Microsoft Outlook Tips and Tricks

Microsoft® Outlook 2007: tips and tricks Lessons

In this class, you'll tour Outlook® 2007 features and the Ribbon, and review how to send and receive email safely. You'll learn tips for managing your Inbox using file folders and email file archiving solutions. From there, you'll learn how to customize email using font styles and themes, how to email pictures and more. Finally, you'll use antivirus software to protect your Inbox. 1. Getting to know Microsoft Outlook 2007 Outlook 2007 is a feature-rich email client. This lesson introduces you to the Outlook 2007 interface and features, shows you how to change views to focus on groups of emails and steps through the process of sending and receiving email.

2. Managing your Inbox, email addresses, Calendar and more Knowing how to keep your Inbox clean and quickly prioritizing incoming mail can be a considerable time saver. This lesson covers those topics in addition to search techniques and practical business uses of the Calendar.

Welcome to the class

Getting to know Microsoft Outlook 2007

3. Email tips for adding professionalism and efficiency In this lesson, you'll learn to use font styles, themes, signature lines, tables and more to draw attention to important information in your emails. You'll also learn to use Quick Parts for often-used text. 4. Email safety tips for protecting your Inbox, contacts and data Even with strong controls in place, some spam still passes through email servers to your Inbox. This lesson covers antivirus software and spam filters to keep most of it at bay. You'll also learn how to back up files and repair a corrupted Inbox.

Outlook 2007 is a feature-rich email client. This lesson introduces you to the Outlook 2007 interface and features, shows you how to change views to focus on groups of emails and steps through the process of sending and receiving email.   Microsoft Outlook 2007 is an email program that offers a wide variety of features. It's considered to be the premier email client because it can work as a standalone program or as a client to Microsoft Exchange Server, and because it offers numerous features beyond simple email management.  

Besides sending and receiving emails, you can manage contacts, track tasks and appointments, keep notes and journals and easily store emails for fast retrieval. In this Microsoft Outlook tutorial, you'll tour Outlook 2007 features and the Ribbon, and review how to send email and receive email -- safely. You'll learn tips for managing your Inbox using file folders and email archiving solutions. From there you'll learn how to customize email using font styles and themes. Finally, you'll pick up techniques for reducing spam and protecting your Inbox. This free online course is designed for employees in small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) who want to use Outlook 2007 more efficiently. To get the most out of this class, you should be familiar with the basics of Outlook 2007 and how to set up an email account.

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What to expect in the class

This class has four lessons, described as follows:

Getting to know the Outlook 2007 window components
 

Beyond the lessons, complete the assignments and quizzes. They're designed to reinforce important topics within the lessons and give you hands-on experience with Outlook to sharpen your skills. Let's get started with the topics in Lesson 1.  

Throughout this class, we provide Flash examples. To view these examples, you need the Adobe Flash Player. Keep an eye out for notes with links that say "See how to ____" or something similar. Some of these files are very large (10 MB or so) and may take a while to appear or download if you have a slow connection.

Lesson 1 introduces you to the Outlook 2007 interface and features, shows you how to change views to focus on groups of emails and steps through the process of sending and receiving email. Lesson 2 shows you how to manage your Inbox and email accounts by using file folders, file storage and email archiving solutions. You'll also learn search techniques and practical business uses of the Calendar. Lesson 3 explains how to improve your professional appeal by customizing your emails, creating signature lines with logos and sending electronic business cards. You'll also discover the efficiency of Quick Parts. Lesson 4 focuses on how to use antivirus software and spam filters to keep most of it out of your Inbox. You'll also learn how to back up files and repair a corrupted Inbox.

Outlook 2007 is Microsoft's most current version of its popular email product. Multiple changes have been made to the interface to make it more intuitive and simpler to use, just like all the other programs in the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. There's a significant difference, however: Outlook 2007 uses a combination of old and new interface components to achieve the updated, easier-to-use interface. You won't notice much difference from previous versions of Outlook when you first open the program. The familiar toolbars and menus are still there, such as File, Edit, View, Tools and so on. However, when you open a new email or forward or reply to one, the updates quickly become visible in the form of a tabbed command system across the top of the window. This system, called the Ribbon, holds the commands you need to create emails and use Outlook.

Enlarge image

See how to use the Office 2007 Ribbon. (0.5 MB)

The basic Outlook 2007 window remains much the same as previous versions of Outlook, but there are some key differences. The Navigation Pane still exists, although it can now be collapsed into a vertical, narrow toolbar to give you more room to read and compose emails or perform other tasks while still keeping navigation features easily accessible.

The Navigation Pane displays features directly related to the Outlook 2007 function you've selected. For example, in Figure 1-1, the Mail function has been selected at the bottom of the pane, so Favorite Folders and Mail Folders are the items shown in the Navigation Pane. If you were to select another function, such as Tasks, the Navigation Pane would display only features related to Tasks.

Figure 1-1: The Navigation Pane.

Let's take a look at some other Outlook 2007 window components.

To-Do Bar

A new feature in Outlook 2007 is the To-Do Bar, which pulls information from various Outlook 2007 sources into a single, easily accessible pane. The To-Do Bar is located on the right side of the Outlook window. If you don't see it, select View > To-Do Bar > Normal from the menu bar at the top of the window. The To-Do Bar combines: Date Navigator (calendar) Appointments Task List

You can collapse the To-Do Bar using the horizontal double arrows, or close it completely. To open a calendar item, just click the date and then select the calendar item from the Calendar. To open an appointment or task, just doubleclick the item you want to open.

Favorite Folders

In the Navigation Pane, the first item you'll notice when the Mail function is selected is called Favorites Folder. This section offers you a simple method for keeping your most-used mail folders easily visible. For example, if you receive Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and like to read them regularly, you can drag your RSS Subscriptions folder to the Favorite Folders section for fast access to them. Use Favorite Folders whenever you want to find specific folders and unread email items quickly. If the Navigation Pane is minimized, you can still access the Favorite Folders—just pull down the horizontal splitter bar, shown in Figure 1-2, and you'll see the folders that are in Favorite Folders. Click the folder you want to open.

Figure 1-2: Horizontal splitter bar on the collapsed Navigation Pane.

Mail/Mail Folders

The Mail Folders section of the Navigation Pane lists all your mail folders, such as Inbox, Junk E-mail, Deleted Items and Drafts. You can also create your own folders for this section to help you better manage your email. Here's how to do that:

1. Right-click any folder under Mail Folders, such as Personal Folders. 2. Select New Folder from the shortcut menu. The Create New Folder dialog box appears. 3. Type a name for the new folder. 4. Open the Folder contains drop-down list, and then select an option that describes what the folder will contain. Mail and Post Items is selected by default. 5. In the Select where to place the folder section, select a location such as Personal Folders, as shown in Figure 1-3.

Figure 1-3: Creating a new folder.

Inbox

Also under the Mail Folders section is the Inbox, which holds your inbound emails. Click Inbox to display its contents in the center pane of the Outlook 2007 window. By default, emails are displayed by date, but you can change that view to any one of several other options. Just right-click the column header bar, select Arrange by on the shortcut menu and then select the option you want. If your Outlook 2007 window isn't maximized, you won't see the Arrange by item on the shortcut menu. Outlook will instead just display a list of options after you right-click the column header bar. This concept applies to the Ribbon also. The Ribbon displays differently depending on whether the Outlook window is maximized or sized down.

1. Click OK.

Calendar

The next item in the Navigation Pane is Calendar. When you select it, the center pane of the Outlook window switches from an email view to a calendar view, and the Navigation Pane changes to show two months of dates. At the top of the calendar are several view options: Day, Week and Month. Just select the view you want, and the window changes to reflect your request. The To-Do Bar doesn't appear when you select the Calendar option.

Contacts

When you click Contacts in the Navigation Pane, the To-Do Bar returns on the right side of the window, all your contacts are displayed in the center pane and the left pane changes to reflect a variety of Contact and View options. For example, you can select Clients > Phone List and the view would be similar to the one shown in Figure 1-4.

If your contacts are too numerous to display completely in the center pane, you can use the alphabetical or numerical buttons next to the To-Do Bar to narrow down the selections.

Figure 1-4: Viewing contacts in the Phone List view. Enlarge image

Tasks

If you're forever trying to remember what you're supposed to get done in a given time frame, you'll appreciate the Tasks feature. When you create a task—an item Outlook helps you track until it's completed—an automatic reminder is created in the To-Do Bar for you.

Creating tasks is very easy—click Tasks in the Navigation Pane to open the Tasks pane, and then click New on the toolbar or click the Click here to add a new task text box in the Tasks window. You can also drag an email item into the To-Do Bar Tasks section (the lower part of the To-Do Bar) to create an instant task. (The To-Do Bar must be arranged by Start Date or Due Date to successfully create a task from email.) In addition, you can flag items in different ways, such as by color for different priorities or clients, and you can set up tasks to be completed once or on a recurring basis. You can also track your tasks in several different ways; just select the view you want in the Navigation Pane as shown in Figure 1-5.

Figure 1-5: Selecting a view from the Tasks pane.

Don't see an item in the Navigation Pane that's referred to in this lesson? Click the small down arrow at the bottom of the pane and click Show More Buttons until the option is no longer available.

Notes

Outlook 2007 provides a Notes feature, which is similar to electronic small yellow "stickies" you set up and then click and drag to your desktop. To create a Note, click Notes in the Navigation Pane to open the Notes pane, and then click New on the toolbar to open a new note. Type whatever you want into it, as shown in Figure 1-6. When you close it, it's automatically added to your Notes pane.

Figure 1-6: Notes function.

Journal

Changing views
 

Click Journal in the Navigation Pane, and you'll discover another feature that's quite useful. The Journal is a method for automatically tracking Office documents and email messages associated with a specific contact. The items are then placed into a Timeline view. The Journal is a good way to help you track, for instance, how many hours you have worked on a particular account or the types of activities performed for a certain client. In the next section, we'll take a look at how to change views in Outlook 2007.  

One thing that makes Outlook 2007 so simple to work with is the ability to change the way information is displayed. No matter where you're working in Outlook, you can switch to a different view. In Notes, for example, you can change the default view from Icons to Notes List. In Contacts, you can display names and addresses in a business card format, by location or in a number of different views. And in Calendar, you can see what's happening on a certain day or by event. You can expand or collapse groups wherever you see double arrows. The double arrows point in the direction the group expands or collapses. You can change the view for several categories in the Navigation Pane by selecting View > Arrange By. In addition, these views can help you more easily find and manage email, contacts, tasks and so on. The Arrange By options for the Mail category are shown in Figure 1-7.

Figure 1-7: Arrange By settings.

If you're searching for an email, for instance, and can't seem to find it using Outlook's default date setting, changing the Arrange By settings might make a big difference. Let's say you know the subject of the email included "Blue Water" but you can't recall who it came from, or when. Just select View > Arrange By > Subject. The center Inbox pane in Outlook switches priorities from date to subject, and you can type Blue Water anywhere in that pane. Outlook instantly searches for any emails with "blue water" in the subject line, substantially reducing the time you might spend trying to determine when that email arrived and from whom. Did you know you can toggle the Reading Pane on and off? Select View > Reading Pane and then select Right, Bottom or Off. The more time you spend filing, and flagging your emails and tasks, the easier it'll be to use each Arrange by setting. But using even the simplest Arrange by settings, such as From and To, can significantly make a difference in finding information in Outlook. You'll learn about flagging in Lesson 2.

The basics: sending and receiving emails
 

See how to change views in Outlook 2007. (1.1 MB)

Next, let's take a look at how to send and receive emails.

Whenever you send and receive emails, it's important to follow some basic safety steps. For example, don't open emails from people you don't know or click links in emails unless you're certain the link is from a safe source. And when you send confidential emails, for instance, consider using Outlook's encryption process to protect your information. These simple steps will help you keep malicious intruders off your computer system and out of your confidential information. If you trust someone to be a safe source of emails, add them to your Safe Senders list. From within an email from that sender, go to the Message tab and click Safe Lists in the Junk E-mail group. Click Add Sender to Safe Senders List. You'll learn more about protecting your Inbox in Lesson 4.

Setting delivery options

There might be times when you don't want an email to be sent out until a specific day or time. For example, maybe you've created a newsletter email that you want to go out to customers the day before a big sale. You can set delivery options for specific emails using the Options tab within the email. Click Delay

When you work with attachments, Outlook 2007 automatically blocks potentially unsafe attachments and asks whether you really want to open certain items or not. To stay safe, don't just blindly accept attachments from senders—take a good look and determine whether or not you really need to open the attachment. Attachments can easily hold viruses that, once the attachment is open, can spread through your computer and your network. When you place attachments in your own emails, be sure you know exactly where they come from. If you created a document in Microsoft Word, for example, it's probably safe to send on.

Sending emails with attachments

It's quite easy to send emails with attachments; just follow these steps:

Delivery, ensure the Do not deliver before option is checked and then select the day and time when you want the email to be sent. Click Close. To help you verify that the email is delivered properly, select Request a Delivery Receipt in the Tracking Group of the Options tab. To add a level of importance to the email, go to the Message tab and click High Importance or Low Importance in the Options groups.

That's it. Your document is now attached to your email message; when you click Send the document will be on its way to the recipient. You can send most types of files, such as word processing, spreadsheet, photo and other files, using this simple process.

1. Be sure you're in the Mail section of the Navigation Pane. 2. Click New on the toolbar. 3. In the Untitled - Message window, enter a recipient for the message in the To field, enter recipients who should be cc'ed (if any) in the CC field and give the message a Subject title. Enter a message to the recipient in the large blank box at the bottom of the window. 4. Click Insert on the Ribbon. 5. Click Attach File in the Include group. 6. In the Insert File dialog box, select a document to attach and then click Insert.

Receiving emails with attachments

Email attachments are indicated by a paperclip next to the message in the Inbox. To save the attachment, do one of the following:

If the attachment is a VCARD (.vcf format), which contains a person's contact information, you can add it directly to your Outlook contacts. To add the VCARD information to Contacts in Outlook 2007, just right-click the attachment and select Add to Contacts, as shown in Figure 1-8.

Highlight the message in the Inbox pane, and then select File > Save Attachments. Double-click the message to open it, right-click the attachment and select Save As from the shortcut menu.

Figure 1-8: Adding VCARD information to your Contacts.

The information from the VCARD flows instantly into a new contact, as shown in Figure 1-9.

Figure 1-9: VCARD information added to Contacts. Enlarge image

Click Save & Close to keep the information and close the window.

Moving on

Assignment #1

You learned several Outlook 2007 tips and tricks in this lesson, from how various mail folders work to changing views and sending or receiving emails with attachments. In Lesson 2, you'll discover how to effectively manage your Inbox. Before you move on, however, don't forget to take the quiz and complete the assignment for this lesson.

For this assignment, you'll practice using several of Outlook 2007's window components. Open Outlook 2007, and then follow these steps:

1. Select View > To-Do Bar > Minimized from the menu bar. 2. At the top of the collapsed To-Do Bar along the right side of the Outlook 2007 window, click the double arrows to expand the To-Do Bar pane. 3. Go to the Navigation Pane and click Tasks. 4. Click New on the toolbar to open the Untitled - Task window. 5. Type Sample Task in the Subject line. 6. Select a Start date of today's date. 7. Select a Due date of one week from today. 8. Select a priority of High. 9. Check the Reminder checkbox, and then select a date of three days from now. 10. Click Save & Close. 11. In the Navigation Pane, select the Task Timeline view. Now select the Detailed List view. 12. In the Navigation Pane, click Notes. (If you don't see this option, hover your mouse pointer over the small icons at the bottom of the pane, and then click the Notes icon.) 13. Click New on the toolbar to open a new Notes window. 14. Type My sample note and then close the note window. 15. Confirm that the note appears in the center pane. 16. Click and drag the note to your desktop. 17. In the Navigation Pane, click Contacts. 18. Select Business Cards under Current View. 19. Select Phone List under Current View. 20. Close Outlook 2007.

Quiz #1
  A) B)     A) B) A) B)     A) B) A) B)  

Question 1: True or False: You can manage contacts, track tasks and appointments, keep notes and journals and file emails in folders using Outlook 2007. Question 2: True or False: The Navigation Pane is exactly the same in Outlook 2007 as it was in previous versions of Outlook. Question 3: Which of the following are Outlook 2007 window components? (Check all that apply.) C) D) To-Do Bar Inbox True Emails Notes True False True False

Question 4: True or False: The Arrange By settings on the View menu can help you manage emails and tasks. Question 5: Which Ribbon group do you use to request a delivery receipt for an outgoing email? C) D) Names Include Options Proofing False

Tips for emptying your Inbox regularly

Managing your Inbox, email addresses, Calendar and more
Welcome back. In Lesson 1, you toured the Microsoft Outlook 2007 interface and picked up tips for sending and receiving emails with attachments. In this lesson, you'll dive into Inbox management and learn how to use the Calendar to stay on top of your schedule. Let's get started.

Knowing how to keep your Inbox clean and quickly prioritizing incoming mail can be a considerable time saver. This lesson covers those topics in addition to search techniques and practical business uses of the Calendar.  

Are you the sort of person who likes to hang onto your emails for a long time? You're not alone. Many people prefer to keep emails for months or even years "just in case" they need to reference information down the road. However, think of it this way: Your Inbox is an extension of your desk. You wouldn't want to keep most snail mail for months or years. It clutters your desk and keeps you from getting things done quickly because you can't find the information you need among the piles of information you should've thrown away. This section offers a few tips to help you control the chaos.

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As soon as you read an email, do something with it. If it requires a quick response, respond and then delete the message or file it in the appropriate Mail folder for archive purposes. If it doesn't require a response, perform the action it does require (store contact information, create a task, set up a meeting and so on) and then delete it if Outlook doesn't automatically delete it for you. Many people find that using just three folders, such as Action, Pending and Archive, enables them to quickly organize incoming emails and empty their inbox. Just create the three folders in your Inbox, or in a separate folder called Mail, for example. File emails as follows: After quickly processing all emails in your Inbox, return to the Action folder and continue working on these emails. Action: File emails in this folder that require action on your part and will take more than 1 to 2 minutes to respond to. Pending: File emails in this folder that contain information about something someone else is doing, and that you need to track. Archive: File emails in this folder that contain information you might need to reference at a later date, such as documentation, meeting notes and confirmation of sent deliverables.

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Using the Organize command

You can automatically move emails into mail folders by using the Organize command in Outlook. To do this, select Tools > Organize. The Ways to Organize Inbox window appears at the top of the center pane, as shown in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1: Ways to Organize Inbox window.

At the left of the pane are three organization options: Using Folders, Using Colors and Using Views. When you select Using Folders, the drop-down box displays all the available mail folders. The highlighted message in the Inbox is automatically moved to the folder you select when you click Move.

This simple process clears the email message from your Inbox while leaving it easily accessible from the Navigation Pane mail folder. Use it regularly, and your Inbox will stay clear of gunk.

Using the Search Folders feature

A useful method of categorizing emails is to use the Search Folders feature. These folders are virtual, so you don't actually save files in them. Instead, they're sets of search criteria that let you view messages based on attributes or criteria you specify. For example, you can search for all files that contain the name of a project, such as Blue Water, anywhere in the message. You can save that search as a Search folder, which will appear in the Search Folders

list near the bottom of the Mail Folders pane. Here's how to create a Search folder:

1. With the Mail window visible, select File > New > Search Folder. The New Search Folder dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 2-2.

Figure 2-2: Search Folder dialog box.

1. Select one of the options for the type of email you want to find. For example, to find emails related to a specific project name, scroll down the list and select Mail with specific words. Click the Choose button near the bottom of the dialog box, enter the name of your project as it appears in your emails and click Add, click OK, and then click OK again to run the search. Outlook displays all emails that contain your search criteria, and saves the criteria in the Search Folders list as shown in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-3: Search criteria saved in the Search Folders list. See how to create a Search folder. (0.8 MB)  

Whenever you want to view emails associated with the Blue Water project, just click the appropriate Search folder. Next, we'll take a more in-depth look at prioritizing your emails.

Prioritizing emails in order of importance
Using Views

Another way to manage your inbox is to prioritize your emails effectively. Many of us have a tendency to just let the emails pile up, which can feel overwhelming when you finally find the time to go through them and take action. Instead of electronic piles, try a few different prioritization methods to see which one works best for you. The Organize command discussed in the last section is a really simple way to prioritize email quickly. Click Using Views in the Ways to Organize Inbox window, and then select one of the options in the Change your view list, as shown in Figure 2-4.

 

Figure 2-4: Prioritizing emails by using views.

When you select Last Seven Days, for example, your Inbox displays only those emails that arrived in the last week. This lets you quickly scan emails for the last week to see what's been read, replied to or left unread. The Unread Messages in This Folder option, appropriately, shows only unread messages in your Inbox. And the Sent To option gives you an instant look at emails sent to you today, yesterday, last week, two weeks ago and so on.

Using Colors

You can also use colors to help you prioritize emails in order of importance. In the Ways to Organize Inbox pane, click Using Colors. This option lets you prioritize messages by colorizing them. So, for example, if you want to prioritize all your email messages from a specific person, you can type the person's name in the text box shown in Figure 2-5, and then select a color using the drop-down list. Click Apply Color. All messages from the specified sender will appear in that color.

Figure 2-5: Prioritizing emails by using colors.

Part of using colors is the option to show messages sent only to you in a specific color, too. When you're part of a group of recipients, you often don't need to take immediate action on an item. However, when an email is sent specifically to you, you can see it instantly if you apply a color, such as blue, to it. Just select the color you want from the drop-down box and click Turn on. See how to use color-coding to prioritize emails. (0.5 MB)

Categorizing and grouping emails

When you categorize and group emails, you can quickly identify and associate them with tasks, appointments and other Outlook 2007 functions. The first step

to categorizing is to determine the groups you need to categorize. For example, if you receive emails from several people in your research and development department and want to quickly identify them as a group, you could place those emails in a group named "R&D". Outlook 2007 has added a Categorized Mail search folder under Search Folders in the Navigation Pane. When you categorize messages, they're automatically added to this folder to make searching and sorting easier. The next step is to apply a color to the group. You first need to create R&D as a group, and then assign a color. Follow these steps:

1. Right-click a message from your boss. 2. Select Categorize > All Categories from the shortcut menu. The Color Categories dialog box appears. 3. Click New. The Add New Category dialog box appears. 4. Type R&D in the Name field. 5. Open the Color drop-down list to select a color for the R&D category, as shown in Figure 2-6.

Figure 2-6: Creating a color category.

Managing your Inbox and email accounts
 

Now when you receive a message from anyone in the research and development department, you can quickly categorize it by right-clicking the email message, selecting Categorize and clicking R&D.

1. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes.

In the next section, you'll learn how to manage your Inbox and email accounts using file folders, file storage and email archiving solutions.

The more items you receive, the larger your mailbox grows. One way to keep your Outlook mailbox manageable is to store received emails in another place. Although you don't want to store every single email you receive, there will undoubtedly be emails that are important but not necessarily referred to very often, such as the emails you save in the Archive folder you created earlier in the lesson.

Searching for emails

For emails like these, use the AutoArchive process. This is a function Outlook runs by default at scheduled intervals to help you clear out old items from your email folders. For example, six-month old meeting notices probably don't need to be hanging around in your Inbox or other folders, although you might want to refer to them later to verify a date or meeting attendees.

Outlook 2007 has an Instant Search box in the upper-right portion of the Inbox window. You can quickly find messages by clicking the Mail folder you want to search, then typing your search criteria in the Instant Search box. There's a dropdown arrow in the Instant

In Windows Vista, Outlook creates an archive in C:\Users\your username \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Archive.pst.

For Inbox items, Outlook automatically archives items that are six months old, based on the received date or the last modification date or time. If AutoArchive has been turned off on your system for some reason, you can turn it on by following these steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. Select Tools > Options. Click the Other tab. Click AutoArchive. Ensure the Run AutoArchive every x days checkbox is checked, as shown in Figure 2-7.

Search box that lets you tell Outlook whether to search your mail items or go out to your desktop for results. You can also select a variety of other search options.

Just to the right of where you type your search criteria is a double set of arrows. When clicked, these arrows open the Query Builder, a fast way to narrow your search by using drop-down menus or typing in additional search criteria. To close the Query Builder, just click the double arrows again.

Figure 2-7: AutoArchive is enabled.

You can also manually archive items. Some people prefer that option instead of automatic archiving. To manually archive your email, follow these steps: 1. Select File > Archive. 2. Select Archive this folder and all subfolders. 3. Use the drop-down arrow to select a date next to Archive items older than. 4. Click Browse to select the location for the archived items, if different than the default. 5. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes.

1. Use the up and down arrows to select how often the AutoArchive should run. 2. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes.

If you work for an organization and are using a system on a network, check with your network administrator about archive settings.

Different from your Inbox yet equally important are your email accounts. Every time Outlook saves something to your computer, it uses a data file called an Outlook Personal Folders file (.pst). These files are used with POP3, IMAP and HTTP accounts; Exchange Server accounts usually save email files to a mail

server instead.

Because .pst files can get very large (well over 1 gigabyte) and are saved to your computer, they can take up a lot of needed hard disk space. You can reduce the size of your .pst files by following these steps:

Using the Calendar
 

Next, you'll learn how to use the Calendar to schedule appointments and meetings.

1. Select File > Data File Management. 2. Select the data file or mailbox you want to compact, and then click Settings. 3. Click Compact Now. 4. When Outlook is finished compacting the file, click OK and then Close.

The Calendar is a great way to stay organized using Outlook 2007. You can do a lot more than send or accept invitations, although you might not be aware of it. Let's take a look at several features that you might find useful.

Sending notifications

In color

Notifications are meetings, events or other actions you want the recipient to respond to. To send one, click Calendar in the Navigation Pane and then click New on the toolbar.

In the Untitled - Appointment window, click Scheduling in the Show group to open a scheduling window in which you select recipients. Click Add Others, and then click Add from Address Book. Select appropriate recipients, and then fill in the pertinent information, such as the subject, location, start and end times and so on. You can insert attachments or other items using the commands in the Insert group. Send the notice to the invitees.

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Accepting or declining notifications

When a notice arrives in your Inbox, you can accept it, tentatively accept it, decline it or propose a new time. Click the Meeting tab, and then select one of the options in the Respond group, as shown in Figure 2-8.

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Figure 2-8: Invitation response options in Outlook 2007. Edit the response before sending. Send the response now. Don't send a response.

Unless you propose a new time, Outlook will prompt you with one of three options:

Just select the option you want and click OK.

Reminding meeting attendees of upcoming meetings
1. 2. 3. 4. Open the meeting in your Calendar. Click the Message tab. Click Message to Attendees in the Attendees group. Click New Message to Attendees.

Sometimes it's a good idea to remind attendees of upcoming meetings, or to send them additional information related to an upcoming meeting. You can quickly do this by sending a message to all meeting attendees using the Meeting tab. Follow these steps:

In the email message that opens, enter the text for the attendees and/or use the Insert tab to include attachments attendees might need.

Adding holidays to your Calendar
1. 2. 3. 4.

Outlook doesn't display national holidays in its Calendar by default. However, you can easily add them for many countries. Follow these steps: Select Tools > Options. Under Calendar, click Calendar Options. Under Calendar Options, click Add Holidays. Select the country or countries whose holidays you want to add, as shown in Figure 2-9. Click OK. Outlook imports the holidays to your Calendar.

Figure 2-9: Adding holidays to your Calendar.

You can also create custom holidays, such as state holidays that weren't included, or quarterly or bi-annual company events.

Moving on

1. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes.

Assignment #2

Managing your Inbox and Calendar is a good way to save time in your day and stay organized, so try the methods outlined in this lesson to make the most of your time. In Lesson 3, you'll discover how to add professionalism and efficiency to your emails. Before you move on, take the quiz and complete the assignment for this lesson to test your new skills.

This assignment will help you archive your email regularly so you can clear out old items from your Inbox. Follow these steps to ensure that AutoArchive is turned on and configured properly: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Quiz #2
  A) B)   A) B)       A) B) A) B)

Question 1: True or False: The Organize command lets you automatically color-code emails based on criteria you select. Question 2: Which of the following are methods you can use to prioritize emails in order of importance? (Check all that apply.) C) D) Question 3: True or False: AutoArchiving deletes your emails forever. True True False False Apply the Using Views option under the Organize command. Use the Search Folders feature. Use the Categorize command. Apply the Using Colors option under the Organize command. True False

Select Tools > Options. Click the Other tab. Click AutoArchive. Ensure the Run AutoArchive every x days checkbox is checked. Use the up and down arrows to select how often AutoArchive should run. The default is every 14 days, which is fine, but you can select any time frame that suits your needs. 6. Click OK. 7. Close any open windows or dialog boxes, and then close Outlook 2007.

Question 4: True or False: You can add holidays from other countries besides the United States to your Calendar.

Changing the appearance of your emails

Email tips for adding professionalism and efficiency
Welcome back. In Lesson 2, you picked up many practical tips for emptying your inbox and prioritizing emails to deal with them as quickly as possible. You also learned how to use the Calendar to set up meetings and more. In this lesson, you'll focus on improving the appearance of your emails to add professionalism and increase readability. You'll also find out how to use Quick Styles for quick formatting, and Quick Parts for inserting text you use frequently. One of the fun things about Microsoft Outlook 2007 is the ability to quickly and easily customize the appearance of your emails. You can apply a special theme to your emails, change fonts and font colors for emphasis, and add tables or other special items like bullets lists that make the information in your message simple for the recipient to read and understand.

In this lesson, you'll learn to use font styles, themes, signature lines, tables and more to draw attention to important information in your emails. You'll also learn to use Quick Parts for often-used text.  

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Let's take a look at how to use a few of these special features.

Customizing fonts and font colors
1. 2. 3. 4.

You can change the font or font color of a word or sentence in an email message by highlighting the text and selecting options from the Basic Text group on the Message tab. To permanently change the font and font color in your email messages, however, follow these steps:

To use the formatting options in this section, you must be using the HTML format rather than plain text for emails. To set HTML for all new emails, select Tools > Options, click the Mail Format tab and select HTML from the Compose in this message format drop-down list. To set HTML as the format for a single email, with the new email window open, select Options > HTML from the menu bar.

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Select Tools > Options. In the Options dialog box, click the Mail Format tab. Click Stationery and Fonts. On the Personal Stationery tab, under New mail messages, click Font. The Font dialog box appears. 5. Under Font, select the new font you wish to use, as shown in Figure 31.

Figure 3-1: Changing a font.

You're returned to the Signatures and Stationery dialog box. To change the font for message replies and forwards, just click Font under that section and follow the same process you used for new messages.

1. Under Size, select a new size. 2. Under Font color, use the drop-down menu and select a new color in the Standard Colors section. 3. The Sample Text preview shows you how the changes will appear within your email. You can make additional changes until you're satisfied with your font and font attributes, and then click OK.

Applying a theme
To apply a theme: 1. 2. 3. 4.

You can apply a theme to your emails, which are ready-made formatting combinations. You can apply themes in Outlook and any of the Microsoft Office programs, which helps you maintain a consistent look across documents. Select Tools > Options. In the Options dialog box, click the Mail Format tab. Click Stationery and Fonts. On the Personal Stationery tab, under Theme or Stationery for new HTML e-mail message, click Theme. 5. Select a theme using the scroll bar, as shown in Figure 3-2, and click OK.

Figure 3-2: Selecting a theme.

1. In the Signatures and Stationery dialog box, you can select whether to use the theme's fonts all the time, use your fonts when replying to or forwarding messages or use your fonts all the time. Make a selection from the drop-down list shown in Figure 3-3 and click OK.

Figure 3-3: Selecting when to use theme fonts. Enlarge image

When you open a new mail message, your selected theme should appear as the background for your mail message.

1. Click OK to close the Options dialog box.

Adding tables

Adding a table to your email message is fast and easy. Open a new mail message and follow these steps:

1. Click the Insert tab. 2. Click Table. 3. Pull your cursor across the rows and columns until you've selected the number you need for your table, as shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4: Adding a table to an email.

Once the table has been added to your email, you'll notice two new tabs on the Ribbon: the Table Tools Design tab and the Table Tools Layout tab. When the table is selected within your email, you can use the features on these tabs to customize your table in numerous ways. The tabs will disappear when the table isn't selected.

1. Click to release the row/column selection process and add the table to your email.

Adding bulleted lists

The use of bulleted text in an email can help draw the reader's eye to important points and make the email generally easier to read. To change some of your text to a bulleted list, follow these steps:

Using Quick Styles

If you like to try different styles and format your emails in different ways, you'll be happy to know that Outlook 2007 has a new feature to help you: Quick Styles. This feature enables you to view and select options from a gallery of predefined styles. For example, if you like to use headers in your emails to separate sections, you can just click a heading style option from the gallery to instantly apply it. Better yet, the gallery offers a Live Preview feature that shows how the style you're selecting will look even before you actually apply it.

1. Highlight the text. 2. On the Message tab, click Bullets in the Basic Text group. 3. Click the down arrow next to Bullets if you want to change the look of the bullets; the arrow opens a menu of options.

Let's try out a few Quick Styles. Open a new email message, ensure the email window is maximized and then type The brown cow jumped over the white moon. in the body of the message. Highlight the entire sentence and follow these steps:

1. Click the Format Text tab. 2. In the Styles group, click the Quick Styles button. In the Quick Styles gallery that appears, hover your cursor over Heading 1. See how the text instantly changes? 3. Hover your cursor over Title and watch the text change again, as shown in Figure 3-5. Click Title to apply the Title Quick Style to your highlighted text.

Figure 3-5: Previewing a Quick Styles style.

Using Quick Parts
 

It's that easy to use and apply Quick Styles. Just use Live Preview to ensure your text appears correctly, and then click to apply the changes. To see more Quick Styles, click the More arrow (the down arrow with a line above it) next to the Styles gallery. Now that you're familiar with formatting emails, let's look at a way to increase your productivity when composing emails: Quick Parts.

You already know the basics of creating and responding to emails, and you use those essential techniques almost every time you use Outlook. However, there's a handy method of inserting text in Outlook 2007 that's especially helpful if you routinely repeat the same kinds of formatting tasks on different documents. The Quick Parts feature stores pieces of content you create and can then reuse in any emails. To use Quick Parts, highlight some text in an email you're composing and that you use often, such as "Cheers comrades," for a closing line. Click the Insert tab, click Quick Parts and then select Save Selection to Quick Parts Gallery. The Create New Building Block dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 3-6.

 

Figure 3-6: Creating a new Building Block.

Add a description in the appropriate text box, if desired, and then click OK. A Building Block is the actual snippet of text you saved. Outlook 2007 stores the snippets in a gallery for your convenience. When you want to use it again in the future, just select Insert > Quick Parts and select the text snippet from the gallery.

Customizing your signature line with a logo
 

To edit a Quick Part, right-click it in the gallery list and select Organize and Delete. Next, you'll learn how to customize your signature line with a logo.

Have you ever received an email from someone you didn't know? One of the first things you probably looked for was identifying information. If it wasn't clear and easy to find, you might have ignored the email or even deleted it. From a professional viewpoint, you should always include a signature line with your contact information in your emails. At a minimum, this line (or group of lines, sometimes referred to as a signature block) should tell email recipients exactly who you are and the company you're with. Many people include their business phone number(s), fax number, website addresses, email addresses and other contact information. To add extra pizzazz and appeal, many business people also add a logo to the signature line. Here's how to add a signature line with a logo to your emails: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

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Select Tools > Options. In the Options dialog box, click the Mail Format tab. Click Signatures. Click the E-mail Signature tab to make it active, if necessary. Click New. Type a name for the signature block, such as Sample Signature Line or your initials-sigline. Click OK. 7. In the Edit signature section, type your identifying information. For example, type your name on the first line. Press Enter to move to the next line. Type your company name. You can change the font, font size, color and any other attributes you like. An example of the signature line at this point is shown in Figure 3-7.

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Figure 3-7: Creating a signature line. Enlarge image

You can't resize a logo image from within the signature box. If you need to adjust the size, delete the logo from the signature box, resize the logo file using a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop and then re-insert it. 1. To commit your signature with the logo as the default for all new messages, replies and forwards, select the name of your signature block from the Choose default signature drop-down list. 2. Click OK to finalize the signature. 3. Click OK to close the Options dialog box.

1. Press Enter to move your cursor to the next line. 2. Click the Picture icon on the toolbar, which is located near the right side of the Edit signature box. Select your logo from your hard disk or network. 3. Click Insert. Your logo appears in your signature block.

To verify that your new signature is working properly, open a new mail message. Your signature and logo should appear.

Creating an electronic business card
 

See how to create a customized signature line. (1.9 MB)

In the next section, you'll learn how to create an electronic business card.

A terrific way to ensure others can easily add you as a contact and have your business information at their fingertips is to use electronic business cards. These cards are created in a .vcf format, which means that when the recipient opens the business card, a contact form automatically opens that enables the recipient to quickly save the information. There are a lot of electronic business card templates available from Microsoft Office Online. Download one and enter your own information to personalize it. Electronic business cards are created from Outlook contacts, which means you'll need to create a contact for yourself to send a business card. You can create as many business cards as you want for yourself; just create a new contact record for each one with some unique information, such as "Baseball coach" and "Vice president."

 

To create your own contact, follow these steps:

1. In the Outlook Navigation pane, click Contacts. 2. Click New. 3. Type your contact information, such as your first and last name in the Full Name field and your company name in the Company field, as shown in Figure 3-8. Include your email address and a business phone number. To add a picture, click the picture icon next to your name and locate a photo from your computer.

Figure 3-8: Adding your contact information.

Next, you'll create your business card. You can do that in one of two ways: by manually inserting it into individual emails or by including it as part of your signature. In this lesson, we'll show you how to manually insert it.

1. When you're done, click Save & Close.

You can easily edit and reformat your business card. Open your contact information, click the Contact tab and then click Business Card in the Options group. From there, select the options that make your card look exactly the way you want. Follow these steps to add your business card to specific emails: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Open a new email message. Click the Insert tab. Click Business Card in the Include group. Click Other Business Cards. Select your card from the list and click OK.

Your card will appear within the body of the email message and as an attachment. If you don't want the business card to display within the message, just click it and press Delete. Otherwise, type the content for your message and click Send when ready. The recipients can open and save your business card if they use a compatible email client program.

Moving on

Making your emails easier to read and appear more professional using signature lines, business cards and other simple features will go a long way toward improving your professional appeal to others. In Lesson 4, you'll learn

Assignment #3

how to use antivirus software, spam filters and other features to protect your Inbox, contacts and data. Before you move on, take the quiz and complete the assignment for this lesson. The quiz helps you make sure you grasped some important details in the lesson, whereas the assignment gives you some hands-on experience creating an electronic business card. To create your own contact, follow these steps:

For this assignment, you'll create your own electronic business card in Microsoft Outlook 2007.

Send the business card to yourself so you can see how it'll look when someone else receives it. Follow these steps to add your business card to your email:

1. In the Navigation pane, click Contacts. 2. Click New on the toolbar. 3. Enter your contact information in the Untitled - Contact window that appears. Include your phone number, address, email and any other pertinent business information recipients should have. To add your picture, click the picture icon next to your name, locate a photo from your computer and click Open. 4. When you're finished, click Save & Close. 1. Open a new email message. 2. Type your email address on the To line, and enter appropriate text in the Subject line and message body text box. 3. Click the Insert tab. 4. Click Business Card in the Include group. 5. Select Other Business Cards from the menu. 6. Scroll the list of contacts, select the entry you just created and click OK. 1. Send the email.

Quiz #3
  A) B)     A) B) A) B)  

If you don't want your business card to appear within the body of the email, just click it and press Delete. Question 1: True or False: You can permanently customize fonts and font colors in your emails using the Mail Format tab in the Options dialog box. Question 2: True or False: You can apply themes to email messages. True False Quick Styles Quick Parts True False

Question 3: Which Outlook 2007 feature lets you store reusable snippets of text? C) D) Question 4: Quick Words Insert Words

True or False: Customizing emails with a signature sends a professional image to others. A) B)     A) B) True True False False

Question 5: True or False: When you email an electronic business card, the recipients can open it and instantly save your contact information. Even with strong controls in place, some spam still passes through email servers to your Inbox. This lesson covers antivirus software and spam filters to keep most of it at bay. You'll also learn how to back up files and repair a corrupted Inbox.   Welcome back. In Lesson 3, you got some pointers for creating more professional-looking emails. This lesson covers security and protection issues, from keeping spam out of your Inbox to backing up your Microsoft Outlook 2007 files.

Reducing spam in the Outlook Inbox

Email safety tips for protecting your Inbox, contacts and data
Synching to your iPAQ

Part of the problem in keeping your Inbox empty is the sheer volume of junk mail that's received. Outlook 2007 has a Junk E-mail Filter, however, that catches the most blatant spam, sending it directly to your Junk E-mail folder so you never see it. The filter evaluates messages on a variety of factors, analyzing every message based on its content and configuration. By default, the Junk E-mail Filter is turned on with a protection level of Low. You can change this level of protection to catch even more spam by following these steps:

You can quickly move an email you've received to the Junk E-mail folder. On the Message tab from within the email, click Move to Folder and then click Junk E-mail. 1. Select Tools > Options. The Options dialog box opens. 2. On the Preferences tab, click Junk E-mail under E-mail. The Junk E-mail Options dialog box appears. 3. Your choices are No Automatic Filtering, Low, High and Safe Lists Only. Select a new level of protection, such as High, and click OK.

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Figure 4-1: Changing Junk E-mail protection levels.

Regardless of the level of protection you select, always remember to routinely check your Junk E-mail folder to be sure that legitimate emails aren't getting caught in the spam filtering process.

Blocking senders

1. Click OK to exit the Options dialog box.

Another form of junk email protection in Outlook 2007 is the Blocked Senders list. It's a great way to reduce the amount of junk email entering your Inbox because it blocks emails by address or domain. For example, you can tell Outlook to block [email protected] or just add "example.com" to block any messages coming from that domain. To add a person or a domain to the Blocked Senders list, follow these steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. Select Tools > Options. On the Preferences tab under E-Mail, click Junk E-mail. In the Junk E-mail Options dialog box, click the Blocked Senders tab. Click Add. The Add address or domain dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 4-2.

Figure 4-2: Junk Email Options.

1. Type the email address or domain you want to block, and click OK. 2. Add more addresses or domains if you wish, and click OK. 3. Click OK to close the Options dialog box.

Once the sender has been blocked, any email from that individual or domain will be moved to the Junk E-Mail folder unless you specifically tell Outlook to delete it.

You can also quickly block senders from within an email you've received and opened. Go to the Message tab on the Ribbon, and click Block Sender in the Junk E-mail group.

Deleting emails in the Junk E-mail folder
1. 2. 3. 4.

To automatically delete emails in the Junk E-Mail folder, follow these steps:

Select Tools > Options. In the Preferences tab under E-Mail, click Junk E-mail. In the Junk E-mail Options dialog box, click the Options tab. Select Permanently delete suspected junk e-mail instead of moving it to the Junk E-mail folder, as shown in Figure 4-3.

Figure 4-3: Configuring Outlook 2007 to delete junk email. 1. Click OK.

Remember, however, that automatically deleting junk emails might cause you to lose some emails from legitimate senders that accidentally got caught in the Junk E-mail filter. If you're concerned about that, selecting the High filtering setting is the best choice. It usually catches most junk email, even without specifying specific senders or domains, but enables you to check your Junk Email folder regularly to be sure you're not missing emails from people you want to hear from.

Using antivirus software and spam filters

There are many different brands of antivirus software and spam filters on the market for business users. Antivirus software is designed to stop malicious threats like viruses, worms, spyware and other bullying tactics that hackers use to try to gain access to your computer. Spam filters sort and eliminate incoming

emails to identify junk mail that can clog your Inbox.

Never reply to spam. If you do, the spammer receives confirmation that your email address is active. You'll find yourself on even more lists.

Backing up your files
 

Although Outlook 2007 has automatic spam filtering processes, you should still take advantage of the added level of security you get from antivirus and antispam products. Some popular software suites are Symantec Norton 360, Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009, McAfee Total Protection Service and Microsoft Live OneCare. You don't want your systems to go down just because a spammer sent you a virus, so it's worth using the extra layer of security for added peace of mind. Next, you'll learn how to back up your files.  

Just like with Microsoft Word documents or other files on your computer, you need to back up your email files. All of your Outlook data is saved in a Personal Folders file (.pst) unless you're using a Microsoft Exchange account or an HTTP account, such as Windows Live Mail. Even in those situations, you can back up data to a Personal Folders file, which lets you save all your emails locally on your computer. A .pst file holds your Outlook folders: Inbox, Contacts, Calendar, and so on. There are three different ways to back up .pst files: If you work offline a lot, you can also create Offline Folder (.ost) files. Export them to another location. Archive them. Use the Personal Folders Backup tool.

Exporting email files as a backup

Using the Outlook 2007 Export feature, you can save .pst files to another location on your hard disk. From there you can copy them to removable media such as a CD, DVD or flash drive and keep them in a safe place separate from your computer. Outlook 2007 offers the Import and Export Wizard to make the process simple. Follow these steps to perform the export process: 1. Select File > Import and Export. 2. In the Import and Export Wizard, click Export to a file as shown in Figure 4-4.

Figure 4-4: The Import and Export Wizard.

1. Click Next. 2. Select Personal Folder File (.pst), and click Next. 3. Select the folder you want to export, as shown in Figure 4-5. For example, select the Mail folder you created in Lesson 2. Click Next.

Figure 4-5: Selecting a folder to export.

Write down the path to your backup file so you can quickly find it later if you copy it to removable media.

1. Select the location for your backup file, as shown in Figure 4-6. You can leave the default location, or click Browse to select a different location.

Figure 4-6: Selecting a location for the backup file.

1. If you're saving over an existing backup file, select one of the three options to tell Outlook how to treat the file:

Replace duplicates with items exported 1. Click Finish. 2. You should be prompted to provide a password. Enter a password, and write it down so you don't lose it. Microsoft can't retrieve this password for you if you forget it. 3. Click OK. 4. If prompted for the password at this point, enter the one you just provided and click OK. Allow duplicate items to be created Do not export duplicate items

See how to export a PST file. (0.7 MB)

Using AutoArchive to back up files

You can use the AutoArchive process, explained in Lesson 2, to back up your email messages, too. The trick is to run the archiving process more often (at least once a week), and then transfer the data from that archive folder to a CD for safekeeping.

Clearly label your CDs with dates and file names so that you know what information is included. This will help you if and when you ever need to restore information to Outlook.

Using the Personal Folders Backup Tool

Repairing a corrupted Inbox
 

This is a tool you download from Microsoft Office Online. It copies all your .pst files to your hard disk or a network server/share. It creates backup copies of your files at regular times, which means you essentially can set up the tool once and let it run itself. If you don't want to think very much about how and when to backup your email, contacts and other information, this is a great tool to use. In the next section, you'll discover how to repair a corrupted Inbox.

It happens: Your Outlook 2007 Inbox can become corrupted for a variety of reasons. If this happens, you won't be able to open your .pst or .ost files. Fortunately, there's a tool you can use to scan, diagnose and repair errors in these files. Called the Inbox Repair tool, it's automatically installed for you when Outlook 2007 is installed on your computer. To repair errors using the Inbox Repair tool, follow these steps:

 

If you want to reduce the size of a .pst file, select File > Data File Management. Select the file, click Settings and click Compact Now.

1. Close Outlook 2007. Outlook shouldn't be running while this tool is being used. 2. In Windows Explorer, go to your Program Files folder, usually located on your hard disk. Under Microsoft Office, locate Scanpst.exe.

To repair offline files, run Scanost.exe.

Assignment #4
1. 2. 3. 4.

Moving on

That's it—you've completed this class. In this lesson, you picked up some techniques for keeping spam out of your Inbox. You also discovered how to back up files and repair a corrupted Inbox. Before moving on, take the quiz and complete the assignment for this lesson.

1. In the Enter the name of the file you want to scan box, enter the name of the .pst or .ost file you want to check, or click Browse to search for the file. The main Outlook 2007 file is named Outlook.pst. 2. Click Options to specify the scan log options, and then click the option you want. 3. Click Start. 4. You're prompted to start the repair process to fix the errors if any are found after the scan is complete. 5. A backup file is created during the repair process. If you want to change the default name or location of this backup file, enter a new name for it in the Enter name of backup file box, or click Browse to look for the file that you want to use. 6. Click Repair. 7. Start Outlook by using the profile that contains the .pst file you tried to repair. 8. On the Go menu, click Folder List. 9. In the Folder List, you might see a folder named Recovered Personal Folders that contains your default Outlook folders or a Lost and Found folder. The recovered folders are usually empty, because this is a rebuilt .pst file. The Lost and Found folder contains the folders and items recovered by the Inbox Repair tool. Items that are missing from the Lost and Found folder can't be repaired.

For the first part of this assignment, you'll block junk email senders. Open Microsoft Outlook 2007, and then follow these steps: Click Mail in the Navigation Pane. In your Inbox, scroll down to the first piece of junk mail you see. Right-click that piece of email. Select Junk E-mail > Add Sender to Blocked Senders List.

Continue right-clicking junk email senders in your Inbox and adding them to the Blocked Senders List as needed. Using this technique along with setting the spam filter to High and using antivirus and antispamware software, you'll greatly reduce the number of junk emails you have to deal with, over time.

For the second part of this assignment, you'll check the level of protection you have for your Junk Email filter and increase it, if necessary. Follow these steps: 1. Select Tools > Options. The Options dialog box appears. 2. On the Preferences tab, click the Junk E-mail button in the E-mail section. 3. Review your level of protection. Your choices are No Automatic Filtering, Low, High and Safe Lists Only; Outlook 2007 selects Low by default. To force a higher level of protection, select High. You can select Safe Lists Only if you've previously added most or all of your safe senders to this list. Otherwise, the High setting is best to use.

Remember to routinely check your Junk E-mail filter to be certain that safe emails aren't getting caught by mistake.

Quiz #4
  A) B)     A) B) A) B)       A) B) A) B)

Question 1: True or False: You can block anyone you want from sending emails to you. True True False False

1. Click OK. 2. Click OK to exit the Options dialog box. 3. Close Outlook 2007.

Question 2: True or False: Outlook 2007 uses a spam filtering process that catches spam and places it into the Junk E-mail folder. Question 3: Outlook data is saved into which of the following types of files? (Check all that apply.) C) D) Question 4: True or False: You can use the Export process to save .pst files to another location. True True False False .pst files .pptx files .ost files .docx files

Question 5: True or False: The Inbox Repair tool can scan, diagnose and repair errors in your Outlook Inbox. © 2003 - 2008 Powered, Inc.