Productivity Cheat Sheet 16 - Outlook Express

Some four years ago, a British explorer named David Mills found himself marooned on an iceberg around the North Pole. The iceberg was disintegrating rapidly. All his attempts at convincing the authorities to send a plane to pick him had come to naught. A plane couldn’t land on the iceberg, reasoned the rescue team. So Mr. Mills dug up a short runway on the ice floe, took photographs of it, and e-mailed them to his rescuers to convince them of the feasibility of landing a plane.

Only long-term inmates of Rapunzel’s Tower would not have witnessed how e-mail has revolutionised the way we communicate, think, and react. Be it at work or in our personal lives. And almost unarguably the single most popular application responsible for this has been Outlook Express. So in this episode of our cheat sheet series let’s we look at the “fastest fingers first” for this ubiquitous mailing programme.

MAIN WINDOW, VIEW MESSAGE WINDOW, AND SEND MESSAGE WINDOW
F1: Opens Help topics
Ctrl + A: Selects all messages

MAIN WINDOW AND VIEW MESSAGE WINDOW
Ctrl + P: Prints selected message
Ctrl + M: Sends and receives e-mail
Delete or Ctrl + D: Deletes e-mail message
Ctrl + N: Opens or posts new message
Ctrl + Shift + B: Opens Address Book
Ctrl + R: Replies to message author
Ctrl + F: Forwards message
Ctrl + Shift + R or Ctrl + G (only news): Replies to all
Ctrl + I: Goes to Inbox
Ctrl + > or Ctrl + Shift + >: Goes to next message in list
Ctrl + < or Ctrl + Shift + <: Goes to previous message in list
Alt + Enter: Views properties of selected message
F5: Refreshes news messages and headers
Ctrl + U: Goes to next unread e-mail message
Ctrl + Shift + U: Goes to next unread news conversation
Ctrl + Y: Goes to folder

MAIN WINDOW
Ctrl + O or Enter: Opens selected message
Ctrl + Enter or Ctrl + Q: Marks message as read
Tab: Moves between Folders list (if on), message list, preview pane, and Contacts list (if on).
Ctrl + Shift + A: Marks all news messages as read
Ctrl + W: Goes to a newsgroup
Left arrow or + (plus): Expands news conversation (show all responses)
Right arrow or - (minus): Collapses a news conversation (hide messages)
Ctrl + J: Goes to next unread newsgroup or folder
Ctrl + Shift + M: Downloads news for offline reading

MESSAGE WINDOW--VIEWING OR SENDING
Esc: Closes message
F3: Finds text
Ctrl + Shift + F: Finds message
Ctrl + Tab: Switches between Edit, Source, and Preview tabs

MESSAGE WINDOW--SENDING ONLY
Ctrl + K or Alt + K: Checks names
F7: Checks spelling
Ctrl + Shift + S: Inserts signature
Ctrl + Enter or Alt + S: Sends (posts) message

ADDRESS BOOK
F1: Lauches Help
F5: Refreshes View
Ctrl + N: New Contact
Ctrl + G: New Group
Ctrl + R: New Folder
Alt + Enter: Properties
Ctrl + F: Finds People