Outlook is a big, complex program. We knew this at the onset of this project, and we were reminded time and time again as we scratched and prodded its underbelly looking for answers. What surprised us, however, was the passionate love/hate relationship Outlook engenders in users. They love it and they hate it. They love it enough to use it every day, and hate it enough to break into more than the occasion tirade when asked about the product. After ten months of exhaustive exploration and living with Outlook for twenty hours a day, we can relate.
Outlook has more than its share of quirks and nuances. Option dialogs reside in the strangest places. Configuration settings for one component quietly affect another. The program’s engineers appear to have taken great delight in using multiple naming conventions for identical objects. (Quickly now, what’s the difference between a Personal Store, a Store, an Information Store, and a Personal Folders file?)
Outlook has a steep learning curve. The good news is that as you progress along this curve, you’ll discover what a powerful and flexible program it is (sometimes too flexible—but flexible nonetheless). As you read through the pages to follow, you will quickly find that Outlook can adapt to almost any style or task you throw at it, sometimes with elegance, and sometimes with a kludge or two. There is not much you cannot do with Outlook given a little patience (well, OK, sometimes a lot of patience) and a healthy dose of ingenuity.
Most users don’t even begin to tap into Outlook’s full potential. One of the biggest reasons for this is the lack of clear, accurate documentation on how to use its many features and components. Outlook’s Help files are woefully inadequate for all but the most basic questions—and even then, the answers Clippit serves up often have no relevance whatsoever. Many of the books already written on Outlook tell you where to find something, but not why you might want to use it. We have done our very best to address these shortcomings in a tone and style that makes learning enjoyable.
The definitive guide to Outlook has yet to be written, and probably never will. The program is just too multifaceted to exhaustively cover in any one place. What we’ve tried to compile is an accurate and useful reference to Outlook’s major components. The end result is 600 pages of densely packed, “need-to-know” material, rather than a 1500 page tome. If you want fluff, this is not the place to look.
In the immortal words of our editor, “Get in, tell it like it is, and get out.” Amen, Troy.
Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell is structured in three parts.
The Big Picture is an overview of the tools and features of Outlook. Here we show the reader how program elements work in concert with Outlook’s other components.
Chapter 1 is a quick reference to the fundamental “how-tos” of Outlook. It’s organized around a Task List, which functions as a topical map of both this book and the program itself. Use this map as a guide to what Outlook can do, and where to find it in subsequent chapters. You’ll want to put a bookmark at the beginning of this chapter.
Chapter 2 gets you up and running with Outlook. It starts at the beginning of the installation process and walks you carefully through every junction along the way. Outlook is not hard to install, but the choices you make at setup determine a great deal of the program’s behavior down the road.
Chapter 3 is the seminal chapter of this book. It’s organized around the building blocks of Outlook: information stores, address books, forms, views, categories, printing, and search tools. Understanding these building blocks is a prerequisite to unlocking Outlook’s hidden potentials.
Chapter 4 looks at Outlook’s menus and toolbars—how they’re arranged, how they work, and how to customize them.
Chapter 5 is an in-depth look at the options available for creating and editing mail messages. Many of these options can be orchestrated directly from the mail editor. A message format can be selected; addresses can be resolved using the information contained in the Contacts folder; contacts can be associated with the message; flags can be set and categories assigned. In addition, most of these features can be set as a default action and overridden on a per-message basis.
Menu Reference is the core of the book. The chapters are organized by menu commands, with each section detailing a different topic. Each topic goes beyond what a command does—it tells you why you might want to use.
Chapter 6 details the menu commands used to create, reply to, and send email.
Chapter 7 details the menu commands used to create and track Outlook’s three distinct types of calendar entries: appointments, meetings, and events.
Chapter 8 details the menus used to create and manage contact records for the businesses and people you associate with every day.
Chapter 9 details the menu commands used to create, organize, and delegate your task list.
Chapter 10 details the menu commands used to create, edit, and manage your electronic sticky-notes.
Chapter 11 details the menu commands used to create and maintain Journal entries.
In Beyond the Basics, we bring all the various pieces and components discussed in previous chapters together and show you how to use Outlook with external programs and/or data sources. It’s also where you’ll find topics that did not fit neatly anywhere else.
Chapter 12 looks at ways to get data in and out of Outlook. Topics include supported import and export filters and how to use them effectively and safely without damaging your existing files.
Chapter 13 is a compilation of need-to-knows for managing your data, backing up Outlook, using multiple data stores, and working with the Folder List.
Chapter 14 details how to configure and use Net Folders to share your data with others, and covers Free/Busy as a way of addressing the quandary of scheduling meetings with a group of people.
Chapter 15 provides an overview on encryption and cryptography, digital certificates, and configuring Outlook to send and receive secure mail.
Chapter 16 shows you how to set up and configure the software necessary to synchronize Outlook with a Palm handheld organizer.
Chapter 17 looks at some of the features unique to Outlook when the program is used as a client to Exchange. If you want to know how to set-up and configure Public Folders or Out of Office Rules, this is where to turn.
Chapter 18 is a primer on how use VBA to leverage Outlook’s interface and data structures.
This section includes supplemental reference information and several quick-reference lists.
Appendix A is a comprehensive reference to Outlook’s keyboard shortcuts, arranged by component and task.
Appendix B provides an inventory of the common Registry keys used by Outlook, their paths, and what they do.
Appendix C details various ways to start Outlook from the command line, as well as several options to either reset a program default or rebuild a configuration file.
Appendix D is a complete list of all the tips included in the book.
Get Outlook 2000 in a Nutshell now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
