Stupid Outlook Tricks

[Tetsujin]

I just discovered an interesting way to use MS Outlook as a tickler system:

Start a new email to yourself, and while composing it go to View/Options. Go to "Delivery Options," check the box next to "Do not deliver before:" and enter 6:00 am and the date you want to be tickled. Then complete the email and send normally -- it will disappear to your Outbox, only to appear in your Inbox at the date and time you specified.

This is especially useful when you want to be tickled about something you receive via email -- just forward it to yourself and set delivery for the appropriate date.

Anyone else have Outlook tricks to share?

--Tetsujin.

 

[BrianK]

Grab & Drag

My favorite Outlook trick: grab & drag. If you have the folder list open on the left side, anything from the right pane can be dragged to a folder, creating a new item. As an example, if my emails are in the right pane, and one of them has the details for a meeting, conference call, plane flight, etc., it can be dragged to the Calendar on the left. This creates a new calendar entry with the contents of the email in the Note field. I use this most often to add things to the tasks: when an email comes in that represents a next action, I drag it to the Tasks folder. This creates a new task; its title is the same as the email's subject line.

This works for all combinations that I've tried. A calendar entry can become an email message. An email can become a note/memo. A task (next action) can become a calendar entry. And so on.

What's more, if you right-click and drag, Outlook gives you several possibilities: copy with the original item as the text of the new item, copy with a link in the new item to the original item, copy with the original item as an attachment to the new item, and move the original item as an attachment to the new item.

Thanks to the DA crew for this one.

 

[Anonymous]

Change the email subject

You can also change the Subject on the email, save it, then use those tricks, for a more miningful reminder

 

[intrigueme@aol.com]

You're...

...kidding me right ???

You guys didn't know this already?

Actually - my favorite Outlook trick is to save all the e-mail from a project into a PST folder - then at the end of the project print them out into a PDF that you can store ANYWHERE.

I've posted on this before - so simply do a search for my posts, and I'm sure you will find it

 

[Anonymous]

Outlook Tricks

Rich,

Pardon the Outlook for dummies question but is it true you must have the full version of Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF- not just the Acrobat Reader? Maybe there is an additional trick you could share for those without the full version.

 

[CoachMike]

Yes and no. Great answer huh? You can use a product called PDF995 if you don't want to spend the big bucks on the full Acrobat program. It allows you to create PDFs of your documents. If you can print it you can PDF it with PDF995. You can get the program at http://www.pdf995.com.

 

[rossw]

I keep the tasks open in a window in the left half of the screen. I keep my tasks grouped by context (category). Then when I drag a mail, I can drag it straight into the right context.

alt VXP

I consider a dated task to be a calendar entry (hard landscape) for the due date, if I haven't cleared it by then. On the calendar, These are the only tasks that appear on the calendar view. On the PPC, I use PI with a calendar view that shows hard dated tasks.

I file it sometimes helps to group mail by "from". Not sure why.

 

[Anonymous]

PDF

Yes and no. Great answer huh? You can use a product called PDF995 if you don't want to spend the big bucks on the full Acrobat program. It allows you to create PDFs of your documents. If you can print it you can PDF it with PDF995. You can get the program at http://www.pdf995.com.

Two other apps that can produce PDFs are StarOffice 7.0 (www.sun.com/staroffice) - cost some bucks - and OpenOffice.org. (www.openoffice.org). - free-ware. This is two office-apps that can save documents to PDF. But I don´t know if this is what you wanted.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: PDF

Yes and no. Great answer huh? You can use a product called PDF995 if you don't want to spend the big bucks on the full Acrobat program. It allows you to create PDFs of your documents. If you can print it you can PDF it with PDF995. You can get the program at http://www.pdf995.com.

Two other apps that can produce PDFs are StarOffice 7.0 (www.sun.com/staroffice) - cost some bucks - and OpenOffice.org. (www.openoffice.org). - free-ware. This is two office-apps that can save documents to PDF. But I don´t know if this is what you wanted.

Extremely popular in the Linux crowd is PDFCreator. It is completely free, open source, and has no string attached (ie, no adverstisments to watch each time you use it). I'm always amazed at the results I get.

http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Re: PDF

Yes and no. Great answer huh? You can use a product called PDF995 if you don't want to spend the big bucks on the full Acrobat program. It allows you to create PDFs of your documents. If you can print it you can PDF it with PDF995. You can get the program at http://www.pdf995.com.

Two other apps that can produce PDFs are StarOffice 7.0 (www.sun.com/staroffice) - cost some bucks - and OpenOffice.org. (www.openoffice.org). - free-ware. This is two office-apps that can save documents to PDF. But I don´t know if this is what you wanted.

Extremely popular in the Linux crowd is PDFCreator. It is completely free, open source, and has no string attached (ie, no adverstisments to watch each time you use it). I'm always amazed at the results I get.

http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm

Of course, don't forget PrimoPDF, my personal favorite.

 

[MuseOfLife]

My brother recommended me to use this PDF Creator. I’m totally satisfied with it.

 

[manuelhe]

My favorite trick is to add metadata tags to my emails.

I have Outlook 2007. I dont know if this is available in the earlier versions.

Essentially I add columns to the view of my emails in each folder. This lets me edit information about my emails and forces me to answer the "What is it?" question about each email.

Here are the steps:

1. While viewing a folder, select View/CurrentView/Customize Current View from the top menu.

2. From the 'Customize Current View" dialog , select the "Fields" button. This takes you to a dialog box called "Show Fields". You will see the columns displayed in that particular folder as well as many other columns that are available to you.

3. In the "show fields" dialog box there is a button labeled "New Field". Here you can add new fields to add catagory or other such labels to your email.
once the fields are added I have to be able to edit them.

Close the "show fields" dialog and get back to the "Customize Current View" dialog and select the "Other Settings" button
in the "Other Settings" dialog box I check the Allow In-Cell editing option.

In my system I only have three folders. Reference, Someday Maybe and Tickler. These are the fields I have added for each of those folders.

Reference: catagory1, catagory2
Someday maybe: catagory1, catagory2
Tickler: date, catagory1, catagory2

I like the date field in the tickler file because I can determine when that item comes up. I sort my view by date and pick off the top. for someday maybe and for tickler I have not needed more than those two generic fields. I think newspapers used to file their stories like this.

Hope you find this useful!

 

[whitesco]

Another PDF writer recommendation: CutePDF. IT's been around for a long time and it's the one I use.

http://www.cutepdf.com/

 

[Tech]

Follow-up on Outlook e-mails...

Now, the Outlook trick below is not my invention at all, is very low-tech, but it really works and secures that you follow-up on everything and gets things done.

Here is how it works for me: When sending an e-mail asking for something, I always Bcc myself on the e-mail. This is the kind of e-mails I need to do some follow-up on e.g. delegated actions. Other e-mails I just send - and forget about. In my Inbox, I receive a copy of the e-mail needing follow-up and an Outlook rule immediately moves it to a folder I have named "@Waiting For". On a daily basis (or weekly) I can review the "@Waiting For" folder and easily see what matters I need to follow-up on. I delete these e-mails one by one as there are no more action needed. And it really works!

Here, a few links for other descriptions of the principle:

[w] = I'm waiting for you
http://waiting-for.com/

Great Outlook Rule for Waiting For emails
http://www.davidco.com/blogs/kelly/archives/2005/12/great_outlook_r.html​

Hope you find this useful...

Tech

 

[cstogner]

How best to produce the PDF

What mechanism do you use to print out the contents of a personal folder to a PDF. The contents of a large folder can get quite large.

Chuck

...kidding me right ???

You guys didn't know this already?

Actually - my favorite Outlook trick is to save all the e-mail from a project into a PST folder - then at the end of the project print them out into a PDF that you can store ANYWHERE.

I've posted on this before - so simply do a search for my posts, and I'm sure you will find it

 

[cstogner]

Office 2007 Free Option

If you are using the Office 2007 suite you can go to this link and download a free add-in from Microsoft. Once installed an option for “PDF or XPS” in the “Save As” menu for your Office applications.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...3c-6d89-4f15-991b-63b07ba5f2e5&displaylang=en

Note that if you are converting a PowerPoint and want to publish in a different format than “Slides” (say as notes pages) you must click on “Options” to make that selection before you click on “Publish”.

 

[tonym]

Another BCC option

I used to use the BCC option for every email I sent & used them mainly for my Waiting For folder. This caused me to have process every email I sent, which was not the best use of my time.

Here's another option that I have been using lately.

Below my signature, I created type wf & in the font properties, turn it white, which makes it "disappear".

Then I created a rule that when it sees this phrase, it automatically puts it in the Waiting For folder.

It works great, the only issue is when someone replies to my message in plain text, the wf shows up.

Thanks for all the tips.

Tony

 

[Jepalme]

Calendar View

Does anyone have any tips or guidelines for improving the functionality of the Outlook 2007 Calendar?

Specifically, I'm looking to customize the view somehow so that there's no blank space between appointments. That way I don't have to scroll up and down and can see all of time commitments quickly and easily. Mobile devices refer to this sort of view as an "Agenda View" or "Stacked View." I've provided a couple of links below to better illustrate what I'm talking about.

http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/uploads/images/mobileshell/Screenshots/3/401.png

http://images.wirelessinfo.com/imag...Pro/Screenshots/organizer_calendar_agenda.jpg

I know that Gmail's Calendar has this functionality, but I'd really like to have it in Outlook. If anyone has any suggestions of 'settings' changes or software ad-ins, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.