10 Minute Guide to Outlook 97 - 5 - Working with Incoming Mail In this lesson, you learn to read your mail, save an attachment, answer mail, and close a message. Reading Mail When you log on to Outlook, your Inbox folder appears, and any new messages you've received are waiting for you (see Figure 5.1). Figure 5.1 Review the sender and subject before opening mail. As you can see in this figure, the Inbox provides important information about each message. For example, two messages have been labeled as high priority, one is low priority, and one message has an attachment. You'll learn about priorities and attachments in Lesson 9, "Setting Mail Options." In addition, the Status bar at the bottom of the Inbox window indicates how many items the Inbox folder contains and how many of those items are unread. Timesaver Tip: Welcome! The first time you log on, you may find a welcome message from Microsoft in your Inbox. After you read the message, you can delete it by selecting it and pressing the Delete key. To open and read your messages, follow these steps: 1. Double-click a mail message to open it. Figure 5.2 shows an open message. Figure 5.2 The Message window displays the message and some tools for handling this message or moving on to another. 2. To read the next or previous mail message in the Inbox, click the Previous Item or the Next Item button on the toolbar. Or you can open the View menu, choose Previous or Next, and choose Item. Plain English: Item Outlook uses the word "item" to describe a mail message, an attached file, an appointment or meeting, a task, and so on. "Item" is a generic term in Outlook that describes the currently selected element. You can mark messages as read or unread by choosing Edit, Mark as Read or Mark as Unread. Outlook automatically marks mes-sages as read when you open them. But you might want to mark messages yourself once in a while (as a reminder, for example). Additionally, you can mark all of the messages in the Inbox as read at one time by choosing Edit, Mark All as Read. You might want to mark mail messages as read so you don't read them again; you might want to mark important mail as unread so you'll be sure to open it and read it again. Panic Button: No Mail? If you don't see any new mail in your Inbox, choose Tools, Check for New Mail, and Outlook will update your mail for you. Choose Tools, Check for New Mail On to specify a service other than the default. See Lesson 24 for more information. Saving an Attachment You will often receive messages that have files or other items attached. In the Inbox list of messages, an attachment is represented by a paper clip icon beside the message. You'll want to save any attachments sent to you so you can open, modify, print, or otherwise use the document. Messages can contain multiple attachments. To save an attachment, follow these steps: 1. Open the message containing an attachment by double-clicking the message. The attachment appears as an icon in the message text (see Figure 5.3) Figure 5.3 An icon represents the attached file. 2. (Optional) You can open the attachment from within the message by double-clicking the icon. The application in which the document was created opens and displays the document in the window. Close the application by choosing File, Exit. 3. In the message, select the attachment you want to save and choose File, Save Attachments. The Save Attachments dialog box appears (see Figure 5.4). 4. Choose the folder in which you want to save the attachment and click Save. (You can change the name of the file if you want.) The dialog box closes, and you're returned to the message window. You can open the attachment at any time from the application in which it was created. Figure 5.4 Save the attachment to a convenient folder. Answering Mail You might want to reply to a message after you read it. The Message window enables you to answer a message immediately, or at a later time if you prefer. To reply to any given message, open the message and follow these steps: 1. Click the Reply button or choose Compose, Reply. The Reply Message window appears, with the original message in the message text area and the sender of the message already filled in for you (see Figure 5.5). Timesaver Tip: Reply to All If you receive a message that has also been sent to others--as either a message or a "carbon copy" (Cc)--you can click the Reply to All button to send your reply to each person who received the message. 2. The insertion point is in the message text area, ready for you to enter your reply. Enter the text. 3. When you finish your reply, click the Send button or choose File, Send. Outlook sends the message. Figure 5.5 Reply to a message quickly and easily. You also can send a reply from the Inbox, without opening the message. Suppose, for example, you already read the message and closed it, but now you've decided you want to reply. Select the message in the Inbox list and click the Reply button. The Reply Message window appears with the original message in the text area and the sender's name in the To area. Enter your text and send the message as you learned in the previous steps. Timesaver Tip: Reminder The next time you open a message to which you've replied, you'll see a reminder at the top of the Message tab that tells you the date and time you sent your reply. Printing Mail You can print mail messages whether they're open or not. To print an unopened message, select the message in the message list of the Inbox or other folder and choose File, Print. If the message is already open, you can follow the steps below: 1. Open the message in Outlook. 2. Use one of the following methods to tell Outlook to print: Click the Print button on the toolbar to print using defaults. Choose the File, Print command to view the Print dialog box. Press Ctrl+P. 3. In the Print dialog box, click OK to print one copy of the entire message using the printer's default settings. Timesaver Tip: More Print Info See Lesson 18, "Printing in Outlook," for detailed information about configuring pages, setting up the printer, and so on. Closing a Message When you finish with a message, you can close it in any of the following ways: Choose File, Close. Click the Control-menu button and click Close. Press Alt+F4. Click the Close (X) button in the Message window. In this lesson, you learned to read your mail, save an attachment, answer mail, and close a message. In the next lesson, you will learn to manage your mail messages.

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