Outlook - create Your own Signature Business Card

Add yourself to your Contacts list in Outlook 2007 so you can create a Business Card to send as an attachment to all your outgoing emails.

Once you have added yourself as a contact, choose Tools > Options > Mail Format > Signatures and chose the signature to attach the card to or create a new one.

Click New if creating a new card, and from the Business Card dropdown list, choose your Contact entry to attach it as a business card to each outgoing message.

Outlook 2007 - Empty Deleted Items automatically

If you find you are always emptying your Deleted Items folder in Outlook 2007 before you exit the program, you can have Outlook do this automatically for you.

To do this, choose Tools > Options > Other tab. Enable the 'Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting' checkbox and click Ok.

Now you won't have to do this - just choose File > Exit and it will be done automatically.

Outlook 2007 Display Saturday and Sunday

If your weekends are as full of activities as your weekdays are, you may want Saturday and Sunday to display in the Outlook 2007calendar all the time.

To permanently display Saturday and Sunday, choose Tools > Options > Preferences tab and click the Calendar Options button.

From the dialog select the checkboxes for both Saturday and Sunday and click Ok.This dialog is also useful for setting a non traditional work week. If you, like my friend Frank, work from Sunday to Thursday, you can set up your work week by selecting checkboxes for those days you actually work and disabling them for other days that are your "weekend" days.

Only these days of the week will now appear in your Outlook 2007 calendar display when you have Show Word Week selected.

To toggle between viewing the Work week and the full week click the appropriate buttons on the Calendar toolbar.

If you have come to Outlook 2007 from an earlier version of Outlook, you should know that the old Compress Weekend Days option for showing Saturday and Sunday compressed into a single column is now no longer an option in Outlook 2007.

If you need to print calendars so that weekend days share a column, download and install the Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 from here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA101687211033.aspx

Outlook - Edit Received E-mail

Occasionally you might have a need to edit a message that you have received in Outlook 2007.

The message will be already in your Inbox so, to do this, open the message.

Now click the Message tab on the Ribbon and, from the Actions group, select Other Actions > Edit Message.

You can now edit the message and, to send it back to the sender, click Reply and to send it on to someone else, click Forward, type the recipient's address and click Send.

Outlook 2007 Calendar display your way

You already know you can look at your Outlook calendar by viewing one day, one week or a month at a time.

Did you know you can also view the calendar in other ways? So, for example, if you need to see your plans for the next three Tuesdays you can do this.

Make sure the To-Do Bar is visible and switch to Day view so you are seeing only one day. Click on the first day to view in the Calendar in the To-Do bar and then Control + Click on each other day to view and it will open up in the same display.

Outlook 2007 Remembers important Birthdays

If you’re one of those people who occasionally forgets important birthdays or anniversaries, then get Outlook to help you remember them.

To do this, add the person whose birthday or anniversary you need to remember as an Outlook contact in your Contacts list.

Click the Contact tab, from the Show group, click Details to display the details area of their contact data and type their birthday or anniversary in the place provided.

When you do this, these dates are automatically added to your calendar as events so you won't forget them.

If you need to set a reminder for the event, locate the day it happens on and double click the event and choose Open Series. On the Recurring Event tab set the Reminder to whatever suits you - if you need to organize presents and restaurant bookings then set the reminder to a few days before the event.

Outlook 2007 create a new empty calendar

Sometimes you will need a new empty calendar in Outlook. You might need this if you're planning an event and you need to keep everything for the even separate from your own calendar.

Or you might need a blank calendar so you can print blank pages to complete by hand.

So, when you need a blank calendar you can easily create one in Outlook. Choose File > New > Folder and give your folder the name you wan to use for your calendar.

From the Folder Contains list choose Calendar Items, from the 'Select where to place the folder' list choose Calendar, and click OK.

Click the Calendar option to display your calendars and, in the list, your new calendar's name will appear.

You can click its checkbox to display it. If there is already one calendar visible, clicking its checkbox will display both calendars side by side or in overlay mode.

To change the display, right click the Calendar tab and choose either, View In Side-by-Side mode or View in Overlay mode.

Outlook 2007: Redirect replies to someone else

When you send and e-mail for someone else you may not want the replies to be directed to you. For example if a co-worker is out of the office and needs you to send an urgent email on their behalf - you will want replies to go to them, not you.

You can do this in Outlook 2007 from the New Message dialog. Click the Options tab and select the Direct Replies To option in the More Options group.

From the dialog, set the reply to address for this email and click Ok.

Now you can send the email but replies will go to where they are supposed to go.

Outlook 2007- set custom reminder sounds

When an Outlook appointment falls due, by default, Outlook is set up to do something to tell you about it. Exactly what it does depends on how it is setup.

To change the default settings for all new appointments choose Tools > Options > Preferences tab and, in the Calendar area, enable the Default reminder checkbox and set up the amount of time before an appointment that you will receive a warning about it. 15 minutes is the default but, if you prefer it to be 30, for example, then set it to this.
Choose the Other tab > Advanced Options > Reminder Options to set other options such as whether the reminder is displayed by default and whether a sound will be played and, if so, the WAV file that sounds.

Remember too, that you can use the Windows Sound Recorder to record your own custom sound to use.

Outlook Natural language Date Entry

With so many programs requiring you to do things their way, it's refreshing when you find a program that talks your language. Enter Outlook.

When you are setting up meeting dates in Outlook 2007 and earlier, you can use what is called "natural language" to specify the date.

For example type 'Friday week', 'this Saturday', 'Christmas Day' or even 'second Monday in December' and Outlook understands what you mean and sets the appointment date to suit your needs.

This saves you having to know the numerical date or clicking open the calendar especially if you have meetings that are scheduled by the week day rather than by date.

File Outlook 2007 Contacts your way

I have a lot of contacts whose nicknames mean more to me than their real names.

So, while I need to use their full name in their contacts entry in my Contacts list, I'd prefer to see them shown using their nickname so I recognize it better.

To do this, I'll open the person's entry in my contacts list and, in the 'File as' area type their nickname and choose Save and Close.

Now, whenever I look for their entry in the list, they're filed by the nickname that I associate with them and not names that aren't so recognizable.

Outlook - Disable Contact Editing

By default in Outlook 2007 you can edit your contact information from any view including the Contact card view.

If you find yourself making changes by accident you can disable this feature so that contacts can only be edited by opening the Contact's information dialog.

To do this, select the Contacts folder and display the view you don't want to be able to edit in. Choose View > Current View > Customize Current View > Other Settings and disable the 'Allow in-cell editing' checkbox.

Now you can look at the contacts but you won't be able to change them without switching to another view.

Outlook Send a Contact's details via Email

To share an Outlook Contact's details with someone else you can send it via e-mail.

This lets you get the details you have recorded about a contact to someone else without having to pull all the details across manually. It's simple and quick.

To do this, select the Contacts module and open it. Double click to open the contact's details that you want to send to someone.

From the Contact tab on the Ribbon click the Send dropdown list and choose In Internet Format (vCard).

This opens a new message dialog with the details attached in a .vcf format file. All you need to do is to enter the recipient's email address and your message and click Send.

When the recipient receives the message, they can click the attachment to open it and add the person's details automatically to their Contacts list.

Outlook 2007 - Create a Custom e-mail merge

When you need to email lots of people at a time, such as your business contact list you can do this from inside Outlook.

To do this, first open your Contacts area and select the Contacts to email as a group. You can do this by Control + Clicking on each contact to select them.

Then select Tools > Mail Merge to create the message. Choose Only Selected Contacts and then select whether to create a printed document or to email it and then click Ok to switch to Word to finish the process there.

Create a Distribution List in Outlook

When you regularly email a lot of people at once, it makes sense to assemble a distribution list to simplify the task. Then you can send the email to all the people in the list in one step, rather than having to select each member individually.

To create a distribution list in Outlook, select Tools > Address Book and choose File > New Entry.
From the "Select the entry type" list select New Distribution List.In the "Put this entry" area, select Contacts and click OK.

Give your list a name and, to add members to it from your existing Contacts, click the Select Members button. Double click the members in the dialog to add them to the Members area at the foot of the dialog. When you're done, click Ok.

To add the details of someone who isn't in your existing Contacts, click the Add New button, then type their details into the dialog.

When you're done, click Save & Close to finish.

In future you can add the list name to the To area in an outgoing email to send the email to the list members, or better still, include it in the BCC line to keep the members secret from each other.

Outlook: Create a New Contact from an Email

Adding a new person as a contact in Outlook is easy but not a self evident process.

To add an email address to your Contact list from the message window, right-click the address in the From: details at the top of the screen - it doesn't look like this is clickable but it is.

Select Add to Outlook Contacts from the shortcut menu.

The Contacts dialog opens automatically with the email address in place, enter any other details you want to record and click Save & Close to end.

Multiple Outlook 2007 windows

Often it is easier to work with multiple windows in Outlook 2007 rather than having to switch between modules to show just one at a time.

You can open each different Outlook tool in its own window if you right click the icon (eg. Calendar) in Folder view and choose Open in New Window.

Each window will display on the task bar as its appropriate icon so it's easy to switch between tools.

To ensure that each tool always opens in separate windows leave them open when you select File > Exit to close Outlook 2007. When you open the program again, all the windows will open automatically.

Outlook Sticky Notes

Like electronic yellow stickies, Notes are useful for storing quick reminders and other information you need close at hand.

To create an Outlook note choose File > New > Note.

Type your text into the Note area. You can move the note so it's visible, or hide it by clicking the close button in its top right corner.

To view a note, click the Notes button at the foot of the pane on the left of the Outlook window and click the Note to view it.

To delete a note, right click it and selecting Delete, or categorize it by right-clicking it, choose Categorize and select a category from the list.

You can send a Note to someone via e-mail by right-clicking the Note and select Forward. Outlook opens a New Mail Message window with the Note already in place as an attachment.

Outlook 2007 - checking folder space

Outlook stores all your email, contacts and appointments in one big PST file. Unfortunately, working with a large PST folder in Outlook will decrease its performance.

Over time you will find that Outlook's folders grow if you don't regularly remove out of date messages from them.

To see how big your folder is select the Mail option and click your Personal Folders item in the folders list. Right click and choose Properties for "Personal Folders" and then choose Folder Size to read the size of you PST file.

The closer to 2Gb that the file gets to be, the worse your Outlook performance will be and beyond that, it is possible that the file can become corrupt. Keep your file size below this for best performance.

Managing Public Holidays in Outlook

When is Memorial Day in the US or Anzac Day in Australia?

If you're unsure, luckily for you, Outlook isn't.

Most national holidays are stored in Outlook - you just need to find them and add them to your calendar.

Here's how:

Choose Tools > Options > Preferences tab ad click the Calendar Options button.

Click the Add Holidays button and from the list choose the country (or countries) you want the holidays for and click Ok.

Wait while Outlook adds these details to your calendar and click Ok twice to exit.

The holidays will appear under the date in most Calendar views.

Outlook 2007- Save attachments

When you delete an Outlook email you'll also delete any attachments which are included in it.

You won't be warned you're about to do this either so you can find yourself having lost important data if you haven't saved it.

To save files attached to emails, right click the attachment and choose Save As from the menu and choose a place to save it to.

A good rule of thumb is to do this every time you get an attachment so you won't be caught out in future. Even saving all attachments to a special attachments folder will save you losing them.

If you need to remind yourself to do this, you can create a rule which checks for emails with attachments and flags them for follow up. This will remind you that you need to save the attachments or at least look at them to see if you need to do this.

Outlook 2007 - Find a Contact Address

When you need to visit an Outlook contact and when you need directions to their office, you can find them yourself using Outlook's map option.

Select Contacts and open the contact's card. Click in the Address area so you are viewing the address that you want to find directions for. On the Ribbon, locate the Contact tab and in the Communicate group click the Map option. Your browser will open to display a map of the location you selected.

Outlook 2007 Find a Contact Quickly

Wherever you happen to be in Outlook you can easily find a contact.

To do this, look to the Ribbon and locate the text box that contains the words "Search Address Books". Type part of the name in the box and press Enter.

This will locate all matching entries in the Outlook Contact list and display them in a dialog for you.

Choose the person to view and click Ok, their Contact details will then open allowing you to view their details, to email them or to send their details via email.

Outlook: Managing Blocked Senders

I'm sure you've had that "that was a dumb thing to do" feeling before. You do something that you thought was smart but ends up being very silly indeed.

I got that recently when I added someone to my Outlook Blocked senders list. Yikes! they were so not supposed to go there!

Luckily it's fairly easy to undo the damage. In Outlook choose Tools > Options > Preferences tab and under the E-mail options click Junk E-mail. Click the Blocked Senders tab and locate the email address that shouldn't be there and click Remove. Simple!

Now, if you need to go in reverse and add someone, here's how (believe me, I'm astonishingly good at this step): In Outlook choose Tools > Options > Preferences tab and under the E-mail options click Junk E-mail. Click the Blocked Senders tab. This time click Add, type the email address or an entire domain name (but be sure you really want to do this!) and click Ok.

If you have an email from the person in your inbox there is an even easier solution. Right click the email, choose Junk E-mail > Add Sender to Blocked Senders List.

There you have it.. get someone onto the Blocked senders list and get them off again. Better still, it works in Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

Outlook on a Go Slow route to nowhere

You gotta love and hate Outlook. It's like the little girl with the curl - when it's good its very good and when it's bad it's awful.

Of course, one of the biggest problems with Outlook is it's "go slow" behaviour. Part of the problem is that it stores everything in a single .PST file - and I mean everything that really matters like your emails, attachments, contacts and appointments. If that's not bad enough (read all your eggs are in one burgeoning basket), there's an upper limit to the size this file can grow to before Outlook turns up its little toes and stops working. The upper file size limit is 2GB and while this sounds big, it's not.

So, if Outlook is running slow, check your file size. Right click the Personal Folders link at the top of your Folders list, choose Properties for "Personal Folders" and click the Folder Size button. Wait as Outlook calculates the folder size. The closer it is to the magical 2GB limit, the more trouble you're in.

The solution is to delete old and unwanted emails and to archive others to get it down to size.

Of course all this stupidity makes you hanker after a program that doesn't store all the data in one place. Not unsurprisingly, most programs behave this way - Outlook is the exception to the rule.

Outlook Notes anywhere

Still on the subject of Outlook Notes (on the basis of when you're on a good thing stick to it), did you know Notes can be dragged out of Outlook?

Go ahead, grab a Note adn drag it out of Outlook. Put it anywhere you like - it will sit on the Desktop or your Quick Launch bar. If you close Outlook, you can view the note's contents without having to open Outlook by just double clicking on it.

This feature makes an Outlook Note something of much higher value than before. Need to remember a phone number? Type it into a Note and drag and drop it to your Quick Launch bar and it's there handy for when you need it.

Color Your World - Outlook Notes

Ok, so yellow sticky notes just don't work for me. I'd rather mine were, well, anything but yellow. In Outlook 2007 you can color your Notes by clicking the indicator in the top left corner, choose Categories and then the category to assign the note to - the category color becomes the Note color. In Outlook 2003, click the indicator in the top left corner of the note and choose Color and then a different color for your note.

To change the default color in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007, choose Tools, Options, Preferences tab and click Note Options. Set the Color value to your chosen color and click Ok twice. There's only a limited color selection available this way but it does make a change from yellow.

Print from Outlook 2007

Ok, I'll fess up, I had an email today in Outlook that I needed to print. I sat looking at the screen and that beautiful ribbon for a few minutes wondering how a hapless new user is ever going to remember that, inspite all the pretty buttons you see in front of you, there is no Print button visible. Ok , yes, it's on the Office button (that multicolored thing in the top left corner of the screen) but it's simply not easy to find and certainly far from intuitive. I wonder how many millions of words both spoken and typed will be spent telling students and new users to click the Office button - "you know, that funny colored button in the top left of the screen" - why didn't it get a name? Like Tools, or File or Something, - Anything. Clearly no one on the design team has ever taught a class of students any application at all - because if they had, they'd have given that stupid button a name.

Ok, so back to my print dilemma. I obviously hadn't had enough coffee because I blanked out and thought GD! How am I going to print this thing! There's no print button! Yikes! All was saved by a trusty shortcut key... Control + P - write it down, remember it. When it seems like you can't print something, in any application, give Control + P a go. It worked in Outlook, of course, it also works in Internet Explorer windows that open without menus or buttons. It's one to remember, it can get you out of big fixes as well as little ones.

Outlook 2007 - what time is that in London?

I'm one of those people who suck bad at calculating time. I miss interviews in Sydney, I call New York at 5pm my time wondering why they aren't still at work, and ask me the time in London and I can only guess at it - even though I talk to UK folk each week.

Thank you Outlook 2007! Now I can act smart on international times, provided no one knows my secret!

To set a cross timezone appointment in Outlook open the New Appointment dialog, select the Time Zone icon and, from the list, choose the second timezone - for me that might be 3pm in London. Outlook creates the appointment in my calendar in my time zone so I get the reminder when I need to call or be on hand for the meeting. It's all way too easy... no more missed interviews.

Haven't I said this before?

Ever get that sense of deja vu - you've said this before.. oh so many times? Office has never had a good tool for managing blocks of text that you use repeatedly. The is AutoText and AutoCorrect but they're not highly visible or intuitive. In Office 2007 another tool is thrown into the mix. The jury is out on whether this is a good thing or just another option that isn't properly thought our or implemented. Anyway, it's worth testing out to see if it works for you. BTW the technical term for text you use over and over again is boilerplate text... not sure why, but there it is!

In Word, for example, type and select the text that you use a lot and, on the Insert tab choose the Quick Part option. You can save the text and later insert it using the same tool - it's kinda nice that the tool shows you the full text before you insert it.

Interestingly the same feature is available in Outlook 2007 where it just might be a litte bit more use.

Are you free? Add a calendar to an Outlook 2007 email

I need to meet with you. I know when I'm free I don't know when you are. To avoid the "Can you do it this time?" "No. What about?" discussion you can send an outgoing email with your calendar in it so your recipient can see when you're free and plan accordingly.

The proviso for this is you need to be using Microsoft Exchange so it's the sort of thing you can do at work but unlikely you will be running exchange at home. To do this, in a new message dialog, click the Insert tab and select Calendar. You can then choose just how much calendar to send, just your available spaces or everything... it's up to you.

Never miss a trick with Outlook 2007

I often get emails that need attention such as a tip that a reader sends in for an column I write in the Sydney Morning Herald that I like and plan to use in an upcoming column - just not now. I flag it by right clicking and choose Follow Up and then a flag, like this week, next week, no date etc..

Having done that, the item appears automatically in my Outlook 2007 to do list so, provided the To do bar is showing, it's there and I can check the items and find the tip whenever I need it. Combine follow up with color categories and you're set. When you're done with an item, right click it in the To Do bar and mark it as complete and it disappears.

Seriously, the To Do bar has the ability at last to be some use in Outlook 2007 so it's time to begin using some behaviors that will make it work for you.

Speed up slow ol' Outlook 2007

Ok, so Outlook 2007 is running like a dog. It's slow and cumbersome to use. Microsoft has admitted it and pointed a finger at overlarge .PST files. One wonders why Microsoft persists in forcing hapless users to jam all their emails (plus attachments) and RSS feeds into one .PST file anyway. Heaven help the new user who plain doesn't understand what a .PST file is anyway, much less why it affects their system performance.

Until the folks at Redmond come to their collective senses and offer us an alternative solution, your options are to work around it. Split your emails into multiple .PST files by archiving them and keep your main .PST file at a small size.

Here are Microsoft's current series of recommendations for speeding up Outlook 2007, it's a KnowledgeBase article, and here's a link to an update for Outlook that promises to fix some of the speed issues: Microsoft Outlook 2007 update download site.

I just have to have the final word here... why, in 2007, should are we still bothered by this stuff?