Office 2016 For Seniors For Dummies (2016)

Part IV

Outlook

For a guide to organizing your mail in Outlook, visit www.dummies.com/extras/office2016forseniors.

Chapter 11

Managing Email with Outlook

Get ready to . . .

Set Up Outlook for the First Time

Set Up Additional Mail Accounts

Troubleshoot Mail Setup Problems

Take a Quick Tour of Outlook’s Mail Feature

Receive and Read Your Mail

View Photos and Other Attachments

Reply to a Message

Compose a Message

Attach a File to a Message

Avoid Frauds, Scams, and Viruses

Outlook is a multipurpose program. It’s an address book, a calendar, a to-do list, and an email-handling program, all in one.

The most popular Outlook feature, of course, is email. Millions of people use Outlook as their primary email-handling program, and for good reason! Outlook is fast, full-featured, and easy to use and customize.

In this chapter, I show you how to set up an email account in Outlook and then how to use it to send and receive email. I also explain some common email pitfalls and scams and tell you how you can avoid them.

Set Up Outlook for the First Time

The first time you start Outlook, you’re prompted to set up your email account. The following steps walk you through the process.

1. Start Outlook. (Open the Start menu, type Outlook, and then click Outlook 2016 in the search results.)

2. If this is the first time you started Outlook, the Welcome to Microsoft Outlook 2016 dialog box opens. Click Next.

If you don’t see that dialog box, someone might have already started Outlook on this PC before. Just skip to the next section.

3. At the E-Mail Accounts screen, you’re asked whether you want to configure an email account. You do, so click Next.

4. In the Add Account dialog box that opens (see Figure 11-1), fill in your details, and then click Next. (You are not really creating a new account; you are just setting up your existing email account in Outlook.)

Outlook attempts to determine the name of your mail server and then contact it to set up your accounts, using an encrypted connection.

· If the encrypted connection works, a message appears telling you so.

· If the encrypted connection doesn’t work, a message to that effect appears. Click Next, and it tries to connect unencrypted.

If Outlook can determine the right settings (and it does in most cases), it logs into the mail server and sends a test message to you. Wait while all this goes on.

5. Check to make sure Outlook correctly detected the account type. You should see a message like “Your account type account has been successfully configured.”

6. Click Finish.

Figure 11-1

If the test message fails, see the upcoming section, “Troubleshoot Mail Setup Problems.”

Set Up Additional Mail Accounts

If you have other email accounts, you can set them up in Outlook, too. If you have a separate account for a home-based business or hobby, for example, you might want to be able to get the mail for that address at the same time you retrieve the mail for your main account.

To set up another mail account (or to set up your first one, if you didn’t do that when you started Outlook for the first time), follow these steps:

1. Choose File ⇒ Account Settings ⇒ Account Settings. The Account Settings dialog box opens.

2. On the E-Mail tab, click New. The Add Account dialog box appears. It is the same as the one shown in Figure 11-1.

3. Fill in the information for the account. Then click Next.

4. Complete the setup by following the prompts that appear.

If you have any trouble with the setup, or the test message doesn’t go through, see the next section.

5. When you finish setting up the account, click Close to close the Account Settings dialog box.

Troubleshoot Mail Setup Problems

Each email service has its own quirks in how the account has to be set up in Outlook (or any mail program) to properly send and receive. Outlook can automatically detect the settings in many cases, but it can’t always detect every service correctly.

If Outlook wasn’t able to successfully send a test message, you need to do some troubleshooting. Don’t panic, though. It’s not that difficult. If you get stuck, you can always call your ISP’s tech support line and get help.

If you’re using a Web-based email provider, it might not work with Outlook. Some services have workarounds that you can follow to make them work in Outlook; check the tech support section at the Web site where you get your Web-based mail to see whether there is anything you can do.

To troubleshoot mail problems, make sure you have the following information handy. If you don’t have it, contact your ISP. It might also be available on the ISP’s Web site.

· Your email address and password: You probably have this already from your earlier attempt.

· The incoming and outgoing mail server addresses: They both might be the same.

The server address is usually whatever comes after the @ sign in your email address, preceded by the word mail. For example, if your email address is tom@myprovider.com, the mail server might be mail.myprovider.com. If there are separate servers for incoming and outgoing mail, the incoming one might be pop.myprovider.com, and the outgoing one might be smtp.myprovider.com. Those are just guesses, though; you will need to get that information from your ISP.

· Information about whether an encrypted connection should be used.

· Information about whether your outgoing mail server requires authentication: And if so, whether the outgoing server requires a different username and password than your regular one.

Armed with all that information, do the following to troubleshoot:

1. Choose File ⇒ Account Settings ⇒ Account Settings. The Account Options dialog box opens.

2. Double-click the email account you want to troubleshoot. The Change Account dialog box opens.

3. Check all the information in the dialog box to make sure that it matches the information you have about your mail account. In particular, check the Account Type, Incoming Mail Server, and Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP).

You might not be able to change the account type. If you can’t, and it’s wrong, you will need to delete that account from Outlook and set it up again, as if it were a new account.

4. Mark or clear the Require Login Using Secure Password Authentication (SPA) check box, whichever is different from the current setting. Then click Test Account Settings to see whether that fixed the problem. If it didn’t, go back to the original setting.

5. Click More Settings. On the Outgoing Server tab, mark the My Outgoing Server (SMTP) Requires Authentication check box. See Figure 11-2. Click OK and then click Test Account Settings to check whether it helped.

For the username, use your complete email address. If that doesn’t work, try using only the part of your email address before the @ sign. Try it with the Require Secure Password Authentication (SPA) check box cleared, and then try it with that check box marked.

6. Click More Settings again. On the Outgoing Server tab, choose Log On Using, and then enter your user name and password in the boxes provided. Click OK and then click Test Account Settings to try again.

7. Click More Settings again. On the Advanced tab, check the Incoming server and Outgoing server port numbers to make sure they match the port numbers recommended by your ISP for your account.

8. On the Advanced tab, drag the Server Timeouts slider closer to the word Long (that is, farther to the right). This can help give more time to a mail server that is slow to respond. A timeout delay of more than two minutes isn’t usually needed. Then click OK, and click Test Account Settings.

9. If you got Outlook to successfully complete a test message, great. Close all dialog boxes.

If not, contact your email service provider’s tech support and find out what setting you need to change to make it work.

Figure 11-2

Take a Quick Tour of Outlook’s Mail Feature

After you configure Outlook for email, take a quick look around the Outlook interface as it pertains to email. Figure 11-3 points out the following features:

· Navigation pane: This pane shows different things, depending on the part of Outlook you’re working with. When working with mail, it shows the Mail Folders list. (See Figure 11-3.) You can move to a different folder by clicking its name here.

· Inbox: Whatever folder is selected on the Mail Folders list appears here. In Figure 11-3, that’s the Inbox. New mail arrives in the Inbox, so it’s the folder you work with most of the time.

· Reading pane: Whatever email message is selected in the Inbox appears here in preview. That way, you don’t have to open each message (by double-clicking it) to see what it contains.

By default, the Reading pane appears to the right of the Inbox. You can have it appear below the Inbox window, though; choose View ⇒ Reading Pane ⇒ Bottom.

The Navigation pane and Reading pane can be turned on or off from the View tab. Also on the View tab you can turn the To-Do bar or the People pane on and off. (Neither of these are on by default.)

· Navigation buttons: At the bottom of the Navigation pane are a series of buttons for moving to different parts of the Outlook program. The leftmost one (the envelope) represents Mail, in which you are now working. The others shown in Figure 11-3, from left to right, are Calendar, People, and To-Do List. To access additional icons, click the ellipsis (…) for a pop-up menu of the other areas: Notes, Folders, and Shortcuts.

Figure 11-3

Figure 11-4

Receive and Read Your Mail

After you configure your email account(s) in Outlook, receiving mail is an automatic process. Outlook automatically sends and receives mail when you start it, and also at 30-minute intervals whenever Outlook is running. Your incoming mail comes automatically into the Inbox folder.

You can also initiate a manual send/receive operation at any time. Just click the Send/Receive All Folders button on the Quick Access toolbar (Directly above the File tab) or press F9.

Here’s how to change the interval at which Outlook automatically sends and receives mail.

1. Choose Send/Receive ⇒ Send/Receive Groups ⇒ Define Send/Receive Groups; or press Ctrl+Alt+S.

2. In the text box next to the Schedule an Automatic Send/Receive Every check box (which should be marked), change the number of minutes for the interval. See Figure 11-4.

3. Click Close.

To read a message, click it in the Inbox. Its content appears in the Reading pane. Many people read their mail exclusively in the Reading pane, and never “open” a message formally. To open a message (that is, to display it in its own window), double-click it.

View Photos and Other Attachments

Email messages can contain file attachments. The most common type of attachment is a photo; family members can send you photos that they took with their digital cameras, for example.

Some types of attachments can carry viruses. (Pictures are generally safe, though.) If you have any doubts about the safety of any file you receive, do not open it. At the end of this chapter are some tips for discerning which attachments are risky.

You can tell that a message has an attachment by the paper clip icon next to it in the Inbox, as shown in Figure 11-5. Then in the Reading pane, note the icon and text (at the top of the message) representing the attachment. Click the attachment in the Reading pane to see a preview of it. To get back to the message itself in the Reading pane, click Back to message.

Figure 11-5

You can also open the attachment in the program associated with its file type by double-clicking it.

If you want to save the attachment — download it — any of these ways will work:

· Right-click the attachment and choose Save As from the menu that appears. In the Save Attachment dialog box that opens, enter a filename and location, or accept the defaults. Then click Save.

· Choose File ⇒ Save Attachments, click the attachment name, and click OK. In the Save Attachment dialog box that opens, enter a filename and location, or accept the defaults. Then click Save.

· Double-click the attachment to open it in the program associated with its file type. Then save the file from there, using that program’s Save command (probably File ⇒ Save As or some variation of that).

Reply to a Message

Replying to a message is quick and easy because you don’t have to look up the recipient’s email address. It’s already filled in for you.

To reply to a message, click the Reply button (either the one at the top of the Preview pane or on the Home tab), or press Ctrl+R. A reply draft is generated in the Preview pane, with the original message quoted in the body of the message and the original sender’s email address in the To field. See Figure 11-6. Type your reply, and then click Send to send your reply.

Figure 11-6

Clicking the Reply All button sends the reply to the original sender plus any other original recipients (other than you).

Using Reply All is useful for an ongoing email discussion with a group of people. Be careful, though, that you don’t accidentally use Reply All and send a sensitive message to a wider audience than you intended.

Earlier versions of Outlook opened a separate window when composing a reply. If you want to work in a separate window instead of the Preview pane, click Pop out at the top of the Preview pane.

Compose a Message

When you compose a new email message, you (not Outlook) fill in every piece of information: the recipient(s), the subject, and the body. Unlike with replying (see the preceding section), none of that information is filled in for you automatically.

· Recipient: This is the information in the To field. You need the email address of each person you want to send your message to. The Contacts section of Outlook provides storage for email addresses; Chapter 12 addresses the Contacts list. For now, though, assume that you know the address and will type it in.

· Subject: You can type anything you want as the subject (or nothing at all), but your recipients will be appreciative if you keep the subject descriptive and to the point.

· Body: This is the main part of the message. It can be plain or formatted text.

You can format the text in the message using the formatting controls on the Ribbon. These are the same as the formatting controls in Word. Read all about Word formatting in Part II of this book.

To compose an email message, follow these steps:

1. Click the Home tab and then click the New E-Mail button, or press Ctrl+N.

2. In the new message window that appears, type the email address(es) for the recipient(s) in the To field.

If you have more than one recipient, separate the addresses with a comma.

3. (Optional) To send a courtesy copy to someone other than a main recipient, type the email address in the Cc (carbon copy) field.

You can also send a blind carbon copy (Bcc) to someone. A Bcc differs from a regular Cc in that none of the other recipients see the Bcc person’s name listed. To send a Bcc, click the To or Cc button, opening a Select Names box. At the bottom of that box is a Bcc line. Type the cloaked recipient’s address there.

4. (Optional) If you have more than one email account set up in Outlook, click the From button and select the account from which you want to send. The From button isn’t present unless you have more than one email account set up.

5. Type a subject in the Subject line.

6. Type the message body in the body area (below the Subject line). Figure 11-7 shows a message ready to send.

7. Click Send to send the message.

Figure 11-7

To apply basic text formatting to the message body, use the tools in the Basic Text group on the Message tab. For more advanced formatting tools, see the Format Text tab.

When you send a message, it’s immediately moved to your Outbox folder. There it waits until the next Send/Receive operation. You can send it immediately by clicking Send/Receive on the toolbar, or let it go out during the next scheduled Send/Receive.

If you click Send and then immediately realize you made a mistake and want to call back the message, here’s the fix:

1. Double-click the Outbox folder in the folder list at the left.

2. Immediately double-click the unsent message to open it. As long you have the unsent message open, it won’t be sent. With the unsent message open, you can edit it or delete it.

If Outlook won’t let you open it because it already started transmitting, do the following:

1. Click the Send/Receive indicator in the bottom-right corner of the Outlook window to open a menu.

2. From that menu, choose Cancel Send/Receive as quickly as you can.

Another workaround is to quickly exit from Outlook. A prompt will appear that you still have messages in your Outbox; click Yes to exit anyway. Then disable your Internet connection before you reopen Outlook.

Attach a File to a Message

You might sometimes want to send files from your own computer to other people via email attachment, such as a photo, a document, or a spreadsheet. It’s easy to do!

As you compose the email message (or reply to a message), click the Attach File button to open a menu, and then click Browse This PC (to browse locally) or Browse Web Locations and then click OneDrive (to browse your OneDrive).

Either way, the Insert File dialog box opens. From here, you can navigate to the file you want and then click Insert. The attachment appears on the Attached field in the message composition window. See Figure 11-8.

Figure 11-8

If you change your mind about sending that attachment, you can delete it from the message by selecting it and pressing the Delete key.

Avoid Frauds, Scams, and Viruses

You might have heard horror stories about people whose computers became infected with viruses, worms, and all sorts of other nasty things, and who had to pay a lot of money to get it cleaned up — if they could. These stories are real, and so is the threat. However, you can do some very basic things to minimize your exposure to such risks.

First, look at what the threats are:

· Spoofing/phishing: These legitimate-looking email messages contain bogus links to Web sites that can trick you into providing confidential information, such as passwords and bank account data. Thieves then use this information to steal your identity and empty your bank accounts.

· Viruses: These executable files (that is, program files) do destructive things to your computer, such as delete files or corrupt a disk. Watch out for files with an .exe extension.

· Worms: These program files or scripts use your computer to send out mass-mailings of spam without your knowledge or consent.

· Exploits: These program files or scripts target weaknesses in your computer’s security to use it to send out spam or do other harmful things. These usually come from hidden utilities built into some Web sites.

· Spyware: These hidden programs spy on your usage habits (including passwords you type, in some cases) and report them back to their owner via the Internet.

· Adware: These hidden programs pop up ads on your screen, or change the behavior of your Web browser to display its own ads.

· Unwanted search toolbars: These add-on toolbars replace your default search tools with the search database sponsored by a certain company, so that the results of your searches bring up their sponsored sites.

Those are the threats you face. Now, look at how to face them down. Here are my top ten tips:

· Windows comes with a basic antivirus program (Windows Defender), but you might want to get a more full-featured one that includes email scanning. Two of the most popular are Symantec (Norton) Antivirus and McAfee VirusScan.

· Most full-featured antivirus programs include incoming and outgoing email scanning. Keep that feature turned on. It will protect you from most viruses and worms attached to emails.

· If you get an email with an attachment, be suspicious of it. Do not open the attachment until you verify the following:

· Is the attachment from someone you know?

· Were you expecting a file from that person?

If the answer to either question is No, contact the person who sent it to you and find out what it is before you open it.

· Never open any attachments that have any of these extensions (file types): EXE, COM, BAT, VBS.

· If you get an email with an attachment with a ZIP extension, be extra suspicious. (A ZIP file contains other files.) One common worm infection distributes itself in a ZIP file that’s marked as an online greeting card, for example.

· If you get an email message that appears to be from your bank or a government office, be very suspicious. Most banks and government offices don’t do important business via email. Instead, go directly to the organization’s Web site by typing its address into your Web browser. Whatever you do, do not click the link in the message.

· If you get an email message that appears to be from PayPal or eBay, be suspicious. These companies do sometimes send out legitimate emails, but phishing sites often impersonate those sites. Go directly to PayPal or eBay via your Web browser; do not click the links in the emails.

If a message from PayPal or eBay doesn’t address you by name, it’s more likely to be a fake. However, this isn’t a reliable way to tell.

· If you’re not sure about a link in an email, point the mouse pointer to the link. A ScreenTip appears showing the actual address that the link is pointing to. If it doesn’t match the text on the link, it’s probably a fake.

· Some unwanted search toolbars trick you into installing them as you install other software. You can usually get rid of them via Control Panel in Windows. (Right-click Start and click Control Panel and then under the Programs heading, click Uninstall a program. Scroll through the list of installed programs there and look for anything with toolbar in the name — and remove it.

The Yahoo! and Google toolbars are okay to keep; these are legitimate.