Mastering Microsoft Outlook 2019 and 365 Training Tutorial

Welcome to the Outlook environment. The layout of elements in Outlook is streamlined and simplified, so the program is intuitive and easy to use for both new and old Outlook users. Outlook provides an easy-to-use Ribbon at the top of the application that lets you perform the tasks in the different sections of the program. The first step in learning how to use Outlook is familiarizing yourself with the names, locations, and functions of the elements in the Outlook environment. The lectures in this section show you these elements, so you can acquaint yourself with the Outlook environment. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Title Bar in Outlook spans the very top of the screen. The “Quick Access Toolbar” appears at its far-left end. By default, two buttons appear here: “Send and Receive All” and “Undo.” You can add and remove buttons to customize the Quick Access Toolbar, which we will examine in a separate lecture of this section. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Ribbon lets users perform tasks on the items and folders in Outlook. The Ribbon in Outlook for Microsoft 365 can appear as either a simplified Ribbon or a classic Ribbon. Outlook for Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) uses a simplified Ribbon, by default. The simplified Ribbon doesn’t show the names of button groups on each tab of the Ribbon and shows fewer buttons than the classic Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Quick Access toolbar appears above the Ribbon, by default. You can easily add buttons to this toolbar for the functions you use most. To add a button from the Ribbon to the Quick Access toolbar, right-click the command button or function in the Ribbon to add. Then choose the “Add to Quick Access Toolbar” command in the pop-up menu that appears. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Because of the increased use of tablets, Outlook contains a mode that gives you easier access to the buttons and commands in the Ribbon and Quick Access toolbar. This mode is called touch mode. When you enter touch mode in Outlook, you enlarge the Ribbon and Quick Access toolbar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To navigate to the different sections in Outlook and show their contents, you can use the Navigation Bar. The Navigation Bar was called the “Navigation Pane” in older versions of Outlook. The Navigation Bar appears at the bottom of the Outlook window and shows the categories of Outlook items, like “Mail,” “Calendar” and “People, for example. Learn this and more during this lecture.

A contact is someone important to your business or personal life with whom you want to stay connected using Outlook. Contacts in Outlook are stored in the “Contacts” or “People” folder. Microsoft has changed the name of this folder and its related section in Outlook a few times, but it’s always called one or the other. This folder is the same as an electronic Rolodex or address book. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To create a customized view of the Contacts folder in Outlook, click the “People” icon in the Navigation Bar to view the “Contacts” folder. Then click the “More” drop-down button in the lower-right corner of the views shown in the “Current View” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Then select the “Manage Views…” command from the drop-down menu that appears to open the “Manage All Views” dialog box. This dialog box shows the available views of the current folder and their settings. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To add a new contact to the contacts folder, click the “People” icon in the Navigation Bar to open the “Contacts” folder. Then click the “New Contact” button in the “New” group on the “Home” tab in the Ribbon. Alternatively, double-click the blank space inside the Contacts list in the Inbox pane in the center of the screen. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To select a single contact when viewing the Contacts folder in Outlook, click once on the contact’s entry. Notice the entry is then highlighted to indicate it is selected. To select multiple contacts if the contacts are not next to each other in the folder, click the first one to select. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Outlook lets you print a hard copy of your contacts. You can print only selected contacts or the entire Contacts folder. To print only selected contacts in Outlook, you must first select the contacts to print in the “Contacts” folder. Then click the “File” tab in the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create contact groups in Outlook within your Contacts folder to email several contacts at once. Contact groups are handy for sending emails only to a selected group of people in your Contacts folder. Therefore, before you can create the contact group, you must create the contacts in the Contacts folder and ensure they have valid email addresses. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Categorizing contacts in Outlook helps you sort and find contacts if your Contacts folder contains multiple contacts. To categorize contacts in Outlook, you must select the contact or contacts to categorize by color in the “Contacts” folder. Then click the “Categorize” button in the “Tags” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Then select a color category from the drop-down menu that appears. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you have multiple contacts in your Contacts folder, it can make it harder to find them. In this case, you can use the “Search” feature of Outlook to speed up finding your contacts. To search for a contact in the Contacts folder in Outlook, first open the folder. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To call contacts in Outlook, you must have the ability to make phone calls through your computer. This may require additional assistance from your IT department to configure the phone calls using an application like Microsoft Teams, for example. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To use the internet to look up the address of a contact, first make sure you entered a mailing address for the contact. You also must ensure your computer is connected to the Internet. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Email lets you communicate with people both in your organization and around the world if you are connected to the Internet. Email also provides a convenient way to send information to people in different time zones, as there is no need to worry about the time difference. The person receives the message when they next login to their email account. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can switch the view of the Inbox to organize your email in a way that better suits your needs. To change the Inbox folder view in Outlook, first open the Inbox folder. Then click the “View” tab in the Ribbon. Then click the “Change View” button in the “Current View” button group. You can then select the name of any view in the drop-down menu that appears to apply it. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Flagging a message for yourself in Outlook creates a “To-Do” item that reminds you to follow up on the message. After completing the task, you can mark it as completed and clear the flag. When you flag a message, Outlook places a little flag next to the messages that require follow-up. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you have multiple messages in your “Inbox” folder, or any mail folder, it can be difficult to find specific messages. In this case, you can use the “Instant Search” or “Microsoft Search” feature of Outlook, depending on which version of Outlook you are using, to quickly find messages. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To send email in Outlook, click the “Mail” icon in the Navigation Bar to open your mail folders. Then click the “New Email” button in the “New” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Alternatively, press the “Ctrl” + “N” keys on your keyboard. Doing either action creates a new blank message and shows it in a new “Message” window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To check message spelling in Outlook before sending an email, click into the message text to spell check. Then click the “Spelling & Grammar” button in the “Proofing” button group on the “Review” tab of the Ribbon. This starts the spelling and grammar check for the body of the message. This tool starts from the text insertion mark, downwards, stopping at words it thinks are misspelled. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To change an email’s options in Outlook before sending it, click the “Options” tab of the Ribbon in the “Message” window. Then click the dialog box launcher button in the lower-right corner of the “More Options” button group to open the “Properties” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To format email in Outlook, click the “Format Text” tab in the Ribbon of the “Message” window. Then select the text to change and apply the formatting or set the formatting before typing the text. Note that if the email’s recipient doesn’t use HTML formatting to read the email, they probably won’t see the formatting you apply. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To use signatures in Outlook, click the “Signature” button in the “Include” button group on the “Message” tab of the Ribbon in the “Message” window. If you already created a signature, select its name from the drop-down menu to insert it. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To reply to a received message in Outlook, open the “Inbox” mail folder. Then either double-click the message to which to reply to open it in a separate “Message” window or single click it in the Inbox pane to show it in the Reading Pane. If the message appears in the Reading Pane, the click the “Reply” button in the “Respond” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you forward a message in Outlook, you send a copy of a received message to another recipient. To forward a message in Outlook, select the message to forward from the “Inbox” mail folder. Then click the “Forward” button in the “Respond” button group on the “Home” tab in the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Sometimes you want to email a file to a person. To send a person an electronic copy of a file in an email, you must send it as an attachment. For example, if you had to email a copy of your budget you recorded in Excel to your manager, you could insert a copy of the Excel workbook into an Outlook email as an attachment. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Never open email attachments received from email addresses you do not know. Attachments can contain viruses and other malware. Outlook helps prevent viruses from infecting your computer by removing suspicious email attachments. However, having an email antivirus scanning software scan all incoming email and attachments is also recommended. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Outlook lets you ignore conversations you no longer want to see in your Inbox. This helps when you are no longer part of an email conversation. This feature ignores new emails in a conversation but doesn’t ignore emails from the senders or other recipients. It only ignores future emails in the same conversation. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Sent Items folder in Outlook contains copies of all the messages you have sent. To view your Sent Items folder in Outlook, click the “Mail” icon in the Navigation Bar. Then select the “Sent Items” folder in the Folder Pane. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To resend a message in Outlook, open the Sent Items folder. In this folder, then double-click the message to resend to open it in its own “Message” window. Then click the “Actions” button in the “Move” button group on the “Message” tab of the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Occasionally, you may send a message to someone and then wish to delete it or delete it and replace it with another message. This is called recalling a message in Outlook. Outlook gives you this capability by using its Sent Items folder. This function only works, however, if the recipient of the email has not yet opened the message. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Outbox is the temporary storage place of emails you have created and sent but which are still waiting to be delivered to recipients. If you are working offline, then this is the folder into which emails you send are saved until you can connect to the Internet once again. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Drafts folder in Outlook is the mail folder to which saved but unsent emails you are composing are saved. Like the “Outbox” folder, it is a temporary storage space for email. If you begin composing a new email and click the “Save” button in the Quick Access Toolbar, a copy of the email up to that point is then saved into the “Drafts” folder. This is useful if you must abandon creating a lengthy email after starting it. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Calendar folder stores all the information you would expect to find in a conventional paper calendar. The calendar allows for three basic types of entries. The first are “Appointments,” which are activities for which you have allocated time, but do not involve other people. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To switch the view of the Calendar in Outlook, click the buttons that appear in the “Arrange” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. The buttons are “Day,” “Work Week,” “Week,” “Month,” and “Schedule View.” You can click these buttons to switch to the related view of the Calendar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To navigate the Calendar folder in Outlook, first open the Calendar folder. Then use the “Previous Month” and “Next Month” arrows in the “Date Navigator,” which looks like a small month-style calendar, at the upper-left side of the view to move through the months until the date to select appears. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The three types of items you can create in your Outlook Calendar folder are “Appointments,” “Events,” and “Meetings.” The only difference between an “appointment” and an “event” is that an event lasts for a full day, while an appointment usually does not. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You must select the items in your Outlook Calendar folder, like appointments and meetings, to delete and edit them. To select an object in Outlook’s Calendar folder, click it. To delete the selected object, then press the “Delete” or “Del” key on your keyboard. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To schedule an appointment in Outlook, open the Calendar folder. Then click the “New Appointment” button in the “New” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. The “Appointment” window then opens. Type a description of the appointment into the “Title” field. Then enter the appointment's location into the “Location” field, if needed. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Outlook helps you plan a meeting by sending out invitations to attendees. These invitations are called “Meeting Requests” in Outlook. The recipients of a meeting request receive an email message in which they must click a button that indicates if they will attend. Their response is then recorded in Outlook. In the future, you can open the meeting request in your Calendar to view their responses. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you are the person who created the meeting, you can check to see the attendance status of the meeting’s invited attendees. Since you are the meeting organizer, the meeting is automatically placed into your Calendar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you are invited to a meeting in Outlook, the invitation, which is called a “Meeting Request,” appears in the “Inbox” of your Mail folder. To respond to a received meeting request in Outlook, either click it once in the “Inbox” pane to select it and then view it within the “Reading Pane” or double-click the meeting request to open it within its own “Meeting” window. You must then choose how to respond to the meeting. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To schedule an event in Outlook, open the Calendar folder. Then click the “New Items” button in the “New” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Then select the “All Day Event” command from the button’s drop-down menu to open the “Event” window. Here you can enter the details of the event. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Anytime you are scheduling an appointment, event, meeting, or task for yourself or someone else in Outlook, you can set a pattern of recurrence for the selected item. To set recurrence for Outlook items, either click the “Recurrence” button in either the “Options” or “Recurrence” button group on the tab of the Ribbon that is named the same thing as the Outlook item’s type in the item window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To print the calendar in Outlook, open the Calendar folder. Then click the “File” tab in the Ribbon. Then click the “Print” command at the left side of the backstage view. To change the style of the calendar, choose a calendar style from the “Settings” list that appears. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can easily create Teams meeting requests in Outlook. You can also easily join a Teams meeting from a received meeting request in Outlook. Microsoft Teams is replacing the older Skype for Business app, which provided similar functionality for online meetings in Outlook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can provide meeting notes in Outlook by using integrations with either OneNote 2016 or OneNote for Windows 10. Microsoft 365 or Office 365 users may need to download the OneNote 2016 app separately from Microsoft to fully take advantage of the shared meeting notes feature and Outlook integration. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The Tasks folder in Outlook helps you organize and manage your workload. It tracks tasks you must complete and reminds you when they are due. You can also use Tasks to assign work to colleagues. This chapter shows how to use this feature to assign tasks to others and yourself and manage your daily workload. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To print a copy of your tasks in Outlook, open the Tasks folder. Then click the “File” tab in the Ribbon. Then click the “Print” command at the left side of the backstage view. To set the printing options, click the “Print Options” button that appears to the right to open the “Print” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To add a new task in Outlook, click the “Tasks” icon in the Navigation Bar to open the Tasks folder. Then click the “New Task” button in the “New” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Task recurrence in Outlook lets Outlook automatically regenerate the next occurrence of a task for the next recurrence date after it is marked complete in your “Tasks” folder. To set recurrence for a new task you are creating in Outlook, click the “Recurrence” button in the “Recurrence” button group on the “Task” tab of the Ribbon in the “Task” window to open the “Task Recurrence” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Outlook lets you assign tasks to others. This is an important feature if you oversee a project or department. You create a task request in Outlook in much the same way as you create a task for yourself. To create a new task request in Outlook, click the “Tasks” icon in the Navigation Bar to open the Tasks folder. Then click the “New Items” drop-down button in the “New” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To respond to a task request in Outlook, open the “Inbox” folder of your Mail folder. Then either double-click the task request there to open it in a separate “Task” window or single click the task request to view it in the Reading pane. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you are the owner of an assigned task in Outlook and it is your responsibility to complete the task, you can send an update report to others. Whenever you complete the task and change its “Status” to “Completed” or enter a “100% complete” figure, the people on the task’s update list are automatically notified of the task’s completion. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To delete a task in Outlook, click the task to delete in the “Tasks” folder to select it. Then press the “Delete” or “Del” key on your keyboard. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The “Deleted Items” folder stores all deleted items from Outlook folders. Items in this folder must be either permanently removed or restored to their original locations. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To permanently delete items in the “Deleted Items” folder in Outlook, open the “Deleted Items” folder and make sure there are not any items in this folder you want to keep. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To recover items accidentally deleted from any Outlook folders, you must select the objects to restore from the “Deleted Items” folder in Outlook by clicking to select them. To make multiple selections, hold down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard and then click all the items to restore to the same folder. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If connected to an Exchange Server and you accidentally delete an item from the “Deleted Items” folder, you may be able to retrieve it. Generally, files emptied out of the “Deleted Items” folder are saved on the server for 14 days. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Groups in Outlook let you to work with a team of people in your organization. The group shares a group email address, can share files using OneDrive, and share a group calendar. Groups are available with Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) and also available for Office 2019. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To create a new group in Outlook, right-click the word “Groups” in the Folder Pane of Outlook. Then select the “New Group” command from the pop-up menu that appears. Alternatively, click the “New Items” drop-down in the “New” button group on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon and then select the “Group” command from the drop-down menu. Learn this and more during this lecture.

After clicking the “Create” button in the “Create Group” dialog box in Outlook to create a new group, Outlook creates the group, and a new “Add Members” dialog box appears. This window lets you add new members to the group. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To contribute to a group in Outlook of which you are a member, click the name of the group under the “Groups” folder in the Folder Pane. The group’s inbox then appears in the center of the page and the group’s reading pane appears to the right of that. The basic layout is like the “Inbox” of your Mail folder. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To manage an Outlook group’s shared files in SharePoint, select the name of the group in the Folder Pane in Outlook. Then click the “Files” button in the “Group Name” button group (where “Group Name” is the name of your Group) that appears on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon in Outlook. Doing this then opens your web browser and asks you to sign-in to Microsoft 365, if needed. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To open a group’s calendar in Outlook, select the name of the group in the Folder Pane in Outlook. Then click the “Calendar” button in the “Group Name” button group (where “Group Name” is the name of your Group) that appears on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon in Outlook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You follow or stop following groups in Outlook to change whether or not you receive group email to your personal Inbox folder. To follow or stop following a group, select the name of the group in the Folder Pane in Outlook. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To leave a group in Outlook for which you are not the sole owner, select the name of the group in the Folder Pane in Outlook. Then click the “Group Settings” button in the “Group Name” button group (where “Group Name” is the name of your Group) on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To edit a group’s settings in Outlook, click the “Group Settings” button in the “Group Name” button group (where Group Name is the name of your Group) on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon. Then select the “Edit Group” command from the button’s drop-down menu to open the “Edit group” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.