A
Brief Introduction to Microsoft Outlook
By
Clevin Wong
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Microsoft
Outlook is a versatile component of the Microsoft
Office 2003 for users to manage personal information
and to communicate with others. It helps you in
managing your email messages, appointments, contacts,
and tasks, as well as making reminders and tracking
activities. In this article, we will give a very
brief introduction on some of the major functions
of this software.
Mail
Outlook can function as an email client connecting
to the Microsoft Exchange server using
a proprietary protocol, as well as to standard
mail servers using POP3 or IMAP protocol. It provides
a multipane view for easy browsing of your mailboxes.
You can use Word to compose email. Moreover,
it is bundled with an effective client-side junk
mail filtering tool.
Calendar
The calendar function is highly sophisticated
and feature rich. After marking your appointments
and events on the calendar, you can add sound
or message as a reminder. Calendar items can be
coloured for easy identification. You can display
the calendar in different views: a day, a week,
a work-week, and a month.
Contacts
Outlook comes with a powerful personal contacts
database. Besides email addresses, you can use
it to store various pieces of information such
as job titles, phone numbers, addresses, and notes
for each of your correspondents.
Tasks
The "Tasks" tool assists you to maintain
a "To-do list" easily. It helps you
to record the tasks of your various duties and
projects. You can set priority and due date to
each task.
Journal
You can keep track of your activities using the
"Journal" tool. Journal can automatically
record all the email your sent and received, and
keep track of how long you spent in other Office
programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
.
Notes
The "Notes" tool provides an electronic
version of the Post-it sticky notes. You
can create notes with different colours and set
reminders for each individual note.
Outlook
is a popular email clients used in enterprises.
It is included in Office 2003 standard, professional
as well as Academic-License editions. Its popularity
keeps on increasing due to the feature-rich functions
and its ability to keep in sync with mobile and
embedded systems.
Reference:
Outlook
2003 Product Information
http://www.microsoft.com/office/outlook/prodinfo/default.mspx
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