Microsoft Outlook: Tips and Tricks

Microsoft Outlook provides the convenience of scheduling meetings directly from your email messages. Learn how.

Outlook's Calendar makes it easy to schedule meetings with colleagues. The steps below walk you through the process of scheduling a meeting through Outlook.

Creating your signature does not automatically add it to your email messages. Set up Outlook to automatically attach the signature to all outgoing mail by following these seven steps.

Add known senders to the Safe Senders list to ensure that their email will not go to your Junk E-mail folder.

Advanced Find helps you find the Outlook messages you're looking for by using additional search criteria.

If a colleague sends you a meeting invitation in Outlook, you will need to reply. Follow these four steps to reply to a meeting invitation.

Quick Parts is a feature of Outlook that saves snippets of text or images for quick reuse in future messages. If you find yourself typing the same phrase over and over, for example, creating a Quick Part can help automate your message-writing process. To create a Quick Part for text, follow these six steps.

It is a good idea to check the spelling and grammar of your messages before you send them. To check the spelling and grammar in a message, follow these five steps.

Notes help you stay on track and organized. Follow these simple steps to create and work with notes in Microsoft Outlook.

Your Outlook Address Book is a collection of email addresses from your Outlook folders. If you are using Outlook with an Exchange Server account, your Address Book will include the Global Address List (GAL), a list of everyone who has an Outlook account on the Exchange Server. To view a different address book in Outlook, follow these three steps.

If you frequently invite the same people to meetings, you can create a Calendar group in Outlook to easily view their calendars. To create a calendar group, follow these nine steps.

Organize your Outlook messages by sorting them by conversation.

If you need to send a message that you want the recipient to understand is private information, you can mark the message as private by following these four steps.

You can set a priority to a message of High, Low, or Normal, to let your recipient know its importance. By default, priority level of messages is set to Normal. However, you can change priority to High or Low in just a few simple steps.

When collaborating on a task, you may want to assign it to colleagues. To assign a task in Outlook, follow these six steps.

You can set a priority for a calendar item in Outlook much like you do for email messages, to allow recipients to categorize meetings.

You can use your Outlook Calendar to schedule an appointment, which does not involve inviting others, but will block out the time on your Outlook Calendar so those viewing it will see that you are busy at that time. To schedule an appointment in Outlook, follow these seven steps.

It is simple to compose a new message in Outlook.

Creating a folder system in Outlook will help you easily navigate your email messages. You can create subfolders in Outlook in just a few simple steps.

One of the ways to organize your messages in Outlook is to apply colors to message fonts; you first create color categories and then assign them to messages. You can choose from some default categories, such as unread mail, or set the formatting yourself. To apply a colored font to unread messages, follow these 10 steps.

Follow these steps to add an email message to your task list.

A read receipt confirms that an Outlook message you sent has been received and opened.

You can attach a note to a contact in Outlook to remind yourself about important information.

When you forward an email in Outlook, it appears as if it is from you rather than the original sender, and it contains headers. If you would like to send a message to another recipient so that he or she can easily reply to the original sender, you can redirect it. To redirect a reply in Outlook, follow these three steps.

You can use the Info tab in Outlook's Backstage view to manage your account settings, clean up your mailbox, and manage rules and alerts.

When you need to find a specific calendar item, it's easy to search your calendar in Outlook.

You can attach a note to a group in Outlook to remind yourself about important information.

It's easy to change the location of the three-day forecast in your Outlook calendar.

The calendar is the best option for time specific actions vs. tasks that need to get done but have no specific deadline. The following steps show how to add an email message to your calendar.

Learn how to sort messages in your Outlook inbox or other folders.

You can use categories with email messages as a way to organize them. See the five steps below to apply categories in Outlook.

You can save an Outlook message as text only, HTML, and more with just a few clicks.