EMAIL BASICS

Compose A Message

Select Compose, New Message or click the New Message button. A blank message appears.

Address A Message
Click the To: button. The address dialog box appears. The top right drop down box will tell you which address book you are in. Scroll to locate the name, or type the first few letters of the last name to search for the user. Click the To: button. Repeat as necessary. To send a carbon copy, highlight the recipient’s name and click the Cc: button. Click OK after all addresses have been entered.

Add Subject And Message Text
Click in the subject box and type the subject of the message. Press the TAB key to enter the message text area.

Send Message
After the message has been prepared, click the Send button. The message is temporarily stored (for a few seconds) in the Outbox until it’s delivered to the addressee’s. 

Reply to All Recipients
On the toolbar, click the Reply to All button. The Standard Send form appears. The TO and Subject boxes are automatically filled in. Complete the message and click the Send button.

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Forwarding Messages

On the toolbar, click the Forward button. The Standard Send form appears with the Subject box filled in. The To box is not filled in. Click the To: button and address the message. Click in the message area and type the message. Click the Send button.

If you no longer need a message you should delete it. Because deleted messages are moved to the Deleted Items folder temporarily, if you change your mind about deleting a message, you can still retrieve it. When you logout of Microsoft Exchange, the Deleted Items folder will be emptied.

To delete a message, click on the message to highlight it and click on the Delete button on the toolbar. The message is moved from the Inbox to the Deleted Items folder.

To view items in the Deleted Items folder, click on it. The deleted items will be listed. Click on the Inbox to return to your mail.

To attach a file to a message, click the Attach File icon , and the Insert file dialog is displayed. Browse to the file to be attached, select the file, then click the Insert button located in the lower right corner of the window.

Opening Attachments
1. Open the message with an attached file.
2. Attached files are displayed in thelower portion of the message window

When a file fails to open, follow these steps:

• Right click on the attached document
• Select "Save As"
• Save the document to the directory of your choosing.  If it is a document you do not care to save, you can save it to the C:\TEMP or C:\WINDOWS\TEMP directories.  These directories are cleaned out each time you start your computer.
• Next, open the program you think will work with the file.  If you think it is a spreadsheet, use Excel.  If it is a document, open Word.
• Go to the "File" menu and select "Open" and then navigate to the directory where the file was saved.
• Attempt to load the file and see if it works.
• If other programs fail to open the file, forward the message with an explanation to the network support person to see if an alternative can be found.

• File incompatibility -- The sender has used a format that we do not use in this department.  One major reason for county-wide software standards is to facilitate inter-departmental communication.  It is impractical to expect the department to load numerous versions and brands of software to accomodate a few e-mail messages.  The only solution, in this case, is to verify with the network support person that the file actually is incompatible.  Once that is affirmed, the sender should be requested to re-send the document in a common format.  This approach has worked in almost every instance since it is quite rare that a particular document is constructed using highly proprietary or advanced functions.  Most programs can save documents in different formats.
  
• Undefined file endings -- All files have what is called an "extension."  A file name is composed of an number of letters, followed by a period ("."), and then ended with a three or four letter extension. Windows 9x uses the extension to interpret what sort of file is being read.  If it ends with DOC, it assumes it is a document. If it ends with XLS it assumes it is a spreadsheet.  It can read extensions from numerous programs such as WordPerfect or QuatroPro or Lotus 1-2-3.  Occasionally, however, a file arrives with an unusual ending and Outlook fails to open the file.  Under most circumstances, following the "Save As" approach as described above will solve this riddle.  Probably the most ambigious ending is no ending at all.  Windows 9x often reserves files with no extensions so that no particular program can open them.

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Sorting Messages

To change how your messages are sorted, you can click a column heading. For example, if you click on the column header for received date, you messages will be sorted in ascending order by received date.

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