Perhaps of all the changes included in the Microsoft Office 2010 suite, the biggest changes were to Outlook 2010. Largely used by companies and students, Outlook often seemed as if it were being left inthedustwheneachnewset of Office products was released. Usually the only changes to Outlook were changes in the color scheme.
With the changes made, some people are finding either the changes difficult to adjust to or simply don’t know why changes were made to Microsoft Outlook. Here are 10 tips that should enable even novices to take advantage of the new functionality included in Outlook 2010.
1. Outlook 2010 contains a Social NetworkConnector.Outlook 2010 contains an installer application that allows the user to install personal information on contacts from social networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn. In addition, if the contact is one of your contacts on the social media site, his or her status updates will be visible to you within Outlook.
2. Outlook 2010 allows you to clean up an email conversation. How many times have email users had to scroll to get to the current message on an email? Often, by the fourth “email swap” the recipient is covered in conversation. Outlook now has the capabilityto”read the email” and preserve only the important information. Go to the “View” tab, then “Conversation” tab, then select “Clean up Conversation.”3. Outlook 2010 allows you to store the messages that are eliminated when using the “Clean up Conversation” feature until you are sure you do not need them. Select this option by choosing “File” then “Options” then “Mail.”4. Outlook can auto-close messages after you have replied to them. This function can also be reached by choosing “File” then “Options” then “Mail.”
5. Outlook 2010 can either forward the original message being replied to or can delete it when forwarding to another party. Choose “File” then “Options” then “Mail.” Then choose from the forwarding options given.
6. Outlook 2010 sends requests for meetings and other items specified by date in a calendar format to other Outlook users. This functionality enables all parties to see any scheduling conflicts.
7. Outlook 2010 allows you to recall any message that has been sent to any user of Outlook. In the past, in order to recall an email message, both parties had to be using a Microsoft Exchange server.
8. Outlook 2010 allows the user to delete all email messages from the trash whenever Outlook is closed. It also offers the option of opening in calendar view versus email view.
9. Insert a screen shot in Outlook 2010. In the past, a screen shot had to be taken, saved as .jpg or .gif file and then attached to the original email. The new functionality of Outlook 2010 allows the sender to attach the screen shot directly into the email.
10. The advanced search function in Outlook 2010 allows the user to search by phrases instead of just by names and dates.