30 Tips for Outlook 2013

1 Adding a Signature to Messages

To automatically add a signature to new email messages, click File > Options > Mail. Under Compose
messages, click Signatures. Under Choose default signature, choose the signature to add to New
Messages. To manually add a signature while composing a new message, select the Message tab, and in the
Include group, click Signature and select the signature you want.

2 Adding Grid Lines Between Messages

If you find it difficult to distinguish between individual mail items in your message list, you can improve the visibility
of your mailbox by adding a grid lines. To do so, select View > View Settings > Other Settings From the
dropdown list, select Grid line style. You have the option of choosing one of four different separators: Small

3 dots, Large dots, Dashes, and Solid.

3 All Day Events

In Outlook, All Day Events are used as reminder notes. Once created, these reminders appear as helpful
reminders at the top of each calendar day.

4 Changing an Email to an Appointment

To change an email to an appointment, simply drag it from the mailbox to the calendar. Outlook keeps the email
in the mailbox and also places a copy of it in the calendar. Attachments appear with the email, but not with the
calendar copy.

5
Configuring Weather Information (if feature has been enabled by administrator)
To modify the weather location, click on the current location in the Calendar and select Add location. Enter the
name of your city. If the location is not found, try searching for a larger city nearby. To change the temperature
settings, select File > Options > Calendar. The settings are at the bottom of the Options dialog box.

6 Contacts
In Outlook, you can view contact details simply double-clicking the name of a contact (or sender). From the
contact details, you can send email to the contact, schedule a meeting, or even IM or call the person (if the
functionality is supported in your email environment).

7 Creating a Calendar Appointment

In Outlook, appointments arent the same as meetings. Appointments are activities that you schedule in your
calendar that dont involve inviting other people or reserving a conference room or other resource. In Calendar,
click New Appointment. You can also right-click a time block in your calendar grid, and then click New
Appointment. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+A can also be used.

8 Creating a Signature
The signature you created in GroupWise will not migrate to Outlook. To re-create it, click File > Options > Mail.
Under Compose messages, click Signatures. On the E-mail Signature tab, click New, and then type a name
for your signature. In the Edit signature box, enter your signature text, and then use the built-in tools to format it.

9 Creating a Task
To create a task, in Tasks, on the Home tab, click New Task. You can also use the keyboard shortcut
Ctrl+Shift+K.
10 Creating Multiple Calendars
Outlook allows you to create multiple calendars. For example, you may want one for work and another for
personal appointments and social obligations. To create an additional calendar, click Calendar in the navigation
pane, and then click Open Calendar in the Manage Calendars group on the Home tab. Choose Create New
Blank Calendar, and then name your new calendar.

11 Creating Rules
Rules you created in GroupWise will not migrated to Outlook. To re-create your rules, click the File tab, and then
select Manage Rules & Alerts. Click New Rule to launch the Rules Wizard.

12 Decreasing the Font Size in the Message List

In the message list, Outlook uses a larger font to display the senders name and a smaller font to display the
message subject. To decrease the font size, you can create a Conditional Formatting rule that doesnt have any
conditions but has a smaller sized font. To create a new rule, select View > View Settings > Conditional
Formatting. Click Add, and name the rule (e.g., Standard font size). Click Font, and set the size to Smaller.

13 Delegates
The Delegates feature of Outlook allows you to give the equivalent of proxy rights to specified users. However,
because Outlook is folder-based, rights can be granted on a much more granular basis. For example, you can
give rights to your Inbox, but not to your Sent Items or Deleted Items.

14 Disabling Inline Reply

Outlooks Inline Reply feature allows you to reply to messages directly in the Reading Pane rather than in
individual windows. You can click Pop Out to open your message in a standard Message Editor window. If you
prefer to always use the Message Editor window, you can enable the option by selecting File > Options > Mail
> Replies and Forwards > Open replies and forwards in a new window.

15 Disabling the Grouping Feature

Outlook automatically groups items by date. The default groups that are displayed in your Inbox include Today,
Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, and Older. To disable the Grouping feature, select the View tab and then click
Arrange By. Uncheck Show in Groups. If Show in Groups is checked, the feature is enabled.

16 Limiting a Search to a Particular Folder

A quick search bar is located at the top of your message list. By default, search results are drawn from your entire
mailbox. To change the scope of your search, select the folder in which you want to search (e.g., Inbox, Sent
Items, etc.) and then use the dropdown to change Current Mailbox to Current Folder. To permanently change
the default search location to the current folder, select File > Options > Search > Include results only from:
Current folder.

17
Limiting a Search to a Particular Sender
To search for messages from a particular sender, type from: followed by the search term in quotation marks.
For example, from:Pat would find messages sent from anyone with the first or last name that contains Pat.

18 Meeting Recipients Can Move the Item

Recipients of appointments (group meetings) should be careful not to accidentally drag an appointment to a new
place/time on their own calendar, as it will not be possible to tell what the original date/time of the appointment was.

19 Modifying Appointments
When the organizer of an appointment changes the appointment, an additional message is sent to the original
recipient to alert them. If a recipient deletes that email message, the calendar item is not updated.

20 Modifying or Disabling Message Previews

By Default, Outlook displays one line of each email so that you can quickly preview and find the message you
want. Its possible to display more lines or remove the lines altogether. To modify the message preview, select the
View tab and then click Message Preview. From the dropdown list choose to display up to 3 lines of message
text or select Off to turn off the message preview.
 21 Quick Steps
With the Outlook Quick Steps feature, you can quickly and easily perform multiple actions with a single click of
your mouse, allowing you to spend less time managing your email. A number of predefined Quick Steps are
available, such as To Manager, Forward: FYI, and Team E-Mail: Reply & Delete. These default Quick Steps
can be modified, or you can create new ones to suit your work style. For example, you can create a one-click
Quick Step called Mailing List: Ignore that automatically moves email messages sent from a mailing list youre
on to the Deleted Items folder or to another folder.

22 Recurring Appointment
Recurring appointments that were migrated from GroupWise to Outlook appear in your calendar but are not
linked to one another. As such, youll need to re-establish those appointments in Outlook. To create recurring
appointments in Outlook, select a frequency such as Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.

23 Replying to Conversations
Outlook always replies to the latest message in a conversation. If you open an older message within a
conversation and click Reply or Reply All, Outlook warns you that youre not replying to the most recent
message. Click the warning message to jump and reply to the most recent message in the conversation.

24 Retracting Messages
In Outlook, when you attempt to retract a message, recipients receive notification that you have attempted to
retract the message.

25 Scheduling a Meeting
In Outlook, a meeting includes other people and can include resources, such as conference rooms. Youll get
responses to your meeting requests in your Inbox. In Calendar, click New Meeting. Alternatively, you can create
a new meeting request from any folder in Outlook by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Q.

26 Setting a Reminder
To set a reminder for an appointment or meeting, open the appointment or meeting, and then in the Reminder
drop-down list, select the amount of time before the appointment or meeting when you want the reminder to
appear. To turn a reminder off, select None. To set a reminder for email messages, contacts, and tasks, click
Follow Up > Add Reminder.

27 Sorting Folders
By default, folders in Outlook 2013 are arranged alphabetically. You can, however, drag and drop the folder
names to re-sort them. To revert back to an alphabetical list, select the Folder tab and click Show All Folders A
to Z. Note that this only applies to the folders youve created and not to any top-level structures such as Inbox,
Drafts, or Sent.

28 Tracking Sent Items

In Outlook, if you want to know whether someone opened or received your email, you must enable receipts for
individual messages or for all outgoing mail prior to sending the email. If you do not get a receipt back, either the
email delivery failed or the recipient has disabled the ability to send out receipts on their system.

29 Turning the Reading Pane Off

When you click a message in the message list, a preview of the message appears in the Reading Pane. To turn
off the Reading Pane, select the View tab, and then click Reading Pane > Off.

30
Ungrouping Message Conversations
By default, messages that share the same subject and belong to the same thread are grouped together as a
conversation. In the Outlook user interface, you can expand a conversation in Conversation view to provide a
visual relationship between messages, including any responses and related messages from other folders. To
display messages individually, select the View tab and deselect Show as Conversations.

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