratt, it may find Bart for you if there is a folder with that name. If you were looking for Brant and keyed in Br Outlook will not look for a folder that begins with "br." Instead it will look first for the Bart folder and then for the next folder that begins with the letter "r."

Even with the caveats though, if you have a long list of folders this keyboard shortcut will allow you to save time and aggravation while navigating your list.

Social Networking using Outlook 2010

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Outlook 2010 has a feature called Social Connector. This feature imports social network contacts into Outlook so that you have the information available to you when you send e-mails.

Four different social networks are supported by Outlook 2010:

  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • MySpace
  • Windows Live Messenger
  1. The connectivity is not installed by default. You will have to visit the Microsoft Office Website and download the software, which is quick and easy to install.
  2. After you have run the Social Connection Provider for your favorite social network:
  3. On the View tab in the People Pane, click on Account Settings.
  4. A window will appear showing all of the connectors you have downloaded and installed.
  5. If you did not visit the Website above and install the software, you will only see the My Site option.
  6. Clicking on the checkbox next to a particular social network will open up a login screen.

Once you have done this, information about a contact will appear below the reading pane, which may be minimized by default, so click on an e-mail to open it for reading and then find the small contact listing, separated by a movable white bar at the bottom.

This feature will pull information about anyone. Of course if you are having daily conversations with them via e-mail, you may very likely want to add them as a friend, which you can very easily do by clicking on the little green plus symbol.

Conversations in Outlook 2010?

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Conversations in your e-mail is one of the most significant changes that have occurred within the last five years. Folks who use Gmail wouldn’t know what to do without it! When you think about it, it is perfectly logical that e-mails be placed together with all the same chained responses so that they can all be viewed at the same time.

Office 2007 did not include this handy feature but Microsoft stepped up to the challenge and included it in Outlook 2010. Better late than never I say!

Follow the steps below to learn how to enable this great feature:

  1. By default, the conversation feature is not turned on but you can easily enable it by clicking the View tab on your Ribbon and selecting the checkbox next to Show as Conversations.
  2. Once you have enabled conversations, you can use the Conversation Settings button which will allow you to make the selections of your choice. The only option that is selected by default is Show Messages From Other Folders, which which allows conversations to span multiple folders. You can also select the choices listed below:
  • Show Senders Above the Subject – This will toggle the Sender and Subject lines so that the Subject is now on the bottom.
  • Always Expand Conversations – This automatically converts a conversation into expanded view, which shows all people involved in your conversation when you click on it.
  • Use Classic Indented View – Turns off the conversation graphs that are supposed to show you how different people and messages relate to each other but at times is not all that clear.

View Non-Consecutive Dates in your Outlook 2010 Calendar

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Just about everyone is familiar with Outlook’s calendar feature. The lion’s share of most company’s use it exclusively.

Depending upon the view you use in your calendar, you will see all the days in consecutive order for a particular period of time. That is the display that most of use need and use. There are times however, when you may want to view non-consecutive dates. There is no view for that in your Outlook calendar, but there is a trick in Windows that you can use to work around this snag and that is click and hold down your CTRL key whil clicking objects to create a group. You can also use the same trick to view non-consecutive dates to create a group of dates.

Follow along below:

  1. In Calendar view, display the Date Navigator if necessary.
  2. In the Layout group, click the View tab and then the Navigation Pane and select Normal from the resulting menu.
  3. Click March 15 in the Date Navigator to add it to the Calendar view.
  4. Click and hold down your CTRL key.
  5. While holding down your CTRL key, click March 18.
  6. Continue to hold down your CTRL key and display April by clicking the small right arrow at the top of the Date Navigator.
  7. Continue to hold down the CTRL key and click April 1.

Outlook will display the dates in consecutive order, not the order in which you click them.

Anyone who uses MS Outlook on a daily basis will find lots of uses for this!