T
Throw
G'day everyone
Our company's IT department gave us a few new computers, and on two of
these computers we now have Outlook 2000 (on Windows XP). Our previous
e-mail program (on a few of the other computers) is/was MS Exchange 97
(on Windows 2000). Outlook looks really cool but it has way too many
features, and I'm missing a few features which used to be present in MS
Exchange. I'd be glad if you could help me.
1. Edit message.
Everyone in our office has access to a share e-mail post box. When
something arrives, one person opens the mail and writes a little
comment at the top of the mail to indicate what action was taken (such
as "phoned client, wait for response" or "printed and filed"). Anyone
else opening that same e-mail can then see the comment at the top of
the mail.
With Outlook 2000, I can't edit the message at all. I can't write a
comment. I have to ask one of my colleagues everytime I did something
to write me my comment in their MS Exchange program. Surely there must
be a way for me to edit a received message?
2. Quote message.
When I reply or forward a message, Outlook adds a thin blue line to the
left of the quoted text. In my settings I specified that the ">"
character should be used, but Outlook uses the thin blue line. What's
worse, is that if I delete that blue line in one line of text, the
entire paragraph's blue line disappears! This means that I can't edit
the original poster's message to remove superfluous text when I reply.
I have to manually add ">" to each of his lines... this is silly, don't
you agree? Setting my settings to "plaintext" has no effect on this.
I'm not using Word as my e-mail editor (I have macros in MS Word which
interferes with Outlook if I do that).
Surely there must be a way for Outlook to give me more control over the
message I'm writing? Why can't Outlook just behave like normal e-mail
programs with plain, simple editing panes that insert ">" and leave it
up to the user to do the rest?
3. Unnecessary folders.
Outlook decided that I need some additional folders in my folder list.
The ones that I need or use, are Deleted items, Drafts, Inbox, Outbox
and Sent Items. These I want to see. The ones I do not need, and do
not wish to see, are Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Quarantine and Tasks.
In MS Exchange I can rightclick such a folder and delete it to remove
it from view, but in Outlook I can't figure out how to get them gone.
Any ideas? They're really taking up too much valuable screen space (I
have access to several mailboxes and I want to see them all without
having to scroll).
4. Respect "From" field.
I have the From field visible because I have to be able to type in from
which mailbox I'm sending a mail. However, even though I have full
access to those mailboxes, Outlook saves the sent mail in my own
personal Sent Items folder, regardless of which mailbox name I write in
the From field. I have to manually move the items from my Sent Items
to the Sent Items of the relevant mailbox. Can I get Outlook to be
clever enough to do this by itself?
5. Huge personal folders
I save all personal mail in a personal folder (pst file). However,
after a few years, this thing is getting very, very big (about 600
megabytes by now). In mail programs like Mozilla, each subfolder is
saved as a seperate file, but in Outlook, my entire mailbox is saved as
a single file. How can I export only a select few messages (say, about
1000 of them at a time) into a single file? I don't mind roundtripping
via other mail clients, but if Outlook can do this by itself, then that
would save me some time.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
I must admit that I'm not an Outlook fan, but I have no choice... I
have to use it, says the CEO.
Samuel (aka voetleuce, aka leuce, aka throw)
Our company's IT department gave us a few new computers, and on two of
these computers we now have Outlook 2000 (on Windows XP). Our previous
e-mail program (on a few of the other computers) is/was MS Exchange 97
(on Windows 2000). Outlook looks really cool but it has way too many
features, and I'm missing a few features which used to be present in MS
Exchange. I'd be glad if you could help me.
1. Edit message.
Everyone in our office has access to a share e-mail post box. When
something arrives, one person opens the mail and writes a little
comment at the top of the mail to indicate what action was taken (such
as "phoned client, wait for response" or "printed and filed"). Anyone
else opening that same e-mail can then see the comment at the top of
the mail.
With Outlook 2000, I can't edit the message at all. I can't write a
comment. I have to ask one of my colleagues everytime I did something
to write me my comment in their MS Exchange program. Surely there must
be a way for me to edit a received message?
2. Quote message.
When I reply or forward a message, Outlook adds a thin blue line to the
left of the quoted text. In my settings I specified that the ">"
character should be used, but Outlook uses the thin blue line. What's
worse, is that if I delete that blue line in one line of text, the
entire paragraph's blue line disappears! This means that I can't edit
the original poster's message to remove superfluous text when I reply.
I have to manually add ">" to each of his lines... this is silly, don't
you agree? Setting my settings to "plaintext" has no effect on this.
I'm not using Word as my e-mail editor (I have macros in MS Word which
interferes with Outlook if I do that).
Surely there must be a way for Outlook to give me more control over the
message I'm writing? Why can't Outlook just behave like normal e-mail
programs with plain, simple editing panes that insert ">" and leave it
up to the user to do the rest?
3. Unnecessary folders.
Outlook decided that I need some additional folders in my folder list.
The ones that I need or use, are Deleted items, Drafts, Inbox, Outbox
and Sent Items. These I want to see. The ones I do not need, and do
not wish to see, are Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Quarantine and Tasks.
In MS Exchange I can rightclick such a folder and delete it to remove
it from view, but in Outlook I can't figure out how to get them gone.
Any ideas? They're really taking up too much valuable screen space (I
have access to several mailboxes and I want to see them all without
having to scroll).
4. Respect "From" field.
I have the From field visible because I have to be able to type in from
which mailbox I'm sending a mail. However, even though I have full
access to those mailboxes, Outlook saves the sent mail in my own
personal Sent Items folder, regardless of which mailbox name I write in
the From field. I have to manually move the items from my Sent Items
to the Sent Items of the relevant mailbox. Can I get Outlook to be
clever enough to do this by itself?
5. Huge personal folders
I save all personal mail in a personal folder (pst file). However,
after a few years, this thing is getting very, very big (about 600
megabytes by now). In mail programs like Mozilla, each subfolder is
saved as a seperate file, but in Outlook, my entire mailbox is saved as
a single file. How can I export only a select few messages (say, about
1000 of them at a time) into a single file? I don't mind roundtripping
via other mail clients, but if Outlook can do this by itself, then that
would save me some time.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
I must admit that I'm not an Outlook fan, but I have no choice... I
have to use it, says the CEO.
Samuel (aka voetleuce, aka leuce, aka throw)