Microsoft Outlook Tips & Tricks

WindowsIf you have programs (e.g. Internet Explorer, Word, Excel) pinned to your TaskBar, hold the Windows Logo key and press 1 to start the first program, Windows Logo + 2 for the second and so on.ExcelStruggling to understand a complex formula? Select the cell containing the formula and click "Evaluate Formula" on the Formulas tab. This will show you the steps Excel follows to arrive at the final result.WordDo you need a non-numbered paragraph in the middle of a numbered list? Type the whole n....

Gmail has a built-in feature that lets you ‘undo’ an email that you’ve sent. It’s there to help you avoid last minute email accidents such as forgetting to attach a file. It gives you a brief window in which you can stop a sent message from being delivered. It’s widely reported that this feature has saved lives. If you use MS Outlook and would like a similar feature on the desktop app, you can set it up yourself with an Outlook rule. Here’s how.   Open Ou....

Click the Reading View button at the bottom right (next to the zoom control) to hide the Navigation Panel, To Do Bar, etc., and allow you to focus on your emails or appointments. Click Normal View (just next to Reading View) to return to normal.

Learn Outlook's keyboard shortcuts. Like Microsoft Word,Excel, and other Office apps, Outlook has unique keyboard shortcuts so youdon't have to waste time moving your mouse around or drilling down throughmenus. Learn the ones you use most and you'll speed through your Outlook tasks.                      Ctrl+R: reply to email Alt+R: reply to all in email or switch to the work week c....

Use shortcut keys to create anew message or a new appointment – almost wherever you are in Outlook, pressCTRL+SHIFT+M to create a new email or CTRL+SHIFT+A to create a new appointment.

Need more space on the screen? Click the arrow at the top right of the Navigation Pane to collapse it. The collapsed Navigation Pane shows the folders in your Favourites list so you can still get to them quickly, as well as a “Folders” button to display them all temporarily.

Create a Task from an email to remind yourself to follow it up – simply drag the email from the Inbox to the Tasks folder to create a Task that contains the original message in the Notes section

Use Colour Categories to identify your mail, contacts and appointments and group related items together. Select an item and click the Categories button to choose a category or define new categories. Click the Categories column heading on a list of emails to group them by Category.

Have you noticed the little "People" at the bottom right of the Reading Pane when you are viewing a message? These are the recipients - click the arrow next to them to expand the People Pane and see recent activity (emails, meetings,...) relating to those people. if you add someone to your Contacts folder and include a photo, their photo will appear in the People Pane when you receive a message from them.

If you’re lucky enough to have Outlook 2010, it’s easy with Instant Search – just type the word(s) you want in the Search box at the top of the list. But this can give more results than you wanted, and it isn’t available in Outlook 2003. In any version, make sure you can see the column headings of the message list (you may need to widen the list part of the screen). Then click a column heading and the messages will be grouped by that column. So it’s easy to group by....

Have you ever received an email and thought “I need to put something in my diary to deal with that”, or “I need reminding to sort that out”.No need to waste time re-typing things into your diary or task list. Just drag the email from your Inbox to your Calendar or Tasks folder (drop it on one of the buttons at the bottom left of the screen) and Outlook will create an appointment or task with the same subject and with the contents of the email in the Notes section so you k....