Name

Mail Actions Menu

Synopsis

The Actions menu, shown in Figure 6-1, contains commands for creating and responding to mail.

The Mail Actions menu

Figure 6-1. The Mail Actions menu

Learn Mail’s Shortcut Keys

It’s worth the effort to learn Mail’s principal keyboard shortcuts: New, Reply, Reply to All, and Forward. Creating and replying to email is primarily a keyboard task. Keeping your hands—and mind—focused here increases productivity dramatically. See , for a list of Outlook’s keyboard shortcuts.

Actions New Mail Message

The New Mail Message command is one of the most commonly used commands in Outlook. For this reason, it can be invoked in one of several ways:

  • From any Outlook component using the File New Mail Message command or the global keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+M.

  • With any mail folder selected (Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, etc.) using the menu command Actions New Mail Message, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N, or the New toolbar button.

  • Double left-click in the empty space below the messages in any mail folder.

Depending on your choice of mail editor (Tools Options Mail Format), this command opens either a new message form (Figure 6-2, left) or Word’s mail.dot template (Figure 6-2, right). See Chapter 5 for information on choosing and configuring a mail editor.

Outlook’s default mail editor forms

Figure 6-2. Outlook’s default mail ...

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