Outlook 2016 For Dummies. Dyszel Bill

Press the F10 key to reveal a shortcut key and then press that key (way too much trouble but possible for those who love a challenge).

      One rather confusing Outlook feature is the way many commands are hidden within the tabs on the Ribbon. If you don’t know which tab has the button you need, you have to click every tab until you find the command you want. That’s fine if you’re a speed-reader, but hunting for rarely used commands slows down most of us. Fortunately, after you’ve done a task once, you can usually find your way back to do it again.

      Another fast way to get at your favorite Outlook features is the Quick Access Toolbar – a tiny strip of icons in the upper-left corner of your screen. In Chapter 10, I describe how that works and how to make it do what you want.

      Icons Used in This Book

      Sometimes, the fastest way to go through a book is to look at the pictures – in this case, icons that draw your attention to specific types of useful information. I use these icons in this book:

      

The Warning icon points to something that can prevent or cause problems.

      

The Remember icon points out helpful information. (Everything in this book is helpful, but this stuff is even more helpful.)

      

The Tip icon points out a hint or trick for saving time and effort or something that makes Outlook easier to understand.

      

The Technical Stuff icon marks background information you can skip, although it may make good conversation at a really dull party.

      Part I

      Getting Started With Outlook 2016

      

For more on Outlook 2016, please visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/outlook2016.

       In this part …

      ✔ Learn how to use Outlook to read and send email, send attachments, and create appointments and tasks as well as how to use the calendar feature to help you meet important deadlines.

      ✔ Explore the various parts of Outlook, including views, menus, and folders, as well as the search feature.

      ✔ Discover how to create contacts and calendar appointments as well as how to use dragging, how to create and modify tasks, and how to further enhance your productivity.

      Chapter 1

      Outlook Features You Really Need to Know

       In This Chapter

      ▶ Reading and creating email

      ▶ Sending files by email

      ▶ Checking your calendar

      ▶ Entering appointments and contacts

      ▶ Managing tasks

      ▶ Keeping notes

      I’m kicking off this book with Outlook’s Greatest Hits – the things you’ll want to do with Outlook every single day. The list sounds simple enough: sending email, making appointments, and so on. But most people only use about 5 percent of Outlook’s power. Even if you move up to using 10 percent of Outlook’s features, you’ll be amazed at how this little program can streamline your life and spiff up your communications. People get pretty excited about Outlook, even if they take advantage of only a tiny fraction of what the package can do. But there’s more here than meets the eye; Outlook does ordinary things extraordinarily well. I know you want to do the same, so read on.

      Explaining Why So Many People Use Outlook

      Millions of people use Outlook because millions of people use Outlook. That’s not redundant – Outlook is the standard tool for communicating, collaborating, and organizing for hundreds of millions of people around the world. When so many people use the same tool for organizing the things they do individually, it becomes vastly easier for everyone to organize the things they do together by using that tool. That’s the case with Outlook. It’s a powerful tool even if you work all alone, but that power gets magnified when you use it to collaborate with others.

      What’s new about Microsoft Outlook 2016

      The most important news about Outlook 2016 doesn’t concern what’s in it but how you buy it. Microsoft has gone whole hog with a new strategy that lets customers rent software rather than buying boxes of discs to install. That’s good news for you. Instead of having to shell out hundreds of dollars for new versions of Microsoft Office every few years, you can now just pay a small amount every month for a subscription to Office 365, which gives you the right to put the software on up to five computers. You also get online storage for your files and advanced email services as part of the package. For the moment, you can still buy Outlook the old-fashioned way, but Microsoft has made it very clear that in the future, they expect everyone to rent, not buy.

      Doing Anything in Outlook the Easy Way

      Well, okay, maybe you can’t use Outlook to decipher hieroglyphics, but if you know a little about basic email techniques, you can do a lot in Outlook, such as click an icon to do something, to view something, or to complete something.

      

Using Outlook is so easy, I can sum it up in just a few simple sentences to cover the most common tasks:

      ✔ Open an item and read it: Double-click the item.

      ✔ Create a new item: Click an icon in the Folder pane, click the New button on the Ribbon at the top of the screen, and fill out the form that appears. When you’re done, click the Send button – or, alternatively, click the Save and Close buttons.

      ✔ Delete an item: Click the item once to select it and then click the Delete icon on the Ribbon at the top of the screen. The Delete icon has a black X. You can also press the Delete key on your keyboard.

      ✔ Move an item: Use your mouse to drag the item to where you want it.

      Does that seem too simple? No problem. If you have an itch to complicate things, you could try to use Outlook while hopping on a pogo stick or flying a jet plane. But why? These four tricks can take you a long way.

      Outlook can also do some sophisticated tricks, such as automatically sorting your email or creating form letters, but you’ll need to understand a few details to take advantage of those tricks. The other 300-plus pages of this book cover the finer points of Outlook. If you only wanted the basics, I could’ve sent you a postcard.

      

The figures you see in this book and the instructions you read assume you’re using Outlook 2016 the way it comes out of the box from Microsoft – with all the standard options installed. If you don’t like the way the program looks (or how things are named) when you install Outlook, you can change many of the things you see. If you change too much, however, some instructions and examples I give you won’t make sense because then the parts of the program that I talk about may have names you gave them rather than the ones Microsoft originally assigned. The Microsoft people went to great lengths to make Outlook’s features easy to find. I suggest leaving the general arrangement alone until you’re comfortable using Outlook.

      Using Email: Basic Delivery Techniques

      Email is Outlook’s most popular feature. I’ve run across people who didn’t know Outlook could do anything but exchange email messages. It’s a good thing that Outlook makes it so easy to read your