Category Archives: Outlook

OUTLOOK: Using a Built-In Promotional Tool

This is a long one! (But worth it)

 

Scenario: When someone receives an email from you and decides they want to add you to the Outlook Contacts list they will often open the message and right-click your name/address displayed in the FROM box and choose ADD TO OUTLOOK CONTACTS.

 

What information (about you) gets added to your Contact List when they do that? Just your name and email address. Why just that information? Because that’s all email clients (Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, etc) are programmed to give them – even if you have a signature block at the end of your emails that also contains your web address, cellphone number etc.

 

In today’s competitive marketplace, the more of your (contact) information your prospective clients and colleagues have…the easier (and more likely) it will be for them to reach out to you (versus your competitor) should the nice arise.

 

So…what can you do about this? Create a VCard – that’s what. And include it in all your outgoing emails. When someone right-clicks your VCard (in the email they’ve received from you) and choose ADD TO OUTLOOK CONTACTS…your contact record will be automatically populated with whatever information (about yourself) YOU want them to have.

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Outlook: Sending a Text Message from Outlook

 

You don’t have to grab your cell phone to send someone a text message – you can send one from your computer…within Outlook.

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Excel / Outlook: Linking Dates in Excel to your Outlook Calendar

What? Three Outlook tips in a row? Well, I was going to do something else but someone asked me a great question last week about taking “due” dates from an Excel spreadsheet and making Outlook reminders out of them. So, you can thank Pam from Elliot Lake for this one…

 

Full tip: Excel and Outlook tip

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Set a Reminder to Act on an Email

You receive a message that you need to act on – but you’re really tied up at the moment. You get a lot of email and you’re afraid of losing this one in the crowd…

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Outlook: I like Big Print…I cannot lie

If you are often scanning your Inbox – header (sender) by header…it might be helpful to make your header text BIGGER than the preview text that is included with it.

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Outlook: Quick TO/CC/BCC recipient retrieval

You know when you start a new email – and your cursor is sitting in the TO box…and you start to type in the first few letters of the person’s name…IF you have written to them recently their email address will pop up (along with others) so you can click on it. Nice and fast.

 

HOWEVER…If you haven’t written to them before – but they are in your Address Book – you can still enter their email address faster (without having to actually click on the TO button and open your Address Book).

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Outlook: Two Quick Tips

TIP #1: REMOVE TEXT FORMATTING

 

TIP #2: ADDING A READING PANE TO THE CALENDAR

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Outlook: A More Comprehensive Inbox Search

The SEARCH function in all components (mail, calendar, contacts) of Outlook has dramatically improved.

 

However, when you want to search your Inbox for a particular person or word – only the Inbox (not sub-folders) are searched. This is the default setting.

 

If you like your email organized into sub-folders – you might appreciate the odd search that includes your sub-folders in its scope…

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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Outlook: 7 Keyboard Shortcuts worth Their Weight in Gold

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m the keyboard/shortcut queen. (Queen/fanatic – it’s a fine line). There’s a reason for this…it is fast(er) and I think that, as we get older – it keeps us sharp.

 

Most of the most-used Office keyboard shortcuts make sense and are easy-peasy to remember (think [CTRL] O for Open, [CTRL] S for Save, etc.)

 

Some keyboard shortcuts aren’t quite as straightforward but are worth the effort ([CTRL] W (think weeeeee, we’re done) to close a document, [CTRL] mouse-wheel to Zoom, etc.)

 

The following Outlook keyboard shortcuts fall into the second category. Don’t whine – stretch that brain and just learn them. They’re worth it.

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

 

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Outlook: Creating a Distribution List from an email

Scenario: You have received an email from a committee you’ve just joined. The rest of the committee members are listed in the CC box. You want to create a distribution list containing these people – but you don’t want to add them one at a time (and so you shouldn’t!)

 

Full tip: Outlook tip

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