There’s nothing new about Microsoft Outlook. People have been using it as their default email for years. Gmail, Hotmail and Ymail have grown in popularity, but some small-business owners prefer to use Microsoft Outlook. They lead busy lives and want to be able to quickly and easily communicate with clients, prospects, colleagues and employees. Outlook allows them to do that and more.
It’s not always easy to convey exactly what you’re trying to say to someone in an email message, and you just don’t have time for a video conference. One option is to use a screenshot. Outlook allows you to do this without going through the whole process of capturing the screenshot, saving it and then attaching it. The whole thing can be done while you’re composing your message. Simply click on the “Insert” tab, then click on “Screenshot.” Outlook will allow you to browse all the windows you have open so you can select the one you need. Once you’ve made your selection, it’s pasted into your message and you can either insert another or continue writing.
If you’re like me, you never empty either the trash or the spam folders in your email. With something like Gmail, this might not matter so much, but with Outlook, it could. All those stored messages take up space on your company’s server. Get rid of them. Outlook has a way for your email trash bin to be deleted automatically. Just as you can set your browser history to be deleted every time you log off the Internet, so can you set your email trash bin to be emptied every time you close out of Outlook. Simply click on “File,” then “Options,” then “Advanced.” Under the “Advanced” tab, you’ll want to find the “Start” and “Exit” options. When you do, select “Empty Deleted Items.” This ensures that every time you exit Outlook, your trash bin gets emptied. Be careful with this option, though. If you’ve ever deleted something mistakenly, you might want to just remind yourself to empty your email trash bin once a week. Going back to a client or colleague to ask him to resend an email you accidentally deleted can be embarrassing.
The last helpful tip for using Outlook pertains to back and forth email messages. Have you ever tried to schedule an appointment and found yourself sorting through dozens of email messages trying to find the one with the information you needed? Outlook has the answer to that problem, too. In the “Conversation View,” you can have all of your emails listed in an orderly fashion, complete with quoted text from previous emails. This can be distracting and even cause confusion. If you want to get rid of it, simply right click on the “Clean Up Conversation” button and the quoted text is deleted and you’re left with only the most relevant information.
Some people prefer to use Gmail or Hotmail or Ymail even for business correspondence. But if Outlook is your email account of choice, then the above tips could come in handy someday.
Need help with Microsoft Outlook? Give us a call today, we can help you with Microsoft Outlook because we use it everyday.
