Getting the Most out of E-Mail with Outlook Express

Home , Outlook Express, Windows Address Book

21 Oldaker St, Devonport

Tel. 6424 9413

A Taste of E-commerce

Getting the most out of e-mail

with Outlook Express

Presented by John Guenther

PREFACE...... 1

COURSE OBJECTIVES ...... 2

MODULE 1 – SETTING UP OUTLOOK EXPRESS...... 3

WHAT DOES OUTLOOK EXPRESS DO?...... 4 A NOTE ABOUT OUTLOOK EXPRESS AT ONLINE ACCESS CENTRES ...... 4

STARTING OUTLOOK EXPRESS ...... 5

SETTING UP HOTMAIL TO BE USED IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS ...... 6 EXERCISE 1 - USING OUTLOOK EXPRESS VIEWS...... 9

UNDERSTANDING FEATURES OF THE OUTLOOK EXPRESS WINDOW ...... 11 EXERCISE 2 - CHANGING HOW OUTLOOK EXPRESS BEHAVES ...... 14

FOR HOMEWORK – SETTING OPTIONS ...... 15

MODULE 2 – SENDING AND RECEIVING MESSAGES...... 16

EXERCISE 3 - CREATE A NEW MESSAGE ...... 17

EXERCISE 4 - SENDING MESSAGES TO SEVERAL RECIPIENTS ...... 19 RECEIVING MESSAGES ...... 21

REPLYING TO MESSAGES ...... 21

REPLYING TO ALL ...... 22 FORWARDING MESSAGES ...... 23

EXERCISE 5 – PRACTICE REPLYING AND FORWARDING ...... 23 SENDING ATTACHMENTS ...... 24

VIEWING ATTACHMENTS...... 26

SAVING ATTACHMENT FILES ...... 27 EXERCISE 6 – PRACTICE SENDING AND RECEIVING ATTACHMENTS...... 27

DELETING MESSAGES ...... 28

MODULE 3 – ADVANCED FEATURES ...... 29

FOLDERS IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS ...... 30

EXERCISE 7 – CREATE A FOLDER ...... 30 EXERCISE 8 – MOVING MESSAGES INTO A FOLDER...... 31

DELETING FOLDERS ...... 31 FLAGGING MESSAGES ...... 33

FINDING MESSAGES ...... 34

A TASTE OF E-COMMERCE – GETTING THE MOST OUT OF E-MAIL

Preface

Application and Version Differences

Because of version and preference differences, screen shots and descriptions may differ slightly from what a trainee may experience in the training environment. Where possible, the manual has been designed with the training environment in mind.

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About this Manual

This Manual has been developed for the sole purpose of Online Access Centre courses. It may not be copied without express permission of the author / presenter.

Course Structure

This course contains examples and detailed instructions. A floppy disk is provided to take practice exercises away for future reference.

Course Objectives

This course is designed to get you up to speed with e-mail. While we will be using Outlook Express, you can apply the principles and procedures you have learned to almost any other e-mail program you may be using at home or at work.

During this course you will learn how to… q arrange the Outlook Express workspace to suit yourself q adjust and set personal information that displays when you send and receive messages q create, send and receive messages. q use an address book with e-mail messages q send, save and view an attached file q set up folders and organise your messages

Module 1 – Setting up Outlook Express

In this module you will learn q about arranging the workspace in Outlook Express to suit you q what the different parts of the workspace do q how to make Outlook Express behave the way you want it to

What does Outlook Express do?

This course assumes that you are using Outlook Express version 5. At the time of writing, this is the most recent version of the program. If you have a previous version of Outlook Express, you should upgrade to the latest version. You can download it free as part of Internet Explorer, or you can pick it up from a PC magazine from your supermarket or newsagent. If you don’t have Outlook Express at home or at work, it shouldn’t be any bother, as most of the features used here are common to most other e-mail programs.

A note about Outlook Express at Online Access Centres

The TCO do not allow us to set up an individual POP31 account for each machine at an Online Access Centre. However, what we can do is set up Outlook Express to read hotmail accounts, so that it behaves pretty much as it does on your own PC with your own personal or work account.

The accounts that have been set up with hotmail are [email protected] where X is a number from 1 to 10. Your instructor will advise of the password if need be.

1 POP stands for Post Office Protocol, the standard usually used by most e-mail programs. For more information go to www.whatis.com

Starting Outlook Express

Find the Outlook Express icon on the programs menu:

Once you have clicked on it, the proram starts and the program is represented in the taskbar with an Outlook Express icon.

Once open, the Outlook Express program may display as follows.

We’ll learn about the different parts of the window shortly.

Setting up Hotmail to be used in Outlook Express

If you would like to set up an existing Hotmail account to use with Outlook Express, it’s pretty straightforward. Click on Tools | Accounts from the menu bar:

From the Internet Accounts dialog box, click the ‘Mail’ tab, press the Add button, and click on Mail.

In the next dialog box type the name you want other people to see when they get messages from you.

Click the button. If you have an existing account, you can type the e-mail address in the box. For a new account with Hotmail, click on the button below.

You don’t have to do anything with the next dialog box if it is a Hotmail account. Just click the button. In the next dialog, you can put in your password.

The last step requires you to click the button, which then takes you back to the Internet Accounts dialog box. You can choose the button.

A dialog box asks if you want to download folders… choose Yes.

If you did not put your password in earlier on, you will be asked for it now.

Your ‘Inbox’will probably look something like the following, with indicators in brackets showing how many new messages you have.

The folders showing on the left side of the screen, should be exacly the same as those you currently have set up in Hotmail.

Note that it doesn’t look like a usual Hotmail account. The big advantage of using Outlook Express with Hotmail is that you can store as much on your hard drive as you like, and you can prepare and read messages while off-line.

Exercise 1 - Using Outlook Express views

You can customise Outlook Express to suit how you would like it to appear. Let’s give it a go.

Choose View | Layout from the menu bar.

From the Window Layout Properties dialog box, check or uncheck boxes so that it shows as follows:

After you click OK, you might notice a few changes to the Outlook program window.

Understanding features of the Outlook Express window

Lets take a quick look at a few parts of the Outlook Express window.

Folders

Folders are essentially storage areas for messages. The above diagram shows how they are used. You can add your own folders to help organise your messages. For example in the illustration above, folders named archives (for old messages) and church (for messages related to church activities) have been added. We’ll have a look at how to add folders a bit later.

Click on each folder and note that it becomes highlighted (as with Inbox above) and then look on the right hand side of the screen to see the list of messages change.

Message list

The message list area shows the subject, sender, date and some other relevant information.

Try clicking on any of the column headings and note that the messages will re-sort into the order of that heading. This can be really helpful when you are looking for a message in a long list.

To open one of the messages, try double-clicking on any of the messages that appear in your message list.

Note the different symbols used for opened and unopened messages shown above. Unopened messages appear in bold text in the list.

Preview pane

The preview pane shows the first part of a message so that you don’t have to open it in order to discover what it is about. Again, this is a handy tool for quickly getting to messages you are looking for.

Contacts

The Contacts pane shows a list of people in your address book. Note that if you already have a Hotmail account then this list is not what you see on Hotmail. Contacts are stored on your PC and you add them locally. They are usually stored in a Windows Address Book2.

To use a contact for a new message simply double-click on the contact. If you try this, you will see the person’s name appear in the ‘To’ box of the New Message window. We’ll have a look at how to set up addresses a bit later.

Tool bar

The toolbar provides a quick and convenient way to access most of the commands you are likely to need when handling e-mail. We will use most of these buttons in the next module.

Menu bar

The menu bar gives you access to all the commands available in Outlook Express, including many you will never use! Click on any menu item to see the available commands.

2 Windows Address Books can be used by several applications. They are normally used for storing information about e-mail addresses.

Exercise 2 - Changing how Outlook Express behaves

There are several ways you can change how Outlook Express behaves to suit you. For example, you might want the name that appears in messages from you to change.

Try this:

Right-click the Hotmail symbol and choose ‘Properties’.

Make changes to the Mail Account description, the Name, Organisation and reply address as appropriate.

For homework – setting options

Another way options for Outlook Express can be changed, is through the Options dialog box. Click Tools | Options to display the dialog box:

While we don’t have time now to explore these options, it could be worth your while to explore these later in your own time.

Module 2 – Sending and receiving messages

In this module you will learn how to q compose and send a new message q add people to your address book q view new messages q reply to and forward messages q delete unwanted messages

Exercise 3 - Create a new message

Let’s create a new message to the person on your left.

First, click on the button in the tool bar. This brings up the new message window.

The parts of the window annotated above are what we will use.

We’ll add the address from the address book by clicking on the address book button next to “To:” as circled above.

This brings up the Address Book. If the person you want to send a message to doesn’t appear, you can add a new contact by clicking the button.

Tip: Don’t forget that you can double-click a contact in the

main Outlook Express window to send a new message to

that person.

In the New Contact window, you just need to add a first name, last name and type in the email address. Lastly, click the button and click OK.

The new contact appears in your Address Book.

To add the person to the new message, click on their name and click the button and press the .

Now enter the subject “First Message” in the subject box.

In the message area, type in a very brief message and sign it off with your name.

Finally, click the button.

The message will go briefly into you Outbox before ending up in your Sent items folder.

Check to make sure this has happened.

Exercise 4 - Sending messages to several recipients

You can send a message to several people at once.

In the ‘Select Recipients’ box, select the names you want to send the message to and add them to the To, Cc or Bcc boxes.

Try clicking several names by holding the key down whilst clicking each name. When you are done, all the names will appear highlighted as shown below.

Once highlighted, just click the To, Cc or Bcc buttons in the middle of the window.

What’s the difference between To, Cc and Bcc?

refers to the person(s) you are addressing a message to.

refers to ‘carbon copy’ – the person(s) you wish to copy the message to.

refers to ‘blind carbon copy’ – people in this box are invisible to other recipients.

Try sending another new message to several people in your address book (other people in the group). You might also want to see what happens when you choose the ‘To:’, ‘Cc’ or ‘Bcc’ buttons.

Receiving messages

When you receive a new message, it comes into your Inbox and is indicated in bold in the message list. The number of new messages in your Inbox is shown with a number in brackets.

Double-click on a message in the message list, and it appears in a window on its own.

Replying to messages

Once you have a message, replying is even simpler than creating a new one from scratch.

Click on the button in the toolbar.

Notice that in the message window, many of the details have been filled in for you. The sender’s address goes automatically into the ‘To:’ box. ‘Re’ and their subject goes into the Subject box, and a copy of the original message is shown at the bottom of the message area. Note that the cursor blinks ready to type at the top of the message area.

When you are ready to send your reply, click the button, and provided you are online, the message will be sent immediately and will show up in the ‘Sent’ folder, along with other sent items.

Replying to all

When you receive a message sent to several people, you can send a message back to all the original recipients by clicking the button. In other respects ‘replying to all’ works the same as replying to a single person.

Forwarding messages

When you have a message you wish to pass on to someone else, you ‘forward’ the message. What this means is that the whole message, together with any attachments (we’ll get to them soon) is sent to one or more recipients.

Using an opened message, click the button. (Note: you can also click on a message in the message list).

Note here, that the ‘To’ box is empty – you have to decide who to send it to, and in the subject box, we see ‘Fw:’. The original message appears in the window below.

Exercise 5 – Practice replying and forwarding

Using some of the messages in your inbox, which you would now have from Exercise 4. One of those messages was sent to multiple recipients – use this one to ‘reply to all’.

Sending Attachments

An attachment is another name for a file that goes with a message. It’s a bit like using a paper clip to attach a document to a letter. The files you attach could be any type of file – pictures, documents, spreadsheets, programs – or whatever.

Normally you will know what and where your file is. In the exercise that follows, we will send a picture from the A: drive as an attachment. The process is the same for any type of file.

Start a new message as usual, filling in the usual fields. Prepare a message for the person on your right.

Then click the paper clip in the tool bar (shown above). You will then be prompted to look for the file. There is a selection of photos on your floppy disk.

Click the ‘Look in’ box and choose the 3 ½ Floppy A drive.

Double-click any of the files listed.

The name of the file will then appear in the ‘Attach’ box.

Send the message when you are done.

Tip: remember that large files will take a long time to

download. Keep the file size under 1MB if possible.

Viewing attachments

When you receive a message that has an attachment, it will appear in your message list with a paper clip symbol next to it.

If you double-click one of these messages you will see the list of attachments in the message window.

To open the file, simply double-click on the file. This activates the program associated with the file and brings it up in a separate window.

Warning: viruses often come as attachments. Be sure to use

up to date anti-virus software to check any suspicious

files.

Saving attachment files

Once you have an attachment in your email, you will probably want to work with it and store it with related documents.

If you use the Preview window, clicking on the paper clip gives you an option to save attachments.

If you click ‘Save Attachments…’ you will be prompted to save the file(s) to a particular location. You can do this by clicking on the Browse button.

Exercise 6 – Practice sending and receiving attachments

Create a new message to the person on your right, attaching a file from the floppy disk provided. Then follow the steps above to view the attachment and save it onto your floppy disk.

Deleting messages

The time will come when you will want to delete unwanted messages – because either your inbox is getting cluttered with junk mail or you need to recover space on your hard disk.

It’s easy.

First, select a message from your message list.

Then press the Delete button (circled above).

This sends the message to the ‘deleted items’ folder – which works very much like the Recycle Bin on your desktop.

To empty your deleted items folder, simply right-click on it and choose ‘Empty deleted items folder’.

Try deleting some messages from you Inbox and then empty the deleted items folder.

Module 3 – Advanced features

In this module you will learn: q how to organise messages into folders q how to flag messages for follow-up q how to find messages based on content

Folders in Outlook Express

Folders are a very convenient way of organising your email messages. Once you have a few hundred messages, it would be very easy to lose or misplace them. By creating folders with appropriate labels, this problem can be overcome.

In the following exercises, we’ll learn how to create folders and move messages into folders.

Exercise 7 – Create a folder

In this exercise, we’ll create a new folder in our Hotmail account. Note that with a hotmail account you can only create stand-alone folders. You can’t create folders within folders.

Right-click on the Hotmail symbol and choose ‘New Folder…’ from the list.

Type a folder name in the space provided and click OK.

The new folder now appears on the list of folders under Hotmail.

Tip: if you are using ‘local folders’ its better to store folders

inside the ‘Inbox’.

Exercise 8 – Moving messages into a folder

We’ll take one of the messages and drag it into our newly created ‘personal’ folder.

Click on any of the messages in your Inbox and drag it down to the personal folder as shown below.

Let the mouse go when the pointer and folder look like this:

Then double-click the personal folder to see what is inside it.

Deleting folders

Try this for the personal folder you just created.

Deleting folders is as simple as right-clicking the folder and choosing ‘delete’ from the menu:

You are given a warning before finishing the action.

Say ‘Yes’ to the option box.

The folder disappears.

Flagging Messages

When you get several messages in quick succession, it can be useful to flag some for future reference so that you don’t forget to take action on them.

Select the message you want to flag from the message list (or open the message) and choose Message | Flag Message.

[If you are prompted to turn on a column, click the ‘Yes’ button.]

Note the little red flag that appears in the list:

Finding messages

Even with folders to organise messages there will be times when you lose (or misplace) something. That’s where the Find utility comes in handy.

Click the button. You will be prompted to fill in one or more fields of the Find box.

Try using the message field to look for words that you have used in your messages.

After you click the ‘Find Now’ button, the results are displayed in a list:

From this list, it should be easy enough to identify and open the message you are looking for.