MS Outlook is one of the most reliable email clients for personal and business purposes. Each and every function in MS Outlook are easy to configure. Users with little technical skills can operate MS Outlook easily. The interface of the email client is interactive.
MS Outlook is widely used to send and receive emails in real time. The trend of sending paper mail has almost eliminated since than electronic-mail system has come. It allows fast messaging. With a message, users can send images and attachments. MS Outlook offers almost 80% of its options in creating e-mail messages. Let’s discover how to compose emails in MS Outlook.
Topic Covered
- Composing a New Mail in Outlook
- Processing Delivery Options
- Customizing Appearance of Messages
- Attaching any Items with Messages
- Adding Tracking to Newly Created Messages
Start your MS Outlook and go to the Home tab to select New E-mail.
or
There is a keyboard shortcut keys combination to open new mail option in Outlook: CTRL+SHFT+M.
Adding Recipients: Add the email recipient name whom you would like to send emails, fill To, CC and BCC box. Don’t leave the Subject box, fill the title of the message.
MS Outlook offers two options to add contacts- Manually and Via contact list. To add contacts users have to click on ‘To’ option and enter the email address manually. Don’t forget to separate names with a semicolon if you are sending more than one person.
Second is entering email addresses via contact list of PST file. Click on ‘To’ option provided for adding contacts, it will display a list of contacts saved in your Outlook account. Select the particular contact by clicking right and drag mouse cursor down to “To” option. Press OK.
Custom filter option is available to enter the recipient name in the message at the top of the windows. These options are “Name only” and “More columns”, feel free to choose an option.
Address Book options are also available to make in-depth contact search like address book, contacts from mobile, suggested contacts etc.
Advanced Find” can help you to locate a contact with names and specific details.
Note: In Outlook 2010, the ‘BCC’ option is not available thus users have to turn on the ‘BCC’ box from the ‘Options’ tab and click on BCC. Users can also evaluate ‘From’ option to know who has sent the message.
Accessing Delivery Options
MS Outlook is an incredible tool. It has made email experience extraordinary with its key features. The email client offers multiple options to set the delivery of messages. Users can set the importance of the message. They can set expire date of the message too if it is not so important. They can also set the delay in sending message option to send the message in delay.
Setting the Level of Importance to Message
Users can set the priority of an email before sending it to a recipient. In this case, the receiver can understand the importance of a particular email. To achieve this, visit ‘Message’ tab and from Tags, option-click either low or high importance.
Setting the Expiry Date
The feature allows users to avoid unnecessary clutter of the data. Users can set the expiry date of a particular email before sending it to a recipient. When the priority data has crossed, the recipient cannot access that particular email.
Note: The advanced feature is for the corporate environment. If users use the feature to send emails to Yahoo or Gmail users, the expiry date will not work.
Go to the ‘Options’ tab and take the cursor to the ‘Tracking’ option, click the ‘Drop Down’ arrow.
A form will open to fill the expiry date. After filling the data, press Close tab.
Delay Sending Message
Outlook has the option to delay the delivery of a particular message or all messages.
Exchange Accounts users visit ‘Options’ then More Options and Delay Delivery option
Tick the option ‘Don’t Delivery Before’ option to set a delay on a particular single mail.
For All Message
To make delay in all messages, take the cursor to ‘Home’ tab and press ‘Rules’ tab. Under Rules and Alerts dialog box, email Rules press ‘New Rule’ and press ‘ok’
Now choose a temple from the option ‘Start from a Blank Rule’ and press ‘Apply Rule on Messages I Send’ and the tab ‘Next’ button.
Now, check those options that you seem applicable and press Next tab. In case, you don’t select any option, MS Outlook will show the option ‘the rule is applying to all message’, click on ‘Yes’ to go ahead.
Now choose the last option ‘Defer delivery by a number of minutes’ in Step 1 option and In Step 2, press ‘a number of minutes’
Choose the desired time and press the OK tab and then Next.
Give a name to the Rule and check ‘Turn on the Rule’ from the dialog box. Press ‘finish’ to complete the task.
Customizing the Appearance for Messages
MS Outlook allows users to customize a message by adding fonts, graphics, background, and other elements. If you are interested in customizing your emails, follow the procedures.
Adding Background Colour
Users have the freedom to add a background color, pattern, picture or gradient by following a few simple steps.
Go to the Options tab, take the cursor to the ‘Page Color’ to fill the desired color in the background. If you would like to add pictures, texture or gradient, click the ‘fill effect’ tab.
Customizing the Font Size
In the basic text group, choose the font size, color, style and text of your choice.
Adding Graphics
It is one of the best ways to grab the attention of receivers to your email. To use the feature, go to Insert tab in the Illustration group to pick an option.
Users can add pictures, chart, special screenshots, shapes, and smart art.
Adding Numbers or Bullets
Adding bullets and numbers to your message body make it reader-friendly. You can make your email reader-friendly by adding number or bullets. For this, type a line and press enter button, the tool automatically takes bullets.
Adding Table
Outlook gives options to add a table to your email body to represent your email in a professional manner.
Either point out the cursor to Quick Tables to select table. Now, replace the data into the table
or Click on table grid to insert columns and rows to the body
Adding Signature
Users can able to give a professional touch to its every email by adding a signature.
To insert signature automatically-
In the Include Group of ‘message’ tab click ‘Signature’
Type a special name for the signature and press OK
According to needs users can format and edit the signature formatting in the setting feature
Changing the Theme
The theme of your Outlook can customize as per your choice. It will change the heading style, body, and graphics. For this,
Visit to message option tab in the Theme Group of Theme and save any of your choices.
Attaching Items with a Message
Many times we need to attach attachments to our email. Below are the steps to add attachments.
While composing an email, users can attach files by going to ‘Message Tab’ in the Include Group and press ‘Attach File’
As the ‘Attach File’ option is selected, select the required file and press the ‘Insert’ tab
Note- Outlook by default doesn’t support some format like .exe, .bat, .vbs and .js files. Outlook considers these formats unsafe. It will show you a message that these files are unsafe to click Yes or No. If you still want to upload, click ‘Yes’.
Inserting a Link
Do you know you can insert hyperlinks to your Outlook message.
To insert a hyperlink, go to ‘Insert tab’ in the Links Group of Hyperlink.
MS Outlook supports long file names for hyperlinking. If you give spaces, the first few characters will be linked only which is invalid. Therefore, it is instructed to use opening and closing chevron (<>) to insert a right hyperlink.
Adding Electronic Business Cards
If you are interested in adding contact information, e-business card can be attached to your email.
To insert a business card, press Insert tab and Business Card option. After this select, a name from the list and press Enter
In case, Outlook doesn’t provide any information, press ‘Other Business Card’ to select contacts from the list displayed at a screen.
Track the Newly Created Messages
Do you know Outlook is providing options to flag your emails like Today, Tomorrow and Next Week. You can add the flag to alert the recipient.
Message Tab>options group> follow up> select a due date > select custom.
If you want to add message reminder, Message>Options>Follow up>Add Reminder