10 Minute Guide to Outlook 97 - 14 - Creating a Contacts List In this lesson, you learn to create and view a Contacts list, and to send mail to someone on your Contacts list. Creating a New Contact You use the Contacts folder to create, store, and utilize your Contacts list. You can enter any or all of the following information about each contact: Name Job title Company name Address (Street, City, State, ZIP, Country) Phone (business, home, business fax, mobile) E-mail address Web page address Comments, notes, or descriptions Categories Plain English: Contact In Outlook, a contact is any person or company for which you've entered a name, address, phone number, or other information. You can communicate with a contact in Outlook by sending an e-mail message, scheduling a meeting, sending a letter, and so on. You also can edit the information at any time, add new contacts, or delete contacts from the list. To create a new contact, follow these steps: 1. Click the Contacts button or choose the Contacts folder. If you haven't used the list before, the folder is empty. 2. Choose Contacts, New Contact, or simply click the New Contact button on the Toolbar. The Contact dialog box appears, with the General tab displayed (see Figure 14.1). Figure 14.1 You can enter as much or as little information about each contact as you need. 3. Click the Full Name button to display the Check Full Name dialog box, and then enter the contact's title and full name (including first, middle, and last names) and any suffix you want to include. Alternatively, you can enter the name in the text box. 4. (Optional) Enter the client's company name and job title. 5. In the File As drop-down box, enter or select the method by which you want to file your contact's names. You can choose last name first or first name first, or you can enter your own filing system, such as by company or state. Timesaver Tip: Keep It Simple The default filing method for contacts is last name first, which makes it easy to quickly find the contact when you need it. 6. (Optional) Enter the address in the Address box and choose whether the address is Business, Home, or Other. Alternatively, you can click the Address button to enter the street, city, state, ZIP code, and country in specified areas instead of all within the text block. You can add a second address (say, the home address) if you want. 7. In the Phone drop-down lists, choose the type of phone number--Business, Callback, Car, Home Fax, ISDN, Pager, and so on--and then enter the number. You can enter up to 19 numbers in each of the four drop-down boxes in the Phone area of the dialog box. 8. (Optional) Enter up to three e-mail addresses in the E-mail text box; in the Web Page text box, enter the address for the company or contact's WWW page. 9. (Optional) In the comment text box, enter any descrip-tions, comments, or other pertinent information. Then select or enter a category to classify the contact. 10. Open the File menu and choose one of the following commands: Save Saves the record and closes the dialog box. Save and Ne Saves the record and clears the Contact dialog box so you can enter a new contact. Save and New in Compan Saves the record and clears the Name, Job Title, File As, E-Mail, and comment text boxes so you can enter a new contact within the same company. You can edit the information about a contact at any time by double-clicking the contact's name in the Contacts list; this dis-plays the contact's information window. Alternatively, you can click within the information listed below a contact's name (such as the phone number or address) to position the insertion point in the text, and then delete or enter text. Press Enter to complete the modifications you've made and move to the next contact in the list. Viewing the Contacts List By default, you see the contacts in an Address Cards view. The information you see displays the contact's name and other data such as addresses and phone numbers. The contact's company name, job title, and comments, however, are not displayed by default. Figure 14.2 shows the Contacts list in the default Address Cards view. Figure 14.2 View your contacts in Address Cards view. You can use the horizontal scroll bar to view more contacts, or you can click a letter in the index to display contacts beginning with that letter in the first column of the list. Panic Button: Do I Save View Settings? Depending on the changes you make to a view, Outlook might display the Save View Settings dialog box to ask if you want to save the view settings before you switch to a different view. If you choose to save the current settings, Outlook lets you name the view and adds that view to the Current View list. If you choose to discard the current settings, your modifi-cations to the view will be lost. If you choose to update the view, your modifications are saved with that view. You can change how you view the contacts in the list by choosing one of these options from the Current View drop-down list on the Standard toolbar: Address Cards Displays File As names (last name first, first name last, and so on), addresses, and phone numbers of the contacts, depending on the amount of information you've entered in a card format. Detailed Address Cards Displays File As name, full name, job title, company, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, categories, and comments in a card format. Phone List Displays full name, job title, company, File As name, department, phone numbers, and categories in a table, organizing each entry horizontally in rows and columns. By Category Displays contacts in rows by categories. The information displayed is the same as what's displayed in a phone list. By Company Displays contacts in rows, grouped by their company. The information displayed is the same as what's displayed in a phone list. By Location Displays contacts grouped by country. The information displayed is the same as what's displayed in a phone list. Communicating with a Contact You can send messages to any of your contacts, arrange meetings, assign tasks, or even send a letter to a contact from within Outlook. To communicate with a contact, make sure you're in the Contacts folder. You do not need to open the specific contact's information window to perform any of the following procedures. Sending Messages To send a message to a contact, you must make sure you have entered an e-mail address in the General tab of the Contact dialog box for that particular contact. If Outlook cannot locate the mailing address, it displays the message dialog box shown in Figure 14.3. Figure 14.3 Outlook cannot send the e-mail until you complete the address in the New Message dialog box. In the Check Names dialog box, choose one of the following options: To send a message from the Contacts folder, select the contact and choose Contacts, New Message to Contact. In the Untitled - Message dialog box, enter the subject and message and set any options you want. When you're ready to send the message, click the Send button. For more information about sending mail, see Lesson 8, "Creating Mail." Scheduling a Meeting with a Contact To schedule a meeting with a contact, the contact must have a valid e-mail address. If no address is listed for the contact, Outlook notifies you with a message box and enables you to enter an address within the message dialog box. If the listed address is not found, Outlook responds with the Check Names dialog box, as described in the previous section. To schedule a meeting with a contact, select the contact and choose Contacts, New Meeting with Contact. The Untitled - Meeting dialog box appears. Enter the subject, location, time and date, and other information you need to schedule the meeting, and then notify the contact by sending an invitation. For more information about scheduling meetings, see Lesson 13, "Planning a Meeting." Assigning a Task to a Contact Tasks are assigned through e-mail. Therefore, you must enter a valid e-mail address for the contact before you can assign him or her a task. To assign a task to a contact, select the contact and choose Contacts, New Task for Contact. The Task dialog box appears. Enter the subject, due date, status, and other information, and then send the task to the contact. For detailed information about assigning tasks, see Lesson 15, "Creating a Task List." Sending a Letter to a Contact Outlook uses the Microsoft Word Letter Wizard to help you create a letter to send to a contact. Within the Letter Wizard, you follow directions as they appear on-screen to complete the text of the letter. To send a letter to the contact, select the contact in the Contact folder and choose Contacts, New Letter to Contact. Word opens the Letter Wizard on-screen. The Letter Wizard helps you format and complete the letter (see Figure 14.4). All you have to do is follow the directions and make your choices. You can click the Office Assistant button if you need additional help. Figure 14.4 Use Word's Letter Wizard to create a letter to a contact. In this lesson, you learned to create a Contacts list, view the list, and send mail to someone on your Contacts list. In the next lesson, you'll learn to create a task list.

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