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.

Configuring Word 2007 options

One hazard of upgrading to a new piece of software such as Microsoft Word 2007 is learning the interface over again. The new Microsoft Word looks so different to the old versions that you can spend hours in the first week or two looking for things that were in one place but have moved or appear to have totally disappeared.

For example, In Microsoft Word one of those features is the Options dialog which used to be obtainable through Tools, Options in Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier. This dialog gives you access to most of the configurable options in Microsoft Word.

To find it in the new Word 2007 click the Office button in the top left corner of the Word 2007 window. From the bottom of this dialog choose Word Options and you will now find many of the configurable preferences that were available in earlier versions of Word now accessible in Word 2007 and some new ones. For example, switch between Silver, Blue and Black color schemes, set your user name and initials, the languages to use, configurations for AutoCorrect etc..

In fact this dialog is a veritable cornucopia of Word configuration tools.

More colours in Excel 2003 and earlier

I don't know why, but there are heaps of colors available in Word for formatting text and lines but only a small subset of colors are available in Excel. Does Microsoft think we don't like color in Excel?

Unfortunately we can’t specify additional colours for use in Excel workbooks either but we can change the colours that are displayed in the color palette to a mix of what we do like. So, if pink isn't your thing, you can replace all the pinks with colors you do like and will use.

To do this, in Excel, choose Tools, Options, Color tab and select a color to change. Click Modify to choose a new color in its place. Repeat as desired.