Product Description

Every business professional faces challenges in managing their time to be as efficient and productive as possible. Information management has become an important everyday task in helping manage these challenges successfully, and Microsoft Outlook is the gold standard to help users stay organized. Outlook not only helps manage contacts, appointments, and tasks, it also serves as the e-mail and fax client. Outlook 2007 has been redesigned and improved with a new user interface, electronic business cards, RSS support, smart scheduling, anti-phishing capabilities, junk e-mail filter, and more. Case study sections called "Improving Your Outlook" illustrate how to apply the information learned in real-world situations. Troubleshooting sections in each chapter illustrate common problems that occur when using Outlook, followed by a detailed solution. With this book, you learn the latest features and improvements in Outlook by focusing on user productivity through real-world techniques in real-world environments.

 

Introduction

I Setting Up and Configuring Outlook

1 What’s New in Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Getting Started and Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3 Managing Outlook Folders . . . 39

4 Creating Views and Print Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

5 Customizing Command Bars . . 117

II Outlook as a Personal Information Manager

6 Managing Personal Information

Using Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

7 Creating and Using Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

8 Customizing Outlook Today . . . 161

9 Creating Contacts . . . . 179

10 Working with Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

11 Address Books and Directory Services . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

12 Using the Outlook Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

13 Collaborating with Calendars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

14 Working with Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

15 Staying Organized with the Outlook Journal . . . . . 349

16 Using Outlook Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

III Outlook as a Mail Client

17 Working with Mail Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

18 Creating New Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

19 Receiving Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

20 Using Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

21 Setting Outlook Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

22 Finding and Organizing Outlook Items . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

23 Importing, Exporting, and Backing Up

Outlook Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

24 Compacting and Archiving Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

25 Using Outlook Securely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

IV Outlook as the Client for Exchange Server

26 Using Outlook as an Exchange Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

27 Creating and Using Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

28 Advanced Exchange Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683

29 Exchange Public Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695

30 Working Remotely with Exchange Server . . . . . . . . . 721

31 Advances with Outlook and Exchange

Server 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

V Programming and Advanced Outlook Topics

32 Creating and Using Custom Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757

33 Using VBA in Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795

34 Advanced Outlook Programming Topics . . . . . . . . . . 819

35 Business Contact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 833

36 Reading RSS Feeds in Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879

VI Appendices

A Installing Outlook 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 897

B Using the Office Resource Kit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907

C Outlook’s Files, Folders, and Registry Keys . . . . . . . 915

D Outlook’s Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 921

E Working with the Windows Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 927

F Outlook Shortcut Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 939

G Outlook Fields and Equivalent Properties . . . . . . . . 951

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 961

 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160523 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1032 pages

About the Author

Patricia DiGiacomo didn’t plan on spending her life working with computers. She graduated

from the University of California, Davis, with a degree in Environmental Sciences, but

every job she has ever had has involved computers. Finally, in 1996, she stopped fighting

the inevitable and took a job as an IT manager for a telecommunications company in

Sacramento, California. In 2001, Microsoft awarded Patricia Most Valuable Professional

status for Microsoft Outlook. She spent the majority of her professional career thus far

working for a box company as an IT Manager, and finally in 2005 she took a job with

Microsoft as a technical writer.

Patricia has authored numerous articles about Exchange and Outlook for various online

technical journals and wrote Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. She’s a

gadget geek and enjoys beta testing the latest Microsoft Mobile devices.

Patricia lives in Seattle, Washington. In her spare time she watches a lot of TV and movies,

and she is an avid reader.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

In this introduction

Welcome to Outlook 2007

Why Use Outlook 2007?

What's New in Outlook 2007?

Who Should Read This Book?

How This Book Is Organized

Conventions Used in This Book

Author's Final Comments

Welcome to Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 is part of the all new Microsoft Office 2007 system. With new features, new color schemes, and the all-new Microsoft Office ribbon, Outlook 2007 is better than ever before.

I first started working with Outlook shortly after Outlook 97 was released. I was thankful that Outlook 98 followed shortly on its heels. Since then, I've watched Outlook grow and evolve into a first-rate personal information manager and robust, capable email client. I think Outlook 2007 is the best version of Outlook yet. Some of the changes took a bit of getting used to, most notably the new ribbon interface. But once I learned my way around, I was hooked. I hope you enjoy Outlook 2007 as much as I do.

Why Use Outlook 2007?

If you aren't a current user of Outlook 2007 and are considering purchasing it, you might want to know why you should use it. Well, I can't tell you all the ways you can use Outlook 2007 to help you, but I can tell you the ways it has helped me. I not only store all my email in Outlook, but I use archive folders to store and file old email. I create tasks for anything major I need to do every week, and I schedule all my meetings and appointments with Outlook. I work at Microsoft and therefore might be considered a bit biased, but I was actually using Outlook long before I started working here. I convinced my previous employer to deploy Outlook as its preferred Exchange client and that resulted in fewer missed meetings, greater sharing of information, and a high level of collaboration. From meeting minutes to workgroup tasks to contacts, Outlook can store and manage it all.

What's New in Outlook 2007?

Outlook 2007 contains many new features, both as a standalone email client and as a client for Exchange Server. The first thing you should be aware of (if you've not already purchased Outlook 2007) is that Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 will run only on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. If you have an older operating system, Outlook and Office 2007 won't install.

With Outlook 2007, Microsoft added a new productivity feature to the main Mail view: the To-Do Bar. Along with the Navigation Pane and Reading Pane, the To-Do Bar helps you manage all the information you store in Outlook 2007. Any Outlook item that you flag for follow-up shows up in the To-Do Bar, as well as your next three appointments at a glance. The To-Do Bar helps you keep on top of all those items that are most important.

In addition to the new To-Do Bar, Outlook 2007 offers the same reliable and functional interface you've come to love from Outlook 2003. From the two-line Inbox view to arrangements and intelligent grouping, Outlook puts the information you need at your fingertips. These concepts are discussed in detail in Chapter 4, "Creating Views and Print Styles." Groups are predefined based on different criteria for each arrangement. For example, arranging by date shows a group for each day of the current week, a group for last week, last month, two months ago, and so on. Grouping by size aggregates messages into size blocks. You can view small messages, medium-size messages, and large messages. This intelligent grouping gives users at-a-glance visibility of messages through expandable/collapsible groups.

There are also major enhancements in mail handling. Microsoft's philosophy is that you typically do one of three things with your email when you read it: You delete it, reply to it, or wait until later to respond to it. Outlook 2007 simplifies mail handling through enhanced message flagging and categorization features. The Quick Flag feature has been enhanced to categorize messages based on when you want to deal with them rather than by color. For example, you can now flag messages for Today, Tomorrow, This Week, or Next Week. In addition, categories have been replaced with new Color Categories. Color Categories allow you to assign both a color and category name to an item with just one or two clicks. In Outlook 2003, you were limited to just a few colored Quick Flags. Outlook 2007 provides unlimited support for color categories. In addition, an item's color category is displayed in all message views. Along with Quick Flags and Color Categories, Outlook 2007 offers search folders. Four default search folders ship with Outlook 2007: Categorized Mail, For Follow Up, Unread Mail, and Large Messages. These search folders take the results of a set of search criteria and operate over all mail folders in your default mailbox store. The For Follow Up search folder displays all mail items in your mailbox store with the Quick Flag set. Search folders work like virtual folders—what you see on the screen is a view just like your default Inbox view.

The Navigation Pane enables you to select any type of Outlook item quickly. Clicking on Tasks in the Navigation Pane takes you directly to the Tasks folder and shows you any other Tasks folders in your mailbox. Selecting Mail in the Navigation Pane shows you a folder list with only your mail folders shown.

The Calendar interface includes the capability to view additional calendars in one default view, side by side. If you have permissions on someone else's calendar, a check box can display his calendar next to yours in the default Calendar view. You can display up to 12 calendars in one view, although anything more than 4 or 5 can get a bit cluttered.

The most noticeable change in Outlook 2007's user interface is the new Office ribbon. Available for most of Outlook's items, such as email messages, calendar items, contacts, and tasks, the ribbon provides access to the most commonly used functions. The ribbon groups these commands by function and allows you to make the most of your screen real estate. In addition to the ribbon, the Quick Access toolbar provides constant access to several often-used buttons. Finally, the Office Button has replaced the File menu, enabling you to access a wide variety of operations for your Outlook item.

Outlook 2007 enhances the Cached Exchange mode from Outlook 2003, providing even better performance and fewer annoying pop-up messages should your connection to the Exchange Server fail for any reason.

Through the use of Autodiscover, Outlook can configure your entire Exchange 2007 email account for you with only your email address and password. This can eliminate many calls to the Help Desk trying to configure an Exchange 2007 email account. In addition to configuring your account, Autodiscover can update your account whenever the Exchange adminis trator makes a configuration change, eliminating costly downtime.

The first time you see Outlook 2007, with its To-Do Bar and the ribbon, you might not like it. But give it a chance. I found after two days of using Outlook 2007, I was saving time every time I accessed my email. This book can help you learn about all the new features in Outlook 2007. Anywhere a new feature is discussed, there will be a New to Outlook 2007 icon next to the text. Look for these icons to quickly bring you up to speed on Outlook 2007's new features.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is written for the technically savvy computer user. You don't have to know how to flash your BIOS or install a new network card, but you do need to know how to right-click, save a file, change directories, and maybe even write a simple line of code. If you're new to computers, you can still read this book and learn all about Outlook, but you'll probably need a companion guide to learn the basics of your operating system.

If you've used previous versions of Outlook, this book will explain, in detail, all the changes in this new version of Outlook. Whether you've never used Outlook before or are an Outlook 2003 guru, this is the only Outlook 2007 book you'll ever need.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into five parts. Each part details different uses of Outlook 2007. This book was designed so that you can instantly flip to your desired part and learn about just the topics you're interested in, or you can read it from beginning to end, working through each topic in logical progression. The following list gives you an overview of the book's parts:

• Setting Up and Configuring Outlook—This part contains all the basics that you need to know when working with Outlook. You'll learn the various options for viewing items, working with folders and files, and customizing command bars. You can apply this information throughout all your day-to-day work with Outlook. At the beginning of this part, you'll find a chapter that mentions all the new features of Outlook 2007 with cross-references to other chapters that cover the new features in detail.
• Outlook as a Personal Information Manager—Outlook is designed as an email client and personal information manager. This part includes topics for each type of Outlook folder and item as well as a general introduction to personal information management. You'll learn how to use categories, learn how to configure Outlook Today, as well as find information to configure Outlook to send and receive email. Other chapters in this part show you how you can organize your Outlook items into different folders. Last, there is a chapter on security within Outlook.
• Outlook as the Client for Exchange Server—In this part, you'll learn the specifics of how to use Outlook as an Exchange client. Outlook 2007 is a powerful program on its own, but when paired with Exchange Server, Outlook 2007 is a powerful productivity and collaboration tool. You'll learn about t...

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Customer Reviews

Be Careful!!!!!!
I have never spent so much money on such a large volume that has so little useful information. If you are using Vista, check the other books available, this focuses on XP. I also bought 'Using Office 2007' and it is the same. The reading and explanations are easy to follow and understand, but I have found only a couple in each book that actually work. I do not know whether the high ratings given these books are XP users who have used limited information; but the ratings sure fooled me. I borrowed a 'Dummies' book and it has much more useful information.

The Best Reference Book
This is the best reference book for Outlook 2007. I purchased the book for my use, but everyone in my office comes by and borrows it. If you want information on Outlook, this is the book for you.

The Essential Guide
Outlook 2007, both as a separate client, and as a network client, needs to have a guide manual for most users.At some point you WILL need to have either a thorough manual or a very active community forum.If you work in an IT environment as I do, you have an extra benefit of many people using many forums.But, as a one stop shop, the QUE manual series is the most
comprehensive and hence beneficial source of information you can have on any topic, in this case, OUTLOOK 2007. The areas of the Interface ( and Outlook 2007 is essentially an interface to a server, in some cases an ISP, in some cases a Business EXCHANGE server), but however you get the raw info, the Outlook tool manipulates it in many ways, and can be supplemented. It also behaves differently in some cases, for example with Office 2007, the Templates loaded will affect the behaviour of the Outlook client, and so thats when saupplemental information is needed( a forum, or people who might now what is affecting outlook in a different way). Also, to get more out of Outlook, some people use XOBNI as a meta-data sorter ( a sort of Dashboard on a dashboard); I personally think XOBNI is not needed with good Outlook use, since you need much memory, and Outlook 2007 does the extra work anyway. But the Great thing about Outlook is that it really is an Email client which extracts a great deal of data, and also can be used as a first class PIM ( Personal Information Manager) and also a great Calendar and much more. This manual is all about USING Outlook 2007, and it does that in an orderly and logical manner.
Much of what lies outside of the manual is really about a full use of the templates. For example, if the default of the Appointment schedule gives you a screen that you don't want, then so long as the administrator has not locked the templates down, then you just change the calendar appointment, and save it in iCalendar or template mode... works beautifully.