E-MAIL WITH OUTLOOK EXPRESS

View Options.

In the Main Window, click on "View" and then on "Layout".

Experiment with the check boxes on this options display to see what they do. Remember that after each change you need to click on Apply or OK. Apply will apply the change for inspection, and OK will terminate. But if you X or cancel, the changes which you have not "applied" will be ignored.

For example, unchecking the "Toolbar" box will cause the Toolbar to disappear; checking it will cause the Toolbar to appear again.

At installation there are four panes on the Main Window. The Folder List, the Contacts List, the Header Pane and the Preview Pane.

You can customize the Toolbar, and you can change the relationship between the Preview Pane and the Message Pane. You can also decide to have the Folder List always on show, or only when you require it. If you uncheck Folder List, you can make it appear on demand.

The only way to learn the use of this panel is to experiment, You can not make an irrecoverable error, so be bold.

For the present lesson set your preferences as shown above, with the preview pane Below messages. (I.e. below the Header Pane).

Folders.

E-mail messages are organised in "Folders". The concept is the same as folders in windows. Newly arrived message are put in your Inbox, and messages ready for sending are placed in your Outbox (see later for exception). Messages that have been sent are placed in a Sent Items folder. You can create new folders with names of your choosing.

To see the list of folders, click on the folder bar, where you see the name of the current folder at the far left.

Then you can click on the name of the folder. In this example, Outbox has one message that is marked as "Unread".

You can keep this list open by clicking the push pin, or by selecting folder list in the layout options.

Creating a new folder.

In the Main Window, click on File, New, Folder (or File folder new - both work). Create your new folder against the "Local Folders" main heading, unless you actually wish it to be subordinate to some other folder.

Columns.

Another item on the view menu is "Columns". This enables you to decide which columns you will see in the Header Pane. Once more you must experiment to see what effect the various selections have.

Most of the columns are self-explanatory. Here is a short explanation of some others.

Flag. You can click in this column to set a flag for later attention to a message. A little flag appears. Click again to unflag. The flag is not set by the sender, but by you.

Attachment. A paper clip symbol appears if this message has an attachment.

Priority. This symbol shows whether the sender had marked the message for high or low priority; if normal priority, this column is blank.

All of the visible columns can be used for sorting the message headers; just click on the column heading. click again for a reverse order sort.

Preview Pane.

Click on a message header to enable you to read the message in the Preview Pane. If the message is too long to show the whole message, you can use the scroll bar to move down the message.

To read the message in a full window, double click on the message header.

Message window and compose window

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