MICROSOFT OUTLOOK 2000 AND 2002/XP FROM THE KEYBOARD by John Wilson Copyright 2006 ******** Table of Contents (To find a particular section or heading, use your word- processor's or editor's search facility, e.g. type the string "File Attachments" to find that subheading or just type "4.20." to find it via its paragraph number. You could also highlight the whole section or sub-section heading line in the TOC and then copy it to the Clipboard (CONTROL C), followed by ARROWING down once and then opening the Find dialogue box, pasting (CONTROL V) the highlighted heading text into the Filename editbox and then press ENTER and then ESCAPE. Additionally, all main sections are separated by a centred row of eight asterisks and each section heading has a > sign in front of it, e.g. >section 1. Foreword and Restrictions Target Group Conventions Available Tutorial Formats Suggested Approaches for Effective Reading of this Tutorial SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION AND INSTALLATION 1.1. Introduction 1.1.1. General 1.1.2. Outlook 2000 1.1.3. Outlook 2002/XP 1.2. MS Outlook Installation 1.2.1. Outlook 2000 Installation 1.2.2. Outlook 2002/XP Installation 1.3. Viewing and Entering E-Mail Account Details In Outlook XP SECTION 2: Outlook customisation tips for screenreader users SECTION 3: GENERAL E-MAILING CONCEPTS 3.1. What is E-Mail and What forms Can it Take? 3.2. E-Mail Address Components 3.3. How the E-Mail Process Works SECTION 4: E-MAILING WITH MICROSOFT OUTLOOK VERSIONS 2000 AND 2002/XP 4.1. Pen-Picture of the Outlook E-Mail Message Screen 4.2. Outlook E-Mailing Options and Customisation for Visually Impaired People 4.3. Creating and Sending E-mail Messages 4.3.1. Ensuring that Outlook is Your Default E-Mail and Calendar Client 4.3.2. Creating and Sending an E-Mail Message 4.3.3. Re-Sending an E-mail Message 4.3.4. Designating a Period of Delay Before Sending the E-Mail or an Expiry Date for the E-Mail 4.3.5. Designating that Replies to Your Message should go to Another Person 4.3.6. Specifying that E-mails in your Outbox Should be Automatically Sent Periodically 4.4. Sending or Forwarding Multiple E-Mails Simultaneously 4.5. Undelivered E-Mail 4.6. Receiving and Reading E-Mail 4.7. Finding an E-Mail Message 4.7.1. Searching Folders 4.7.2. Simple Search Feature in Outlook XP 4.7.3. Searching within an Open Message 4.7.4. Searching for Meeting, Journal, Task and Other Items 4.7.5. Finding all Messages from a Particular Sender or in a Given Conversation Thread 4.8. Deleting E-Mail Messages 4.8.1. Deleting Single Messages or Whole Folders of Messages 4.8.2. Deleting Groups of Messages by Conversation/Subject 4.9. Viewing Only Specific Mail and News Messages 4.10. Replying to E-Mail 4.11. Forwarding a Received E-Mail to Someone Else 4.12. Flagging an E-Mail as a Reminder for later Action 4.12.1. Flagging for a follow-Up Reminder from your Inbox 4.12.2. Obtaining a Plug-In to Enable Follow-Up Reminders to Work from Sub-Folders 4.13. Marking a Message as Important or Private 4.14. Using the Outlook Contacts Folder and Address Book with E- mailing 4.15. E-Mail Address Groups (Distribution Lists) 4.16. Saving and Printing E-Mail 4.17. Creating Folders and Copying and Moving Messages Between Folders 4.17.1. Creating a Folder 4.17.2. Copying and Moving Items Between Folders 4.18. Renaming and Deleting Folders and Sub-folders 4.18.1. Renaming a Folder 4.18.2. Deleting a Folder 4.19. Importing and Exporting 4.19.1. Importing Account Settings 4.19.2. Exporting Contact and Message Details to a File for Safe Keeping 4.19.3. Saving your .PST Data files for Safe Keeping and Importing Them 4.20. File Attachments 4.20.1. Sending File Attachments 4.20.2. Opening and Reading File Attachments 4.21. Inserting Text into an E-Mail Message 4.22. Jumping from E-Mail to a Website 4.23. Obtaining the Details of an E-Mail Sender or Address Book Contact 4.23.1. E-Mail Sender's E-Mail Address Identity 4.23.2. Viewing the Recorded Details for an Address Book Contact 4.24. Obtaining a Received Message Verification Receipt 4.25. Automatically Rejecting Spam, Junk and Adult Material Mail 4.25.1. Enabling the Junk and Adult Mail Feature 4.25.2. Adding Someone to the Junk Senders' List and Changing the Junk and Adult words/phrases Used for Junking 4.25.3. Unblocking a Sender's Messages for Viewing Again 4.26. Using the Message Rules Wizard to Sort or Block Messages 4.26.1. Downloading Messages into Specific Folders 4.26.2. Blocking and Unblocking E-Mail Messages from Specific People 4.26.3. Automatically Declining Conflicting Meeting Requests 4.27. Sending Coloured Business-Type HTML Formatted E-Mails with or without Pictures 4.28. Posting a Message to the Current Folder 4.29. Where Outlook Saves its Data Files (the .PST File) 4.30. Using and Organising the Outlook Favourites Folder 4.31. Message Archiving and Back-Up 4.31.1. Auto-Archiving 4.31.2. Manual Archiving 4.31.3. Viewing the Contents of an archived File 4.32. Deleting Unwanted Archive and Personal Folders Folders in Outlook XP 4.33. Accessing your E-mail Whilst Away from Home 4.34. Automatically Replying to Incoming Messages Whilst Out of the Office or Away From Home 4.35. Using Speech in Outlook XP to Dictate E-mail Messages and Give Commands 4.35.1. Setting Up and Training Speech 4.35.2. Dictating Documents and Giving Commands 4.36. Using IMAP folders to Download Your Messages with Outlook XP 4.37. Obtaining Website Content by E-Mail 4.38. Using Shorthand Emoticons in Your E-mails 4.39. Outlook's Context Shortcut Menus SECTION 5: USING THE OUTLOOK CALENDAR AND SCHEDULING 5.1. Opening the Outlook Calendar 5.2. Pen-Picture of The Outlook Calendar Screen 5.3. What You can Do with the Calendar 5.4. Registering Yourself with the Microsoft .Net Passport Services 5.4.1. Registering with Microsoft .Net Passport 5.4.2. Logging onto the >Net Passport Services 5.5. Recording Appointments for Yourself 5.5.1. Making the Appointment 5.5.2. Saving Your Appointments in the Default format or iCalendar or vCalendar formats 5.5.3. Viewing Your Calendar Entries and Reading Notes About Your Appointments and Meetings 5.5.3.1. Viewing in Active Appointments, Events and Recurring Appointments Views 5.5.3.2. Viewing in Day/Week/Month View 5.5.5. Deleting an Appointment 5.6. Arranging Meetings Between Groups of People 5.6.1. Arranging an In-Person Face-to-Face Meeting 5.6.2. Arranging and Planning Meetings with Automatic Checking of Attendees' Calendars 5.6.3. Cancelling a Meeting Request 5.6.4. Add or Remove Meeting Attendees 5.6.5. Sending a Meeting Request to a Whole Distribution List 5.6.7. Designating a Meeting as Compulsory 5.6.8. Using Group Schedules 5.7. Recording All-Day Events for Yourself 5.8. Changing the Details for an Appointment, Meeting or Event 5.9. Specifying Recurring Appointments, Tasks, Meetings and Events 5.9.1. Weekly Recurrence Example 5.9.2. Monthly Recurrence Example 5.9.3. Viewing and Changing the Frequency of Your Recurring Appointments, Meeting Requests and Events 5.9.3.1. Viewing 5.9.3.2. Changing or Removing the Frequency of Recurrence 5.9.4. Minimising Outlook in Order to Run Other programs and Still Receive Reminders 5.9.4.1. Minimising Outlook 5.9.4.2. Maximising Outlook again to Read the Reminders you are Alerted To 5.10. Receiving and Reading the Contents of Meeting Requests 5.11. Accepting or Declining Meeting and Event Requests 5.12. Adding National Holiday Dates to Your Calendar and Removing Them 5.13. Dealing with Your Appointments, Contacts and other Items by Category 5.13.1. Allocating Categories 5.13.2. Creating New Category Definitions 5.13.3. Viewing Your Appointments, Contacts and Other Items by Category 5.14. Publishing Your Free and Busy Time for others to View on the Microsoft Web Free/Busy Service and Viewing Others' Free/Busy Schedules 5.15. Publishing your Calendar on your Company Intranet or your Own Website 5.16. Launching Outlook with the Calendar View Open 5.17. a Word About Microsoft Netmeeting and Windows Media Services 5.18. Sharing Private or Public Folders Using Exchange Server SECTION 6: USING THE TASKS FEATURE 6.1. What are Tasks? 6.2. Pen-Picture of the Tasks Screen 6.3. Creating a New Task for Yourself 6.4. Creating a New Task and Assigning it to Someone Else 6.5. Assigning an Existing Task to Someone Else 6.6. Reading and Accepting or Declining a Received Assigned Task 6.7. Re-Assigning a Declined Task to Someone Else and Assigning a Task Someone Has Given to You to Someone Else 6.8. Re-Claiming Ownership of a Declined Task 6.9. Creating a copy of a Task and Changing the Position of a Task in the Task List 6.10. Monitoring Task Progress and Billing Information 6.10.1. Amending status and Percentage progress for Your own Records 6.10.2. Notifying the Task Assigner and others of the Progress of the Task 6.10.3. Viewing Only Tasks you Have Assigned to Others or Completed Tasks 6.10.4. Recording the Hours Taken to Accomplish a Task and billing details 6.10.5. Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact 6.11. Skipping an Occurrence of a Recurring Task SECTION 7: THE OUTLOOK JOURNAL 7.1. What is the Journal? 7.2. Pen-Picture of the Journal Screen 7.3. Opening the Journal List and Customising its View 7.4. Manually Recording Items and Files in Journal 7.5. Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact 7.6. Viewing and Opening Your Journal Entries 7.7. Viewing Entries for a Contact 7.8. Changing the Font Type, Size and General Appearance of the Journal Information Bars 7.9. Deleting Journal Entries 7.10. Automatically Recording Items and Files in Journal SECTION 8: THE OUTLOOK NOTES FEATURE 8.1. What are Outlook Notes 8.2. Pen-Picture of the Notes Screen 8.3. How to Create a Note 8.4. Accessing and Reading Notes 8.5. Customising Font type, size and colour of Notes SECTION 9: THE CONTACTS LIST 9.1. Purpose of the Contacts List 9.2. Pen-Picture of the Contacts Screen 9.3. Entering a New Contact into your Contacts List 9.4. Record or View Extra Personal Details for a Contact 9.5. Finding a Particular Contact or Group of Categorised Contacts in the Contacts Folder 9.5.1. Finding a Single Contact 9.5.2. Simple Contacts Search Feature in Outlook XP 9.6. Using a Contact to Create an E-Mail Message 9.7. Using a Contact to Create a Meeting Request, a Journal Entry, a Task request or a New Appointment 9.8. Keeping Track of Files and Items Associated with or Linked to a Contact 9.8.1. Linking/Associating Items to a Contact 9.8.2. Finding and Viewing Linked Items 9.9. Using Contacts to Dial a Phone Number for You 9.10. Phoning Someone not in Your Contacts List 9.11. Redialling a Contact or Non-Contact 9.12. Connect to a Contact Using Netmeeting 9.13. Flagging a Contact as a Reminder for later Action 9.14. Viewing Journal Entries for a contact 9.15. Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact 9.16. Using vCards with Contacts 9.16.1. Sending a vCard to a Contact 9.16.2. Saving an Attached Vcard to Your Contacts Folder List SECTION 10: THE MICROSOFT OUTLOOK HELP SYSTEM 10.1. The Outlook 2000 Contents, Index and Answer Wizard Help System 10.1.1. General Overview 10.1.2. Help Contents 10.1.3. Help Answer Wizard 10.1.4. Help Options 10.1.5. Context-Sensitive Help 10.1.6. Printing Out or Reading Help Information in a Word- Processor 10.2. The Outlook XP Contents, Index and Answer Wizard Help System 10.2.1. General Overview and Differences Between Outlook 2000 and Xp Help APPENDIX 1:COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF OUTLOOK SHORTCUTS FOR ALL FEATURES APPENDIX 2: JAWS, HAL AND WINDOW-EYES SCREENREADER HOT KEYS FOR OUTLOOK APPENDIX 3: LIST OF OTHER TUTORIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ******** Foreword and Restrictions I have written this manual and tutorial for the use of blind and otherwise visually impaired computer users and/or their trainers. It is free of charge and only available from its author's Website and from no other distributer. No individual or organisation is permitted to sell copies of this tutorial either as a stand-alone tutorial or as an integral part of any other literary, software or training package. ******** AVAILABLE MANUAL FORMATS The manual is only available in ASCII text format, as a free download from the author's Website at: http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard This tutorial and guide has been created with a minimum of formatting, in plain text, so that any word-processor or text editor can read it. In this format it should also be suitable for any one to run it through an embosser but, with some embossing software, you may still wish to make some line spacing and heading format changes to suit yourself and your software. A simple construction such as this should also make reading by arrowing up and down in your word-processor less labour intensive than would be the case with columns, shorter lines, and the like. Colloquialisms, such as don't, haven't, doesn't, etc, have been avoided in this guide in order to make it easier to follow and understand via a speech package. Hopefully, any loss of conversationality and warmth will be compensated for by increased clarity. ******** Conventions In writing this tutorial, the shorter and/or simpler features covered will be written in a straightforward paragraph style. In the case of more lengthy or complex features, a numbered step-by- step approach will be taken for extra clarification. In the writing of this Tutorial, terms have the following meanings: ALT F, A Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst still holding it down press the letter f, then release both and press the letter A. CONTROL S Means hold down the CONTROL key and whilst keeping it held down press the letter S and then release both. SHIFT END Means hold down the SHIFT key and whilst keeping it held down press the END key. ALT E, C, and press ENTER Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst keeping it held down press the letter E key, then release both and then press the letter C key followed by the ENTER key. When a key combination such as ALT T (for Tools), O (for Options) is suggested to go into the 'Tools' menu and run the 'Options' menu item, the user may follow this method of operation or may prefer to ARROW up and down a menu and press ENTER. In this latter case, the keystrokes would be: press the ALT key, right ARROW to the 'Tools' menu heading, then ARROW down (or up) until the 'Options' line is spoken, then press ENTER. This menu method may be particularly necessary for Window-Eyes users, as WE has several hot keys which conflict with menu shortcuts, e.g. ALT T, ALT A, etc, which both conflict. If, in a menu, your screenreader announces an arrow or says something like submenu, this means that pressing ENTER or right ARROWING on this menu item will take you into a sub-menu to ARROW up and down in and make a choice. If your screenreader announces a row of three dots or says something like dialogue, you will open up a dialogue box to work in if you press ENTER on it. ******** SUGGESTED APPROACHES FOR EFFECTIVE READING OF THIS TUTORIAL It is, of course, entirely up to the individual as to how they glean information and work through this tutorial, but a few suggestions might assist the learner who is relatively new to computers. I would propose that you read through the whole of a section before attempting to practise it to obtain an overview of what is being done. There are a number of approaches which might be taken to make reading the tutorial as a text file and simultaneously carrying out the instructions more fluid and easier to follow. Try one of the below. Ideally, if you have two computers, you can load the tutorial into your text editor or word-processor on one PC and have the software program running on the other. You can then listen to the directions on one computer whilst practising them on the other. Alternatively, as is likely to be the case, if you only have the one computer, you could launch your word-processor and load the tutorial into it for reading in one window. You could then open Outlook in a second window in order to practise the lessons. You would have to keep cycling between each application window by pressing ALT TAB in this case. Yet another approach might be to take a tape recorder or dictaphone and get your screenreader to read the contents of a given section or sub-section onto the tape. You could then play the tape back and follow the instructions through on your PC without having to keep moving from one document window to another. Other options would be for you to print out a copy of the tutorial in large print if you can use this and work from this hard copy, or you could get your local library or resource centre to produce a Braille version for you to work from if you have one in your area with Brailling facilities and you are a Braillist. ******** >SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION AND INSTALLATION 1.1. Introduction 1.1.1. General Microsoft Outlook is one of the programs which comes with the Microsoft Office suite of programs. It enables you to do advanced e-mailing, keep and publish a calendar, maintain an address book and list of contacts, specify tasks for yourself and others, to make notes for yourself and to keep track of all of your actions. Outlook has a vast array of its own shortcuts to get things done with the keyboard and most screenreaders also have some special hot keys to provide further keyboard assistance. Please ensure at an early stage that you study the main shortcuts and hot keys available for Outlook. I have provided at Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 respectively lists of the most commonly used and most important shortcuts and hot keys for HAL, JAWS and Window-Eyes for your convenience. At strategic points throughout the tutorial I have also provided tips and reminders about shortcuts and hot keys. In my testing of both Outlook 2000 and Outlook XP with JAWS, Window-Eyes and HAL, I have generally found that Outlook XP works more consistently, smoothly and reliably than Outlook 2000 from a keyboard point of view. 1.1.2. Outlook 2000 Outlook 2000 can be made to do most of the above-mentioned things for the stand-alone home user via a MODEM and Internet service provider in what is known as Internet Mail Only mode where e-mails are sent with the relevant meeting request, task request, etc, information but without certain processable coding used by network systems as would be the case when you route your messages through a server. If you have other related and complimentary software installed in your workplace and so are using it in what is known as Corporate or Workgroup mode, it can be used to interface with other people and colleagues via certain types of network server software, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Net Meeting, Microsoft Mail 3.X or Lotus CC:Mail Server. With a network Exchange Server, you have your mailbox, folders and files centrally held on the server and they can be made available to others to view and others with permission can even modify them for you, e.g. your secretary can make appointments for you on your Calendar. Outlook can also be used to publish and view Calendar and notes information via the Internet or your company's intranet. On first configuring Outlook 2000 (but not Outlook XP), you have to choose between Internet Mail only and Corporate/Work Groups modes. You can also elect to set Outlook up for no use of e-mail, if you want to use a non-Microsoft e-mailing software package with which to send your e-mails. If outlook 2000 has been set up for multiple user Corporate or Workgroups mode and you now want to change it to Internet Mail Only mode because you are on a stand-alone computer, you can do this via: Tools, Options, Mail Delivery, Reconfigure Mail Support On the E-mail Services Options property sheet, you select the mail support option you are switching to, then activate both a "Next" and a "Yes" button, after which Outlook will close. You then restart Outlook and the Windows installer will install the necessary files. If you are wanting to change from Internet Mail Only mode to Corporate or Workgroups mode, you use the same procedure but select the opposite option. You are likely to need to insert your Office installation CD during these changed installation procedures. With Outlook 2000, if you are on a non-networked computer, it is strongly recommended that you do use this Internet Mail Only mode, because it offers substantial performance improvements for dial-up users. You also do not get the regular "MAPI spooler" hold-ups and restrictions which would occur from time to time if using Outlook in Corporate mode via a MODEM. Note: You can quickly find out which mode your copy of Outlook 2000 is working in by going to "About Microsoft Outlook" in the Help menu. The second line of the text which you are presented with will state the mode you are currently in. 1.1.3. Outlook 2002/XP With the advent of Outlook XP, the concept of having to set up and configure Outlook for either Internet Mail only or Corporate/Workgroup modes has been removed and now all of the features of both modes have been incorporated into one integrated mode. This has the added benefit that if you have multiple e-mail accounts, even if one of them is an Exchange Server account, you now have access to the old Internet Mail only mode "Send Using" command, which allows you to send a message from a specific Internet mail account. You no longer have to send from your default account for the login profile. If you are to use MS Outlook on a company intranet system or your company is running interconnectivity software like Microsoft Exchange Server, you will need to consult your company's Systems Administrator to obtain passwords and details on how the system is set-up and what you as a user are permitted to do and are excluded from doing on the system. This can vary considerably from company to company, one system set-up configuration to another and on your seniority and role within an organisation. 1.2. MS Outlook Installation If you work for a large organisation and Outlook is already installed and operating via a company network server, consult your Systems Administrator for information on its default set-up and to discover just what you are permitted to do with it and for any server interface training/instruction. As a minimum, you would normally need to obtain a password from the Systems Administrator in order to log onto the system and use it. 1.2.1. Outlook 2000 Installation If you are a home user with one computer or a small company which only uses one computer and you have Microsoft Office 2000 installed on your computer, you would install MS Outlook 2000 as follows: 1. Switch on your PC and come to the Desktop as normal. 2. Press Windows key, P (for Programs) and then keep pressing the M key until you reach "Microsoft Outlook" and then press ENTER or SPACEBAR to activate this. 3. The Outlook 2000 Installation Wizard will launch to take you through the installation. 4. The sequence of installation screens and questions will vary, depending on whether or not you have already got an e-mail ability set up on your computer, such as in Outlook Express, whether you have had a previous version of MS Outlook set up on this PC and whether this is the first or a subsequent installation of the current version of Outlook. 5. You will go through all of or at least some of the below installation steps: A. The Welcome screen will come up and you just TAB to and press ENTER on "OK" to move past this. B. You should choose the "Typical" set-up option, unless you wish to configure Outlook differently by choosing "Custom". C. If you have had a previous version of Outlook on this computer, you will be asked if you want to keep and use the same e-mail settings, etc, and you press ENTER on "Yes" to accept this, unless you wish to set things up differently for this installation. D. If you have chosen "No" above or have not had a previous version of Outlook on your PC, you will be asked if you want Outlook to import e-mail messages, address books and settings from other similar programs on your PC which are already set up for e-mailing, such as from Outlook Express. So save yourself time by ARROWING to a program which is already set up and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. If you select "Non", you will have to set things up manually. If you do not already know these e- mail set-up details and protocols, you will have to obtain them from your ISP (internet service provider). E. You will come to the "Email Service Options" step where you choose from "Internet Only" mode, "Corporate or Workgroup" mode or "No Email" mode. The first of these, which you can ARROW up to, is what you would choose for a stand-alone computer not networked and this uses the usual Internet standards for e- mailing, e.g. POP3, SMTP or IMAP. The second choice is where you configure Outlook 2000 to work via Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Mail3.exe, third-party e-mail services or any combination of these plus Internet e-mail. The third choice of no e-mail is for if you do not use e-mail or use an alternative program to up and download e-mail with, e.g. Netscape Mail, Eudora, Free Agent, etc. F. If you chose the Internet Mail Only option you will get a do you want to continue question, so press ENTER on "Yes. If you chose option two for Corporate or Workgroups, you will be asked questions about the network and server, so make your choices, but these details should be obtainable from your company's systems Administrator. G. You will eventually come to the license agreement to TAB to an "Accept" button and press ENTER on. The program may attempt to take you online at this stage to register your copy of Outlook so let it if you wish to do this or just press ESCAPE to close the dial-up dialogue and go to the "Accept" button if you have not already activated it. H. You will have to shut down your PC and reboot to complete the installation and files configuration. Note: At some stage you are likely to be asked if you want to provide a password so that only you can use Outlook on the current computer. Make your own mind up on whether to do this or decline the offer. 1.2.2. Outlook 2002/XP Installation To install Outlook XP, just follow the steps outlined in the last sub-section but note that there may not be as many stages to go through because you do not have to choose between Internet Mail Only and Corporate or Workgroups modes. Outlook XP installs with all modes combined and available for use immediately. 1.3. Viewing and Entering E-Mail Account Details In Outlook XP If you have to set up e-mail account details yourself, you can view or enter these details by: 1. Press T (for Tools) and then ARROW up to "Accounts" and press ENTER. 2. You should fall on the "View or Change Existing Email Accounts" option in this list and if you have an existing account set up, you can then TAB and ARROW through the various details to view them. If you have no account set up at present, you can ARROW up to an "Add" or an "Add a New Email Account" button and press ENTER. 3. You will come onto a list of five items, such as "Microsoft Exchange Server", "POP3", etc. So, if you are to use the standard means of using e-mail on a stand-alone computer, you would press SPACEBAR on "POP3" to check it on if it is not already selected. Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 4. In the next dialogue box you come into, you type in your basic details, such as your name, your e-mail address, your POP3 address, e.g. mail.onetel.com, and you will have a similar SMTP server name to enter in this dialogue as well. You will also have to type in your username, which sometimes you can choose yourself and with other ISPs is given you by the Internet service provider. You will need to think of and enter a password and when all editfields have been completed TAB onto "Next" and press ENTER. 5. You will then be told if you have entered all of the information correctly and will be on a "Finish" button, so press ENTER to complete the process. ******** >SECTION 2 Outlook customisation tips for screenreader users Depending on which screenreader you are using and how you wish to work, you will find some of the below customisation suggestions to be either essential or desirable. Experiment to find out what suits you and your screenreader. Launch Outlook from the icon on your Desktop by pressing Windows Logo Key M (or Windows Logo key D) and then O until Outlook is found and then press ENTER or run it by pressing the Windows LOGO key, P for programs, M for Microsoft outlook and when you reach it (you may have to press M several times, press ENTER. Now start by opening up the Personal Folders folder folder by pressing CONTROL Y and then ARROWING to and pressing ENTER on "Inbox" or by going to the Inbox by pressing CONTROL SHIFT I. Then: 1. In the View menu make sure that the following options are set correctly after pressing ALT V (for View): The Outlook Bar should be unchecked, the Folder List should be checked on, the Preview Pane should be unchecked, the AutoPreview should be unchecked, and the Status Bar should be checked on. You change the checked status of these options by pressing ENTER on them. 2. AS some screenreaders need the BCC field in e-mail headers to be visible in order to keep focus, you are advised to enable it. If this field is not already available in your e-mail headers, switch it on with a blank message open by pressing CONTROL N, then ALT V (for View) and then by pressing ENTER on "BCC Field" or "BCC" to check it on. 3. To optimise the reading of the Calendar, open Calendar by selecting it from the Outlook Today links list or from within the Personal Folders list (press CONTROL Y and then C) and switch it to week view by pressing ALT W, which will now be retained as the Calendar's normal default view. 4. If you are a Window-Eyes user, ensure that the correct set files are installed by Launching Outlook and then press CONTROL BACKSLASH to enter the Window-Eyes Control Panel, then press ALT F and then F again. In the list of set files you will come into press the letter O to jump to "Office 2000, Word, Excel, Outlook" or "Office XP, Word, Excel, Outlook" whichever version you are using and then TAB twice to "Install" and press ENTER. 5. From the Outlook Today view or your Inbox, Enter the Tools menu with ALT T and press ENTER on "Customise". In here, in the "Options" property sheet (press CONTROL TAB to get there), ensure that "Always Show Full Menus" is checked on if using Outlook XP, or if using Outlook 2000 ensure that "Show Recently Used Commands First" is checked off. 6. There are more fine-tuning of options tips given below in Section 4 but these should suffice for just now. ******** >SECTION 3 GENERAL E-MAILING CONCEPTS 3.1. What is E-Mail and What forms Can it Take? E-mailing is the process of sending letters/messages, text or voice files, video clips or computer programs electronically via a MODEM and phone line or an internal corporate server. More recently, it has become possible to send e-mails via cable and even by wireless and satellite communications. 3.2. E-Mail Address Components An e-mail address (the Internet's equivalent of a house address) has two parts separated by an at sign (@). The first part is personal and can sometimes be chosen by yourself or may have to be comprised of all or part of your name, e.g. wilsonj, and the second part is usually the name of your Internet provider, e.g. onetel.com, earthlink.net or aol.com. So an e-mail address would look something like: wilsonj@onetel.com or john.wilson11@earthlink.net The personal part of the address is your mailbox name and the onetel.com or earthlink.net part is your domain provider's name which holds that mailbox. Domain names tend to end in a suffix which has a meaning, such as: .fr for France .uk for United Kingdom .com for company .gov for Government .mil for military .int for international .net for network organisation .edu for educational organisation .org for non-profit-making organisation .co.uk for United Kingdom company .ac.uk For UK academic organisation .ws For world site .biz For Business sites .pro For sites for professionals .info For information sites So, for example, if you see an e-mail address such as: john.wilson@rnib.org.uk you can determine from this that the person who will receive the message is called "John wilson" (if I worked there), the domain name is "RNIB" (this particular domain name is the RNIBs own personal domain rather than them using someone else's such as Freeserve), the "org" element depicts a non-profit-making organisation and, lastly, the "uk" suffix indicates that the message receiver is based in the United Kingdom. 3.3. How the E-Mail Process Works The e-mail process works by you sending an e-mail to a central computer "server" which holds the mail and then passes it onto the recipient's PC when he runs his e-mail program. When someone sends you an e-mail the server holds the mail in your mailbox until you go online and either automatically or manually issue a command to download the mail to your PC. There are maximum amounts of space you are allotted on your provider's server for such as e-mail, e.g. my old ISP, which was Cable and Wireless (now taken over by NTL), allowed me to have up to five e-mail addresses, up to 20 Mb of space to create my own Website in and up to 10 Mb of their server's disk space to store my received e-mails in (my mailbox) before it is full and can take no more mail until I download some. If your mailbox becomes full, you should receive a message from your ISP informing you of this when you next go on line. Similarly, if someone else's mail box is full and you have sent them an e-mail, you should receive a message advising you of this so that you can try to send your message again later when there may be room in the recipient's mailbox to accept it. Tip: If you forget your e-mail address you can send yourself an e-mail using your login name or number and then examine the returned e- mail headers to view the "From:" field which holds the sender's e-mail address, in this case your own. ******** >SECTION 4 E-MAILING WITH MICROSOFT OUTLOOK VERSIONS 2000 AND 2002/XP General Outlook Overview Outlook (with its e-mail client) comes with the Microsoft Office suite of software. It permits you to send and receive e-mails, keep a calendar and send appointments to others, create tasks for yourself and others and make notes as reminders or instructions for yourself or others. Calendar items, tasks and notes can be published on the Internet for others to access and read. MS Outlook refers to "items" when it gives you guidance on how to do things, via the various help systems. The word "item" is simply a generic term for anything which Outlook handles, such as an e-mail message, a task, a note, a Calendar entry, etc. When Outlook first launches, you come into what is called the "Outlook Today" view. This place to start from view can be changed, so that you come straight into another view, skipping Outlook Today, if you like, e.g. you can configure Outlook so that you come straight into your e-mailing view, on your Inbox folder. If you elect to keep the Outlook Today starting point, you can get to other parts of the program by TABBING or ARROWING down several buttons on the left side of the screen and you can press ENTER or SPACEBAR on one of them to open that element of Outlook, e.g. Calendar, the Inbox, Contacts, etc. On the right side of the screen you get lists of any Calendar or other appointments and reminders you may have already entered into the program as memory joggers. You can move between the tree view of Outlook folders and what is known as the tasks List where what is already in that folder is listed by pressing the F6 key. Alternatively, or as another means to moving from one part of the software to another, you can press ALT V to open the View menu, ARROW to "Goto" and press ENTER. In Goto you can then ARROW to any of the other elements of MS Outlook, such as Outlook Today, your Inbox, Drafts, Calendar, etc, plus a number of convenient additional sub-features. Yet another quick way of getting straight to some of the features in Outlook is to press shortcuts to jump to that feature, e.g. Press CONTROL Y to go to the Personal Folders folder list, CONTROL SHIFT I To open the Inbox or CONTROL SHIFT O to open the Outbox. Most of the features of the Outlook e-mailing facility work independently of the Microsoft Exchange Server but some refinements do require the server to work, e.g. delaying the delivery time of e-mails and recalling messages. The E-Mailing Feature 4.1. Pen-Picture of the Outlook E-Mail Message Screen After you have pressed ENTER on "Messages" in the opening "Outlook Today" window or pressed CONTROL SHIFT I , you will get the Outlook e-mail view. Basically, what you have in front of you with the screen maximised is the following screen layout. At the top is the standard type of Title Bar with a heading such as "Inbox - Microsoft Outlook". Under this is the normal Menu Bar showing File, Edit, View, etc and under this a couple of Toolbars with click buttons. There is a slim panel running down the left side to the bottom with the buttons on it which appeared when you first launched Outlook and were on the outlook today screen. The majority of the rest of the display is on the right and takes up most of the remainder of the screen with message headers and message text down to the bottom of the screen where the Status Line is. When the e-mail list is open (Maximised) the main Personal Items folder is open on this right-hand side with the sub-folders showing, such as Calendar, Messages, Inbox, etc--it basically mirrors the buttons in the slim list on the very left side of the screen. In this right side you view the message senders' names, message subject lines and read the contents of the messages when you have opened them. Lastly, at the very bottom of the right-hand side of the screen is the Status Line displaying the state of proceedings, e.g. it might tell you how many items (messages, etc) are in the Inbox and how many have already been read. This view assumes that you have taken the below recommended steps to turn off the Preview and Auto-Preview Panes in the View menu. You may also find other folders in your Personal Folders list, such as sub-folders, and there may also be separate public folders if you have created the former yourself or if you are running Exchange Server and the latter have been created on the server. Alternatively, to go directly to your "Personal Folders" list, if you press CONTROL Y and ARROW up and down you will hear the list of sub-folders in your Personal Folders list and if you have created any Calendar reminders for yourself of meetings, etc, these will also appear in this list and you will receive a visible or audible reminder of these appointments if you elected to receive one when you made the calendar entry. You can open the "New Folders" creation dialogue box by pressing CONTROL SHIFT E, which then allows you to type in the name of a new sub-folder you might like to create as an additional sub- folder from your main Personal folders folder. You now TAB down several choice lists and in the first list of choices, ARROW up or down to decide what you want the new folder to hold, e.g. "Mail and Post Items", "Journal Items", etc. The next list lets you make the folder as a sub-folder of one of the sub-folders flowing from the main Personal folders list, e.g. flowing from your "Inbox", "Drafts", etc, or you can ARROW up to the Personal Items main folder, ARROW left to close it and then the new sub-folder will flow directly from Personal Items just like the Inbox, Drafts, etc, do. Remember to TAB to and press ENTER on "OK". When looking at the subject lines in e-mail and newsgroup headers, you may find many of them to be truncated. If you want to hear more of the subject lines or headers, you should maximise the window in the normal way by pressing ALT SPACEBAR followed by the letter X. This is essential to be able to access the list of messages with JAWS and with some screenreaders you may instead or as well as have to press your left mouse simulation key to open the messages list, i.e. the key next to the NumLock key on the Numeric keypad. You may also wish to reduce the number of windows which display on the Outlook screen by closing the "Preview Pane" and ""Auto Preview" Window and option. To turn these off (which is recommended), press ALT V and ARROW down the View menu and press ENTER on them if they are not already off. If they are turned on, they will have a check mark next to them. To have a good look around Outlook without being online and running up a phone bill, you should TAB from the "connect" button, which you may land on when you start Outlook, to the "Work offline" button and press ENTER. You may then have to press the ESCAPE key once or twice. Additionally, or alternatively if you do not encounter the connect dialogue immediately, any time you are online and want to disconnect your phone line, you can press ALT F, and arrow up to "Work Offline" and press ENTER. 4.2. Outlook E-Mailing Options and Customisation for Visually Impaired People To work optimally with speech and assist others who receive your e-mails, the following additional option settings may prove to be helpful: Tools, Options Configurations 1. Launch Outlook from the icon on your Desktop by pressing Windows Logo Key M (or Windows Logo key D) and then O until Outlook is found and then press ENTER or run it by pressing the Windows LOGO key, P for programs, M for Microsoft outlook and when you reach it (you may have to press M several times, press ENTER. The program will start up and you will land in a list of messages in the Outlook Today view or in the Personal Folders folder. Now enter the Tools, Options set of Property Sheets by pressing ALT T, O and you will be in a multi-page dialogue box. You can move from one property sheet to the next by pressing CONTROL TAB and pressing SHIFT CONTROL TAB moves you backwards. Pressing the TAB key moves you through options within each property sheet. Pressing ENTER on a button will open a sub- dialogue box of options and pressing SPACEBAR on an option will change its state from on (checked) to off (unchecked) or vice versa. 2. The "Preferences" property sheet--You should automatically fall on this property sheet, on the "Email Options" button, so press ENTER to open this up. ARROW to "Return to the Inbox" so that this is where you keep returning to when you have moved or deleted an open item. Ensure that "Save Copies of Messages in Sent Items Folder" is checked on by pressing SPACEBAR on it. TAB on and press ENTER on the "Advanced Email Options" button to open this and ensure that "When New Items Arrive" "Play a Sound" is checked on so that you receive an audible sound when your messages have finished downloading. You will then know to check if Outlook as come offline successfully or not and can come offline manually if it has not. Note, however, that in Outlook you usually get the finished sound after sending has finished but this could be before message receiving is complete, so you may have another minute or two to wait before the process is complete and takes you offline--you will be able to review the state of play in mouse mode. Also in the "Advanced" dialogue, press SPACEBAR on "Suggest Names while Completing To, CC and BCC Fields" to turn this off to avoid the potentially confusing situation where Outlook does things you may not expect or want (but some users like this facility, so experiment with both checked and unchecked to see which suits you). Then TAB to the "OK" button and press ENTER and TAB once more to another "OK" button and press ENTER again to return to the Email Options button. Then hold down CONTROL and press TAB until you reach the "Mail Setup" sheet in Outlook XP or the "Internet Email" sheet in Outlook 2000. 3. The "Mail Setup" or "Internet Email" Property Sheet--Not all of the below exist in both versions of Outlook but where they do, ensure that the "Send Immediately when Connected" option is unchecked, so that you can determine yourself when to send a message or block of messages, unless you wish all messages to be sent as soon as you go online. The "Hang up when Finished with a Manual Send/Receive" or "If Using a Dial Up Connection, Hang Up When Finished Sending and Receiving Mail" option should be checked on, unless it is your habit to remain online after up and downloading mail. Then CONTROL TAB to the "Mail Format" sheet. 4. The "Mail Format" sheet--In here you should ARROW to "Plain Text" as the best format for sending e-mail to visually impaired people. You can always change this back to HTML or Rich Text for more flamboyant e-mail formats later when these are required. TAB to and check off "Use Microsoft Word to edit e-mail Messages" as with some screenreaders this causes complications. Now, in Outlook XP, TAB to the "Internet Format" button and press ENTER and in here check off sending a copy of pictures, ARROW to and select convert to Plain Text format, change automatically wrap text from 76 to 60 by over-typing it so that your lines of text are not too long to fit onto one line for anyone who might want to view your messages in a word-processor (note that some of these options are found not in here but in the "Internet Email" sheet in Outlook 2000). Now enter the "Signatures" dialogue and if you invariably use the same complimentary close and want to avoid having to type this at the end of all of your messages, Tab to the "New" button and press ENTER. In the editfield which appears, you type a filename for the signature, such as signature 1, and then TAB to and press ENTER on "Next". You then come into another editfield and type the actual text of the complimentary close and signature you want for all your messages, for example, type: Yours truly, (press ENTER) John Wilson, and then TAB to and press ENTER on "Finish" and then on "OK". You can also elect to have this signature appended to your replies and forwarded messages, if you like. Now TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. Then CONTROL TAB to the "Other" sheet. 5. the "Other" sheet--In here press ENTER on the "Advanced Options" button and decide whether in future you want to go straight to your Inbox when Outlook launches or to Outlook Today or to Calendar, etc. I would recommend, if you are to use Outlook mainly for e-mailing, you leave focus on "Inbox". However, if you check this, it will bypass the initial links in Outlook Today which you have available to TAB through when this is not checked but there are ways to return to this temporarily if you need to. Alternatively, if you like to have Calendar load in with your day's reminder meetings, appointments, etc, you might prefer to leave focus on the Calendar option. Ensure that "Provide Feedback with Sound" is turned on. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 6. There are many more configurable options in these sheets, so CONTROL TAB through them all and TAB through the options on each sheet and experiment with the many on/off and checked/unchecked alternatives when you become more confident with what you are doing. Most people have their own ideas of what is an optimal set up and there is no one best configuration for all users, all screenreaders and all organisations' personal or internal server setups. 7. To save all of the above changes simultaneously, TAB to "OK" in any of the property sheets and press ENTER. You can also press ENTER on any of the "Apply" buttons if you want to save changes as you go from property sheet to property sheet. View, Columns Configurations Because the contents of the subject line in some of your e-mails may be too long to get all of it on screen, you may wish to increase the available subject line space. You can do this by: 1. With Outlook running and on the e-mail messages window or in the Inbox, press ALT V (for View), then V (for Current View) followed by M (for Format Columns). 2. Now ARROW down in the list you will be in to "Subject". 3. TAB to just past "Specific Width" to an editfield marked "Width" or with just a figure such as "26.20" in it and BACKSPACE the figure out which is in there and replace it with a larger figure, such as 100. You may have to experiment with the subject line width to get it just right for you and your screenreader. 5. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. Similarly, if the e-mail senders' names are not fully displaying in the "From:" field increase this from its current length to something larger. 4.3. Creating and Sending E-mail Messages 4.3.1. Ensuring that Outlook is Your Default E-Mail and Calendar Client As you may have more than one e-mail and Calendar client on your computer, before you engage in either e-mailing or calendar use, it is recommended that you make Outlook the default software for e-mailing and Calendar actions. Do this by: 1. Press Windows key and then press S (for Settings) followed by C (for Control Panel). 2. Press I (for Internet Options) and then ENTER. 3. Press CONTROL TAB until you get to the "Programs" property sheet and then press TAB until you hear "Email" and are in a list of possible e-mail programs to use for your e-mailing. ARROW up and down the selections. You may find such as Outlook Express, Hotmail and Microsoft Outlook listed here. Leave focus on "Microsoft Outlook". 4. TAB again until you reach the "Calendar" option and you may again find several options for default calendar usage if you have more than one calendar on your PC or there may only be the Microsoft Outlook option. Leave focus on this. 5. TAB again to "Contact List" and again ARROW to Microsoft Outlook if there is more than one choice. 6. TAB through the other combobox lists in here and make Microsoft Outlook the default for everything where there are alternatives if you want Outlook to be the program you use for all of these things. 7. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER followed by pressing CONTROL C to leave the Control Panel. 4.3.2. Creating and Sending an E-Mail Message To create and send e-mail: 1. Launch Outlook by going to the Outlook icon on your Desktop and pressing ENTER, or run it by pressing the Windows LOGO key, P for programs, M for Microsoft outlook and when you reach it (you may have to press M several times, press ENTER. The program will start up and you will land in a list of messages in the Inbox folder if you have set things up as recommended above. Otherwise, you will come into the standard Outlook Today view with buttons to TAB through and press ENTER on to go to the feature of Outlook you require. In this case, Messages. 2. Wen in the Inbox, to create a message press CONTROL n, when the new message window will open and you will fall on the first of four or five text entry boxes. The first is labelled "To:" and this is where you enter the recipient's e-mail address, e.g argos@freeserve.co.uk. You can press ENTER and type in more recipients' addresses separated by semi-colons if you want to send several copies to different people. You then press the TAB key to the next editbox. All recipients will be able to view the list of people you sent this same message to. 3. The next editbox is entitled "CC:" and is where you would type other people's e-mail addresses if you wanted them to receive the equivalent of carbon copies of the message. Again, others' will be able to see who else received a copy. You then press TAB again. 4. The third editfield (if you turned it on as advised above) is the blind carbon copy field which some people like to use and some screenreaders need to have enabled to focus properly when sending e-mails. This is another way of sending copies of your e-mail to third parties. The difference between sending a copy in this BCC way and in the CC way is that a copy sent in this box is "secret", i.e. the other recipients of your e-mail do not know that a copy was sent to the BCC recipient--very inclandestine! Now press the TAB key again. 5. You should now be at the "Subject" editbox, so type in an appropriate short and meaningful message title or subject and press TAB again. 6. You will now have moved from the e-mail header area to the fourth (or fifth if you have the BCC field enabled) editbox, which is the main editfield where you type in the body of your letter or message in the normal way. 7. After completing the typing of your message you can spell-check it by pressing F7 but this only works if you have a copy of Microsoft Word or Works on your computer as Outlook shares the Word/Works spell-checker. If you do not have a copy of Word, you can download spell-checkers from the Web for this purpose from sites such as: www.tucows.com 8. to send the message press ALT S, CONTROL ENTER or CONTROL M (depending on which works best on your version of Outlook and set-up), when it will either: A. Be sent straightaway if you are online; or B. If you are working offline and the connect dialogue box comes up, just press ENTER, when you will be taken online and all of your messages sent. or C. If you are working offline and do not want to go online and send your messages yet, if they do not go straight into your Outbox, just press ESCAPE to exit the connect/send dialogue box (if it appears), when the message will be placed in your "Outbox" folder ready to be sent when you are ready to go online. 9. If your messages were not sent immediately, as in B and C above, to complete the sending process, you will have to press CONTROL M (or you can also use F9 if you are using Outlook XP or F5 if you are using Outlook 2000) and your message or several messages will be on their way and any e-mails in your server's mailbox will simultaneously be pulled down to your inbox. You may also have to press ENTER after pressing CONTROL M. However, if you only want to send messages and not download any at this particular time you can press ALT T (for Tools) and press ENTER on the "send" option you fall onto or from within the "Send and Receive" sub-menu choose "Send All". 10. After electing to send/receive your messages: A. The messages will be uploaded to your ISP or other e-mail provider's server and you may then get an audio sound (if you have set things up to work in this way) to indicate that the process is completed. However, with Outlook, this often just means that your uploading of messages has completed. You may still have a minute or two to wait for any messages sent to you to be downloaded. With Outlook XP, if you go into mouse mode, you will be able to ARROW down the screen and observe the progress of up and downloading, e.g. the progress messages may say something like: one of two tasks have completed successfully, your server may say how long is left for the messages you have to be downloaded and you should be told how many messages have been received out of the total number to be downloaded from your server's mailbox, e.g. sending done, receiving 39 of 53. You may then get another finished downloading musical sound followed by a short delay whilst Outlook then deletes the downloaded messages from your server's mailbox and then an automatic cut-off of your phone connection. With Outlook 2000, there is a checking for new messages and sending messages message on the screen but no specific details as to the current state of proceedings. B. If you are on a networked system running Exchange Server, your messages will go via Exchange Server and there will be extra refinements which you can elect to have applied to your messages if required, e.g. delaying the time they are actually sent at. Tip: If at any time you think you may have lost a message you have been typing or tried but failed to send, you should be able to recover it from the "Drafts" folder, as this is where OUtlook places messages which it thinks are unfinnished. Note: With Outlook 2000, I have experienced intermittent problems with getting the program to send using keyboard commands when you want it to. After pressing ALT S or CONTROL M, you sometimes have to ALT TAB to get to the dial-up and connect dialogue (if using this with a MODEM) and on other occasions you may have to close Outlook 2000 and then re-launch it before you can successfully carry out the send command. 11. If, before sending your message, you would like to save a copy of it in your Drafts folder, you should press CONTROL S to achieve this. 12. If you have finished with your Internet connection and want to go offline and close Outlook down, you should press ALT F (for File) and then X (for Exit) or press ENTER on the "Exit and Log Off" option if you are using Outlook 2000. If you still have any unsent messages in your Outbox, you will be prompted to either send them immediately or go offline without sending them. You should press "N" to send them first or "Y" to go offline without sending them. 13. On the other hand, if you are using Outlook XP and you decide that you want to keep using Outlook but do not want to remain online incurring phone charges, you can do this by simply pressing ALT F (for File) and then W (for Work Offline", when your phone line should be disconnected for you. Be aware, however, that this does not always work and you may have to effect a manual disconnection. Just pick up your phone handset to verify if the line has been disconnected. Pressing ALT C may also succeed in disconnecting you. The "Work Offline" option does not exist in Outlook 2000, so you will have to use automatic disconnection or "exit and Log Off" and then re-launch Outlook 2000 to continue working with it without incurring phone bills. Note 1: If you have more than one e-mail accounts set up in Outlook, when you press ALT S to send a message, as in 8. above, instead of your messages immediately being sent, you will encounter a dropdown menu or list to move down to select which account you wish to use to connect to the Net with. You just press ENTER on the account name you wish to use. Note 2: You can also create and send a message directly from your contacts list, when the contact's e-mail address will automatically be placed in the "To:" field for you (see "Using a Contact to Create an E-Mail Message" in Section 9 below.) Note 3: There may be other fields in the header of an e-mail you send or receive, such as "From", "Date" and "Time" but these are automatically completed for you by Outlook itself from information it holds on you and from the computer's system clock. If you have two or more e-mail addresses, you can ARROW up or down the "From:" header to put focus on the address you wish to use to send your mail. Note 4: The e-mail message you send will have all line breaks and spaces you placed in it removed before the recipient receives it. If you do not want this to happen, unselect this feature in Tools, Options, Preferences, Email Options by pressing SPACEBAR on "Remove Extra Line Breaks in Plain Text Messages". Warning: Be aware, that as e-mail over the Internet is not secure, you should not include information such as your credit card details, bank account information, etc, as it could be intercepted by fraudulent persons. This is in contrast to using secure "padlocked" Internet shopping sites, where your information is protected by heavy encryption and therefore more secure than using your credit card in a shop or restaurant, provided that you only use secure shopping sites, of course. Tip: If you want to hide your own e-mail address from being viewed by a recipient, you can do this by sending the mail to yourself and putting the recipient's address or e-mail list's address in the BCC field. 4.3.3. Re-Sending an E-mail Message If, for any reason, you need to resend an e-mail message to its original recipient: 1. Go to your Sent Items folder by pressing CONTROL Y, then S followed by ENTER. 2. Press ENTER on the message you want to re-send to open it. 3. Either: A. With Outlook XP, press A (for Actions) and then H (for Resend this Message). B. With Outlook 2000, as there is no resend message feature, you will have to either redo your message (you could copy the message body to the Clipboard and then paste it into a new message body) or you could use the forward command in the Actions menu. You use the forward command by pressing ALT A and then w (or CONTROL F). You would then have to retype the address in the "To:" field, remove the "FW:" from the "Subject:" line and delete the text at the beginning of the message body which appears before your original message. 4. Press ALT S or CONTROL M to re-send it. 4.3.4. Designating a Period of Delay Before Sending the E-Mail or an Expiry Date for the E-Mail Having created your e-mail message as above and provided that you are running Exchange Server, you can send the e-mail to the server and advise it at what time to send the message and you can designate that a certain message should expire and not be sent after a given date. Do this by: 1. Create your message as normal but do not send it at this stage. 2. Press alt P (for Options) to open an Options dialogue of many options which you can have applied to the current message. 3. TAB down the list and either or both: A. When you reach the "Do Not Deliver Before" option, press SPACEBAR on it to turn it on. then TAB to the next field and observe the current date and overtype this if the date you want the server to send the message on is later than today. TAB again to where you can type in a future time for the server to send the message, e.g. 1600. B. The next option you TAB to is "Expires After" and if you check this on you will again get two editfields below it to type in a date and time when you would like the message not to be sent after if you have not instructed it to do so by then. You might do this if you have created a message to have sent immediately and urgently if you obtain information about a client's agreement to something but which, if you hear nothing, you want removing from the Outbox. 5. Now TAB to "Close" and press ENTER. 6. Send the message to the Exchange Server Outbox as normal by pressing ALT S. 4.3.5. Designating that Replies to Your Message should go to Another Person If you would like any replies to your e-mail messages to go to someone else, e.g. your Deputy or Secretary: 1. Create your message as normal but do not send it. 2. Activate the Options button on the Toolbar by pressing ALT P. 3. TAB to "Delivery Options" and check it on with the SPACEBAR. 4. TAB once to an editfield and overtype the e-mail address in there with the address of the person you want the replies to your message to go to. Note that there is a "Contacts" button under this editfield which you can activate to select the person who you want the replies to go to instead of typing the address in if you prefer or cannot remember their address. 5. TAB to "Close" and press ENTER and then send and close the message with ALT S. 4.3.6. Specifying that E-mails in your Outbox Should be Automatically Sent Periodically If you would like Outlook to take the initiative itself to automatically send any e-mail in your Outbox, you should set it up to do so as follows: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options. 2. Now press CONTROL TAB to the "Mail Setup" property sheet. 3. TAB to the "Send/Receive" button and press ENTER to open up a dialogue box. 4. Next TAB to the Schedule an Automatic Send/Receive Every" option and press SPACEBAR to turn this on. 5. Now TAB once and you will be in a list of numbers representing the frequency in minutes of how often Outlook will itself send any e-mail in your Outbox. You are likely to be on 5 minutes but you can ARROW up or down to just about any frequency you like. 6. If you would like Outlook to also send any messages as you finish using the program and close it, TAB to the "Perform an Automatic Send-Receive when Exiting" option and press SPACEBAR to check this on. 7. Lastly, TAB to "Close" and press ENTRE and then SHIFT TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 4.4. Sending or Forwarding Multiple E-Mails Simultaneously If you wish to mass-mail many people simultaneously, you can do this without having to send them individual messages or even type a long list of addresses into the "To:" field as mentioned earlier.What you can do is: 1. Either: A. To send an original message, press CONTROL N to open a new message form. or B. To forward a message, with the message open on screen, press CONTROL F. 2. Leave the focus on the "To:" line and press ALT T (for Tools) followed by B (for Address Book) or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT B. If using Window-Eyes, you will have to press INSERT B before CONTROL SHIFT B. 3. In the dialogue which opens up you will be in the Address List field or you may have to TAB once to it, where you will be in your standard Address Book of e-mail contacts. You may find yourself at the bottom or top of the contacts list. 4. ARROW down or up the entries and select any number you wish to send the same message to. For example, if you had ten names beginning with the letter A, just hold the SHIFT key down and ARROW down ten times to highlight them all. Alternatively, if you wanted to e-mail everyone in your Address Book, with the cursor at the top of the list, press CONTROL SHIFT down ARROW. If you just want to send the message to, say, four people spread around your Address Book, go to the first recipient, highlight it by pressing CONTROL SPACEBAR and then, with the CONTROL key still pressed, move to the next Address Book entry and press SPACEBAR again, etc, until all four are highlighted. 5. Then either: A. Press TAB to the "To:" button and press ENTER on it. Note, though, that with this option everyone you have highlighted to receive your message will know who else has also received it. All of the recipients' names will appear in the "To:" field. Or B. If you do not want the other recipients of your message to know who else has received it, you should TAB on past the "To:" button to the "BCC:" button, press ENTER on that, and then continue as below. 6. You can now press TAB several times to view the full list of Address Book entries you have selected for mailing. The contact names will appear, separated by semi-colons. 7. Lastly, TAB forward to "OK" and press ENTER. 8. Now that the recipients are selected you should be able to view them in your e-mail header "To:" or "BCC" field but you may have to use mouse mode to do this. 9. You can now simply complete the rest of your message as normal and send it, as described from 5 onwards in the above subsection entitled "Creating and Sending an E-Mail Message". Note 1: When I try to send more than 100 e-mails in this way my server fails to co-operate and tells me that I am trying to e- mail to too many recipients. This may vary depending on the ISP/e-mail provider, so you will have to experiment with yours. You may have to settle for mass mailing in blocks of, say, 50 at a time. Note 2: If just one of your e-mail addresses is not typed in your Address Book in the correct format, all of the messages in the block you are sending will bounce and fail to be delivered. You will have to correct or erase the offending Address Book e-mail address and re-send the block. This does not happen if one of the recipient's address is simply not found or now obsolete. 4.5. Undelivered E-Mail If your e-mail is undelivered for some reason, most commonly because you have typed in the wrong e-mail address or the address has become obsolete, the next time you go online it will be returned to you together with your other e-mails from the server mail box. It will have been returned by the electronic "Postmaster" on your server and will indicate the reason for non-delivery. This could include the reason that the recipient's mailbox is full, so you will have to send the message again later. 4.6. Receiving and Reading E-Mail To receive your e-mails: 1. Launch Outlook. 2. Press CONTROL M, F5 or F9, when all of your messages will be downloaded from the server and placed in your Inbox. Simultaneously, the e-mails in your Outbox will also be sent. 3. Press CONTROL SHIFT I to go to the inbox, if you are not already there, when you will normally fall on the last message in the box if it was empty, otherwise on the last message which was already in the Inbox if it was not empty. You will be able to ARROW up and down the messages with the names of their senders and the titles of the messages in the subject lines and press ENTER on any one of them to open it and read it. Pressing CONTROL O will also open a message. Some screenreaders will automatically start reading the message, whilst with others you will have to ARROW down the message text to hear it or use your screenreader's continuous read hot key, e.g. INSERT Numpad 2 with JAWS, CONTROL SHIFT R with Window-Eyes and NumPad + with HAL. The message window should also be maximised with ALT SPACEBAR and X if it is not already. If you want to read your messages in the order that they are deposited in your Inbox, provided that you have not changed the default way that Outlook lists messages, you should press CONTROL HOME to go to the top of the list and then view the messages by ARROWING down them. Every time you have read a message and then deleted it by pressing the DELETE key when it has focus in the message list, the next message will move up the list to where the deleted message was. 4. You can read the body of the message by ARROWING and Paging up and down in the message as normal and you can cut and paste to and from it. You can TAB forward or SHIFT TAB backward through the message headers, message body and any links in the e-mail. your screenreader may also feature hot keys to read certain parts of the message to you automatically, e.g. HAL 5 should read the author's name, subject line and message date for you if you press SHIFT NumPad 8. With Window-Eyes you will have to leave MSAA mode by pressing CONTROL SHIFT A before you can SHIFT TAB through the message headers. With JAWS, in addition to simply SHIFT TABBING through the headers, You can press ALT in combination with the main keyboard number keys from 1 to 5 to move to and read the contents of the "From", "Sent", "To" and other header fields. 5. When you have finished with the message, press the ESCAPE key to close the message window and return you to the inbox message list. You can delete, reply to, forward or print a message. Tip: If you receive a message in RTF or HTML formatting, with the message open, you can quickly convert it to plain text and therefore remove the formatting by pressing CONTROL SHIFT O. Note 1: Depending on the screenreader you are using, whilst your messages are downloading in step 2 above, you may be able to TAB or down ARROW through a number of options the main one of which is a "Disconnect All" button which you can also activate by pressing ALT C to come offline. Note 2:Should you not wish to simultaneously upload and download your messages by using CONTROL ENTER or CONTROL M, you can elect to just upload messages if you wish. Do this by pressing ALT T (for Tools), then, in Outlook 2000, press ENTER on "Send" or,in Outlook XP, press ENTER on "Send and Receive", followed by pressing ENTER on "Send All" to just send. Note 3: If you have a lot of messages to download or upload or one of your messages has a large attachment on it which might take a long time to download, you should be able to open and read any already downloaded messages whilst the rest of the messages are uploading or downloading without doing anything detrimental to the procedure. However, experiment with this because doing this may not be stable with all screenreaders and system set-ups. Note 4: If, for any reason, you are cut off part way through a download of messages, you are likely to find that when you next go online to download your mail, you will receive both your new messages and duplicate copies of the messages you already downloaded but which were cut off. This is because, when you do a successful complete message download, at the end of the download, your mail client then deletes the downloaded messages from your server's mailbox, which fails to happen if you are cut off part way through a download. 4.7. Finding an E-Mail Message Depending on your set-up, messages in your Inbox may be kept in ascending or descending alphabetical order or in date order, for example, so you can ARROW or PAGE down (or up) through these to find one. Having said this, if you have a large number of messages, you will want to use a more efficient and intelligent way of locating a particular message or messages, arranged meetings, allocated tasks, etc, both in the current folder, in your Personal Folders folders and also in any networked server folders you have set up. So consider what follows. 4.7.1. Searching Folders If you have many messages in one of your folders, e.g. your Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items, etc, and want to go straight to one of these, provided you know some basic information, such as who sent it, some of the title in the subject line, some key words in its message body, etc, you can use the Find feature to locate it, as follows: 1. With Outlook running and your Inbox open, press ALT T (for Tools) and then D (for Advanced Find) followed by pressing ENTER and the Find dialogue box will open up (or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT F). Note that CONTRO SHIFT F conflicts with the Window-Eyes own find feature so use the menu method of doing this with WE. 2. The focus should fall on your "Inbox" where your messages are downloaded to and you will be in the "Contacts" property sheet in an editfield to type the word or words you are searching for. If you are searching for more than one consecutive word in the message body, place the words in double quotation marks. For example, if you know that the message contains the consecutive words: quantum mechanics within it, type "quantum mechanics". If more than one of your messages contains the words quantum mechanics, you will be presented with a list of all the messages which have these words in them to ARROW up and down and press ENTER on to open them in turn. The quotes are not necessary for searching for a message by someone's name in the "From" header field as outlined from step 5 below. 3. TAB once to "Subject Field Only" and ARROW down this list to view the other alternatives, which are "Subject Field and Message Body" and "Frequently Used Text Fields". If you know all or some of the subject line contents of the message you are searching for, choose the first option, if you only know some of the text which may either be in the subject line or message body ARROW down one and for the most thorough search ARROW to the last choice but be aware that the more exhaustive the search the longer it will take. 4. You could simply press ALT n to start the search now but if you want to narrow it down further you could also employ the below refinements. 5. TAB forward to the "From" editfield and if you know who has sent you a message, type in all or part of their name. This could be as well as entering the above subject line or message body search words of quantum mechanics or instead of entering anything in subject. You may only remember the full name of or just one of the names of the person who sent you the message you are now trying to find, so you could search on the information in the "From" header field only in this case. Again, if you press ALT n, if this person is in the Inbox, you will be taken straight to that e-mail and pressing ENTER again will open it for reading. 6. In the main property sheet which we have been working in up to now you will find some other search refinement options and yet more of these options can be found in the other two property sheets in the advanced find dialogue by pressing CONTROL TAB to get to them. These other two sheets are labelled "More Choices" which has a "Categories" dialogue box in it and "Advanced" which has a "Define More Criteria dialogue box within it". Some of the numerous ways of further refining a search, are such as specifying whether a message was received before or after a given date or time and you can, for instance, check the "Only Items With" option in the "Categories" property sheet to only get messages without attachments found which also meet your other criteria. Therefore, a message with a given word in the "Subject:" line plus having no attachment with it would be found and no messages would be found which do not meet both of these conditions. 7. You can carry out the same type of searches in the other folders which are in your Personal Folders list by TABBING to the "Browse" button, pressing ENTER and then ARROWING up and down through "Inbox", "Outbox", "Drafts", etc. When you have the focus on the folder which contains the e- mail you want to find, e.g. your "Deleted Items" folder, Press TAB once to OK and then press ENTER. You will return to the "Browse" button, so TAB forward to the "From" editfield and type in the name of the person who sent you the e-mail, then either TAB forward to "Find" and press ENTER or press ALT F. 8. If you wish to search all folders simultaneously, you should browse to the "Personal Folders" main folder instead of one of the above-mentioned sub-folders before carrying out these instructions. 9. The message will be found for you to press ENTER on and open up for reading. If several messages meet the search conditions, they will all be displayed in a list. If this list is not immediately available for you to ARROW up and down, you may have to press the F6 key to get to it. 10. If you wish to find a particular word or phrase within a message when it is opened up and on screen, you press the F4 key. You then type the word to search for in the editfield which you drop in and press ALT F to commence the search. Use "Find Next" to find a subsequent occurrence of the same word or phrase (you may have to use your navigation/mouse mode to read the result of the find operation). Whilst this is the correct way to do an open message find, I have not found this to be very useful for screenreader users. Note: for more on advanced searching, see "Finding a Particular contact or Group of Categorised contacts" in Section 8. 4.7.2. Simple Search Feature in Outlook XP There is a quick and simple Fine feature as well in Outlook XP to find messages via the senders first, second or both names in the folder you are currently in. Use this by pressing the F3 key and then typing the name in, TABBING to "Find Now" and pressing ENTER. Note: This does not work in the same way in Outlook 2000. 4.7.3. Searching within an Open Message To find a word or string of words in an open e-mail message body: 1. With the message open, press ALT E (for Edit) and then F (for Find). 2. In the editfield you are now in, type the word or words you want to find. 3. TAB to "Find Next" and press ENTER. You will be taken to the beginning of that word or string of words. 4. If you want to find the next instance of that same word or string of words, press SHIFT F4. 4.7.4. Searching for Meeting, Journal, Task and Other Items To find other items you have created, such as Journal entries and arranged meetings: 1. Press ALT T and then D or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT F. 2. Either: A. In Outlook XP, TAB to and in the "Sent To" Editfield type the name of the person your arranged meeting, appointment or Journal entry was for. You can also enter in other fields more information such as to search after a particular date/time or for words in the subject line of the meeting message. B. In Outlook 2000, in the "Search for the Word(s)" editfield you come into, type the full or part name of the person whose messages, appointments, Journal entries, etc, you are trying to locate and TAB through the other options similar to the above. 3. TAB to a "Look for" list of seven or so types of search, where "Message" will normally be selected. ARROW to the type of item you are searching for, e.g. for an arranged meeting or appointment. Note that this list is not very accessible in Outlook 2000 but if you press the first letter of the type of thing you are wanting to search for, such as J (for Journal items), C (for Contact items), etc, you will get to that selection. Pressing A will take you to the "Any Type of Item" option to search for anything arranged for or by a given person. 4. Press ALT N to start the search. 5. In the list of found items, press ENTER on any of them to view its contents. 4.7.5. Finding all Messages from a Particular Sender or in a Given Conversation Thread To find all messages from a particular sender or in a given conversation thread: 1. Place focus on one of the relevant messages in such as your Inbox. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then I (for Find All). 3. Now press ENTER on "Related Messages" to get a list of all messages on a given thread of conversation or ARROW to and press ENTER on "Messages from Sender" to obtain a list of all messages from one particular sender. 4. TAB to and press ENTER on "Find Now". 5. ARROW to any message and press ENTER to open it. You may first have to press F6 to get to the message list. Note 1: You can use the above method to find all of the messages from a given person or with a particular word or words in the subject line in order to bulk delete them if you do not wish to read multiple messages from someone or on a particular topic thread, e.g. press CONTROL SHIFT F and type a word or words which appear in the subject lines of all of the messages in the message thread, press ALT N and then in the list of messages containing those words in the subject line just press CONTROL A to highlight them all and then press DELETE to erase them all, followed by ESCAPE. Note 2: For screenreader users, whether using Outlook 2000 or XP, some of the above fine/searching dialogues and features do not work very consistently and it is not easy at times to get focus on the list or option you require without the cursor occasionally jumping around, but they can be used with some practise and a little patience. Note 3: The contents of your Sent Items, Inbox messages, Deleted Items, etc, folders will not be in alphabetical order and, if they become crowded with messages you do not want to get rid of, you may wish to have things placed in alphabetical order for ease of finding by ARROWING or PAGING through them. If you would prefer this, Press ALT V (for View) and V (for Current View) and then ARROW up to "Customise Current View" and press ENTER. Now TAB to a "Sort" button and press ENTER. You then press F until "From" is found and then TAB to a two options list and ARROW to "Sort Items by Ascending". Then TAB to two consecutive "OK" buttons and press ENTER to finish. Your messages will no longer be in date received order but rather in alphabetical order from A to Z, although, personally, I prefer things to be in date received order, so that any reply messages to questions in earlier messages will then be listed after the original message and not before it, which could happen if things are set to alphabetical from order. 4.8. Deleting E-Mail Messages 4.8.1. Deleting Single Messages or Whole Folders of Messages To delete a message in your Inbox, if you are not already in the Inbox, press CONTROL SHIFT I, cursor to the message you want to delete and when it is highlighted (spoken) press the DEL key.You can do the same with any messages in your Sent Items, Outbox, Deleted Items, etc, folders by pressing CONTROL Y and ARROWING to the appropriate subfolder first. You may have to press Y (for Yes) to confirm the deletion. To delete the whole contents of a subfolder flowing from Personal Folders, e.g. your Saved Items folder, open the subfolder, go to the bottom of the message list with CONTROL END and then press CONTROL SHIFT HOME to highlight all the messages in the folder, followed by pressing the DEL key and Y to confirm. You could do the above to also delete the whole contents of your Deleted Items folder but there is a quicker way to do this. Just press ALT T (for Tools) followed by Y (for Empty Deleted Items Folder) and then Y to confirm the action. 4.8.2. Deleting Groups of Messages by Conversation/Subject You can delete whole threads of messages with the same title in their subject header by working in "By Conversation/Topic" mode. This can make getting rid of blocks of unwanted e-mails, such as from e-mail discussion lists, quick to achieve. Do this by: 1. Change your view and therefore how your messages will be displayed by pressing ALT V, V and then ARROWING up to "By Conversation/Topic" and press ENTER. 2. Now, when you have many messages in your Inbox, you will find that they are all displayed in groups with the same subject, i.e. the original e-mail query with all of the replies to it underneath it. You can ARROW up and down the collective message conversation topics/subject header groups. To open a conversation group with, say, five e-mails under that subject, you press your right ARROW key and can then ARROW down once to the first message and open it by pressing ENTER. 3. To delete a whole conversation group, with your cursor on the line above the first message in the group, i.e. the conversation topic/subject line header, press your left ARROW key to collapse the group and then press the DELETE key. 4. Depending on the version of Outlook you are using, You may or may not receive a message asking you if you wish to continue. You can either press ENTER on the "Yes" button to get rid of them all and do this every time you delete a group of messages, or you can TAB to a "Don't Ask Me This Again" button and press SPACEBAR on this to ensure that in future when you do this the unwanted messages are all deleted without you having to press ENTER on the "Yes" button. If this dialogue does not appear, the block of related messages will simply be deleted as required. 4.9. Viewing Only Specific Mail and News Messages Your Inbox and Newsgroups folders may sometimes hold so many messages in them that they become difficult to work with and prioritise. To narrow down what mail and news messages are shown in these folders to the most important ones, Outlook provides facilities to make it easier to deal with messages, so that you can quickly find only the messages you are interested in and have the others excluded from view until you have time to deal with the others. for instance, with the folder open that you want to make restrictions in, e.g. the Inbox, if you press ALT V and hit ENTER on the "Current View" option you can choose to view all messages by pressing ENTER on "Messages" if it is not already checked (this is the default to have every message displayed), or you can choose "Unread Messages" to display only the messages which you have not yet opened and already glanced at, or you can press ENTER on Last Seven Days" to have only those messages received in the last week displayed. You can also arrange Inbox messages into subject or sender groups by selecting "By Conversation/Topic or by selecting "By Sender", when you will get the same type of result, i.e. the subject/topic or senders will be grouped together and each subject or sender's messages will then be placed in a type of sub-list for you to press ENTER or right ARROW on and then read those related messages one after the other. When you restrict the way messages display in one of these various ways, the Status Line is likely to advise you of this by saying something like "Filter Applied". There are also ways of customising current views and defining new views but you should be careful not to create a view you cannot thereafter use with your screenreader and thereby get yourself into difficulty. 4.10. Replying to E-Mail With the original message open and on screen, press CONTROL R, when you will be set up to complete the message editfield with your own return message. The original message will appear immediately after your return message, the "To" field will have been automatically completed for you from the original message and the "Subject" editbox will have been completed with the original message's title preceded by the letters "Re:" meaning reply. So all you have to do is start typing after pressing CONTROL R, e.g: "Dear Jack, It was good to receive an e-mail from you . . .), etc. Remember to check the "To:" editbox to ensure that it is going to go back to the correct place--the original may have been forwarded by a third party or via an e-mail list. It is a good idea to edit out any extraneous header codes, etc, before returning or forwarding a message. If the original message was simultaneously sent to you and several other recipients (i.e. those listed in the "To:" field of the message), you can send a reply to the author plus all other recipients by pressing CONTROL SHIFT R and then continuing as above. the CONTROL SHIFT R shortcut clashes withe the Window- Eyes read all hot key, so you will have to use the bypass hot key first, namely INSERT B. Tip: If you want to know the e-mail address of someone Who's message you have received via an e-mail list, with the message having focus in your Inbox but not open, you can do so by pressing SHIFT F10 followed by R. You can then go to the top of the screen and ARROW down to the sender's name and address and you can ARROW through several other details and properties pertinent to that message and sender. Close this details list by pressing ESCAPE twice. 4.11. Forwarding a Received E-Mail to Someone Else Forwarding is when you pass a message you have received onto someone else, tagged onto the end of a message of your own. To do this: 1. With the original message open and on screen that you wish to forward to someone else, press CONTROL F and complete the "To:" editbox with the new recipient's e-mail address. 2. If you like, TAB to the main message body and type in a short note telling the person you are forwarding the original message to why you have forwarded it to them, etc. 3. Send the message as normal by pressing ALT S, CONTROL ENTER or CONTROL M, or ALT S followed by CONTROL M, depending on how your Outlook is set up. However, note the following: Forwarded messages normally have all lines of the original message you are forwarding preceded by a greater than (>) sign and replies you make to messages may also feature this same > sign. This can be irritating to listen to via a speech synthesiser, so you can ensure that these > symbols do not get sent with the message by: 1. With Outlook running, press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options. 2. You should land in the "Preferences" property sheet on the "Email Options" button, so press ENTER on this. If you do not land on this, CONTROL TAB until you reach Preferences and then TAB to Email Options. 3. You can now TAB to "Include Indent Original Message Text" for replies and then either ARROW up or down this list of alternative ways of having original messages forwarded, so that the > sign does not appear in messages you forward. I would recommend that you select the "Include Original Message Text" alternative. 4. If you TAB on once more, you will be able to ARROW and do the same thing for forwarded messages. 5. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER followed by pressing ENTER on a further "OK" button to finish and save your new settings. Note, however, that whilst those who receive your messages might be pleased about your understanding of them not wanting these irritating greater than signs, this will not stop you from receiving such "indents" from others if they have not set up their replying and forwarding options to send in this way as well. 4.12. Flagging an E-Mail as a Reminder for later Action You can flag (mark) an e-mail in your Inbox in order to be reminded of later action which you wish to take on that message, e.g. to follow it up on a certain date and time by phone call, reply e-mail, to review it, etc. Some screenreaders can then announce, when you ARROW to a flagged message, that it is flagged by saying such as "Flagged" in the same way that they say a message is read, replied to, etc. Then, on the date and at the time you specify for the message to have further action taken on it, Outlook will provide an automatic reminder, such as a musical note, to inform you that action on a message is due. 4.12.1. Flagging for a follow-Up Reminder from your Inbox To flag a message in your Inbox for a follow-up reminder : 1. Place focus on the message in question in such as your Inbox and: A. In Outlook XP, press ALT A (for Actions) and then U (for Follow UP). B. In Outlook 2000, press ALT A and then F (for Flag for Follow Up). 2. You fall into a list of follow-up choices/reasons, such as to later call some one, follow up the message, forward it to someone, reply to it, Do a review of it, etc. 3. TAB once to "Do By" and BACKSPACE, then type in the future date you want to effect the selected type of follow-up on, e.g. 7/4/03. 4. TAB again and type in a time to do the follow-up by, e.g. 1300 hours. 5.TAB to "Completed" and note that this will not be checked as you have not yet dealt with the follow-up action. When you have, you can press SPACEBAR to check this on and clear it so that no further reminders will be generated to you to say this follow-up action is outstanding. The flag marker will be removed from the message. 6. TAB to and press ENTER on "OK" to complete the flagging. 4.12.2. Obtaining a Plug-In to Enable Follow-Up Reminders to Work from Sub-Folders Unfortunately, with versions of Outlook up to Outlook 2003, if you use filters or sub-folders to keep your messages in, the above follow-up reminder flagging feature does not work. If this sort of reminder flagging is of value to you or your company, you can purchase a plug-in from an independent company to enable messages in sub-folders to be flagged. Whilst I do not have this plug-in and have not tested it, I am advised that it does work reliably. You can download a copy of this add-on and get a 30-day free trial version from: www.slovaktech.com/extendedreminders.htm You can then purchase single copies for around 15 US dollars or less each for higher quantities. Note: Do not be fooled if you find that you can set reminders for messages in sub-folders. Outlook allows you to do this but then fails to give you the reminder from such sub-folders at the required time! 4.13. Marking a Message as Important or Private You can make a message stand out to the recipient as needing immediate action by marking it "Important" or ensure that the recipient cannot alter the message by giving it a "Private" designation. Do this by: 1. After you have created and saved the message to your Outbox with ALT S, you can then go to the Outbox with CONTROL SHIFT O and then to the message and when you have focus on it, press SHIFT F10. 2. In the long list in the Context Menu you come into, ARROW up to "Options" and press ENTER. Note that there are many other actions you could carry out on this message from within this menu list. 3. In the "Importance" list you come into, ARROW down to "High". 4. TAB to the "Sensitivity" list and then ARROW down to "Private". Note that you could also have designated the message "Personal" or "Confidential". 5. TAB to "Request a Delivery Receipt for this Message" and "Request a Read Receipt for this Message" and check these on if you want to be sure that your recipient received and has opened the message, although the recipient is not obliged to send you a receipt he is just asked to permit this to happen. 6. TAB to "Close" and press ENTER and Y for Yes if you are asked to save your changes. Note: In Outlook XP, you could also encrypt (scramble so that no one else can view) the message by going into the "Security Settings" dialogue within Options and checking on "Encrypt Message Contents and Attachments". 4.14. Using the Outlook Contacts Folder and Address Book with E- mailing The Address Book is a collection of Address Books provided by Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Exchange Server or Internet directory services, depending on how you have set up Outlook and on whether you are a stand-alone computer user or a corporate user. There may be several types of Address Books you can get access to via the Address Book dialogue box (CONTROL SHIFT B). For example, the "Global" address list is part of Exchange Server which contains user and distribution list e-mail addresses in your company or organisation and this is created by and maintained by your organisation's Administrator. This Address Book can also contain public folder e-mail addresses. By contrast, the standard Outlook Address Book/contacts list, which you use for day-to-day contact recording, is automatically created by Outlook as a blank place for you to record your contacts details. You can also create Personal Address Books but these are not as flexible or integrated with the system as is the standard contacts list. The standard contacts list or folder (also known as an Address Book) is where you can save business contacts', friends' and other regularly used e-mail addresses and other related contact details, such as phone numbers, Website addresses, mailing addresses, etc. In Outlook XP, if you open the contacts list with ALT T and B or CONTROL SHIFT B and then ARROW to a given contact's name and press ENTER what happens is the selected contact's property sheet with their details which you entered about them will then become available for you to TAB through and view. You can also add further contact details or amend current ones in the editfields in these property sheets as well and save them. You can also CONTROL and CONTROL SHIFT TAB to several other information fields and list choices. Note that some screenreaders will not automatically read the contents of these editfields without you having to use the screenreader's read line hot key. If you want a quick way to get a contact's e-mail address automatically entered into the e-mail "To:" editfield when sending an e-mail, you can just type this person's name in the "To:" editfield precisely as it appears in the Address Book after pressing CONTROL N, when the program will automatically find this person in the Address Book and enter his/her e-mail address for you. If you only know, say, the first name of someone you want to find in your Address Book to get their e-mail address placed into the "To:" editfield for you, you can also press CONTROL N (for new message), then type in the editfield which opens up the first few letters of the person or company you want to find and then press CONTROL K. The contact you want will be found or a list of likely candidates will be made available to you to ARROW through. Just press ENTER on the one you want to get that contact's e-mail address inserted into the "To:" field. In this way, you can also avoid having to open up the Address Book first. If you want to put someone's e-mail address and other details into your contacts/Address Book, you would press ALT F, W, C (or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT C), complete the details you are asked for, such as the new contact's name, e-mail address, etc, and then press ENTER on "Add". If the "Add" button is not visible to your screenreader, just pressing the ESCAPE key should work the same, as you will be asked whether or not you wish to save changes, so press ALT y for Yes to save your new contact details. If this person has more than one e-mail address, before saving and exiting as just described, you can press ENTER on an "Enter Multiple Email Addresses" or "Change Email" button and you will come into a Context Menu where you can type in up to three different e-mail addresses for this contact. As there are many options and editfields in this dialogue box, remember to press SHIFT F1 when on any button, option or field which you might need an explanation of and then press ESCAPE to leave the explanation and return to the dialogue. You can get to the contacts list and Address Book when Outlook first opens (from Outlook today) by TABBING or ARROWING down until its link is spoken and then by pressing ENTer or by pressing CONTROL Y and then C (for Contacts) twice and then ENTER. You can also get their by using the View menu with ALT V (for View) G (for Goto) and then O (for Contacts). If you simply want to add a contact to your contacts list without actually changing your view to the contacts folder itself, you can do this by pressing ALT T (for Tools) and then B (for Address Book) or by using the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT B. When you are in the Address Book, you can jump to an entry by pressing the first letter of the contact's name you are looking for, e.g. if you are looking for Colin Smith, press C until his name is found, then press CONTROL N to open up the send e-mail screen to send him/her an e-mail. You will then just have to complete the Subject line and message body, etc. With the Address Book open (CONTROL SHIFT B), there is an Address Book "Find People" shortcut by pressing CONTROL SHIFT F. You then type in any details you have, such as contact's name, e-mail address, etc, and just press ENTER or you can TAB to and press ENTER on the "Find Now" button. When you hear the contact's name spoken it means the contact has been found and so you should press ENTER to open up the contact's file with its details. This would be useful if your Address Book is lengthy. 4.15. E-Mail Address Groups (Distribution Lists) You can set up e-mail address groups (also known as distribution lists) of specific people in a group or club who you always send the same group messages to. You can then enter the group's name in the "To:" field of your message header or obtain it from your Address Book/contacts List, type your message and send it to all members simultaneously. To set up a group: 1. Press CONTROL SHIFT l Or use the (File, New, Distribution List) method to open the group editing dialogue. 2. In the editfield which you fall in, type in the name you would like the group/club to be called, e.g. Computer Club. 3. Either: A. If the individual members of this club are already in your Address Book, you should TAB to "Select Members" and press ENTER. You are now in a list box to ARROW up or down to put focus on the club member (or type their name in to find it automatically). When the member's name is found, TAB to a "Add to Distribution List" button and press ENTER to store this in your distribution list. Continue in this way until all Address Book club members have been stored. B. If none of the Computer Club members are in your Address Book already, or only some of them are, you should TAB to the "New" button and press ENTER. The standard new contact dialogue comes up for you to complete contact details as normal. Just keep pressing ENTER on "New" for each new group entry. When all group members have been added, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. C. If you added new members as in the last paragraph, you will also be able to complete the standard contact details for those new members, e.g. e-mail address, home address, phone number, etc. 4. You can now TAB through the remainder of the first dialogue you were in and make certain refinements and selections if you wish, e.g. press the SPACEBAR on "Private" to hide the e-mail or other item so that others with access to this distribution list cannot view it. 5. After all group members have been stored, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish and save things or pressing ESCAPE and then ALT Y will also achieve the same result. 6. The name of the group will now appear in your Address Book along with your individual Address Book contacts. 7. To send a copy of an e-mail to all group members simultaneously, just select the group name from your Address Book as normal and complete your message and send it. 8. To view the individual entries in a group and make amendments to any of the recorded details for a group member: A. Press CONTROL SHIFT B (or use the Tools, Address Book menu option). B. Type the group name into the editfield you will now be in from which you wish to view the member's details of or select it from the list of contacts and then press ENTER. C. TAB several times to a list of the members in that distribution list and place focus on the one you want to view individual details of and press ENTER. D. You can now TAB through the standard contact details dialogue for that contact to view phone, address, Website, and so on, details for that individual contact/club member if you supplied these when that member was first placed into the contacts list. E. to delete a member from the group, place focus on the member's name you wish to have removed from the group and press the DELETE key. Note: When sending a message to a group, if just one of the recipient's messages bounces at the server, the whole lot will fail to be sent. In this case, you will have to remove the offending group member or correct the address and then re-send them. 4.16. Saving and Printing E-Mail You can save your mail in a folder full of messages, in a standard file or print it and file it away. When you delete a message from the Outlook Inbox, it is automatically saved in a folder called "Deleted Items", which appears in the folders list. This is an automatic place to find your e-mails after you have deleted them and you can press the DEL key on any of these to completely delete it. However, it is not recommended that you use the Deleted Items folder as a place to save messages. You can save a file as a text file with ALT F, A, type in a filename, TAB to "Save as Type" and ARROW to TXT , then TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. If you have a My Documents folder on your PC, this is where your message will save, although you can change this by typing a different path into the "Filename" editfield if you like. By default, Outlook automatically saves any uncompleted messages for you every three minutes. They are saved in the "Drafts" folder. So, if you get a power cut or loose the message you are currently creating in some other way, you will be able to retrieve most of it from this folder. From the File Menu (ALT F), you can also elect to print a message which you currently have open or have focus on in your Inbox or other folder or you can use the print shortcut of CONTROL P. You will get the standard type of print dialogue to make choices in, e.g. how many copies to print, whether to print all pages or just odd or even ones, etc. By default, the WinFax printer will be used for printing. 4.17. Creating Folders and Copying and Moving Messages Between Folders 4.17.1. Creating a Folder You may wish to make a special folder for important messages to be moved to and saved in. Do this by: 1. Open your Personal Folders folder with CONTROL Y. 2. Press ALT F, F, N, or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT E. 3. In the editfield you will now be in, type in a name for your folder, e.g. "Saved Items". 4. TAB on to a list to select from of what type of data that folder is to contain and leave the focus on "Mail and Post Items" or "Mail Items". Note that there are other possibilities in this list. 5. Next TAB once and then ARROW in the folders list you will be in to where you would like the new folder to flow from, e.g. ARROW up to Personal Folders if you would like it to be a sub- folder of that main folder on the same viewing level as the Inbox, Deleted Items, etc, folders, or if you would like it to be a sub-folder of, say, the Inbox, leave focus on that folder. 6. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish the sub-folder creation. 7. As usual, you move through these folder levels with up and down ARROWS and open and close folder levels with right and left ARROWS. 4.17.2. Copying and Moving Items Between Folders To copy a message to the new subfolder you created above, Go to the message headers in your Inbox, leave focus on the message you wish to move elsewhere, press CONTROL SHIFT V, ARROW up or down the list of folders to the one you want to move the message to, then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. Note: If you had of wanted to copy rather than move the aforementioned message, you would instead have used the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT Y. You can do this moving and copying for most items within folders, not just e-mail messages. 4.18. Renaming and Deleting Folders and Sub-folders 4.18.1. Renaming a Folder 1. Whilst in such as your Inbox, press ALT V (for View), G (for Goto and then F (for Folder) or use the shortcut of CONTROL Y. 2. ARROW to the folder you wish to rename and press the ENTER key. 3. Now enter the file menu with ALT F, then press F (for Folder) and then ARROW down to "Rename (name of folder concerned)" and press ENTER. 4. You will be in an editfield now, so over-type the old folder name with the new folder name you would like and press ENTER.The folder name will change and the folder will remain in its original position in the Personal Folders list of folders. 4.18.2. Deleting a Folder 1. Whilst in such as the above just-created Saved Items folder, press ALT V (for View), G (for Goto and then F (for Folder) or use the shortcut of CONTROL Y. 2. ARROW to the folder you wish to rename and press the ENTER key. 3. Now enter the file menu with ALT F, then press F (for Folder) and then ARROW down to Delete (name of folder concerned)" and press ENTER. 4. You will be asked to confirm the deletion, so press "Y" for yes. The deleted folder and its contents will be sent to the Recycle Bin. 4.19. Importing and Exporting If you have to reinstall Outlook on an existing system for any reason, you will not have to save your Address Book, Saved Items, etc, details and messages. They will be kept on disk for you and made available as usual in your reinstalled program. However, you may wish to import messages and other details into your current copy of Outlook or export them elsewhere. A few examples of how to do this are given below. 4.19.1. Importing Account Settings 1. To import (copy from another e-mail program also on your computer to Outlook) an Internet e-mail client's account name and server settings, press ALT F (for File) and then T (for Import and Export), when the Import and Export Wizard will load in . 2. You will be able to ARROW up and down a list of possible import and export options, for instance, import from another program or file, Import a vCard file, export to a file, import Internet mail account settings, import Internet mail and addresses and import an iCalendar or vCalendar file. Press ENTER on the one you require, which for this example will be "Import Internet Mail Account Settings". Then TAB to and press ENTEr on the "Next" button and keep doing this after each stage below as well. 3. You may then be given a list of e-mail programs to import (copy) settings from. These may include such as Eudora, MS Internet Mail, MS Outlook Express, MS Outlook 4, Netscape Mail and Messenger, etc. ARROW to the one you want to import from and then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. Note that if you only have one or two other e-mailing programs on your PC, then only these one or two programs will be in this list and in most home computer situations you may only have Outlook Express listed. 4. The folder the messages you wish to import from should be automatically found by Outlook but if it is not, perhaps because you chose to save them in other than the default folder, you can use the "Browse" button to navigate there in the usual Windows way. 5. If you have more than one account set up in the other e-mail client you are importing settings from, you will get a list of these accounts to choose from and have imported into Outlook. ARROW to the account you wish to import details from and then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 6. The next five or six steps are just to confirm your settings details, such as your name, e-mail address, type of Internet connection, etc, and these details will be automatically completed for you, so just keep pressing ENTER on "Next", unless your set-up requires you to make any changes first. 7. You will eventually come to a "Finish" button to activate and complete the whole procedure. Similarly, you can import e-mail messages, Address Books, filters, Outlook Express message rules, etc, from other e-mail clients you may have on your computer, such as Outlook Express, Eudora, MS Internet Mail, etc, but This time you would select "Import Internet Mail and Addresses" at step 2 above. Note that message rules can only be imported from Outlook Express. 4.19.2. Exporting Contact and Message Details to a File for Safe Keeping You can also export the information fields in your Address Book/contacts list or the messages in one of the folders in your Personal Folders folder to a text file and save this for safe keeping if you wish. Do this by: 1. Go to your File menu (ALT F) and then press ENTER on "Import and Export". 2. Place focus on the "Export to a File" option. After each stage press ENTER on the "Next" button. 3. In the list you will come into, ARROW to the type of file format you would like to save to, e.g. Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, PST file, comma separated values, etc. For this example, leave focus on "Tab Separated Values (Windows)" to save to that format, as all Windows and DOS PCs will then be able to access this file. Of course, if you saved to such as Excel, then you would read the resultant file from within the MS Excel spreadsheet. TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 4. Your Personal Folders list will now open up and you can ARROW to any given folder, such as your Inbox, to get the messages in that folder exported and saved to a file, or you can, for this example, ARROW to "Contacts" and then press ENTER on "Next". 5. You come into an editfield to say where you want the file to be saved and to what filename, so if you want it on a floppy disk, type in here: a:\adbook or whatever you want to call the file and then press ENTER on "Finish". You will now be able to use a text editor or word- processor to read the contact details in this address book and keep a record of your contacts in case you should suffer some mishap with the original hard disk copy. Note that there will be many headers at the top of the saved file before you get down to the actual individual contacts' names and other details. 4.19.3. Saving your .PST Data files for Safe Keeping and Importing Them When you create messages, tasks, Journal entries and appointments these details are saved by MS Outlook either on a server if you are working through a server or in a data file on your PC if you are running Outlook on one computer only. This data file is known as a "personal folders file" and, if you are not on a networked system, it will be saved locally on your hard disk under the filename "outlook.pst". It is a good idea to keep regular copies of these files so that if your original .pst files become corrupted, you can over-write them with good copies. You must close Outlook to make copies of your .pst file(s). One way to make a copy is: 1. With Outlook not running, launch Windows Explorer by pressing WINDOWS key E. 2. Navigate in the normal way via your C: drive to the site of the "outlook.pst" file or files if you have set up more than one. This path is: C:\Windows\Local Settings\Application Data\microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst 3. With outlook.pst highlighted, press CONTROL C to copy it to the Clipboard. 4. Now in Windows Explorer open whichever folder you would like to keep a copy of the .pst file in and paste it there with CONTROL V. 5. If you ever get a corrupted .pst file, you can now get back to a good copy by copying this saved file over the corrupt one with Windows Explorer or you can use the Outlook File menu, Import and Export feature to import and replace the old file as shown below. You should, therefore, regularly take copies of this .pst file to keep it up to date. To import a .pst file from another e-mail client or from a saved copy of your original file: 1. Press ALT F, T, and then press ENTER on "Import from another Program or File". 2. ARROW to "Personal Folder File (.pst)" and press ENTER. 3. You will come into an editfield with a sample path to the .pst file, so you will have to over-write this with a genuine path to wherever the .pst file is which you want to either copy as an additional .pst file or over-write your current .pst file with, e.g. C:\My Documents\Outlook.pst, if you saved it there. 4. In the next dialogue, TAB to "Import Items into the Current Folder" and press SPACEBAR to check this on and then TAB to "Finish" and press ENTER. Note: Personally, I find simply copying these .pst files with DOS or copy and pasting them in Windows to be preferable to using this Import and Export Wizard for dealing with .pst files but no doubt you will use the method you feel most comfortable with. 4.20. File Attachments A file attachment is when you insert a file created in another program into your e-mail. You may wish to do this instead of sending a plain text file in the body of your e-mail, for instance, with a Word or WordPerfect formatted file, so that the formatting, such as underlining and emboldening, are not lost in converting the file to text only, as would otherwise happen. However, in later versions of Outlook you can elect to write your messages in MS Word as the default way of doing things within Outlook but this does not work well with some screenreaders due to Outlook and Word shortcut and some screenreader hot key clashes. You are therefore recommended to use plain text in your e-mail body (when e-mailing other blind people) and if you want to send a formatted file, create the file in such as Word or WordPerfect separately, save it to a filename and then attach it to the message. 4.20.1. Sending File Attachments To attach a file to a Message: 1. With a blank e-mail message open and your cursor in the main Outlook e-mail message editfield, press ALT I, press ENTER on "File", then type the path to the file you want to send in the file attachment name editfield which you will fall in and then press ENTER. If you do not know the path to the file, use the "Look In" button to browse to it in the normal Windows way. 2. Send the e-mail with the attachment as normal by pressing ALT S, CONTROL ENTER or CONTROL M. 4.20.2. Opening and Reading File Attachments 1. To open an attachment (with the e-mail message open), TAB (or SHIFT TAB ) to it and press ENTER. Alternatively, navigate to it with the mouse and press ENTER. Your screenreader may also have an open attachments hot key, e.g. F6 with Window-Eyes and INSERT A with JAWS. If there is more than one attachment in an e-mail message, when you are on the first attachment, you can press the left and right and up and down ARROW keys to move through the others or press the first letter of the name of the attachment file and then press ENTER on them to open each. The multiple attachments are usually stacked up in a double vertical column but some screenreaders may change this to a single column. 2. When you open an attachment, you may get a Warning message about possible viruses in attachments. If you are satisfied that the source of the attachment is secure and bona fide, press ENTER to save the attachment to disk for later opening, or ARROW down to "Open It" to observe the contents of the attachment immediately in its associated program in such as Windows Notepad, for example, if it is a text file. 3. To change the default place where your attachments will be saved, after pressing ENTER on "Save it to Disk, accept the filename the attachment came with (or change it), then instead of TABBING to the "Save" button, immediately press SHIFT TAB twice. You will now be in a list of places to save to, starting with the Desktop, from where you can ARROW down to the C: drive, the A: floppy disk drive, etc, and just press ENTER when you reach where you want to save to. 4. If you wish, you can save an attachment via the File Menu rather than SHIFT TABBING to it and pressing ENTER on it and using the procedure described in 4 above. With the message open on screen, you just press ALT F, ARROW to "Save Attachments" and press ENTER. You can ARROW to and choose which attachment to save in the list which appears, if there is more than one attachment in your message, and then press ENTER on the "Save" button. You can also change the default place where attachments save, e.g. to My Documents if it is not already set up to go there, and you can select the format to save the attachment in in the "Save as Type" list. 5. If you have several attachments affixed to an e-mail, you can save them all simultaneously to the same location by going to the attachments list and then pressing CONTROL A followed by ALT F (for File) and then N (for Save Attachments). 6. It is recommended that, before opening an attachment, you run your virus-checker on it to ensure that it is clean of such as macro viruses. Note 1: If someone sends you an attached Outlook file, such as attaching a task or Journal file to a meeting request, task request, etc, the attachment you receive will have an .msg (short for "message") extension on it, e.g. Monthly Stats.MSG. Note 2: Attachments in a plain text or HTML format will appear between the "Subject" line and the main message body whereas an attachment in a RTF or other format will appear in the body of the message. 4.21. Inserting Text into an E-Mail Message If you do not want to actually attach a file to your e-mail message, you can, instead, with an already created text only file, insert the text contained within the file at the cursor point in your message body by: 1. Open your text file in a text editor such as MS Notepad. 2. Highlight the whole file with CONTROL A or any part of it if you do not want it all copying to your e-mail message body and then copy it to the Clipboard with CONTROL C. 3. Now either launch Outlook or ALT TAB to it if you already had it open in another window. 4. press CONTROL N to open a blank message, complete the headers as normal and then TAB to the message body section. 5. Move your cursor to the place you want the text to appear and press CONTROL V to paste the plain text into the message. 6. Send your message in the usual way with ALT S or CONTROL ENTER. 4.22. Jumping from E-Mail to a Website Sometimes an e-mail you receive, such as from a company advertising their Website and products, will have embedded in it a link to their site. When you come across this link in the body of the message, you can just press your ENTER key or the SPACEBAR to be taken straight online with your browser to this Website automatically. Note: The URL or e-mail address link must be a truly embedded link, not just a typed in URL or address. 4.23. Obtaining the Details of an E-Mail Sender or Address Book Contact 4.23.1. E-Mail Sender's E-Mail Address Identity If you want to see the e-mail address of someone who has mailed you, with the focus on the message sender/subject line in such as your Inbox, press SHIFT F10, then press R (for properties) and then (in your screenreader's mouse mode) ARROW down from the top of the screen until you reach the line with the sender's name which will be followed by his/her e-mail address. 4.23.2. Viewing the Recorded Details for an Address Book Contact To view all of the details you have recorded for a given person in your contacts list you can: 1. Press CONTROL SHIFT B to open the contacts/Address Book. 2. SHIFT TAB backwards once and then ARROW to the Address Book which contains the person you want to obtain details of. If you are a stand-alone computer user, there may only be one or two options in hear, e.g. contacts" and "Outlook Address Book" and the latter of these will be blank if you have not used it. 3. TAB forward and type the name of the person you want or ARROW to him/her in the list of contacts. 4. With focus on the person in question, press SHIFT F10 and then R (for Properties). 5. TAB through all of the details you previously recorded for that contact, e.g. their e-mail address, home address, phone number, Website address, etc. 4.24. Obtaining a Received or Read Message Verification Receipt You can request a receipt to verify that a message has been opened on the recipient's computer, as long as the recipient has his receipts option turned on to support this--it usually is by default. You can enable your own request for automatically generated receipts from the recipient by: 1. Press ALT T (for tools) and then O (for options). 2. You will fall in the "Preferences" property sheet, on the "Email Options" button, so press ENTER to open this dialogue. 3. TAB forward to "Tracking Options" and press ENTER. In here TAB forward around four times to "Read Receipt" and press SPACEBAR to check it on and then TAB once again and also check on "Delivery Receipt". 4. Lastly, TAB on to "OK" and press ENTER followed by Further TABBING to two more "OK" buttons to activate to finish. Note 1: The e-mail recipient, however, does not have to let a receipt go from his computer to you. He can elect to not send you a receipt if he wishes when asked about this by Outlook. Note 2: If you are subscribed to Internet mailing lists, you will not wish to have read receipts and delivery receipts turned on, because you would likely get problems when reading and/or sending messages. 4.25. Automatically Rejecting Spam, Junk and Adult Material Mail If you are receiving unwanted sales or adult type e-mail material from a given company or person, you can have this automatically banished to a folder like your Deleted Items folder without the e-mails even reaching your Inbox, if you wish. It is also possible to have the suspect e-mails given a specific colour to alert you to their likely unwanted contents but, as this may be of no use to most blind users, this aspect has not been covered here. 4.25.1. Enabling the Junk and Adult Mail Feature Before you can select which types of messages you would not like to see in future to get them blocked, you should firstly enable the junk e-mail feature. Do this by: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then Z (for Organize). 2. In the dialogue you come into, TAB to the "Junk mail" link and activate it with ENTER or a left mouse click. 3. You will now be able to TAB or ARROW down and will be asked where you would like such unwanted e-mails to be banished to. One of your mail folders will be highlighted but if you do not want them to be sent to that particular folder, you can just press the initial letter of the folder you would like to use to receive such unwanted mail instead of your Inbox (you may have to press your left mouse click key first), e.g. press D (for Deleted Items), if you want them to go there. 4. Then ARROW or TAB to "Create" and press ENTER to create this message blocking rule and you will be asked if you want the current unwanted messages immediately moving to your Deleted Items folder or not, so press Y (for Yes) if you do. 5. Leave this dialogue by pressing ESCAPE or ALT F4 if ESCAPE does not work. Note: Some of the dialogues, links and lists you are faced with in the above process are not very responsive to keyboard users or very well dealt with by some screenreaders, so try activating things not only by pressing ENTER and ALT down ARROW but also SPACEBAR left mouse clicking and cursor routing, depending on your screenreader. You will find in some views that you have a "Turn On" button to press ENTER on to enable a particular feature, when it will be come a "Turn Off" button. If you find the junking feature to be too difficult to set up, you can always use the Rules Wizard to block specified people from your Inbox as outlined in a later section. 4.25.2. Adding Someone to the Junk Senders' List and Changing the Junk and Adult words/phrases Used for Junking Having now enabled your junk and adult content mail feature, you can use it as shown below. However, be aware that not all e-mails from a selected person or company will be sent to your Deleted Items folder. Only messages with given key words or phrases in them will be disposed of. For example, If you add someone to your junk sender's list this means that messages with certain words in their subject line or message body only will be redirected. Some default examples of the key words which will trigger a disposal of the message are:Advertisement, cards accepted, extra income, free, guarantee, visit, special promotion, order today, money back guarantee, check or money order, $ (dollar sign), etc. Some of the default key words which will be monitored for in the subject line and message body of those added to your adult content senders list are: adult only, over 18, over 21, adults, erotic, adult web, sex, etc. Please note that these key word lists are not exhaustive and that certain key words are also monitored in the "To:" and "From:" lines of messages as well. The Outlook sub-folder on your hard disk contains a text file documenting the whole list of these key words which has the filename filters.txt, if you want to view all of the key words. 1. To add someone to your junk or adult sender's list, ARROW to the offending message in your Inbox so that it and its sender becomes highlighted. 2. Press ALTA (for Actions) and then J (for Junk Mail). 3. Now press ENTER on "Add to Junk Senders List" if this is just a general nuisance or sales promotion sender, or ARROW down and press ENTER on "Add to Adult Content Senders List" if this is the source of unwanted sexual or other kind of adult material. 4. Press ENTER on an "OK" button if it appears. You have now successfully marked your desired sender to get their messages with given key words blocked. All future undesirable messages from this sender's e-mail address will no longer go into your Inbox but be sent directly to your Deleted Items box for deleting along with the rest of your mail when you have read and deleted it. If you want to remove any of the default junking words/phrases from the filters.txt text file so that these will not be used for a filter or if you wish to add more words or phrases to get e- mails dumped/moved/coloured, you can do this by opening the filters.txt file and editing out or typing in more words to filter on. You can open this text file in Notepad and do the editing by: 1. Press Windows key R (for run.) 2. Type into the editfield "Notepad c:\program files\microsoft office\office10\1033\filters.txt" and press ENTER. 3. Notepad will be launched with the filters.txt file loaded. So ARROW to any of the text lines you do not want to use as filters and DELETE them out. If you want to also filter on different words, go to the end of the list in question, e.g. the adult contents filter "Body Contains" list, and add new single words or strings of words/phrases to filter on, e.g. under "Body contains" 18+" create a blank line and type in: Body contains "nudity" 4. Close Notepad and save your changes by pressing ALT F, X and then Y (for Yes) to save. 4.25.3. Unblocking a Sender's Messages for Viewing Again To unblock a junked message source so that all messages will be displayed normally again: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools), followed by L (for Rules Wizard). 2. In this dialogue, TAB forward once or twice to a list of the current rules you have set up, which will include blocked messages/junk mail. ARROW to the person or company you now wish to unblock and start to receive messages from normally again. 3. You then TAB to "Delete" and press ENTER, then Y to confirm. Note that there are "Modify", "Move", etc, buttons in here as well to make other changes to any particular already set-up blocked sender's message rule if you like. 4. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. Note 1: You can also view and modify/delete your junk senders' list from within the Tools, Organise dialogue we were using in sub-sections 1 and 2 of this section but it may be found to be more troublesome than the way I have just outlined. If you want to try it the Tools, Organise way, press ENTER on the "Junk Email" link as before and then TAB forward to and press ENTER on the "Click Here" link. Then ARROW down to options such as "Edit Junk Senders" or "Edit Adult Content Senders" links, etc. Observe also several other links in these sub-dialogues which might interest you. Note 2: As you will have realised, blocking and jumking messages is part of Outlook's "Message Rules" and you can make many more fine adjustments of how Outlook works from within these Rules with the Rules Wizard (see the later section on this topic). Note 3: Some determined Internet sales people and companies will regularly change their Web domains and e-mail addresses so that they can circumvent any blocks people may have put on their e- mails. If they do this, your block will obviously fail until you redo it on the new address. If you get regular nuisance e-mails from persistent spam mailers who change their details to continue to reach you, you may be able to contact your ISP or other e-mail provider and ask them to put a more sophisticated block on these e-mailers on their own system for you. 4.26. Using the Message Rules Wizard to Sort or Block Messages Sorting messages with message rules is a way of filtering messages you receive or send. You can filter incoming messages into the folders you would like them to download to according to certain predefined criteria instead of them always all going into your Inbox. For instance, you could specify that all messages from a given person, e-mail list or given e-mail account are automatically deposited in a certain folder, or you could have particular messages automatically forwarded to on of your Address Book contacts, or you can arrange for certain messages to be automatically deleted as soon as they hit your Inbox. You can even ensure that persons who use the same e-mail account have their messages downloaded to their own personal folders. for how to achieve this, consider the below examples: 4.26.1. Downloading Messages into Specific Folders 1. With your Inbox open, press ALT t (for Tools) and then L (for Rules Wizard. 2. Either: A. In Outlook XP, the dialogue box you now come into (when creating your first rule) allows you to choose from "Start Creating a Rule from a Template" or you can ARROW to "Start from a Blank Rule". The former can b used if you have any previously created and saved rules templates, so ARROW to "Start from a Blank Rule) for this exercise. If you have already created at least one rule before, you will in fact get a list of already created rules you can ARROW through and modify, copy, delete, etc, at this stage and you will have to TAB to "NEW" to then be able to make the above template or start from a blank rule selection. After this, TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. B. In Outlook 2000, you will not get this first short list to ARROW through but will rather have to immediately TAB to a "Next" button and press ENTER. You may then have to TAB again or SHIFT TAB to a "Rules Wizard" button and press ENTER but this is not necessary every time you create a rule. 3. In Outlook 2000 (but not Outlook XP), You will come into a list of selections to make and be on the "Check Messages Wen They Arrive" option. ARROW down the other options to observe what other situations you might want things to happen in, then return to the first option of "Check Messages When They Arrive" and press the SPACEBAR to check this on. Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 4. In both Outlook 2000 and XP, after step 2 or 3 above respectively, you will now come into a new dialogue in a long list of selections to ARROW down to select exactly where and what you want the rule to look for when it is examining messages as they download. For this example (which uses a real life e-mail list and will work for you if you are subscribed to the Access-UK list), leave the focus on "With Specific Words in the Subject" and press the SPACEBAR to select it. You could also press SPACEBAR on any number of the other eleven conditions in this list if you wanted to make the message rule tighter and even more specific, e.g. you could elect only to filter messages with a particular word in the "From:" line of your e-mails which also have an attachment with them. These options are found in this list as well. The reason you may want to specify "Access-UK" for this example is because this text always appears in the subject line of e-mails sent from the Access UK mailing list. 5. Now TAB once to a list of the actions you want to occur and note that your "With Specific Words in the Subject" should be there, so press SPACEBAR to select it (with some screenreaders you will have to do this in mouse mode by left clicking). The editfield you now come into requires you to type in the text which appears in all subject lines from this particular e-mail list, which is "Access-UK" (do not use quotes), so type this into the field and TAB to "ADD" and press ENTER. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER followed by TABBING to "Next" and ENTER. Note that opening this editfield is not straightforward but if you do not do this correctly you will not be able to move on from this stage. 6. In the next dialogue, you will be on a list of actions you can choose to have done on these messages and will be on the "Move it to the Specified Folder" option, so select it by pressing the SPACEBAR on it. Then TAB on once more and ARROW to another instance of "Move it to the Specified Folder" and press SPACEBAR again. If this fails to select it (which is likely to happen with some screenreaders), you will have to use mouse mode again to focus on this selection and press your screenreader's left mouse simulation key to open up the list of folders to move things to. You now come into your Personal Folders list to choose which of your current sub-folders you might want to have these messages downloaded into, so ARROW to one if one of them is suitable; if not, ARROW up to the "Personal Folders" level, press left ARROW and then create a new folder by TABBING to "New" and pressing ENTER. In the editfield you come into, type a name for your new sub-folder, e.g. "Access-UK", and then TAB once and ARROW to "Mail Items" or "Mail and Post Items" and then TAB to and press ENTER on "OK". You may also get a "Yes" or "No" message now, so if you do just press Y. Note that in Outlook XP in the first of these actions lists there are many other actions you could have ARROWED down in here to take instead of simply moving the given messages, e.g. "Delete It" when such messages will go into your Deleted Items folder, "Permanently Delete It" when they will be completely deleted and go nowhere, "Flag Message for Action in a Number of Days" when Outlook will then remind you to look at such messages on a given future day, etc. This is in fact what you did at stage 3 above if you are using Outlook 2000; the two programs simply undertake this step at different stages. 7. In the folders list you come into, your new Access-UK folder should be highlighted but if it is not just ARROW to it and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 8. In the next dialogue, You should ARROW down to "Move it to the Access-UK Folder" and it should be checked already. Now TAB to "Next" and press ENTEr. 9. The next dialogue is not likely to be used often but it is for defining any exceptions to the general rule you are currently creating, e.g. if you wanted all of the messages with Access-UK in their subject lines to go into a folder called "Access-UK" but not any which are marked or flagged as "Important" by the sender, then you would ARROW to "Except if it is Marked as Importance" and press SPACEBAR to select this exception. However, for this exercise do not do this; just TAB to "Next" and press ENTER to the next stage. 10. You will now be in an editfield to type in a name for the rule you are creating, so do so (but this text field may already have been completed for you), e.g. "Access-UK", and then TAB to "Finish" and press ENTER. Lastly, just TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to complete the procedure. 11. Should you wish to either modify a rule or delete it you can do this by pressing ALT T, then L, followed by TABBING once to a list of your rules and ARROWING to the rule you wish to modify or delete, then TAB to either "Modify" or "Delete" and press ENTER. Note: Message rules are not the easiest environment to work in, so if you fail to select/highlight any necessary options or do not complete the appropriate editfields as outlined above, Outlook will advise you of this and of what to do, so you can SHIFT TAB backwards and correct your mistakes or omissions. Be aware that if you press ENTER or SPACEBAR at any time in the wrong place or at the wrong time, unexpected things may happen. 4.26.2. Blocking and Unblocking E-Mail Messages from Specific People You can specify a given person or company to be blocked from sending unwanted e-mails to your Inbox by having them all sent directly to your Deleted Items folder or even completely deleted without being downloaded. You can do this by: 1. Follow the steps in the last section up to step 4. 2. At step 4 you would select "From People or distribution List" by pressing SPACEBAR on it. Then TAB once and ARROW to and press SPACEBAR on "From People or Distribution List". 3. Either: A. In Outlook XP, you can now TAB to "Specify the Address of the Sender" and type their e-mail address in here and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. B. In Outlook 2000, it is not as straightforward and you will again have to TAB once to a "From People or Distribution List" selection and if pressing SPACEBAR on it does not open up another dialogue box, again use your screenreader's left mouse click key to open it near the bottom of the screen. Then you can either type the name of the contact you no longer wish to receive messages from into this editfield or you can ARROW down a list of your contacts to select one. If the offending e-mailer is not in your contacts list, you will have to press ENTER on the "New" button and then go through the normal procedure to put someone into your contacts list, i.e. the person you no longer want to receive mail from and then highlight that contact list entry for your action to be taken on. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 4. In Outlook XP (but this step does not exist in Outlook 2000), now ARROW down the list you are in to the line which holds the e-mail address which you typed in above. Then TAB to and press ENTER on "Next". 5. You now continue the same as from step 6 in the last example but, of course, you ARROW down the list of things you might want to do with these messages to either "Delete It" or "Permanently Delete It". Note that if you select "Forward it to People or Distribution List" you can have messages from this person or company sent directly to them instead of being made available to you, e.g. if your Manager has decided to deal with all complaints from a particular customer who always uses your e-mail address to send his messages to. 6. Now continue as normal, pressing ENTER on the "Next" buttons and finally the "Finish" button. When you get to the place where you are asked for a name for the rule, over-type the e-mail address or person's name which will have been put in this editfield with something more meaningful, e.g. Block on Jim Smith. 4.26.3. Automatically Declining Conflicting Meeting Requests For this feature to work, you will have to be networked and working through Exchange Server. If you want Outlook to check your already arranged Calendar meeting dates and times so that it can then automatically send an e-mail message to anyone trying to arrange a meeting with you via the Outlook meeting request feature which would clash with those already arranged meeting times, to either accept or decline the meeting: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. TAB to and press ENTER on "Calendar Options". 3. SHIFT TAB back several times to "Resource Scheduling" and press ENTER. 4. TAB to and press SPACEBAR on "Automatically Accept Meeting Requests and Process Cancellations" to check this on. 5. Now TAB to "Automatically Decline Meeting Requests" and "Automatically Decline Recurring Meeting Requests" and check one or other or both of them on with the SPACEBAR. 6. Lastly, TAB to and press ENTER on three successive "OK" buttons to finish. 4.27. Sending Coloured Business-Type HTML Formatted E-Mails with or without Pictures Up to now we have been sending plain text e-mails only but you can spice e-mails up by sending them in HTML format. This would not be recommended if you are sending messages to visually impaired people but you may wish to send the occasional impressively formatted business e-mail and you may wish to send such as a Christmas message to a friend which uses the "Christmas" stationery provided in Outlook and you may wish to include a musical sound to be played when the message is opened or your own voice saying "Merry Christmas" which you may have recorded in a sound editor such as Sound forge, Cool Edit or Total Recorder. Having said this, remember that formatted messages with combinations of coloured backgrounds, pictures, audio sounds and so forth will take much longer for you to upload and for the recipient to download. This is OK if the recipient has a fast Internet connection such as broad band but you may get few thanks from someone with a 28.8 KBPS modem who had to download the message and did not even want it! I suggest that you try some of the below and e-mail the messages to yourself to get an idea of the different upload and download overhead involved. So that you are aware that this more sophisticated e-mailing format is available, here is a snapshot of what you might do: 1. Open a new message window but not in the normal way. Instead, press ALT A (for Actions) and then M (for New Mail Message Using". 2. Either: A. ARROW to "HTML (No Stationery)" and press ENTEr. This will change the format of this message from plain text to HTML format but without a given stationery appearance. You could also choose "Rich Text" in this sub-menu to create formatted messages but when you come to formatting the message as outlined below you will discover that you have fewer choices than you get with HTML formatting. or B. ARROW to "More Stationery" and press ENTER. You will be in a list of over 30 stationery templates you can select to give your message a particular look, such as "Party Invitation", "Formal Announcement" and "Technical", etc. The "Get More Stationery" button takes you onto the Web to download more stationery templates if you want them. 3. After ARROWING to your preferred stationery template and appearance, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 4. Now complete your "To:", "Subject:", etc, headers and ensure that you TAB to the main message body before continuing as below, otherwise things will not work correctly. 5. Now go back into the Format menu with ALT O and ARROW down the many formatting choices you can make. Open up some of the dialogue boxes in here and have a look around and experiment. 6. For example: A. If you press ENTER on "Style" you will be able to ARROW down and choose from several styles of message very similar to those available in MS Word styles, such as Creating your message/document with heading levels, with numbered or bulleted lists, etc. B. If you press ENTER on "Font" you can select a more salubrious looking type face for your message. C. The "Background" option, if your version of Outlook has one, gives you sub-options of "Picture" and "Colour". If you choose "Colour" you can change the background colour on your messages to such as yellow, green, etc, and if you choose "Picture" you can then type the path to a picture file with an extension such as .gif or .jpg or use the "Browse" button to navigate to and select one from any you may have on your PC or on a CD, etc. 7. When you have made your formatting selections, type your message and send it in the normal way and, if you do not have a broad band Internet connection such as ADSL, wait and wait and wait for it to upload! In typing your message body, you can, when using HTML formatting, employ the usual shortcuts to underline, embolden and italicize text, i.e. CONTROL U, CONTROL B and CONTROL I respectively. This is, of course, in contrast to sending e-mail using plain text, which does not permit this type of formatting. 8. You should not have to go back into the Format menu when you next send a message to turn HTML off, as the program should go back to your "Plain Text" default. Warning: If at any time you receive a message to the effect that your default normal or global template has changed and asking you if you want to save these changes, you should TAB to "No" and press ENTER to ensure that you do not save something over your standard default template without realising it. this is, of course, unless you are sure that you want to save these changes for future use whenever you create e-mails in future. You should be confident that you know what you are doing before doing this. 4.28. Posting a Message to the Current Folder Outlook has a simple message or notice posting facility. It posts a message in whatever folder you are currently in, perhaps to be used as a reminder message to yourself or as a message to others on a server or public notice-board. It is like leaving a message where you are without having to e-mail one. 1. Whilst in one of your Personal Folders sub-folders, e.g. your Inbox, or whilst in a public folder, e.g. a folder on your company's server, or in a folder on an Internet site, press ALT F, W and then P or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT S. 2. Complete the standard Subject line and then TAB to the message body and type your message or reminder. 3. If you would like to categorise the message, press ALT G (for Categories) and note that you will be in a long list of possible categorisations for the type of message you are posting, so select it by ARROWING to the appropriate one, e.g. Business, Competition, Goals/Objectives, Holidays, etc, and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 4. You can also TAB or SHIFT TAB to a "To:" field to type in someone's e-mail address so that they will receive a copy of this message as well. 5. As usual, save by pressing ALT S and the message will save to the folder you are currently in. 4.29. Where Outlook Saves its Data Files (the .PST File) When you create messages, tasks, Journal entries and appointments these are saved by MS Outlook in a data file on your PC. This data file is known as a "personal folders file" and it will be saved locally on your hard disk or, if you are using some form of networked system, such as MS Exchange Server, it will be saved on that server. The file has a .PST extension and by default is called "outlook.pst". For stand-alone computer users, local pst data files are saved on your hard disk at: C:\Windows\Local Settings\Application Data\microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst You can create other .pst files with specific information in them if you like, such as details from a particular company you deal with. Such a file will be given a filename such as outlook1.pst, outlook2.pst or personal folders(1).pst, personal folders(2).pst, etc. For ease of identification, it is probably a good idea, if you wish to create more Personal Folders type folders, that you give them a different name to the default main Personal Folders folder, e.g. Smith&Co Folders. These .pst files can be exported to other areas on your hard disk for safe keeping and reinstalling should your original outlook.pst file become corrupted (see "Saving your .PST Data files for Safe Keeping and Importing Them" earlier in this section. If you want to create new .pst files, you can do this by pressing ALT F, W and then F, followed by ENTER. The folder will save by default into the same sub-folder as your outlook.pst folder mentioned above. Note: You will also find and be able to open any other Personal Folders lists you have created and saved by ARROWING up your normal Personal Folders list to the root level, when continuing to ARROW up will then reveal your other Personal Folders, if you have created any additional ones, which you can then open by pressing your right ARROW and then ARROWING down the sub-folders in that folder. 4.30. Using and Organising the Outlook Favourites Folder The Outlook Favourites feature works much the same as that contained in Internet Explorer and you use it in a very similar way. When on a Web page in Outlook, whether a Web page from within your Outlook program or elsewhere on your hard disk or actually on the Internet itself, you can place (bookmark) it in the Outlook favourites folder if you are likely to want to return there fairly often, and you can organise the sub-folders in this folder how you like. To add the current page (the page you are presently on on the Web or elsewhere) to the favourites folder, press ALT O, and then press ENTER on "Add to Favourites". You will be offered a name for the page, so if this is acceptable just press ENTER. If not, type a different name into the editfield you will be in and press ENTER. The new entry will appear in your Favourites list along with any already provided (default) entries in there, such as Channels and Media. To view your favourites folder, press ALT O and ARROW down the list and press ENTER on any of the menu options to view its contents or sub-folder if it has one. Be aware that pressing ENTER on some of the entries in here will immediately take you online to the Internet for the required information, e.g. the Radio Station Guide. To create sub-folders in your favourites folder, use ALT O, O, and press ENTER on the "Create Folder" button. You can also delete favourites from this dialogue by pressing ALT D, rename folders by pressing ALT R and move entries from one folder to another by pressing ALT M. When you create a new favourites folder, it appears on the favourites menu, so some of the entries in here are direct links to information whilst others are folders with sub-folders to go into. For example, to practice this without going on line (it will work the same as if you were online), go to your Outlook Today screen view. This is, of course, a Web page type of view with links in its own right. We will now place this view/page into your favourites so that you could jump back there via the Favourites menu from any other place you are currently at. In the case of an actual Internet Web page, you would be taken online to that page. So press ALT O, then A. The favourite name editfield will be completed with "Personal Folders" as this is the name of your current page view. Now just TAB to "OK" and press ENTER To finish. Now, if you go into your Favourites menu and ARROW down, you will find "Personal Folders" listed there as an extra link, so press ENTER on it to open it on screen from wherever you were before pressing ENTER. 4.31. Message Archiving and Back-Up Archiving is a form of compressing and holding in a file your old e-mail messages on the assumption that you no longer need to work with them but may not actually wish to delete the messages you have not already deleted. Outlook has an automatic archiving feature and you can also do manual archiving. If auto-archiving is on, the messages in your Personal Folders folders will be archived as often as you like, although the default is every 14 days, after which the messages will be deleted from the folders. If you decide not to use auto- archive and to do it manually instead, you can archive as often as you like without the messages in your folders being deleted. 4.31.1. Auto-Archiving To view or change your auto-archiving settings: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. CONTROL TAB to the "Other" property sheet. 3. TAB to "autoArchive" and press ENTER. 4. You will fall on "Run AutoArchive Every" and will find below it the frequency of archiving which is usually 14 days. You can type a new figure in here if you wish. TAB through and if you do want auto-archiving to operate but not to automatically delete the messages in your folders, uncheck "Delete Expired Items". 5. Your archived file will be saved to: C:\Windows\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\outlook\Archive.pst but you can change this saving location if you like, although I would not recommend that you do this. 6. If you want to disable auto-archiving and do archiving manually as and when you like, check off "Run AutoArchiving Every". 7. When finished, TAB to two successive "OK" buttons and press ENTER on them. Note 1: With auto-archiving on, before the program auto-archives, you will be presented with a message asking you if you want to go ahead and do this and you can select yes or no. Note 2: Outlook auto-archives all of your folders at different time intervals, not just the contents of your e-mail Inbox, i.e. it also auto-archives entries in your Calendar, Notes, Tasks, Drafts, Saved Items, Deleted Items and your Journal. Therefore, if from time to time you find that entries and folder items have disappeared, you can re-import your old data from the archive.pst file and/or just turn auto-archiving off. 4.31.2. Manual Archiving In stead of (or as well as) auto-archiving, you can effect manual archiving as and when you like by: 1. Press ALT F (for File) and then R (for Archive). 2. ARROW to the folder you want to archive or to Personal Folders and left ARROW to close it if you want to archive the whole lot rather than just one of the sub-folders. 3. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 4. Each time you archive, the existing "archive.pst" file is over-written with the new archive. If you want to preserve your last archive and have the new one not over-write it, type a new filename into the "Archive File" editfield, e.g. archive2.pst. 5. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 4.31.3. Viewing the Contents of an archived File To view an archived file's contents: 1. Press ALT F and then R. 2. You will now be in the archived file's folder list for viewing any message by pressing ENTER on it. You may have to open the messages in mouse mode by left clicking on them. Note: You will also find and be able to open archives you have created and saved by ARROWING up your main Personal Folders list to the root level, when continuing to ARROW up will then reveal any other Personal Folders you may have created and also your Archive files, which you can then open by pressing your right ARROW and then ARROWING down the folders. 4.32. Deleting Unwanted Archive and Personal Folders Folders in Outlook XP If you have created Archive or additional Personal Folders in Outlook XP (this feature does not exist in earlier versions) which you no longer require and which still appear in your Folders list when you press CONTROL Y, you can delete them by: 1. Press ALT F (for File) and then E (for Data File Management). 2. TAB forward to the list of these main folders and ARROW to the one you want to delete along with all of its sub-folders. 3. TAB to the "Remove" button and press ENTER and then Y to confirm. Note: you will not be able to accidentally delete your main (default) Personal Folders folder in this way, only subsequently created Archive and Personal Folders. 4.33. Accessing your E-mail Whilst Away from Home If you want to keep up to your e-mail whilst not at home, e.g. using a laptop or someone else's computer anywhere in the world, you can usually do this. If you have a Web-based e-mail-only provider which is not part of your ISP, such as Hotmail, you can just log onto their Web pages with your Internet browser, provide your username and password, and then view your e-mail online, delete any number of your e-mails or download them for viewing offline. On the other hand, generally speaking, if you have an ISP-based e-mail mailbox, you should be able to use Internet Explorer to go to their Web pages, find their mailbox link (or some similar titled link), log on with your username and password and view or delete the messages. However, whilst most ISP e-mail providers will also permit you to download your mail, a few do not allow this. If it is not clear when on your ISP's site just what you are allowed to do and there is no help link, then e-mail or phone their helpline for clarification of their rules. For example, if I wanted to view my own e-mail online, delete any of it or download all or some of my messages, I would use my Internet browser to log onto my ISP's site at: www.onetel.net and then activate the "Mailzone" link which is just a few TAB presses from the top of the home page, followed by typing in my username and password in that order in the editfields provided and then TABBING once to the "Get Mail" link and pressing ENTER. I would then have full access to my e-mail messages for reading online or deleting. There are usually alternative addresses you can use to get to your mailbox on your ISPs site, e.g. using http://webmail.onetel.com also works in my case. 4.34. Automatically Replying to Incoming Messages Whilst Out of the Office or Away from Home You have to be using Exchange Server on a networked system for the auto-responder to work. To have Outlook send an automatic response to anyone e-mailing you whilst you are not available to make an individual response, e.g. whilst on holiday, on a two-day training course, etc: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and ARROW to and press ENTER on "Out of Office Assistant". This will not be available if you are not using Exchange Server. 2. Select "I am Currently Out of the Office". 3. In the "Auto Reply Only Once to Each Sender" editfield, type the message you want all those who send you a message to receive, e.g. "Sorry but I am on holiday until 14/5/03. I will personally reply to your message as soon as possible on my return to work." 4.35. Using Speech in Outlook XP to Dictate E-mail Messages and Give Commands If you are a reasonably competent keyboard user, you are unlikely to want to use speech to achieve your word-processing aims. However, for those with poor keyboard skills, the speech alternative may be worthwhile. Having said this, the best practice will still be to use a combination of speech and keyboard input. The speech ability is only available for simple Chinese, English and Japanese languages. You will have to set the speech feature up and do the voice training in MS Word XP, when it will then be available for use in other Microsoft programs, e.g. Outlook, Powerpoint, Word and Excel. If you are to use Microsoft Office's speech ability, you will require: 1. A good quality microphone or headset with close-talk microphone. A high quality USB microphone with gain adjustment is recommended. For speech synthesiser users, to eliminate the sound of the synthesiser emanating from the speakers, a good headset may be best. 2. At least a Pentium 400 MHz PC. 3. Windows 98 or later. 4. At least 128 Mb of RAM. 5. Internet Explorer 5 or later. The basics of how you set speech up and use it are as follows but those who cannot see sufficiently to read from the screen may be advised to get the assistance of a sighted person when setting things up, as the training to your voice is essential to the speech system working at its optimum. During speech training you will have to read 10 or 15 minutes of on-screen text, which your screenreader is unlikely to be able to "see". You will also have to tell the program which words you have spoken and it has mis- heard and correct these. To use speech you will have to have installed it with a "Custom" set-up during the installation of Microsoft Word XP. Having installed the speech ability you would then proceed as follows and do the training and set-up from within MS Word. 4.35.1. Setting Up and Training Speech 1. With MS Word XP having been launched, plug your microphone/headset into the USB port or into your sound card and then enable speech by pressing ALT T (for Tools) and then H (for Speech). 2. Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER and you will be on the Microphone Wizard. During the first few screens you will be receiving information only about what is to happen and will have to press enter on several "Next" buttons before it will be time to start reading the on-screen text for microphone level testing and voice training, so use your screenreader's mouse or navigation mode to read these details. You will be asked on two different screens to dictate one or two sentences to ensure that the recording level of the microphone is correct and have to view a level indicator until it reaches a certain balance but if you speak the sentences 10 or so times at a normal level this should work OK if your microphone is a good one. You should have a headset microphone about 1 inch from your mouth to one side and speak at a normal volume in your normal manner. 3. If, when you complete this microphone volume levelling stage by pressing ENTER on "Finish", you get a message that your microphone was not found to be of good enough quality, you can elect to terminate the training or continue but continuing is likely to result in an unacceptable performance with your current equipment. I would recommend that you terminate, obtain a better microphone and start again later. 4. You will be asked a few questions such as what gender you are and what age you are, so check the correct boxes with your left mouse click key and press ENTER on "Next". 5. You will soon come to a dialogue which offers you a "Sample" button to press ENTER on to give you an idea of how you should speak into the microphone, which you can press ENTER on several times if you like to hear the sample voice a few times. Then Press ENTER on "Next". 6. After yet another "Next" button, you will reach a page with a good amount of text on it which you have to read into your microphone for about 10 or 15 minutes but your screenreader is unlikely to be able to tell you what this text is, so a sighted person would be helpful at this stage. You might also be advised to Braille the text up so that you can read it evenly or put it onto tape to listen to at low volume and repeat into the microphone. You will also have to correct voice recognition mistakes at this stage. Do not skip this voice training stage, as it is essential to the program working anything like accurately for you, so if you cannot get sighted help, at least pick up a Braille or large print book or magazine and read this into the microphone for about 15 minutes or just keep talking into the microphone as generally and variedly for this period of time as you can. 7. When this stage is over, you should be up and running and can now choose to have the speech ability turned on or off at any time as you like. 4.35.2. Dictating Documents and Giving Commands The types of dictation you can give via the speech feature are to simply dictate documents such as e-mails, letters, reports, memos, etc, just as you would dictate them to a typist. You can also give the speech system selections and commands to carry out such as menu commands, dialogue box choices, Toolbar and task Pane items and commands. How you use the speech system is: 1. If you have not already got a new blank e-mail or other Outlook feature, such as a task or Journal, open, press CONTROL N to do this or the appropriate other shortcut command. 2. Press ALT T, H, to turn speech on. 3. If you wish to create an e-mail message, Complete the "To:", "Subject", etc, headers as normal. You could also dictate into these header text fields but such things as e-mail addresses are not likely to be interpreted by the speech system accurately. Then you would TAB to and complete the message body of the e-mail in dictation mode by saying "Dictation" into your microphone. You would wait a second or two and then start dictating your letter evenly and clearly at a moderate speed in complete sentences. Try to ensure a quiet environment for dictating. It is likely that the words you speak will not appear on screen for a few seconds after you dictate them; just continue dictating and the computer will continue processing your speech in the background and put it on screen as soon as it can. It is recommended that you do your text dictating in its entirety and then put any formatting in afterwards. Do not switch to voice command mode until all of your dictated speech has been converted to text. 3. During dictation you will want to speak prompts to produce punctuation, particular symbols and so on. The main way to get these included in your document is: A. Punctuation Say this To get this inserted "PERIOD": Full stop "COMMA": Comma "COLON": colon "SEMI-COLON": Semicolon "QUESTION": Question mark "EXCLAIM": Exclamation mark B. Symbols Say this To get this inserted "AND": Ampersand "STAR": Asterisk "AT": At sign "BACKSLASH": Backslash "SLASH": Slash "VERTICAL BAR": Vertical bar "DASH": Dash or hyphen "DASH DASH": Double dash "EQUALS": Equals sign "PLUS": Plus SIGN "number": Pound sign "DOLLAR": Dollar sign "PERCENT": Per cent sign "UNDERLINE": Underscore "TILDA": Tilde "DOT DOT DOT": Ellipsis "GREATER": Greater than sign "LESS": Less than sign "CARET": Caret "ENTER": New line "ENTER TWICE": New Paragraph "LEFT BRACKET": Open bracket "RIGHT BRACKET": Close bracket "LEFT PAREN": Left parenthesis "RIGHT PAREN": Close parenthesis "QUOTE": Open double quotes "QUOTE": Close double quotes "APOSTROPHE": Open single quote "APOSTROPHE": Close single quote "FIVE": five (will be spelled out as will all numbers up to 20) "21": 21 (will be inserted as figures as will all numbers above this) "FIRST": First (ordinal numbers) "1/2": One half (fractions) "THREE THREE FOUR SIX NINE ONE": 334691 as with phone numbers) 4.35.4. Inserting Formatting Using Speech Commands If you create your e-mail message in HTML or RTF format, after dictating your document, you can add formatting using speech commands, for example: 1. Enter command mode by saying "voice commands". 2. Highlight/select the text you want to format as usual using the keyboard in the normal way or you can use several speech commands to do this, as follows: "Select next word" "Select last word" "Select next line" "Select Last Line" "Select paragraph" 3. Having highlighted your text, speak the command you want to have applied to that text, for example: Say "bold" to get the text emboldened or "underline" to get it underscored. Say "font" and then say "times new roman" to give the selected text that font style. Say "file" and then say "save" to bring up the File, Save dialogue box to save a document. Note: Do not forget to turn your microphone off when you have finished, otherwise anything else you say or anyone else nearby says will be picked up and rubbish (or maybe something more incriminating or embarrassing) and committed to screen/message. You can turn the microphone off with the voice command of "microphone", which will toggle the microphone on and off. Note: To see a full list of Outlook shortcut keystrokes, go to Appendix 1. 4.36. Using IMAP folders to Download Your Messages with Outlook XP IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is a way of partially downloading your messages. It works very similar to using Internet newsgroups, if you are at all familiar with that. What you do is download only the message headers to view and then decide whether or not you want to take the time to download the whole thing to read. After initially downloading the header/subject line only, you mark the messages you want to download and then go back online to download only those messages. This can save you time and phone expense if you have a slow MODEM or if the types of message you are downloading are very large or there are always a lot of them. You can subscribe to IMAP folders separately from your normal e- mail accounts or use your regular e-mail accounts to download in IMAP format. To be honest, I think this IMAP procedure is more time-consuming and labour-intensive than just simply downloading everything in the normal way, but some people may have slow MODEMS or other reasons for wanting to use this method. to download using IMAP procedures with Outlook XP: 1. Start off by going to your Inbox with CONTROL SHIFT I. 2. With the ISP or other e-mail provider you use, press ALT T (for Tools) and then E (for Send/Receive). 3. ARROW up to "Work with Headers" and press ENTER. Then press ENTER on "Download Headers From". You will be on "All Accounts" but you can ARROW to any other accounts you may have and limit the header download to one account only if you like. 4. Press ENTER and you will be taken on line (if you are not already online) and the e-mail headers only will be downloaded into your Inbox. 5. ARROWING through these headers will appear just the same as if you were ARROWING through your regular e-mails. However, if you press ENTER on any of them as you would normally do to view the message body you will get no text displayed but rather receive a remote header dialogue asking you if you want to do one of several things which you can TAB to and ARROW through: "Unmark this Header", "Mark to Download this Message", "Mark to Download this Message and Leave a copy on the Server" and "Mark to Delete this message from the Server". These will be largely self- explanatory but the most important ones will be option 2 where you mark the message to get the whole thing downloaded and remove it from the server and the fourth option which just deletes the message from the server without downloading it if you are not interested in it or feel that it is so large that you do not want to take the time to download it. 6. As selecting to "Mark to Delete this message from the Server" for each message you do not want to download is likely to be messy and time-consuming, you can ARROW to each unwanted message in your Inbox and mark them for deletion without using the remote header dialogue by holding the CONTROL key down all of the time and each time you ARROW to an unwanted message, press SPACEBAR on it and then, after marking all of the unwanted ones in this way, press the DELETE key to simultaneously mark them for deleting from the server. they will not disappear from your Inbox nor can you delete them in the normal way one by one from your Inbox by pressing the DELETE key on them. 7. After marking the messages in the way you want them to be treated, just press CONTROL M or F5 or F9 to get messages sent and downloaded as normal. The messages marked for deletion will not be downloaded but will be deleted from the server and the messages marked for download will come into your Inbox for opening and reading as usual. Note: If you are on a server such as Exchange Server, you can access folders on the server for downloading and retrieval of messages in this IMAP way. You can download an IMAP folder list and select which folders you would like to subscribe to and view on your computer. To display these folders wen you want to subscribe or unsubscribe, you should press ALT T (for Tools) and ARROW to and press ENTER on "IMAP Folders". 4.37. Obtaining Website Content by E-Mail This is not specific to Microsoft Outlook but some people may find this procedure of use. To save time online sifting through the contents of the pages on a Website, particularly if it has many links, you can request and receive an on-screen print-out of a page by e-mailing to: text@pagegetter.com Where you would type the name of the URL into the body of the message, e.g. http://www.microsoft.com. With this you receive a plain text copy of the page contents. or web@pagegetter.com Where you type the URL of the page to be retrieved and then receive the full HTML page, together with any images. or webgate@vancouver-webpages.com Where you would type the URL of the page you want into the message body, preceded by either the word "get" or "dump", e.g. get http://microsoft.com. or html@pagegetter.com Where you type the URL of the page to be retrieved and then receive the full HTML page, together with all links, etc, but no graphics images. or google@capeclear.com Where you send your query in the Subject line of your e-mail and only get back the most up-to-date 20 pieces of relevant information from the Google online e-mail search engine, e.g. type "from the keyboard tutorials" into the Subject line of the e-mail and send it, when you should receive information about my From The Keyboard tutorials as well as several others. Pressing ENTER on any of the linked URLs in the return e-mail you receive from Google will open your Web browser and take you to the site concerned. When viewing the contents of such downloaded pages in your e-mail program, if you decide you would like to be taken online to a particular link, you can simply press ENTER on the appropriate line in the e-mail message to be taken straight online via your default Web browser. A host of techniques for doing anything by electronic mail can be sought from: www.expita.com For a guide to using many Internet features via e-mail, you can surf to: www.faqs.org/faqs/internet-services/access-via-email/ 4.38. Using Shorthand Emoticons in Your E-mails The occasional use of "emoticons" in your e-mails may help to convey your feelings about a given message or situation when a text message might make this difficult to convey. Emoticons are also known as "smileys" and are a type of acronym or shorthand. For example, a symbol combination such as :-] represents a smiley which signifies that you are happy with or agree with a particular statement or emotion. There are others signifying displeasure, a nod and a wink, etc. However, most visually impaired people tend to replace these symbol combinations and visually smiling or frowning faces with a word between brackets or arrows which conveys a feeling or emotion, such as , , , , etc. The below list gives an idea of the range of available emoticons and their most common meanings but is not necessarily fully exhaustive: AAMOF As a matter of fact. BBFN Byebye for now. BFN Bye for now. BRb Be right back. BTW By the way. BYKT Big but you knew that. CMIIW Correct me if I'm wrong. EOL End of lecture. FAQ Frequently asked questions. FITB Fill in the blanks. FWIW For what it's worth. FYI For your information. G Grinning. HTH Hope this helps. IAC In any case. IAE In any event. ICL In Christian love. IMCO In my considered opinion. IMHO In my humble opinion. IMNSHO In my not so humble opinion. IMO In my opinion. IOW In other words. J Joking. L Laughing. LOL Laughing out loud or lots of luck. MGB May God bless. MHOTY My hat's off to you. NRN No reply necessary. OIC Oh, I see. OTOH On the other hand. ROTF Rolling on the floor. ROFL Rolling on the floor laughing. RSN Real soon now. S Smiling. SITD Still in the dark. TIA Thanks in advance. TIC Tongue in cheek. TTY Talk to you later. TYVM Thank you very much. WYSIWYG What you see is what you get. Y Yawning. In other cases combinations of symbols are meaningful: :( or :-( Expresses unhappiness. :] or :-] Expresses jovial happiness. :[ or :-[ Conveys despondent unhappiness. :D or :-D Expresses jovial happiness. :I or :-I Indicates indifference. :-/ or :-\ Indicates confusion, undecidedness or sceptical. :Q or :-Q Expresses confusion. :s or :-S Conveys loss of words or incoherence. :@ or :-@ Expresses shock or screaming. :O or :-O Indicates surprise or, yelling or realisation of an error (Oh). You can find a full list of emoticons at: www.techdictionary.com/emoticon.html Remember, just do not over-use emoticons, as you may find that instead of clarifying a situation or feeling you just further confuse the position because not everyone is cognizant with them. 4.39. Outlook's Context Shortcut Menus When you are in any of the Outlook windows, you can often, as an alternative to many of the keystroke shortcut commands, bring up a shortcut Context Menu. You simply do this by pressing SHIFT F10 and then by ARROWING up or down the shortcut commands listed there. These commands will differ, depending on the window you are currently in. These types of shortcut menus are frequently found in other Windows programs, too. If you press SHIFT F10 whilst a message in your Inbox has focus (without opening it), you can then press R (for Properties) and then, in navigation or mouse mode, ARROW up and down many of the details pertinent to that message, e.g. the sender's return e- mail address. ******** >SECTION 5 USING THE OUTLOOK CALENDAR AND SCHEDULING 5.1. Opening the Outlook Calendar To open the Outlook Calendar you would: 1. Launch Outlook from the shortcut on your Desktop if you put one there or via the path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Outlook 2. The program will launch and, depending on how you have set things up, you should come onto the standard Outlook screen in "Outlook Today" or your "Personal Folders" list. If you do not, you may have to press ALT TAB to get there. 3. Either: A. Press your TAB key or ARROW keys until you reach "Calendar" and then press ENTER to activate this link. or B. Press ALT V (for View), then G (for Goto) and then C (for Calendar). The Calendar will load in with whatever default view you chose to use when you set things up in Section 2. We will assume that you have "Active Appointments" checked on in the View menu. If you have not got this selected, do so now by pressing ALT V, V and ENTER on "Active Appointments". 4. You will be in "Calendar - Microsoft Outlook" and this will be evident if you press your screenreader's read Title Bar hot key, e.g. INSERT T with JAWS, CONTROL SHIFT T with Window-Eyes and NumPad 7 with HAL 5. Repeated presses of the F6 key will vmove you back and forwards between the "Task Pad" window and the Calendar folder in Personal Folders. If you have set things up so that more windows load at start up, then you will find that pressing ALT TAB or F6 cycles you through even more windows. 5. With Calendar having focus, view the contents of the Menu bar by pressing ALT and then ARROWING to the right. You will see that there are menus for File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Actions and Help which you can ARROW down to view the many options and actions you can select in Outlook. The File, View and Actions menus are of particular importance and you can either use these menus to achieve your goals or you can use Outlook's shortcuts to do this in many instances or a combination of both. 5.2. Pen-Picture of The Outlook Calendar Screen As normal with Outlook windows, the Calendar has at the top of the screen a Title Bar, a Menu Bar and Toolbars with clickable buttons. There can now be several different views of the rest of the screen, depending on the view you have chosen within the View menu, Current View options. With "Day/Week/Month" selected, the view is quite complicated with the standard outlook today buttons running down the very left of the screen and the right of the screen split into two halves vertically. In weekly view, the left of these two windows holds seven boxes showing the seven days of the week. The right-hand window to the very right edge of the screen holds at its top a monthly calendar with the dates of the current month displayed and underneath it is the next months display of dates. In the remaining space on the right side of the screen, under the monthly calendars, is what is known as the Task Pad. You can move from whatever date will currently have focus in the main part of the screen to the Task Pad by pressing the F6 key or ALT TAB and vice versa. However, depending on the screenreader you use and your own preferences and how you work, you are probably advised to simplify this view by changing the view from Daily/Weekly/Monthly to one of the other views, such as "Active Appointments" within Current View in the View menu. 5.3. What You can Do with the Calendar When you are running the Microsoft Exchange network server, the Outlook Calendar is fully integrated with the e-mail and contacts features of Outlook. It permits you to make appointments for meetings and future events, view group schedules and manage someone else's calendar. You can use Calendar in either daily view, weekly view or monthly view. You can still use Calendar on a single computer but not all of the integrated and automatic features will be available to you. 5.4. Registering Yourself with the Microsoft .Net Passport Services During the course of using Outlook XP, the program may try to take you online to use or register yourself with the Microsoft Net Passport services. This is where you register to be able to access a number of free Microsoft services, such as obtaining the ability to post your calendar on their server for others to view and to be able to view others' calendars if they permit you to do so. If you wish to, you can either register early in your use of Outlook or leave it until later, whichever you prefer. I have only placed this sub-section here rather than much later because sometimes, particularly with Outlook XP, the program regularly tries to take you online to register and you frequently have to press ESCAPE to stop this if you do not let it take you there. 5.4.1. Registering with Microsoft .Net Passport To register with the Net Passport services, when you are taken to the registration form by Outlook XP: 1. TAB past several editfields and buttons to the "Get One Here" button and press ENTER or SPACEBAR to activate it. 2. In the "Name" editfield you come into, type in your e-mail address. 3. TAB to the first of two password editfields and type in a word or set of numbers you would like to use as your password. Use at least six characters. 4. TAB to a "Retype Password" field and type your password in again to ensure that it is typed correctly. 5. TAB to a "Secret Question for Password" and make up a question which you will later have to provide an answer to, e.g. what was my first school called. 6. TAB again to an "Answer to Secret Question" field and type in the answer to the above question, e.g. Leeds Primary. 7. TAB once to a list of countries, press ALT down ARROW to open this list up and then leave focus on United Kingdom if you live there or ARROW to your own country if different. Pressing such as U (for United Kingdom) several times will get you their quickly. 8.TAB to "Region" and ARROW to where you are, e.g. England, Scotland, etc. 9. TAB to "Postal Code" and type yours in here. 10. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to submit the information. 11. If at any time you make a mistake, you will be told this (although your screenreader may not automatically echo this message to you) and you will be placed back in the editfield which you have completed wrongly in order to re-enter the details correctly. 12. A few minutes later you will be able to download two reply e-mails from Net Passport services, one giving you user instructions and the other providing you with a link to use to confirm that you do want to register with them. You should highlight both lines of the link and copy it to the Clipboard, then launch your Web browser and paste it into the Address Bar or Open dialogue box and go on line with it. You will have three different Web pages to go through to confirm your registration: page one requires you to TAB to a "Continue" button and press ENTER; page 2 needs you to go to an editfield below the heading "Password" and type your password in and then TAB to a "Sign In" button and press ENTER; and page three requires you to TAB to an "Agree" button and press ENTER if you agree with the terms of the privacy statement and terms of use of the service or activate the "Cancel" button if you decide that you do not agree. 13. When you have finished on a Net Passport site, you should remember to go to near the top of the page and activate the "Sign off" link. Note 1: The above .Net Passport registration form changes frequently and some of the above requirements may therefore be different by the time you do this. For instance, you may now have to supply your date of birth and the requirement to provide a question of your own composition and then answer it may now, instead, require you to see and type into an editfield a number of digits and letters but these letters are deliberately made blurred on screen. If you cannot see them, there is an alternative way to deal with this by getting them spoken out to you through your computer speakers. You press ENTER on a link which invites you to do this if you cannot see the digits and figures, so do this. You will then have to listen to the numbers and digits and type them into an editfield just below the button you pressed to hear them. You can then continue in the first dialogue box to the "I Agree" button to complete things. Note 2: The above link to the .Net Passport site is only one of many you can use to get yourself registered with the Passport services. You can also do it via: www.passport.com and www.msn.co.uk but, in my experience, whilst some of these various registration option sites ask you the same things, others require different amounts of information. 5.4.2. Logging onto the >Net Passport Services Having registered for the Net Services as above, when you are next taken onto the sign in page, you will have to: 1. In the first editfield, type your "name" in here, which is actually your e-mail address. 2. TAB to "Password" and type yours in. 3. TAB to and press SPACEBAR on an "Automatically Sign me In" option to be allowed access without having to provide all your sign in details if you prefer this or leave it unchecked for better security. 4. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to submit your sign in details and obtain access. 5.5. Recording Appointments for Yourself An "appointment" is something which you schedule for yourself which does not involve inviting other people or reserving office resources, such as meeting rooms and training equipment. This is in contrast to arranging meetings which do involve others. You can request that Calendar gives you a reminder of such impending appointment times and provide others with reasons why you may not be available at these apointment times, e.g. by indicating that you are busy or out of the office. Additionally, if you are on a corporate network and running Exchange Server and are given "permission", you can make new appointments in others' calendars or change current appointments, for instance, for your boss if you are his/her Secretary or Personal Assistant. 5.5.1. Making the Appointment To schedule an appointment for yourself and for viewing by anyone else with access to your calendar, e.g. via Exchange Server or Microsoft Net Services: 1. Open Calendar with ALT V (for View), G (for Goto) and then C (for Calendar). 2. Press ALT F (for File), W (for New) and then A (for Appointment) or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT A. 3. You will enter a dialogue box on the "Subject" line, so type in an appropriate and meaningful title or description for the purpose of the appointment, e.g. Dental Appointment. 4. TAB to "Location" and type in where the appointment is to take place, e.g. Dental Surgery. Note that if you have arranged previous appointments and meetings in a number of different meeting, conference and general rooms or locations, these locations will be in a list you can ARROW up and down in in this location editfield to choose from if one of them is again appropriate for this appointment. 5. TAB to the first of four date and time for appointment editfields and in the first of these type in the date of the appointment, e.g. 15/4/03. TAB to the second editfield and enter the time of the appointment, e.g. 1130. Do the same for ending date and time of the appointment but note that these will already be completed for the same day and 30 minutes after the start time, so accept these if they look correct and reasonable or overtype them with the correct date and time. 6. TAB to "Reminder" and press SPACEBAR to turn this on if it is not already on if you would like to have Outlook provide you with an audible memory jogging sound a little before this meeting is due. The default reminder is for 15 minutes before the meeting time but you can change this in the next editfield if you like. When these reminders trigger, you can elect to deal with them and close the reminder box by either dismissing one of them (the current one) by pressing ALT D, or by dismissing all reminders by pressing ALT A or you can press ALT S to put the reminder in snooze mode to be reminded again in five minutes. You can also open it with ALT O and you will be in the notes box to read any details by ARROWING through them and you can SHIFT TAB backwards through all of the appointment or meeting details which the maker of the appointment entered for you, e.g. the subject, location for the meeting, date/time of appointment, etc. Note that after the reminder sound rings, you may have to press ALT TAB once or twice to get to this dismiss, snooze, etc, dialogue. 7. TAB to "Show Time as" and ARROW to the choice you want to have Calendar indicate why you will not be available at that time on that date, e.g. to indicate "Busy", "Out of Office", etc, so that anyone else viewing your Calendar schedule will be able to observe this information. 8. TAB once and the next list of options provides colour coding tags on your Calendar to give sighted users a quick indication of what kind of appointment you have arranged for this date/time. Just ARROW to and press SPACEBAR on the appropriate categorisation or leave it on the first option of "none" for no coloured labelling. 9. You can TAB once more to an editfield in which you can type some notes about the appointment and you can also press your F7 key to get this text spell-checked if you like with the Word spell-checker. To get to the rest of the options in this dialogue, you will have to SHIFT TAB backwards 10 or so times past the subject editfield to "Private" and check this on with the SPACEBAR if you want to keep the meeting private so that no one else can view it on your Calendar or you can use the shortcut of ALT P to turn on or off the private designation. 10. Now, from the Private button, SHIFT TAB to a "Categories" button and press ENTER on this (or open it with ALT G) if you would like to attach a categorisation type to this appointment item, such as "Business", "Personal" or "Miscellaneous", etc. Then TAB to and press ENTER on "OK". If you categorise items such as a meeting, contact entry, appointment and Calendar items in this way, you can then later group these types of related items for viewing and examining, e.g. you can bring up a list of all items marked (categorised) as "personal" items. You can now save your appointment details by pressing ALT S or if you want to make this a recurring appointment go through the below step first. 11. If this appointment is to be a short-term or long-term regular one on a given day and at a given time, you can activate a "Recurrence" button by pressing the shortcut of CONTROL G and in the next dialogue box which opens up ARROW and TAB through daily, weekly and monthly recurrence options (See the "Specifying Recurring Appointments, Meetings and Events" sub-section below for how to deal with this somewhat complicated Recurrence dialogue). Then save as outlined below. 5.5.2. Saving Your Appointments in the Default format or iCalendar or vCalendar formats 12. When finished going through the steps outlined in the last sub-section, either: A. Save the appointment details in the standard way by pressing CONTROL S or press ESCAPE and then Y to save the appointment or N to delete the apointment if you decide you now do not want it; or B. If you want to save it in iCalendar or Vcalendar formats, press ALT F (for File) and then A (for Save As) and then TAB to "Save as Type" and either press I (for ICalendar) or V (for vCalendar) and then TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. The former will be given a .ics and the latter an .vcs filename extension. The iCalendar and vCard formats are the recognised standard formats for sending Calendar and information card details over the Internet. 5.5.3. Viewing Your Calendar Entries and Reading Notes About Your Appointments and Meetings 5.5.3.1. Viewing in Active Appointments, Events and Recurring Appointments Views If you have not already got Outlook set up in one of these views, do so by pressing ALT V, V and then ARROWING to and pressing ENTER on one of them. In Active Appointments view: 1. When you first open Calendar, when you have appointments, meetings and events already created, you will come into the Task Pad and be able to ARROW through these appointment entries and hear there subjects and due dates and times. If you do not, press the F6 key to move to the Task Pad. 2. ARROW up and down the appointments and notice that they are listed in the following group order. At the top you will have a heading line indicating that the appointments/meetings just below it are none recurrence appointments and it will tell you how many there are, e.g. Recurrence: (None) (Two Items). As you ARROW down you will pass the two appointments or meetings which are non- recurring. After these will come another heading, which will indicate the weekly recurrence meetings and how many of them there are. After this will come the monthly list of appointments/meetings and lastly the yearly ones. when you have reached a given appointment which you wish to read the notes of, just press the ENTER key to open up the notes editfield and read them as normal. Alternatively, with focus on a given appointment, you could open the appointment via the Context Menu by pressing SHIFT F10 and then ENTER on "Open". Note that you could carry out several other actions on this appointment as well in this menu, e.g. delete it, print it, forward it as an attachment on an e- mail to someone else, re-categorise it, change its show time as status, etc. 3. You can also SHIFT TAB backwards through the completed editfields and options in this appointment/meeting/event to view them. 4. To close the appointment and return to your Task Pad list of appointments, etc, press the ESCAPE key. In events, annual events and recurring appointments Views: You will be able to view these items just the same as in the above active appointments way but, of course, you may only obtain a more limited number of appointment types. Additionally, you will be provided with more future appointment dates. You can open, read and close them in the same way as you did above. 5.5.3.2. Viewing in Day/Week/Month View Most screenreaders do not recommend using this view but it does work to a limited degree in Outlook XP and is worth you examining to see what is possible before changing back to a recommended view, such as "Active Appointments". Get to "Day/Week/Month" view by pressing ALT V, V and then ENTER. 1. Now you come into the Calendar on the current date. Some screenreaders, such as Window-Eyes, may tell you where you are by simply ARROWING up, down, left and right in this Calendar, whilst others will not announce this, such as JAWS, so you will have to regularly press either or both of your read current word or read current line hot keys, e.g. INSERT NumPad 5 and INSERT NumPad 8 respectively with JAWS, to hear what date you are on. What you can access and do in this view really does depend not only on the version of Outlook you are running and the screenreader you are using but also on the version of that screenreader as well. If your set-up does not work in this view, you will probably have realised this at this early stage and want to skip the rest of this section or perhaps just glance through it. 2. Pressing ENTER on a given date will open up a list of your appointments, meetings, events, etc, on that date. You should be in weekly view and can TAB or SHIFT TAB through your items on that day and view at what time they are on. However, the amount and format of this information is not very easy to ascertain with a screenreader and this is why most of them do not recommend this view. Try it and see what you think. 3. You should be able to press ENTER on any of your day's appointments, etc, and then be able to TAB, SHIFT TAB and ARROW through the entered details and notes as usual. 4. Close any item and this view by pressing ESCAPE once or twice and return to such as Active Appointments view if you prefer this. 5.5.4. Amending the Notes on an Appointment With an appointment notes open as shown above, you can do any standard editing of the text as you would in a text editor or word-processor. When you then press ESCAPE to close the appointment, you will be asked if you want to save the changes, so press Y for yes. 5.5.5. Deleting an Appointment If you want to delete an appointment, with focus on it in the Task Pad, press the DELETE key. You can also use the Context menu to effect an appointment deletion (SHIFT F10). 5.6. Arranging Meetings Between Groups of People Note that not all aspects of the below meeting request procedures will work for the stand-alone computer user. You will need to be running Exchange Server on a networked system for some aspects to be available. When you arrange a "meeting", you are reserving time and possibly resources, such as training equipment and meeting rooms, for yourself and others who will be invited to attend that meeting. The invited attendees can accept the meeting date and time you suggest or propose other times which accord with the available time-slots of other meeting invitees and they can reply to your request via e-mail to arrive in your Inbox. 5.6.1. Arranging an In-Person Face-to-Face Meeting To attempt to arrange a meeting between yourself and one or more other people without firstly examining their calendar blank spaces for availability dates and times: 1. Open Calendar with ALT V (for View), G (for Goto) and then C (for Calendar) or use CONTROL Y, then C and ENTER. 2. Now press ALT F (for File), W (for New) and then Q (for Meeting Request) or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT Q. 3. You will land on a "To" editfield and you can now type the e- mail address or addresses in for the people you are sending the meeting notice to. If typing more than one e-mail address in here, separate each address with a semi-colon. Alternatively you can SHIFT TAB back once, press ENTER on a "To" button and Your Address Book/contacts list will open and you can either type in the textbox you are in the name of a person in the Address Book you want to invite to this meeting or you can TAB to a list of your Address Book contacts and ARROW to them. For each person you invite to this meeting, you can TAB to and press ENTER on or activate with ALT Q a "Required" button to specify if this person's presence at the meeting is required (essential) or press ALT O for "Optional" (voluntary). There is also a "Resources" button which can be activated by pressing ALT E and which, if used, will give you a list in your "Locations" of your previously used resources when you have arranged meetings, e.g. Meeting Room 3, conference hall 1, etc. Note, however, that this Resource scheduling feature is only available if you or your company have a networked computer system and are running the Microsoft Exchange Server where the resources are listed and managed. If the resource is free and you are permitted to reserve it, it will be allocated to you; if not, your request will be denied. 4. If you wish to invite someone not already in your Address Book, TAB to "New" and press ENTER and complete the new contact's details in the normal way (see "Using the Outlook Contacts Folder and Address Book with E-Mailing" in Section 4 above). 5. When finished selecting people you wish to invite to the meeting, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 6. You will return to the first dialogue you were in and can now TAB to the "Subject" editfield to type in an appropriate and meaningful subject line or title for your meeting, e.g. Annual Reporting Standards. 7. TAB to "Location" and type in the name or number of the room you have booked to hold the meeting in or just type in "My Room" if the meeting is to be held there. Note that if you have arranged previous meetings in a number of different meeting, conference and general rooms, these rooms will be in a list you can ARROW up and down in in this location editfield to choose from if one of them is again appropriate for this meeting. 8. Now TAB again to a "Start Time" editfield and note that today's date will be in this field, so if your meeting is to be for another day, just overtype this with the correct date for the meeting, e.g. 14/5/03. Now TAB again and note that the next field holds the start time time for the meeting to commence. Overtype the time already in here with the actual time you want the meeting to start at, e.g. 14300. The next two editfields you TAB to are simply the "End Time" date and end time time, where the end date will also be the same date you started the meeting on and the end time will be set to 30 minutes after the start time but, of course, you can overtype these to reflect the actual dates and times you anticipate the meeting to end at. 9. Another press of TAB takes you to an "All Day Event" button. If you press SPACEBAR on this to activate it, you are basically telling people that you think that this meeting will take up all or most of the working day and that you and they are unlikely to be available for other work/appointments on that day. 10. TAB until you reach "Reminder" and press SPACEBAR to turn this on if it is not already on if you would like to have Outlook provide you with an audible musical note a little before this meeting is due. The default reminder is for 15 minutes before the meeting time but you can change this in the next editfield if you like. 11. If you are on a network running Exchange Server, TAB to "Show Time as" and ARROW to the choice you want to have Calendar indicate why you will not be available at that time on that date, e.g. just to indicate "Busy", "Out of Office" or "Tentative" if you are not sure whether or not this meeting time will actually be required, so that anyone else viewing your Calendar schedule will be able to observe this information. 12. The next list of options provides colour coding tags on your Calendar to give sighted users a quick indication of what kind of appointment you have arranged for this date/time. Just leave focus on the appropriate categorisation or leave it on the first option of "none" for no coloured labelling. 13. You can TAB once more to an editfield in which you can type a note about the meeting, e.g. "Important annual reporting meeting with Supervisors. Please bring your stats and ideas for future performance improvements". In this editfield you can press the F7 key to invoke the normal Microsoft Word spell-checker to check the text you have typed and use the standard Word spell- checker shortcuts to edit text, add it to the spell-checker dictionary, change the word, etc. You can now either SHIFT TAB backwards 10 or so times to "Private" and check this on with the SPACEBAR if you want to keep the meeting private so that no one else can view it on your Calendar or simply pressing ALT P will turn it on. 14. Either TAB or SHIFT TAB to "Categories" and press ENTER on this (or open it with the shortcut of ALT G) if you would like to attach a categorisation type to this meeting item, such as "Business", "Holiday", "Key Customer", etc. If you categorise any items such as a meeting, contact entry, appointment and Calendar items in this way, you can then later group these types of related items for viewing and examining, e.g. you can bring up a list of all items marked (categorised) as "Key Customer" items. 15. Before saving and sending the meeting requests, if you wish to attach such as an agenda for a meeting or the minutes of a meeting, do so now by pressing ALT I (for Insert) and then F (for File) and then type in the path to the file you want to attach or use the "Look In" button to browse to it. Then TAb to "Insert" and press ENTER to attach the file to the meeting message. 16. You can now finish by pressing ALT S to save and close and send your messages only. Alternatively, you can press CONTROL M (or F5 in Outlook 2000 or F9 in Outlook XP) to go online and send your meeting request messages and download any messages waiting for you as well. To review the state of progress of sending and receiving, if this is taking some time, use your screenreader's read status Line hot key, e.g. INSERT NumPad 3 with JAWS, CONTROL INSERT S with Window-Eyes and NumPad 2 with HAL 5 or NumPad SLASH with HAL 4. 17. If you have attached a file to the message and you are not on a system with Microsoft Exchange Server, you will have to unselect the "Send as iCalendar" option in the Tools menu, if it is currently selected, otherwise your attachments will not go. 18. If you have saved but not sent your messages, appointments and meeting requests, at any time you can press CONTROL M to send and receive all your e-mails at once including your Calendar meeting invitations. To go immediately to your Inbox to view any downloaded messages and replies to other Calendar invites, press CONTROL SHIFT I as usual. Note: Just below the start time and end time editfields mentioned at step 8 above, there is a "This is an Online Meeting Using" option which you can check on with the SPACEBAR. If you do decide to make this an online meeting (one conducted over the Internet instead of face-to-face in a physical meeting room), you will find below it two or three more options, depending on the version of Outlook you are using: "Microsoft Netmeeting", "Windows Media Services" and "Microsoft Exchange Conferencing". To arrange an online meeting of this type you will, of course, have to have one of these conferencing software types, Web addresses or servers set up for your computer to use. If you are using MS Netmeeting, you will have to provide the name of the directory server you are using;for a Windows Media Services broadcast, you will have to provide the address of the event; and for MS Exchange Conferencing, you will have to select a resource which sits on an Exchange Server. You should contact your Systems Administrator or other service provider for these details. Tip: You can also send a meeting request by pressing ENTER on "Contacts" in your Personal Folders list and then ARROWING to the person you want to send the request to. You then press ALT A (for Actions) and ARROW to "New Meeting Request to Contact" and press ENTER. You then complete the same dialogue with subject details, meeting date/time, etc, as outlined in the above section. 5.6.2. Arranging and Planning Meetings with Automatic Checking of Attendees' Calendars You will need to be on a network system running MS Exchange Server for all aspects of this to work, although you can still send the basic meeting request details by e-mail if not on a server. To schedule an in-person meeting between yourself and others: 1. Open Calendar with ALT V (for View), G (for Goto) and then C (for Calendar). 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then P (for Plan a Meeting). 3. TAB to "Add Others" or "Invite Others" and press ENTER or SPACEBAR. 4. In Outlook XP, in the list which you are presented with, press ENTER on "Add from Address Book". In Outlook 2000, this step is not required. Your Address Book/contacts list will open and you can either type in the textbox you are in the name of a person in the Address Book you want to invite to this meeting or you can TAB once to a list of your Address Book contacts and ARROW to them. For each person you invite to this meeting, you can activate with ALT Q a "Required" button to specify if this person's presence at the meeting is required (essential) or press ALT O for "Optional" (voluntary). There is also a "Resources" button which can be activated by pressing ALT E and which, if used, will give you a list in your "Locations" of your previously used resources when you have arranged meetings, e.g. training room 3, conference hall 1, slide projector, etc. Note, however, that this Resources feature is only available if you or your company have a networked system and are running the Microsoft Exchange Server where the resources are listed and managed. If the resource is free, it will be allocated to you; if not, your request will be denied. 5. If you wish to invite someone not already in your Address Book, TAB to "New" and press ENTER and complete the new contact's details in the normal way (see "Using the Outlook Contacts Folder and Address Book with E-Mail" in Section 4 above). 6. When finished selecting people you wish to invite to the meeting, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 7. You come back into the first dialogue box you were in and you can, if you are running Exchange Server, press SPACEBAR on "AutoPick Next" or "AutoPick" to get Outlook to check the meeting schedules of those people you have invited to your meeting to find out when all of them have a date and time in common when the meeting could take place. Alternatively, you can just TAB past this button and type in the next two editfields the date and time you would like the meeting on, e.g. 14/4/03 and 1400 hours, and let the attendees come back to you if they are unable to attend at that date/time. Then TAB to the next two fields and type in your anticipated date and time for the meeting to finish. 8. Now TAB to the "Make Meeting" button and press SPACEBAR or ENTER. Another dialogue will open up and: A. You will be in or have to TAB once to the "Subject" editfield to type in an appropriate and meaningful subject line or title for your meeting, e.g. Annual Reporting Standards. B. TAB to "Location" and type in the name or number of the room you have booked to hold the meeting in or just type in "My Room" if the meeting is to be held there. Note that if you have arranged previous meetings in a number of different meeting, conference and general rooms, these rooms will be in a list you can ARROW up and down in in this location editfield to choose from if one of them is again appropriate for this meeting. C. Now TAB again to a "Start Time" editfield and note that today's date will be in this field, so if your meeting is to be for another day, just overtype this with the correct date for the meeting, e.g. 14/5/03. Now TAB again and note that the next field holds the start time time for the meeting to commence. Overtype the time already in here with the actual time you want the meeting to start at, e.g. 14300. The next two editfields you TAB to are simply the "End Time" date and end time time, where the end date will also be the same date you started the meeting on and the end time will be set to 30 minutes after the start time but, of course, you can overtype these to reflect the actual dates and times you anticipate the meeting to end at. D. TAB to "Reminder" and press SPACEBAR if you would like to have Outlook provide you with an audible sound a little before this meeting is due. The default reminder is for 15 minutes before the meeting time but you can change this in the next editfield if you like. E. TAB to "Show Time as" and ARROW to the choice you want to have Calendar indicate why you will not be available at that time on that date, e.g. just to indicate "Busy", "Out of Office" or "Tentative" if you are not sure whether or not this meeting time will actually be required, so that anyone else viewing your Calendar schedule will be able to observe this information. F. The next list of options provides colour coding tags on the Calendar to give sighted users a quick indication of what kind of appointment you have arranged for this date/time. Just leave focus on the appropriate categorisation or leave it on the first option of "none" for no coloured labelling. G. You can TAB once more to an editfield in which you can type a note about the meeting, e.g. Important annual reporting meeting with Supervisors. You can use the F7 key to invoke the Word spell-checker in this editfield if you like. If you cannot TAB past this editfield in the normal way to the rest of the options in this dialogue, you will have to SHIFT TAB backwards to "Private" and check this on with the SPACEBAR if you want to keep the meeting private so that no one else can view it on your Calendar. H. Press ALT G to activate a "Categories" button if you would like to attach a categorisation type to this meeting item, such as "Business", "Holiday", "Key Customer", etc. If you categorise any items such as a meeting, contact entry, appointment and Calendar items in this way, you can then later group these types of related items for viewing and examining, e.g. you can bring up a list of all items marked (categorised) as "Key Customer" items. I. Before saving and sending the meeting requests, if you wish to attach such as an agenda for a meeting or the minutes of a meeting, do so now by pressing ALT I (for Insert) and then F (for File) and then typing in the path to the file you want to attach or use the "Look In" button to browse to it. Then TAB to "Insert" and press ENTER to attach the file to the meeting message. J. You can now finish by pressing ALT S or the ESCAPE key and Y (for Yes) to save this arranged meeting file. 9. Lastly, you will be asked if you want to send this meeting appointment message to the e-mail addresses of your invited members of staff, so press the ENTER key to send it. If you do not go on line or this send message does not appear, TAB to "Close" and press ENTER. The meeting request will be deposited in your e-mail Outbox to be sent when you are ready. Pressing CONTROL M, F5 or F9 should now take you online (if you are not already on line) and send the message(s). 10. If you have attached a file to the message and you are not on a system with Microsoft Exchange Server, you will have to unselect the "Send as iCalendar" option in the Tools menu, otherwise your attachments will not go. 11. If you have saved but not sent your messages, appointments and meeting requests, at any time you can press CONTROL M to send and receive all your e-mails at once including your Calendar meeting invitations. To go immediately to your Inbox to view any downloaded messages and replies to other Calendar invites, press CONTROL SHIFT I as usual. 5.6.3. Cancelling a Meeting Request If you have scheduled a meeting and sent out invitations, you can cancel it by: 1. Go to Calendar with CONTROL Y then C and ENTER or via goto in the View menu. 2. Open the meeting request by pressing ENTER on it or CONTROL O when it has focus in the Task Pad. 3. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then C (for Cancel Meeting). 4. To cancel the meeting and delete it from the Calendar records, press ENTER on the "OK" button. 5. Send the cancellation notice to all invited attendees by pressing ALT S or CONTROL M. 6. The recipients of the cancellation will receive into their Inbox the standard format of e-mail for appointments/meetings/events and will be able to read the notes, subject, date and time, etc, as usual. Note: If you should download this e-mail in an e-mail client other than MS Outlook, such as Outlook Express and Eudora, then the recipients of the cancellation e-mail will receive a somewhat verbose message but if you SHIFT TAB through the headers and look at the From, Date, To and Subject lines this will give you quick information about who it is from and what it is about. If you then ARROW through the body of the message you will find that some lines mean very little but others contain valid details, such as: BEGIN:VCALENDAR METHOD:CANCEL ATTENDEE;SUSAN SMITH ATTENDEE;BILL JONES ATTENDEE;RICHARD Williams ORGANISER:MAILTO:JWJW@Onetel.com LOCATION:MEETING ROOM 6 DESCRIPTION:When:17 April 2003 14:00-14:30 (GMT)Greenwich Mean Time SUMMARY:Cancelled Performance Meeting These meaningful lines will be interspersed with others of less importance from an information point of view. 5.6.4. Add or Remove Meeting Attendees If you need to add someone to or remove them from your meeting requests: 1. Open Calendar with CONTROL Y then c and open the meeting by ARROWING to it in the Task Pad, and either press ENTER on it or press CONTROL O. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and V (for Add or Remove Attendees). 3. In Outlook XP, to add an attendee or resource, select "Add Others". This step is not necessary in Outlook 2000. 4. Your contacts list will open and you can either type the name of the attendee in or ARROW to him/her in the list of invitees. 5.Then TAB to and change any of the other standard options as appropriate. 6. To remove an attendee or resource, place focus on the name you wish to remove, highlight it and then press your DELETE key. 7. TAB to and press ENTER on "OK" and then press ESCAPE and Y to save the changes and then CONTROL M to send the update. 5.6.5. Sending a Meeting Request to a Whole Distribution List If you have created distribution lists, e.g. five lists for each of your members of staff in five different sections under your managementship, you can send a meeting request to all of the members of any of those lists simultaneously as follows: 1. Open Calendar as usual and then open the meeting request dialogue box by pressing CONTROL SHIFT Q. 2. SHIFT TAB back once and press ENTER on the "To" button and then ARROW to the list name you require from your contacts, e.g. Training Section 3. 3. Press ALT Q to activate the "Required" button. 4. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 5. Complete the subject, location start and end date/time fields, activate the reminder button and select your required category and show as options as usual (see the two previous sections for more details on this). 6. If this is to be a recurring meeting date and time, press CONTROL G and complete the recurrence details. 7. Send the meeting request as normal with ALT S or CONTROL M. 5.6.6. Declining or Proposing an Alternative Time for a Meeting If you cannot attend a meeting at a given time, you can suggest another time to the meeting arranger in one of the following ways. The simplest way (and only way if you are not using a network Server) to make a counter proposal is: 1. Open the Meeting request in your Inbox as usual. 2. Press CONTROL R (for Reply) and the sender's e-mail address and subject will be inserted into the "To:" and Subject" headers. 3. Simply type into the message field your reason for not being able to attend on the proposed date/time and your suggested alternative date/time for the meeting. 4. Send the reply with CONTROL M. If you are on a networked system using Exchange Server, the more integrated and sophisticated way to make a counter proposal is: 1. Open the meeting request as usual. 2. In mouse mode, go to the "Propose New Meeting Time" button and left mouse click on it. 3. Choose a time when all of the invitees are available. You can use "AutoPick Next" to find the next available free time for all invitees from their Calendar details on the server. 4. In mouse mode, click "Propose Time" and then send your response with ALT S or CONTROL M. 5. The counter proposal will be sent together with a default message saying you have tentatively accepted the meeting and will if necessary come to it but that you want to propose a new time for it which suits your timetable better. 6. However, if you want to decline the meeting altogether at the proposed time and propose a new time for such a meeting you can do this by pressing ALT A (for Actions) and then ARROW to and press ENTER on "Decline and Propose a New Time". 5.6.7. Designating a Meeting as Compulsory with Outlook XP If you cannot accept counter proposals for an important meeting and everyone must attend on the date and time you supply: 1. Press CONTROL SHIFT Q to open the meeting request dialogue. 2. Before completing the meeting details, press ALT A (For Actions) and then A (for Allow New Time Proposals" to turn this off. 3. When you create your next meeting request, this "Allow New Time Proposals" option will again be turned on as its default. Note that you can change this permanently if you like within Calendar Options in the Tools, Options property sheet. 5.6.8. Using Group Schedules with Outlook XP 5.6.8.1. What is a Group Schedule? A Group schedule is where you group together under one filename groups of similar people or resources to be able to view their situation and availability simultaneously without getting information on those outside of the group. You can only do this if you are using Outlook XP and are networked and using Exchange Server. For example, with group scheduling, you can create a group schedule for all staff in a particular department or section or you could create one to contain all meeting rooms in a particular office. A group schedule can include all of the contacts or resources from a public folder. To be able to schedule a resource, this ability must first have been set up by such as an Administrator to have its own mailbox on your server and you must have been given permission to schedule resources which include this resource. Before you arrange a meeting or send e-mail to some or all of the group members,you can obtain the latest free/busy information for each member and you can use "AutoPick" to find a meeting time which is free for all group members. 5.6.8.2. Creating, Viewing and Deleting a Group Schedule with Outlook XP To create a group schedule: 1. Go into your Calendar folder list (CONTROL Y and then C). 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then G (for View Group Schedules). 3. You will land on a "New" button, so press ENTER on this if you are creating a new group or TAB to the other options if you only wish to open and view or delete an existing group. 4. After pressing ENTER on "New", in the editfield you come into, type a name of your choice for the group schedule you are about to create, e.g. Section1, and press ENTER. 5. TAB to "Add Others" and press ENTER. Then either: A. If creating a group schedule from your contacts/Address Book (as would be the case most of the time), Press ENTER on "Add from Address Book" and TAB to your list of contacts and ARROW to and select in the normal way all persons you want to have as part of this group schedule. Remember to select/highlight using the keyboard you just ARROW to the first person you want to include in the group and hold down the CONTROL key, then keeping the CONTROL key down, ARROW to the next person you want as part of this group and then press the SPACEBAR, ARROW to the next person and again press the SPACEBAR, all of the time keeping the CONTROL key down. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. B. If creating a group schedule from public folders on your folders list, Press ENTER on "Add Public Folder" and ARROW up or down your folders list to the folder or folders you wish to add and select/highlight them. 6. To finish, press ALT S to save and close. Note 1: In the dialogue you come into when you press ALT A and then G, at step 2 above, you can TAB to both an "Open" and "Delete" button to view or erase any of your group schedules. 5.6.8.3. Sending a Meeting Request or E-Mail Message from a Group Schedule with Outlook XP To use a group schedule to send a meeting request or e-mail message: 1. Go into your Calendar folder list (CONTROL Y and then C). 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then G (for View Group Schedules) or use the shortcut of ALT S. 3. SHIFT TAB back once to a list of your group schedules and ARROW to the one you require, then TAB to "Open" and press ENTER. 4. TAB to just past the "Options" button and if you are not on Exchange Server all you will get is a "Goto" button which lets you complete a standard meeting request form out as normal. However, if you are using a network with Exchange Server, you will find a "Make Meeting" button to press ENTER on. From the "Make Meeting" button you will be able to choose either "New Meeting" or "New Mail Message" to send just selected group members a meeting request or e-mail or you will be able to choose between a "New Meeting with All" or a "New Mail Message with All" options to send the meeting request or e-mail to all persons in this group and be able to complete the normal meeting or e-mail message details as usual. 5. Send and close by pressing ALT S. Note 1: If you press ENTER on the "Options" button in the above dialogue, you can then ARROW down a list of four options. In here you can use the "Refresh Free/Busy" button if you have registered for Free/Busy information, to take you online to the Free/Busy server to refresh and therefore bring up to date the free and busy data on the Calendar. If you uncheck "Show Only Working Hours" all 24 hours of the day will be displayed, instead of just the standard working day. If you press ENTER on "AutoPick" (which will only be available if you are running Exchange Server) you will be able to automatically find a time and date on which all invited people or resources to a meeting are simultaneously available. Note 2: After pressing ENTER on "Make Meeting" above, if you are running Exchange Server, you will also be able to make a selection of "New Meeting as Resource" and invite physical resources, such as meeting rooms and slide show equipment, to your meeting in the same way that you invite people, as long as you have the permission to do this. 5.7. Recording All-Day Events for Yourself An "event" is an activity which is to last at least 24 hours, such as a 3-day training course you have to go on, a 2-day company presentation you have to give at an hotel or taking a week's holiday from work. You CAN record one-off events or events which occur weekly, monthly or annually, such as an A.G.M. Such events do not appear in your standard Calendar but instead they are displayed in banners but your Task Pad will show them along with any other appointments and meetings. To schedule an event for yourself and for viewing by anyone else with access to your Calendar: 1. Open Calendar with ALT V (for View), G (for Goto) and then C (for Calendar). 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then E (for All-Day Event). 3. Complete the Subject, Location and other editfields as usual and make your options selections in the Label and Categories lists, etc, as outlined above in the section entitled "Making the Appointment". Note that whilst there are start and end dates, there are no time fields. 4. Continue as in the Section entitled "Making the Appointment" until finished and then save and close the dialogue with ALT S. If you make this a recurring event, note that the first two editfields you come into assume full day's for each day of the event. You will be on 0 O'Clock, which assumes a 24-hour period of midnight on the first day to midnight on any given ending day. If you change the ending time from 0 to, say, 0100, you will be adding one hour to the duration of the event,i.e. changing it from 24 to 25 hours. In the next editfield, you can also ARROW up and down the "Duration Time" to other duration periods, e.g. 18 hours, 2 days, 3 days, etc. 5.8. Changing the Details for an Appointment, Meeting or Event Do this by: 1. Open the item by pressing ENTER on it in the Task Pad list. 2. Simply Alter any notes in the notes editfield you will be in. 3. SHIFT TAB back through the Subject, Location, date and time and other editfields and options and alter them as the new appointment or meeting circumstances require, including the recurrence details if necessary. 4. Save and close the changes with ALT S and send it with CONTROL M. 5.9. Specifying Recurring Appointments, Tasks, Meetings and Events If any of your appointments, tasks, meetings or events are to be repeated on such as a weekly, monthly, annual or periodic basis, you can ensure that Outlook remembers this and notifies you of such recurring appointments, etc, in advance of them taking place. They can be recurrences on a particular day in each week, on a given date in each month or on a specified day in each month and you can record whether these recurrences will be open-ended or for a specified number of times. The recurrence dialogue box is not particularly clear with some screenreaders, so the below explanation should assist. 5.9.1. Weekly Recurrence Example 1. After creating your appointment, meeting request or event but before saving/sending it, you should press the shortcut of CONTROL G to activate a "Recurrence" button. 2. In the dialogue box which now opens up, your meeting, etc, start and end times will be already entered as those which you chose when you created your appointment, meeting request or event but you can now modify these if you wish for future recurrences. 3. TAB forward to "Recurrence Pattern" and you can now ARROW up and down selections of "Daily", "Weekly", "Monthly" and "Yearly". For this example, leave it on the default of "Weekly". 4. TAB once to an editfield with the figure 1 in it. This is what you would leave it on if you wanted the frequency of the meetings to be every one week. You can erase this and type another figure, such as 3, in here if you wanted these meetings to occur every three weeks. At this same point, you can ARROW down once to a "Regenerate New Task" option but you would only use this option if you did not want the task to recur at regular intervals but rather have it recur so many weeks after the task was last completed. 5. Now TAB to several buttons labelled with the days of the week and if the day you want to have the meetings on is today, e.g. a Friday, you need do nothing with these buttons, as today will be selected by default. However, if the day of the regular weekly meetings is not to be today (a Friday in this example), you should press SPACEBAR on the Friday button to uncheck it and then TAB or SHIFT TAB to the button with the day label you want to have the regular weekly meetings on, e.g. if today is Friday and you want the weekly meetings on a Tuesday, press SPACEBAR on both Friday and Tuesday in that order. 6. TAB once to "Start" with an editfield with the first Tuesday date the meeting could start in it. If you do not want the meeting to start on the next possible Tuesday, type over this date with the Tuesday date which you do actually want the meetings to commence on. Note that if you have problems with the above day buttons and cannot change how they are selected, you can just TAB to this "Start" editfield and type in the first date you would like to commence regular weekly meetings on and thereafter the recurrence will be from that date and on every date seven days after that date in future, e.g. every Tuesday if you type in a Tuesday date. 7. TAB once and leave focus on "No end Date," which is the first of three choices and will mean that the meetings are open-ended. The second choice, if you ARROW to it, lets you type in a number of days/weeks/months/years you want the recurring meeting advice and reminder to keep being generated for. The third option lets you type in a date when these recurring meetings will end. 8. TABBING to the next two editfields will reveal a default figure of 10 and a future date in them which you should leave as it is for open-ended, ad infinitum meetings, as these details will be ignored if you have chosen "NO end Date" in the last step. You should only over-type them if you want to specify a given number of meetings or an end date for meetings. Do not leave these fields blank or your meeting save command will fail. 9. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 10. If you have not entered information or made selections correctly, you will be told this and have to start again or make amendments. When you have finished, you will be able to go into mouse mode and view on the screen some information, such as that you have not yet sent invitations for this meeting, the addresses where the meeting requests will be going to (and if there is a clash of appointment dates/times with any of the recipients you will be told this) and you will also be able to view a verification line saying something like: "Recurrence: Occurs every Friday effective 18/04/03 until 10/07/02 from 1300 to 1400". 5.9.2. Monthly Recurrence Example 1. After creating your appointment, meeting request or event but before saving/sending it, you should press the shortcut of CONTROL G to activate a "Recurrence" button. 2. In the dialogue box which now opens up, your meeting, etc, start and end times will be already entered as those which you chose when you created your appointment, meeting request or event but you can now modify these if you wish for future recurrences 3. TAB forward to "Recurrence Pattern" and you can now ARROW up and down selections of "Daily", "Weekly", "Monthly" and "Yearly". For this example, leave it on "Monthly". 4. TAB once more and you can now ARROW between a "Day" option to repeat the appointment or meeting request on a given day of each month, at a specified monthly interval, e.g. the first Monday in each month, or you can ARROW up once to a "The" option to select to have the meeting on a particular week, on a specific day of the week, at a specified monthly interval, e.g. the second Monday, every three months. Leave it on the first choice of "Day" for a specific day in each and every month for this example. 5. TAB on once more and BACKSPACE the figure in here out, as we are not creating a monthly meeting arrangement for a given date in each month but rather a particular day of the month--Thursday. 6. TAB twice now to a list of "First", "Second", "Third" and "Last" and ARROW up to "First", so that the recurrence reminder will be for the first Thursday in the first week in every month. 7. Another press of the TAB key takes you to a list of the seven days of the week, so ARROW to Thursday. 8. TAB once again to an editfield which will have the figure 1 in it. This signifies that the recurrence will be for recurring meetings to be in every month. If you type 3 in instead, they will be for the first Thursday in every third month, etc. 9. TAB once again to an editfield where you are required to BACKSPACE out the date in there and then type in the date when you would want these recurring reminders for your monthly meetings to start, e.g. 1/5/03, for the first Thursday in May. Note: The editfields and lists which appear between the daily/weekly/monthly/yearly list in step 3 and the no end date step which comes next can be somewhat confusing as the first two of them are pertinent to the "Day" selection and the next three of them belong to the "The" selection. You need only use the first two of these options when setting things up for recurrences on a particular day or date each month but if you want to refine things further, you would also use the next three options as well, when the "Day" selection automatically changes to the "The" selection. The best thing to do to get an appreciation of what is going on and what you can do in these fields and lists is to set up some fictitious recurrences and view what you have achieved in your task List where your occurrence meeting requests, tasks, etc, will be listed and the days/dates/frequencies, etc, you have set them up for will be readable to check/verify your results. 10. TAB once and leave focus on "No end Date," which is the first of three choices. 11. TAB once and, since these meetings are open-ended, BACKSPACE the figure of 10 out, which would only be needed if we did want these meetings to end after 10 of them had taken place. In fact, I have found that you are much less likely to get an error message if you do not leave this field blank, so type a number in which takes you much further in the future than you would ever need to go, such as 100 (for 100 months of recurrences), so that you are effectively making the recurrent meetings open-ended. 12. Lastly, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. 13. If you have not entered information or made selections correctly, you will be told this and have to start again or make amendments. When you have finished, you will be able to go into mouse mode and view on the screen some information, such as that you have not yet sent invitations for this meeting, the addresses where the meeting requests will be going to (and if there is a clash of appointment dates/times with any of the recipients you will be told this) and you will also be able to view a verification line saying something like: "Recurrence: Occurs the first Thursday of every 1 month effective 01/05/03 from 1300 to 1400". Note: I have not included a daily or yearly example, as the above two should provide enough experience for you to achieve daily and yearly recurrences, as daily ones follow a very similar pattern to weekly recurrences and yearly recurrences are created in a very similar way to monthly ones. 5.9.3. Viewing and Changing the Frequency of Your Recurring Appointments, Meeting Requests and Events 5.9.3.1. Viewing You will, of course, if you have checked the "Reminder" checkbox when creating your items, get a reminder about appointments, meetings, etc, before they are due to take place. However, if at any time you want to view your recurring items list, just press ALT V (for View), then V (for Current View) and ARROW down to "Recurring Appointments" and press ENTER. Your daily, weekly, monthly, etc, recurring appointments will be displayed in that order down the screen and how many such appointments in each category will be given. You can go to the top of the screen and ARROW down them to view them and their Subject line, frequency of recurrence and start and end dates, etc. You can also press ENTER or left click on any of them to open up the notes editfield you made on them when you created the item and either just read this or edit it. Remember to use ALT V, V again and change the view back to your normal preferred Calendar view when finished with the recurrence view. 5.9.3.2. Changing or Removing the Frequency of Recurrence When you have one of your meeting requests, task requests, etc, open in this or any other view, you can simply press CONTROL G to open the recurrence dialogue and then amend any of the dates, frequencies, and so on, and then press ENTRE on "OK" and then ALT S to resave. You will be asked if you want to send copies of the changed item to meeting, task, etc, attendees. Press Y (for Yes) to send the update immediately or N (for No) to get the e-mail notices of change put into your Outbox for sending later. When you are in the recurrence dialogue, you will find that there is a "Remove Recurrence" button to delete the recurrence element of these meetings if they are no longer to be in a regularly recurring pattern. 5.9.4. Minimising Outlook in Order to Run Other programs and Still Receive Reminders You will, of course, only receive the required appointment, etc, reminder if MS Outlook is actually running at the time the reminder is due. If you spend all day with Outlook open and on screen, this will present no problem but if you only use Outlook at certain times during the day and are mostly using other programs, you will have to launch Outlook at the beginning of each day and then minimise it to an icon on your Desktop. In this way Outlook will be always running in the background whilst you are using another piece of software, such as MS Word or Excel, in the foreground. With Outlook running minimised, you will still receive a screen and audible reminder of any impending appointments and meetings. 5.9.4.1. Minimising Outlook Minimising a program to an icon on the Desktop is simple, just: 1. With Outlook running, press ALT SPACEBAR and then N or ARROW to "Minimise" in the list and press ENTER. 2. Outlook will now be minimised to a small, unobtrusive icon on screen but is still running. 3. Now you can just launch any other program you want and work in that program without Outlook interfering with what you are doing until it bursts into live with a reminder for you at the time you have specified that you want to receive the reminder. 5.9.4.2. Maximising Outlook again to Read the Reminders You Are Alerted To When you receive the standard Outlook reminder screen and audio sound to alert you to the fact that you have an appointment, meeting, etc, you will then have to rejuvenate Outlook to the forefront so that it has focus and is again maximised. Do this by: 1. After receiving the standard reminder prompt, press CONTROL ESCAPE, then press ESCAPE again and press TAB twice. 2. You will now be on the Task Bar and can ARROW right and left through several tabs, one of which will read something like "2 reminders". 3. Pressing ENTER on the above "2 Reminders" tab will open up the usual reminders dialogue box and you will be in the normal list of reminders with Outlook maximised. Read these in your screenreader's mouse mode and/or open one of them by TABBING to the "Open" button and pressing ENTER. 4. After dealing with your reminders, if you want to return to the program you were using before going to an maximising Outlook, just minimise Outlook again to keep it running in the background by pressing ALT SPACEBAR and N again. 5.10. Receiving and Reading the Contents of Meeting Requests If you are the recipient of a request to attend a meeting or event, you will receive this request into your computer's e-mail Inbox as normal or into your Inbox on your network server, with the sender's name and the subject line displayed. To view its contents, just ARROW to it in your Inbox and press ENTER on the e-mail to open it up. You will be in the notes for the meeting editfield to read through. you can then SHIFT TAB backwards through all of the meeting details, such as when the meeting will take place and if it is a recurring meeting day and time and the meeting location and subject. If your attendance at this meeting is required and not optional, your e-mail details will be displayed at the side of the "Required" field. The "From" field will have the sender's name in it. You will also be able to view other details by going into your screenreader's virtual cursor, JAWS or Mouse mode and moving down the screen. Other information you will e able to observe is such as If there are any instances of conflicts which this request has with other appointments already scheduled on your calender. 5.11. Accepting or Declining Meeting and Event Requests After reading a request as in the previous paragraph, you can either accept or decline it in addition to other possible options for dealing with it, depending on the nature of the request you have received. For example, to accept it, just press ALT C, to decline it press ALT D and to tentatively accept it press ALT N. You can also effect these commands and others via the Actions menu (ALT A). 5.12. Adding National Holiday Dates to Your Calendar and removing Them I personally would not do this because of the extra clutter it creates, but If you would like a list of UK, US or other country national holidays to always appear on the Calendar view in the Task Pad, you can by: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. In the "Preferences" property sheet, TAB to "Calendar Options" and press ENTER. 3. TAB to the "Add Holidays" button and press ENTER. 4. Now TAB to a list of countries and keep pressing the first letter of your country's name to jump to it. 5. Lastly, TAB to and press ENTER on three successive "OK" buttons. To remove the displaying of national holidays: 1. Press ALT V (for View), then V (for Current View) and ARROW to "Events" and press ENTER. 2. In the list of holidays you come into, ARROW to any you no longer want to have displayed and press the DELETE key to remove them. 5.13. Dealing with Your Appointments, Contacts and other Items by Category 5.13.1. Allocating Categories In creating the meeting requests, appointments, etc, in the above sub-sections and also when adding contacts to your contacts list, you have been introduced to and may have used the "Categories" dialogue several times. Categories is a way of creating sub- divisions to use in sorting and grouping items and contacts entries. After completing the Subject, Location, etc, details in a meeting request or whilst completing the details for a new contact to be entered into your contacts list or when amending the details you already have on an old contact, etc, to allocate a category name to an item: 1. Whilst in the specific folder you want the category to be applied to, e.g. your contacts list, your Calendar, etc, open one of the items, such as a contact's details or open an existing already arranged appointment or meeting request on your Task Pad and then Press ALT G to enter the "Categories" dialogue box. 2. ARROW up and down the list of pre-defined categories and leave focus on the description of the type of contact you are dealing with, e.g. business, competition, etc. If you want to place this person into more than one category, ARROW to each category description and press SPACEBAR on each. 3. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER and then press ALT S to save and close. 5.13.2. Creating New Category Definitions You can add your own custom categories to the categories list, for instance, to be able to sort and generate a list of potential customer contacts to then be able to deal with by priority in relation to the likelihood of obtaining a successful sale. Do this by: 1. Wen creating an item such as a meeting request, appointment or after opening an appointment or meeting or when you have a contact open from your contacts list, press ALT G to open the Categories dialogue. 2. TAB to and press ENTER on the "Master Category List" button. 3. Press ENTER on the "New Category" button and then in the editfield you come into type the description name for your new category, e.g. Hot Referrals, and then TAB to and press ENTER on the "Add" or "Add to List" button. Do this for each new category you wish to create within your current items folder, e.g. also for Warm Referrals and Cold Referrals. 4. when finished, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER and then ALT S to save and close. Every time you go into your Categories dialogue in future you will now find your additional category descriptions in the categories list available for you to select and have applied to your meeting requests, the contacts in your contacts list, and so forth. As already stated, you can also use these category labels to sort by and thereby generate a list of hot referrals to follow up, then a list of warm referrals after those and if you get really desperate for business, obtain a list of cold referrals to waste your time on following up. 5.13.3. Viewing Your Appointments, Contacts and Other Items by Category You can view items such as your appointments and contacts by category if you like by: 1. Press ALT V (for View), V (for Current View) and then ARROW to and press ENTER on By "Category". 2. You can then ARROW up and down the category descriptions, starting with "None" (for uncategorised entries), and open the list of any of them to view the individual item headings in those categorisations by right ARROWING to open the list of each up. 3. Press ENTER on any of these entries to view it. Remember to change the view back to your normal view after doing this. Note: Creating new categories and viewing them in Outlook XP can be a little confusing at first. You must remember that when creating a new category you must be in the specific folder you want it to apply to and when viewing the categories you must also be in the correct folder. In other words, creating a Hot Referrals new category when you have an appointment or meeting request open will not simultaneously create a Hot Referrals category in your contacts list. You would have to do this in both folder views to get such a category created in both. Similarly, when viewing by category, you will only see the categories which pertain to that particular folder view. To ensure that you know where you are when crating and viewing categories, keep using your screenreader's read Title Bar hot key, e.g. INSERT T with JAWS, CONTROL SHIFT T with Window-Eyes and NumPad 2 with HAL. 5.13. Publishing Your Free and Busy Time for others to View on the Microsoft Web Free/Busy Service and Viewing Others' Free/Busy Schedules If you are on a company intranet system or some form of networked server, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, your Calendar free and busy times can be viewed by your colleagues on the intranet or network server and you can also view their Calendar schedules, if given the permission to do so. You should contact your Systems Administrator for details of how to use any intranet or network server shared facilities in a company. As well as (or instead of using a local intranet or Exchange Server scheduler), you can publish your free and busy schedule on the Microsoft Free/Busy Website and give all other Free/Busy users the authority to view them or just certain other Free/Busy service users. They can do the same with their calendar schedules for you, if they have also registered with the service. In this way, if you send a meeting request to people on your company intranet or over exchange Server or who are registered with the Microsoft Free/Busy Service and you activate the "AutoPick Next" button in the meeting request invitation dialogue box you will be able to find out the next date and time all invitees will be free, so you will be able to view their calendar and free and busy details to know when all invites will be available to attend a meeting. To use the Free/Busy service, you should register with the Microsoft Net Services as outlined earlier in this section in the sub-section entitled "Registering with Microsoft Net Services". You should then set up how often you want your calendar free and busy information schedule to be uploaded to this Internet-based Free/Busy schedule publishing service. You do this by going to: Tools, Options, Calendar Options, Free/Busy Options When you get into this dialogue you can accept the default of publishing two months' calendar information on the service or change this and you can keep the default updating of this information every 15 minutes or overtype this with a new figure. You should check on the "Publish My Free/Busy Information" button and in the next editfield type in the name of the server where your Free/Busy information is stored. This should be viewable when you first go onto the server by going to your Internet browser's address bar. When you know the URL for Free/Busy information publishing, you can type this into the "Search in the URL" field so that this becomes the default URL for Free/Busy information to be uploaded to. You can also upload your free/busy information calendar schedule manually by going to the Tools menu, then Send/Receive and by pressing ENTER on "Free/Busy Information". Internet Explorer will launch and you will be taken online. If this is the first time you have tried to publish your free and busy information to the Microsoft server, you will have to register and set things up how you want them. Your Microsoft .Net Passport sign in details will be accepted for registering with the Free/Busy service. 1. When on the Free/Busy site, you will find a "Sign Up" button to activate by TABBING to it and pressing ENTER. 2. The welcome page will load in and you will be able to view several header links for viewing your authorised users (when you have said who these are to be) and to view free/busy times on the Web, etc. Near the bottom of the page is a "Continue" button to activate after you have read the introductory information. You will go onto and come off of several secure pages, so just keep pressing ENTER on the "OK" and "Yes" buttons as they come up. You will come onto the Terms of Use page so read these. After reading these terms, near the bottom again you will find a "Yes, I Agree" button to activate. There may be other "Yes, I Agree" and "Continue" buttons to accept other conditions as you go along. 3. You will have to authorise access to those people you want to be able to access your free and busy information and will be able to activate and select from your Outlook Address Book to do this. You can also invite non-members to join in a provided editfield for their e-mail addresses, which should have semi-colons placed between each of them as usual and you can even check a box to permit all Microsoft Free/Busy members to view your calendar schedule. 4. Their is a "Message to Non-Members" editfield for you to type some form of invitation text in here and this will automatically be e-mailed to all non-members you have invited so that they can also register and join the Free/Busy service if they wish to. After setting these things up, TAB to and press ENTER on "OK". 5. You will eventually come onto a page with dates which lets you view calendar-type free and busy information, etc. 6. After registering, you will receive an e-mail from the service welcoming you and giving you some basic user information, along the following lines: "To see free/busy times published to the service: "1. Create a meeting request in Outlook. "2. Add other members' names to the To: line and then click Schedule. "You can schedule meetings with non-members, too, but Outlook can't display their free/busy times until they join the service and authorise you to view the information." (Note: The Schedules button is near the top of the Outlook Calendar screen and has to be activated in mouse mode by left clicking on it or you may be able to activate it with ALT S.) 5.15.2. Publishing your Calendar on your Company Intranet or your Own Website You can make your Calendar available to others on your company intranet or on your own Website with your ISP. If you do not know the protocols and set-up details pertinent to your own ISP, you will have to contact their Technical Support Section for these, as they are different for each ISP and individual and not all ISPs can accept Calendar uploads. If you are on a company intranet system, your company Systems Administrator should be able to set you up on their system. For example, having got yourself set up with your ISP or intranet service: 1. With Calendar open, press ALT F (for File) and then G (for Save as Web Page). 2. You will come into the "Start Date" editfield and you can accept the Calendar start date already in there or overtype it with your start preference. 3. TAB once and accept or change the Calendar end date if you want the Calendar to go to a date earlier than or later than the date offered. 4. In the "Calendar Title" field type the name you would like attaching to your Calendar as a name for the Calendar, e.g. John Wilsons Calendar. 5. TAB to the "Filename" editfield and enter the location or URL path to where you are to save the calendar on your hard disk. 6. TAB to "Save" and press ENTER to finish. 7. You or anyone else with access to your computer could now view your calendar details in Internet Explorer in HTML format on your hard disk. 8. Alternatively, you could upload this snapshot of your Calendar to your Website as normal using whatever FTP upload program you usually use, e.g.FTP Explorer, Cute FTP, etc. 9. If you have uploaded these Calendar details to your Website, any sighted person could view them as normal in Internet Explorer. However, if you try to view such details of yours or anyone else's in this way, you will probably find that your screenreader is likely to decolumnise and render the details into a simpler and easier to sort out structure. This will mean that calendar dates, meeting dates, text notes, etc, will have become disassociated with oneanother and so this type of information may not be too easy to decipher. However, you can press ENTER on a number of links in the calendar to obtain more information, e.g. links to particular meeting or appointment attendance dates and times, links to notes to arranged meetings, etc. 5.16. Launching Outlook with the Calendar View Open If you would always prefer to start Outlook and come straight into Calendar instead of Outlook Today or Your e-mail Inbox: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options). 2. CONTROL TAB to the "Other" property sheet. 3. TAB to "Advanced Options" and press ENTRE. 4. In the "Start Up in this Folder" list, ARROW to "Calendar". 5. TAB to and press ENTER on two successive "OK" buttons to finish. Note: You can use this same procedure to make Outlook start up in such as the tasks list or in Journal as well. 5.17. a Word About Microsoft Netmeeting and Windows Media Services If you have the above software installed, you will be able to join a netmeeting or Windows Media Service broadcast. You could also join a Microsoft Exchange conference if you are on a system with Exchange Server installed. You can arrange to receive reminders of such online meetings and conferences in the normal way and you can opt to go online and have them commence automatically. As these things are outside of the scope of this tutorial, if you want to know more, please use the online help system, as the instructions in there are quite short and simple--you just need to be on the correct type of system or server. (To learn how to use the Outlook online help feature, see Section 10 below.) 5.18. Sharing Private or Public Folders Using Exchange Server For the below to work you must be on a networked system running such as Exchange Server. This, of course, means that you must also be working in corporate or workgroups mode in Outlook 2000. If someone in your company, for instance, has set up a private folder or your Administrator has set up a public folder on Exchange Server, you may be given permission to share some or all of the folders within these private or public folders, perhaps as a "Delegate" with authority to view and make changes on behalf of your boss. What you can view in or change within such folders depends on what level of permission you have been granted and can be anything from full access and amendment permissions, through viewing certain folders only, to no access permission at all. If you have permission to do so, you can open a private or public folder by: 1. Press ALT F (for File) and then O (for Open). 2. ARROW to "Other Users Folder" and press ENTER. Note that this will be grade out and not available if you are not running Exchange Server. 3. In the "Name" editfield, you should type the name of the person who gave you sharing or delegate access permission or select him/her from the list. 4. You will then be able to select the folder you need to open in a folders list. Note: If you are a "Delegate" to someone and so have permission to open and view their folders, mail, Calendar, etc, and to modify files and send e-mails on their behalf, the person to whom you are a delegate must have his/her mail delivered to a mailbox on the Exchange Server and not to a Personal Folders file or folder on their hard disk. You set up delegate access via Tools, Options and the "Delegates" property sheet, which will only exist if you are running Exchange Server. ******** >SECTION 6 USING THE TASKS FEATURE 6.1. What are Tasks? Tasks are personal or work-related errands which you want to monitor to their completion. You can designate one-off tasks or regularly recurring tasks. You can also assign tasks to others such as to your staff at work and obtain regular updates of progress. The recipient of the task request can accept or decline the task. If he-she accepts it, they become the owner of that task. If you are on Exchange Server, When the task is completed, Outlook automatically sends a status report to the person who originally assigned the task and to anyone else who has owned the task or requested a task report. If you assign a task to more than one person, you must split that task up into parts and create a task for each person and assign a part task to each of them separately for the reporting and monitoring features to work. 6.2. Pen-Picture of the Tasks Screen The tasks folder screen has the typical Outlook top few bars with the Title Bar, Menu Bar and Toolbars. It is the same down the very left-hand side of the screen as in other views, with the buttons for accessing the various elements of Outlook, e.g. buttons for Calendar, messages, tasks, etc. The main working area is on the right under the Menu Bar and Tool bars, running to the bottom of the screen. This working area is a type of grid composed of about 19 rows running from left to right and four columns running from top to bottom. It is completely empty until you create a new task. When you create a task, a dialogue box appears over the grid, which then disappears when you save your task, returning you to the grid. After you have created some tasks, the two grid columns on the left house checkboxes, the next column to the right contains the task subject line and the very right-hand column holds the date the task is due to be completed by. If you create sufficient tasks to fill each line of this grid, it will automatically scroll up the screen to permit more tasks to be entered and viewed. After some tasks have been created, you will find a line of information at the bottom of the screen advising you of whether a filter has been applied and of how many items there are in your tasks list. 6.3. Creating a New Task for Yourself To open the task feature and create a new task from scratch to assign for completion by yourself: 1. You do not need to be in the tasks folder to create a task but you may as well go their so that you can view your tasks as you create them. They appear in a tasks list which you can ARROW through and observe and open any of them from if you wish similar to the above-mentioned appointments and meeting requests task Pad. So press ALT V (for View), G (for Goto) and then T (for tasks) to open the tasks folder and list. 2. Open the create task dialogue by pressing ALT F (for File), W (for New) and then T (for Task) or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT K. 3. In the "Subject" line you will come into type a meaningful name or title for the task, e.g. Complete monthly Office Health and Safety Check. 4. TAB to "Due Date" and enter the future date you would like the task completing by, e.g. 27/4/03. 5. TAB to "Start Date" and type in the date for the task to start on, e.g. 27/4/03, if this is a one-day task. If it is to last more than one day, enter the earlier start date in here. 6. TAB once to a list of five possibilities and leave focus on "Not Started" for this new task. Note that the other options are "In Progress", "Completed", "Waiting on Someone Else" and "Deferred". This is one of the progress indicators which show when you send someone else a progress report. 7. Another press of the TAB key takes you to another list of three choices for prioritising this task in importance of "Low", "Normal" and "High", so ARROW to "High" for this task. You can later use this "High" priority designation to sort your tasks in order of importance. 8. TAB once to the "% Complete" spinbox and you will be on "Zero". Leave it there for this as yet unstarted task. Note that you can ARROW up in jumps of 25% for how far you have got through an already started task and you can type any intermediate figure in here as well, if appropriate, e.g. 10%. This would give an idea of how far you or someone else was through a more lengthy task, such as one which was expected to last a full week. 9. TAB to the standard "Reminder" checkbox and press SPACEBAR to check this on if you would like a reminder sound to be played at a specific time before the task should be completed to remind you to check on its progress/completion. Note that if you have enabled the "Reminder" option in any earlier Appointments, meeting requests or tasks, this feature will remain on by default. 10. Either: A. In Outlook XP, the next two editfields you TAB to contain a reminder date and then a reminder time. If the figures in there are not suitable, overtype them with a new day and/or time for you to receive the reminder from Outlook. The default is likely to be to be reminded on the due date at0800 hours but you can ARROW up or down in here to change this in half hourly jumps and even type a more accurate time in if you like. B. In Outlook 2000, you are likely to have to find the date and time button in mouse mode and press your screenreader's left mouse click key to open up these to date and time fields if you need to change their contents. You can then TAB to them and deal with them as in A above. 11. Now TAB once or twice to the last editfield, which is "Task Notes", (although not all screenreaders will do any more than alert you to the fact that you have entered an editfield) and type some relevant notes in here, e.g. "It's time for the monthly health and safety checks around the office again. The Health and Safety Executive will be calling to examine things on the last day of the month. Remember that you can use the spell-checker in this editfield by pressing F7. 12. If you would like to categories this task for ease of sorting and viewing at a later date, do so as usual by pressing ALT G and ARROWING down to the categorisation of your choice, e.g. "Miscellaneous". 13. If you do not wish to make this a recurring task, just finish by pressing ALT S to save and close. 14. On the other hand, if you always do this monthly task on this same date each month, you may wish to make it a recurring task so that you are automatically reminded about it each month. If so, do this before saving and closing by pressing CONTROL G, then in the four option list you come into ARROW down to "Monthly" and go through the editfields and choices as normal for recurring items until you reach the "OK" button to press ENTER on (to see more about the recurrence dialogue and its use, see the above sub-section entitled "Specifying Recurring Appointments, tasks, Meetings and Events"). 6.4. Creating a New Task and Assigning it to Someone Else To assign a task to someone else so that they become the owner of the task to its completion: 1. Press CONTROL SHIFT U to open the task request dialogue. 2. You will land on a "To" editfield and you can now type the e- mail address in for the person you are sending the task request to. Alternatively, you can SHIFT TAB back once, press ENTER on a "To" button and Your Address Book/contacts list will open and you can either type in the textbox you are in the name of a person in the Address Book you want to assign this task to or you can TAB to a list of your Address Book contacts and ARROW to him/her. 3. If you want to assign the task to someone not already in your contacts list, but you would also simultaneously like to add him/her to your contacts list, TAB to "New" and press ENTER and complete the new contact's details in the normal way. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 4. You will return to the first dialogue you were in and can now TAB to the "Subject" editfield to type in an appropriate and meaningful subject line or title for the task you are allocating to this person, e.g. Collate and Supply the Quarterly Performance Stats. 5. TAB to "Due Date" and enter the future date you would like the task completing by, e.g. 29/4/03. 6. TAB to "Start Date" and type in the date for the task to start on, e.g. 28/4/03, for a two-day task. 7. If you want to be kept up to date with the progress of the task, ensure that "Keep an Updated Copy of this task on My task List" is checked on. If you are on Exchange Server, your copy will simultaneously be updated when the assignee's/owner's copy is updated. 8. TAB to and ensure that "Send Me a Status Report When this task is Complete" is checked on. 9. TAB to a "Tasks Notes" editfield and type any notes you wish to provide the assignee with for guidance, etc. 10. If you would like to categories this task for ease of sorting and viewing at a later date, do so as usual by pressing ALT G and ARROWING to the categorisation of your choice, e.g. "Status" or "Miscellaneous" or create a new category called "Stats" if you like. 11. If you do not wish to make this a recurring task, just finish by pressing ALT S to save and close. 12. On the other hand, if you always assign this monthly task on this same date every three months, you may wish to make it a recurring task so that you are automatically reminded about it each quarter. If so, do this before saving and closing by pressing CONTROL G, then in the four option list you come into ARROW down to "Monthly" and go through the editfields and choices as normal for recurring items until you reach the "OK" button to press ENTER on (to see more about the recurrence dialogue and its use, see the above sub-section entitled "Specifying Recurring Appointments, tasks, Meetings and Events"). 6.5. Assigning an Existing Task to Someone Else To pass an existing task in your tasks list onto someone else: 1. Go to the tasks list with CONTROL Y then t and ENTER and then open the task you wish to re-assign to someone else. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then N (for Assign Task). 3. Complete the new owner's e-mail address in the "To" editfield and note that the Subject line of the existing task will have been completed for you. 4. TAB through the other standard options in the task dialogue box, as already outlined above from step 5 in the last sub- section. 5. Save and close the task with ALT S and if it does not send straightaway and you would like it to, press CONTROL M to complete the sending. A copy of the task you have re-assigned will remain in your tasks list. Remember, at any time you can check the contents of your Outbox directly from any other element of Outlook by pressing the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT O. If you do this after saving the above re-assigned task but before sending it, you will observe it there waiting to be sent. 6.6. Reading and Accepting or Declining a Received Assigned Task To use the in-built Accept or decline facility, you will have to be running and working through Exchange Server. When you receive a task someone wants you to take ownership of: 1. It will be downloaded into your Inbox with your general e- mails, so open it as normal by pressing ENTER on it. 2. With the task open, you will be able to read it by ARROWING down the message and will encounter such information as the subject title, start and due dates, priority level, status, percent complete, total and actual work, who is the owner (your name or e-mail address should appear here) and, at the very bottom, the Task Notes to give you guidance or ask if you want the task, etc, depending on what notes the assigner provided. You may also be able to SHIFT TAB back through the message headers and discover who has sent it to you, etc, or you may have to view these details in your screenreader's mouse mode. 3. To either accept or decline the task: A. If you are running Exchange Server, press ALT A (for Actions) and then either ARROW to "Decline Task" or "Accept Task" and press ENTER. Alternatively, you can use the shortcuts of ALT C to activate an accept button and ALT D a decline button. You will be able to type a response to the acceptance or reason for declining the task before returning it. B. If you are not on a network server system, you can still reply but you must use the more traditional CONTROL R to do so and then type your acceptance or declination response/reason in to the editfield before returning the task. 5. Send the response by pressing ALT S or CONTROL M. 6.7. Re-Assigning a Declined Task to Someone Else and Assigning a Task Someone Has Given to You to Someone Else If you get a task returned to you because it has been declined and want to give it to another person or you want to forward a task someone has given you to someone else to make them the owner of the task, you can do this by sending it to another person as follows: 1. In your tasks list, press ENTER on the declined or other task to open it. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then ARROW down to "Assign Task" and press ENTER. 3. In the "To:" editfield you will now be in type the e-mail address (or name if they are in your contacts list) of the person you wish to re-assign the task to. 4. Press ALT S to send it, when it will be sent to the new assignee with all of the original details, dates for completion of the task, etc, unless you change any of these. 6.8. Re-Claiming Ownership of a Declined Task If you intend to take a declined task on yourself: 1. Open the returned message which contains the declined task. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then ARROW to "Return to Task List" and press ENTER. 6.9. Creating a copy of a Task and Changing the Position of a Task in the Task List In Outlook XP (this does not work in Outlook 2000), to move a task from its current position to the top of the task list: 1. ARROW to the task you wish to move. 2. Press CONTROL C to copy it to the Clipboard. 3. Then press CONTROL V to paste it back into the task list. It will reappear at the top of the list. 4. You now have two copies of the same task. If you do not want the first copy, ARROW back to the original task and press DELETE to remove it. You can remove any task by pressing DELETE on it in this way in both versions of Outlook. Note: An alternative method of copying items, including tasks, is to use the copy shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT Y. You can then copy the task or other item back into the same folder or into another folder. 6.10. Monitoring Task Progress and Billing Information 6.10.1. Amending status and Percentage progress for Your own Records To update the status and percentage completed of a task you are responsible for completing: 1. Open the task in question. 2. TAB to the "Status" list and then ARROW down to "Completed" if you have finished the task. The % Completed box below this will change to 100%. In this case, a completed report will automatically be created and sent to the assigner and any other persons on the update list. 3. If you are part way through a task, leave the "Status" list on "In Progress" and in the "% Complete" box ARROW up to 25%, 50%, etc, or type in the exact percentage if you like, e.g. 10. 4. Save and close by pressing ALT S. 6.10.2. Notifying the Task Assigner and others of the Progress of the Task If you wish to send a report of the new status and percentage completed of a task to the assigner and any other registered interested persons: 1. Open the task and make the necessary updating status and percentage details as outlined in the above sub-section and save and close it. 2. Re-open the task in question. 3. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then E (for Send Status Report"). 4. In the "To:" editfield enter the names or e-mail addresses separated by semi-colons of the people you wish to receive a status report and do the same in the "CC:" and "BCC:" editfields if appropriate. 5. TAB to the notes editfield and type in any relevant accompanying information for the assigner and others to view. 6. Press ALT S to save and close and if the task is not sent immediately press CONTROL M to send it. If the task was assigned to you, it will be send to all persons in the To, CC, and BCC fields and all persons on what is known as the update list will also receive a copy, i.e. those who originally sent the task to you, plus everyone who received the task request, re-assigned the task to someone else or chose to keep an updated copy of the task in their task list. Note 1: If you are on a network with Exchange Server, you will be kept up to date with the progress of tasks you have assigned to others automatically and of when they are completed, as these options are checked on by default in Tools, Options, Task Options. Note 2: If you want to send a task to someone else to monitor its progress, e.g. whilst you are on holiday, open the task and then preSS CONTROL F (for Forward), complete the "To:" editfield with the name or e-mail address of the recipient and type a few notes into the notes editfield and then send it as usual. 6.10.3. Viewing Only Tasks you Have Assigned to Others or Completed Tasks To do this: 1. With your tasks list open, press ALT V (for View) and then V (for Current View). 2. ARROW down to either "Assignment" or "Completed Tasks" and press ENTER. Note that there are many other views you could have chosen as well in here, e.g. overdue tasks, by category, etc. 3. Now ARROW up and down the reduced tasks list to view only those tasks in the specified categories. Remember to go back into View, Current View and change the view back to everything by selecting such as "Simple List" or "Active Tasks". 6.10.4. Recording the Hours Taken to Accomplish a Task and billing details If you wish to record actual or estimated time for a task and any relevant billing details for the task: 1. Open the task in question. 2. Ensure that the window is Maximised (ALT SPACEBAR X) and then in mouse mode, go to the top of the screen and then come down until a "Details" button is spoken. Ensure that you are on top of it and then press your screenreader's left mouse click simulation hot key, e.g. Numpad slash. 3. In the dialogue which will open, TAB to the "Total Work" editfield and type in the estimated number of hours this task is expected to take, e.g. 10, for 10 hours. Note that this figure will be converted by Outlook to whole and fractions of days, e.g. 10 hours will become 1.25 days, based on an 8-hour working day. 4. TAB to "Actual Hours" and type in the number of hours this particular task took to complete, e.g. 8. 5. If this is all you need to record, press ALT S to save and close. You do not have to provide the above two pieces of information before recording the next few details of mileage and billing information but you can if it is appropriate. 6. Now TAB to "Mileage" and if it is appropriate to record this, type the number of miles you travelled to complete this task in here, e.g. 25. 7. If you have billing details to record, TAB to "Billing Information" and type the relevant details in to this editfield, e.g. "Took eight hours to complete this task at œ20 per hour - œ160. Account to be billed: JST001." 8. TAB to "Companies" and, if appropriate, type in the name of the company you carried out the task for. 9. TAB to the "Update List" where you can view the people who will receive any updated information about this task when you do an update, i.e. the person who gave you the task, any previous task owners, etc. 9. TAB to "Date Completed" and type this in, e.g. 30/4/03. 10. Press ALT S to save and close. 6.10.5. Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact To record this type of information you have to use a combination of your contacts list and the Journal feature: 1. Open the contact details for the person or company involved from your contacts list (CONTROL Y and then press C twice and ENTER). 2. ARROW to the relevant contact and press ENTER to open that contact's details sheet up. 3. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then J (for New Journal Entry for Contact). The Journal records and times your actions. 4. You will fall into an editfield you can type notes details in if you wish. 5. If you now SHIFT TAB back through several fields, you can get to a list which lets you choose the type of action you were (or are about to be) involved in and you are likely to be on "Phone Call" by default. You can ARROW up and down to the appropriate type of action you wish to record the time taken on if it is not a phone call you wish to record, e.g. making a note, carrying out a task, etc. Now TAB forward and type in more relevant details, such as the start date and time the phone call, task, meeting, etc, took place on. 6. TABBING to the "Duration" field tells you how long in minutes you have spent on your current action, be it a phone call, writing a letter for a client, completing a task, etc. It will be on zero and you can just type in the time taken if you simply wish to record this after the fact or you can have the Outlook Journal physically run a timer on you as you carry out an action. 7. For example: A. Just type 10 minutes into the "Duration" field if you have already taken that amount of time to complete a job and then save and close with ALT S. or B. TAB to the "Start Timer" button and press ENTER to time yourself whilst physically making a phone call or doing another job. This button will then change to a "Pause timer" button to press ENTER on to pause the timing for any interruptions before recommencing the timing. The "Duration" field will notch off the minutes you are taking on the job. or C. If you have already spent some time on a job and then want to continue with it from a given time point, you can type, say, 10 into the "Duration" field and then press the "Start Timer" button to continue recording the time taken in minutes from that point onwards. 8. To save and close, press ALT S. 6.11. Skipping an Occurrence of a Recurring Task If you wish to cancel a particular task recurrence, e.g. miss out the next monthly occurrence of a stock-check, you should: 1. Open the relevant recurring task from the task list. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then K (for Skip Occurrence). 3. Send the notice of the skipped task occurrence when asked to do so. ******** >SECTION 7 THE OUTLOOK JOURNAL 7.1. What is the Journal? The Journal is essentially a recording device. It can automatically record actions which you carry out relating to the contacts which you choose and places the actions in a "Timeline View", e.g. recording the number of hours spent on e-mail for a given client or on meetings with a particular account holder. You can also keep a record of many interactions you wish to record which are not located on your computer quite separately from items such as e-mails, meetings, tasks, etc. For instance, recording the time taken to make a phone call or create a handwritten letter you sent to someone or the time taken to deal with a letter received from someone. The Journal can also be set to record when you last used a document or file in MS Word, MS Excel,MS Power Point and MS Access, and enable you to record how long you spent using them and to be able to find them by the dates they were created or last modified. Journal entries can be recorded into logical groups for ease of information location, in such as e-mail, meeting and phone call groups. You can also use a Journal entry as a shortcut to go straight to the Outlook item or the file which the Journal entry refers to. 7.2. Pen-Picture of the Journal Screen The Journal screen has the typical Outlook top few bars with the Title Bar, Menu Bar and Toolbars. It is the same as usual down the very left-hand side of the screen with the buttons for accessing the various elements of Outlook, e.g. the Calendar, Messages, tasks, etc. The main portion of the screen from the Menu Bar and Toolbars at the top is taken up by a graduated scale at the top of the work space window with dates running from a given date at the left to a date seven days later at the right (in weekly view), e.g. 25 March 2003 to 1 April 2003. Within that weeks spectrum the current date will be highlighted. Running from top to bottom of the working area on the right you get a series of horizontal bars and this horizontal list increases with others being added to the bottom of it as you create each Journal entry. For example, the first bar is headed "Entry Type: Email Message", the bar below this is headed "Entry Type: Microsoft Excel" and the third one is "Entry Type: Microsoft Word". After you create a new journal entry a fourth bar will appear under the three already mentioned, e.g. entitled "Entry Type: Phone Call", if you are making a telephone journal entry. These bar entries will scroll up the screen as the working area becomes full. After some Journal entries have been created, you will find a line of information at the bottom of the screen advising you of whether a filter has been applied and of how many items there are in your tasks list. 7.3. Opening the Journal List and Customising its View You can get to the Journal in the traditional way by pressing CONTROL Y then J and ENTER. When you first go to Journal, you may receive a message asking you if you want to turn the Journal on as well as be able to use the "Activities" button for recording on the Toolbar. If you get this, TAB to "Do not Show Me this Again", check it on with the SPACEBAR and then TAB to "Yes" and press ENTER. You should now experiment with the various views available to see which suits you and your screenreader best but you are likely to find that the "Entry List" view is best. Select this by pressing ALT V (for View), V (for Current View) and then by ARROWING to it and pressing ENTER. 7.4. Manually Recording Items and Files in Journal To manually record time taken details to carry out a particular action: 1. Press ALT F (for File), W (for New) and then J (for Journal Entry) or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT J). 2. You will come into the standard type of dialogue on the "Subject" line, so type in a meaningful description for the purpose of the journal record, e.g. "Phone call to William's & CO." 3. TAB once to an "Entry Type" list and you are likely to be on "Phone Call". Leave it on this for this example but note that you can ARROW up and down many other action choices for journal recording. 4. TAB to "Company" and type in here the name of the company you are to phone and record the phone call time taken for, if appropriate. 5. TAB once to the date field which should be on the current date. This should be what you want, although if you have made a phone call which you should have recorded in journal on an earlier date but failed to do so, you could enter the earlier date in here and then TAB to the "Duration" editfield and type in the correct number of minutes taken before saving the record. 6. TAB to a "Start Time" field and if you are to immediately make your phone call, enter this in here if it is not already displayed from the system clock; otherwise enter any other relevant start time. 7. TAB forward two or three more times and if you want to make some notes on this journal entry, type them into the notes editfield or use it to make notes of what transpired during the phone call or after the call if you wish. 8. As usual, if you SHIFT TAB backwards 10 times or so, there are "Private", "Categories" and "Contacts" buttons to activate and use in the normal way in this dialogue but there is no recurrence feature. Remember that ALT G opens the "Categories" sub-dialogue for you and ALT P checks the "Private" selection on. 9. Depending where you are in the dialogue box, either TAB or SHIFT TAB to the "Start Timer" button and press ENTER (or activate it with ALT M) and then commence your phone call whilst it is being timed. The Start Timer button will change to a "Pause Timer" button so that you can press ENTER on this at any time to pause the timer, e.g. perhaps to talk to a colleague about something not related to this client. Pressing ENTER on "Pause timer" will recommence the counting of minutes taken for the phone call. 10. If you SHIFT TAB once at this stage, you can view the amount of time in minutes which has already elapsed for this phone call. 11. To stop the timing and save the recorded information to a file, press ALT S. 12. The journal entry will now appear in your Journal entries list with a summary of the salient details, e.g. "Phone Call: Call to Williams & Co 29/4/03 5 Minutes". If you want to view more of the phone call details, just press ENTER on it in the Journal list and then TAB and ARROW around the entry details and editfields. If you did not start off from the Journal list, you can get there by pressing CONTROL Y then J and ENTRE. 7.5. Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact To record this type of information you have to use a combination of your contacts list and the Journal feature: 1. Open the contact details for the person or company involved from your contacts list (CONTROL Y and then press C) twice and ENTER. 2. ARROW to the relevant contact and press ENTER to open that contact's details sheet up. 3. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then J (for New Journal Entry for Contact). The Journal records and times your actions. 4. You will fall into an editfield you can type notes details in if you wish. 5. If you now SHIFT TAB back through several fields, you can get to a list which lets you choose the type of action you were involved in and you are likely to be on "Phone Call" by default. Now TAB forward and type in more relevant details, such as the start date and time, the duration you took on the phone call, task, meeting, etc (for more details about this dialogue, see "Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact" in Section 6 above. 6. To save and close, press ALT S. Note: If you wish to physically time yourself whilst actually doing the task, such as whilst on the phone to a given contact, there is a "Start Timer" button to press ENTER on. This button will then change to a "Pause timer" button to press ENTER on to pause the timing for any interruptions before recommencing the timing. 7.6. Viewing and Opening Your Journal Entries To see the Journal list and open any record to view its contents: 1. Go to the Journal list folder with CONTROL Y and then by pressing J and ENTER. 2. If you have chosen to view by "Entry List" or "Phone Call" you will now be able to ARROW up and down all of your entries or just your phone calls and see there subject lines. You can press ENTER on any of them and then read the notes if you made any. You can TAB or SHIFT TAB through the details and view the number of minutes taken for such as phone calls. 3. Close the dialogue by pressing the ESCAPE key. If you have made any changes to the information in the record, you will be prompted to save these or not by pressing Y or N respectively. 7.7. Viewing Journal Entries for a Contact You can also view journal and other entries by: 1. Open the contacts list with CONTROL Y and then press C until you get to contacts and then press ENTER. 2. ARROW to the contact concerned or TAB to and use the "Find" button to find him/her if you have too many contacts to ARROW through. Press ENTER to open the contact's details. 3. With the contact's details sheet open, in mouse mode, go to the top of the screen and then ARROW down until you hear an "Activities" button spoken, then left mouse click on it. 4. ARROW up and down in the "Show" list and leave focus on "Journal" and then TAB forward to a list of the journal entries for this contact. 5. You can observe basic journal details about the time taken for such as phone calls, meetings, etc, in this list and you can press ENTER on any entry to open it up for more detailed examination. 6. Close the record by pressing ESCAPE. 7.8. Changing the Font Type, Size and General Appearance of the Journal Information Bars The Journal information bars (known as timelines) which run from left to right in the main area of the screen and are about 19 levels deep can have their appearance altered. This may suit some users who have sufficient sight to benefit from different grid line types and colours, different fonts and font sizes, etc. You can make such changes by: 1. Go into the Journal list with CONTROL Y and then J and ENTER. 2. Press ALT V, V and then ARROW up to "Customise Current View" and press ENTER. 3. TAB to "Other settings" and press ENTER. 4. Note that you can make many changes in here by going into more sub-dialogues and also by ARROWING down lists for such as "Column Headings: Font", "Rows: Font", "Grid Line Style", "Grid Line Colour", etc. 5. After making any changes which might suit you, keep TABBING to and pressing ENTER on "OK" buttons until you come out of all of the dialogues. 7.9. Deleting Journal Entries To delete a Journal entry, simply ARROW to it in the Journal bar grid and then either press the DELETE key or CONTROL DELETE. 7.10. Automatically Recording Items and Files in Journal As an alternative to manually recording in Journal, you can elect to have it automatically record items. To select the items and contacts you want to have automatic recording of in Journal: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options. 2. Now SHIFT TAB back to "Journal Options and press ENTER. 3. In the list of items you come into, e.g. E-mail Message, Meeting Request, etc, ARROW to and leave focus on any item you want to have included in the automatic recording. 4. TAB once to the contacts list and select any contacts you want to have the automatic recording carried out on. 5. TAB again and select from the four choices which other Microsoft programs you would also like journal recordings to take place on, e.g. use of Access, Powerpoint, Excel or Word. 6. TAB to two successive "OK" buttons and press ENTER on them. Note: If you want to quickly open MS Word, Excel or Powerpoint whilst Outlook is running to create a document, etc, in one of those programs, you can do this at any time by pressing the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT H. ******** >SECTION 8 THE OUTLOOK NOTES FEATURE 8.1. What are Outlook Notes Outlook notes are simply a quick and convenient way of jotting down notes as reminders for yourself just like you would jot notes down on a paper scrap pad. For example, you could use Notes to jot down directions to somewhere or to hold text to be re-used in other documents. 8.2. Pen-Picture of the Notes Screen The notes screen has the typical Outlook top few bars with the Title Bar, Menu Bar and Toolbars. It is the same down the very left-hand side of the screen as in all other views, with the buttons for accessing the various elements of Outlook, e.g. the Calendar, Messages, tasks, etc, buttons, but there is no Status Bar at the bottom of the screen. The main working area is on the right under the Menu Bar and Tool bars, running to the bottom of the screen. Before any notes entries are made, you basically have a blank screen here but as soon as you create a note it appears in a small box at the top left of the blank screen working area. When you create a later note, it will also appear on screen in the place where the first note had been but the first note will now have moved one place to the right, so that both notes are now visible. Once you can get no more notes on the first line, they will start to move down the screen in a row by row fashion, similar to how you automatically move down a line in a spreadsheet when you have reached the last cell on the right. 8.3. How to Create a Note 1. From anywhere in Outlook, you can create a note by pressing ALT F (For File), W (for New) and then N (for Note) or just press the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT N. Remember to use INSERT B first if you are using Window-Eyes. 2. You will come into a standard editing field like typing into a text editor or word-processor editing screen, so just type your note to yourself as normal, e.g.: "To get to the training centre, go down Park Place to the second road on the left and it's the first door you come to after crossing the side street." You can move around in this editfield as normal with Windows programs and you can cut, copy and paste from and to this editfield via the Windows Clipboard as well. However, oddly to my mind, pressing F7 does not invoke the MS Word spell-checker in the way that you might expect. 3. After typing your note, you close the notes box and save the note by pressing the ESCAPE key. You do not need to give the note a filename. 8.4. Accessing and Reading Notes To get into your notes list and view any of them: 1. Press CONTROL Y to open the Personal Folders list. 2. ARROW to or press N (for notes) to get to the notes sub-folder and then open it by pressing ENTER. 3. Your most recently created note will open and your screenreder should automatically read it out to you. Pressing your right ARROW key will move to your second most recent note and read it out to you, etc. 4. If you want to open the note editfield for reading with the up and down ARROW keys and to make any amendments to the notes, just press ENTER when the relevant note has focus. 5. To close the note, wether or not you have amended it, press the ESCAPE key.Any amendments will be saved and you will come back into the notes list to left and right ARROW through any other notes you may wish to view. 8.5. Customising Font type, size and colour of Notes You can change the way a note appears by: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and then O (for Options. 2. SHIFT TAB to "Note Options" and press ENTER. 3. You will land in the colour of text list on "Yellow". If this colour does not suit you, ARROW up and down to one of the other options of: blue, pink, green or white. 4. TAB once and the default notes box size is medium. You can ARROW to and change this to small or large. Large may be your preference if you can see these notes on screen and want to have the notes textbox large also. 5. TAB to "Font" and press ENTER and in here you can choose the style of font you prefer from around 50 different fonts, to such as Ariel, and you cam change the font size from the default of 10 point to whatever you can see, e.g. 16 point, up to 72 point (which equals 1 inch or 2.5 cm). Note that the larger you make the notes text, the less you will get on each line in the notes editing field, so those who cannot make use of the text visually may, in fact, wish to take the converse line to making the text large by ARROWING up to the smallest size available of 8 point so that they can fit more text onto every line of their note for more fluent feedback when ARROWING through each note. 6. TAB to two successive "OK" buttons and press ENTER to finish. ******** >SECTION 9 THE CONTACTS LIST 9.1. Purpose of the Contacts List The contacts folder is your e-mail Address Book and information storage for the people and businesses with which you need to communicate. The contacts folder is where you store such contact details as several e-mail addresses for a person or company, their street address and/or business address, home and work phone numbers, etc, plus any other important information for that contact, e.g. their Website URL or a birthday date. After opening up a contact's file from your contacts list, you can use buttons or the Actions menu to effect certain features and actions, such as the automatic addressing of a meeting request, e-mail message or task address in respect of that particular contact. Via the contacts folder, using a MODEM, you can dial the voice phone number of contacts and you can also use the contacts folder to track your activities in respect of that contact. You can also file the details of your individual contacts under specific categories, such as plumber, stationery, etc, to assist in searching and quickly finding given groups of contacts. In fact, you can use the contacts folder list, buttons and menus to achieve exactly the same types of things which you have been practising in many of the foregoing sections, plus other specifically contacts-related actions. For this reason, in several of the below sub-headings, I have simply referred you back to an earlier sub-section to learn how to carry out some of the actions available from the contacts list. 9.2. Pen-Picture of the Contacts Screen The contacts screen has the typical Outlook top few bars with the Title Bar, Menu Bar and Toolbars. It is the same down the very left-hand side of the screen as in other views, with the buttons for accessing the various elements of Outlook, e.g. the Calendar, Messages, tasks, etc, buttons, and there is a basic Status Bar at the bottom of the screen showing how many items there are in the contacts folder. The main working area is on the right under the Menu Bar and Tool bars, running to the bottom of the screen. When you have some contacts set up, if you select a contact, the details of that contact will be displayed in the right-hand working area or you can display several or all contacts. You get a column down the left of the working area with the contacts' names stacked one under the other running from top to bottom. On the very right side of the screen you have a bar running down the screen from top to bottom with letters of the alphabet showing from A down to Z and if you select one of these letters, e.g. the letter B, all of the contact names starting with the letter B will be visible, in order to narrow down the number of displayed contacts if you have hundreds of them. 9.3. Entering a New Contact into your Contacts List To enter a person or company into your contacts list and thereby create a new contact: 1. Press ALT F (for File), W (for New) and then ARROW to "New Contact" and press ENTER or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT C. 2. Type in the contact's name, e.g. John Black. 3. TAB to the "File As" editfield and note that Outlook will suggest a filing format for the name, e.g. "Black, John". This is probably the best filing format but if for any reason you want the contact to be filed as John Black or anything else you can remember better, e.g. Spare Parts Man, type it in here instead. 4. Either: A. In Outlook XP,TAB to the first of several "Phone Number Description" buttons and press ENTER on this. A long list of possible descriptions for a phone number will open in which you can ARROW up and down. Leave the focus on the appropriate description, e.g. "Business", "Home", etc, and then press ENTER or ESCAPE to leave this list. You will now be in or may have to TAB once to an editfield where your description will have been inserted and where you can now also type n the actual phone number, so type it in, e.g. your editfield would now look something like "Business 0113 2575957. If necessary, use the other phone number description and editfields in the same way. B. In Outlook 2000, TAB to a "Change Phone Type" button and press ENTER. You can now ARROW up and down descriptions for this phone number, such as "Business", "Home", Mobile", etc. You will now have moved to a "Phone 1" editfield, so type the main phone number in here and TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. You can do this to record up to four different phone numbers for a contact or his staff in the rest of the phone fields below this one. 5. TAB to the first "Address" button and press ENTRE on it to open up a sub-dialogue box. Complete the street number and street name line, TAB once and complete the City line, etc, and when finished press ENTER on "OK". With Outlook XP (but not Outlook 2000), you can enter up to three addresses under the titles of "Business", "Home" and "Other" by TABBING to the "Enter Multiple Address button and pressing ENTER, then SHIFT TABBING back to the first "Address" button and going through the already outlined completion procedure. If you have only entered one address the "This is the Mailing Address" checkbox will be checked on by default; if you have supplied more than one address and either the second or third address is to be designated as the mailing address, press SPACEBAR on the "This is the Mailing Address" button to select whichever address you just supplied as the mailing address. This is important if you are to use your Outlook contacts folder as the source for printing multiple mailing labels, mail merging, etc. 6. Either: A. In Outlook XP, TAB forward to an "Email Address" editfield, just after the "Enter Multiple Email Addresses" button, and type the contact's e-mail address in here, e.g. jwjw@onetel.com. This will be set up as the first e-mail address and is all that is necessary if this contact has only one e-mail address which you want to have access to. If you want to add a second or third e- mail address, you will have to press ENTER on the "Enter Multiple Email Addresses" button and then ARROW down to "Email2" and press ENTER. Then type in the second e-mail address, etc. B. In Outlook 2000, TAB to just past a "Change Email" button to an "Email" editfield and type the contact's main e-mail address in here. If this contact has several e-mail addresses you wish to record, SHIFT TAB back once and press ENTER on the "Change Email" button and ARROW to a second or third email address choice, press ENTER and then type in another e-mail address, and so on. 7. TAB through and complete, if appropriate, the "Web Page Address" and "IM Address" editfields. The IM Address is not available in Outlook 2000 and is the instant messaging address if this person uses such as the Microsoft Instant Messaging program. Note also that in Outlook 2000 but not XP, you can check on a "Send Using Plain Text" option, which is what is normally recommended when e-mailing visually impaired people. 8. Now TAB to a "Contact Notes" editfield and type in any relevant notes about this contact as reminders. Remember that you can press F7 to invoke the spell-checker in this editfield if you like and use it as normal. 9. As usual in Outlook forms, there is a "Private", "Categories" and "Contacts" button at the top of the form which you can SHIFT TAB back to or you can press ALT G to get to the "Categories list to select a filing and quick search and viewing category, such as Business, Competition, Hot Contacts", etc. These options are explained in detail in earlier sections. 10. Lastly, save and close by pressing ALT S. TIP: If you need to create another contact for a different person with the same company details, you can do this by placing focus on the existing company contact in the contacts list and then pressing ALT A (for Actions) and then C (for New Contact from same Company) and then by completing the fields which are left blank. 9.4. Record or View Extra Personal Details for a Contact In addition to the general details you would complete when creating a new contact in your contacts folder, such as mailing address, phone number, e-mail address, etc, you can bring up a "Details" dialogue and enter other personal details such as the department someone works in, their work assistant's name, their nickname, their birthday, their spouse's name, etc. You would do this by: 1. Go to your contacts folder list (CONTROL Y and then C) and open it. 2. ARROW to one of your contacts and press ENTER to open that contact's information file up. 3. Now, in navigation/JAWS/Mouse mode, go to the top of the screen and then ARROW down until you get to a line of buttons, one of which is labelled "Details" and left mouse click with your screenreader on it. You may have to route your cursor to do this and also move left or right on the buttons line to bring the "Details" button into focus. 4. The extra personal information dialogue which opens up is pretty self-explanatory until you get near the end of it, so Just TAB through the various fields and type in any personal information you know and want to record for this contact. 5. Things get a little more complex after you get to the "Spouse's Name". After this TAB once and in here you can type the date of an anniversary you want to remember, e.g. wedding day. Now TAB to the "Directory Server" editfield and, if this contact has one and you wish to use it, type in the address of the Netmeeting ILS server for this contact. Then TAB again and in the "Email Alias" field type in the contact's e-mail alias if they have one; it is often simply their e-mail address. Pressing TAB again puts you on the "Call Now" button and if you press ENTER on this you will be taken online to start an online meeting with this contact, if you are set up to do this and have the correct software installed and netmeeting details set up. Lastly, another press of the TAB key puts you on another "Address" editfield in which you can type in the URL, FTP or server pathname to your Internet Free/Busy file. 6. When finished, save the details and close this dialogue with ALT S. 9.5. Finding a Particular Contact or Group of Categorised Contacts in the Contacts Folder To search for and find a specific contact or group of contacts in a given category: 9.5.1. Finding a Single Contact If you have many contacts in your contacts folder and want to go straight to one of these or to narrow the search down to a limited few possible contacts, provided you know some basic information, such as one or both of the names of the contact, the company name involved, the address of the company or person, their phoned number, etc, you can use the Find feature to locate the contact, as follows: 1. With your contacts folder list open, press ALT T (for Tools) and then D (for Advanced Find) followed by pressing ENTER and the Find dialogue box will open up (or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT F). 2. The advanced find dialogue will open and the focus will fall on a "Search for the Word(s)" editfield to type the word, words or other text you are searching for. If you are searching for more than one consecutive word, you may get better results if you place the words in double quotation marks but this is not necessary for finding contacts by their names. For example, if you know that the contact's name is John Wilson, type the words as follows: John Wilson and press ENTER or ALT N. If more than one of your contacts is called John Wilson, you will be presented with a list of all the messages which have these words in them to ARROW up and down and press ENTER on to open them in turn. Pressing your screenreader's read Status Line hot key will tell you how many contacts have been found, e.g. NumPad 2 with HAL, CONTROL INSERT S with Window-Eyes and INSERT NumPad 3 with JAWS. 3. TAB once to "File As Field Only" (which is used for searching for contacts by their names) and ARROW down this list to view the other alternative criteria on which you can search, which are such as "Company Field Only", "Phone Number Fields Only", "Frequently-Used Text Fields", etc. If you know all or some of the company name or you can remember the phone number of the contact you are searching for, choose the "Company Field Only" option or the "Phone Number Fields Only" option, if you only know some of the contact's address ARROW down to "Address Fields Only" and for the most thorough search ARROW to the last choice but be aware that the more exhaustive the search the longer it will take. 4. You could simply press ALT n to start the search now but if you want to narrow it down further you could also employ the below refinements. 5. If you can remember the contact's e-mail address, you can TAB to the "Email" editfield and type this in before pressing ALT N. 6. There is also a "Time" list which you can ARROW down in from "None" to either "Created" or "Modified". You will therefore be looking for contacts created or modified (changed) in a particular time region. After ARROWING to "Created" or "Modified" TAB once to a now opened list which you can ARROW down to specify what time region you want the search to be carried out in, e.g. "Yesterday", "Today", "Last Week", etc. After ARROWING to your choices, press ALT N to start the search. Be aware that this type of search can be used not only to search for all newly created or modified contacts in the given time slot but you can also, for instance, greatly narrow down your search by searching for any newly created contacts with common names also created in the last seven days or last month, etc, by typing the contact's name in the "Search for the Word(s)" editfield before then using the "Time" feature. 7. In the main "Contacts" property sheet which we have been working in up to now you will find some other search refinement options and yet more of these options can be found in two other dialogue boxes in the advanced find dialogue by pressing CONTROL TAB to get to them. These other two dialogues are labelled "Categories" and "Define More Criteria". Of particular interest may be the "Categories" editfield in the "Categories" dialogue. CONTROL TAB to get there and then TAB to the "Categories editfield and type in here any of the many category names in the categories list which we have looked at many times in earlier sections, e.g. type in here such as "Business", "Competition", "Hot Contacts", etc. When you now press ALT N to start the find, you will now only obtain search results on any of your contacts who you previously allocated that particular categorisation to. To narrow things down even further, if you wanted a "Hot Contacts" categorisation for one of several contacts called John Smith, if you type John Smith into the "Search for the Word(s)" editfield and then CONTROL TABBED to "Categories" and typed Hot contacts into the categories editfield, then pressing ALT N would result in you only finding contacts called John Smith who have also been categorised as hot contacts. 8. If you want to view the many other options you have for searching, you should TAB forward in the "Contacts" property sheet which you always come into when you initiate a search to the "Contacts" property sheet heading/TAB (which appears just after the "Time" list) and then right ARROW to them. They are called "More Choices" and "Advanced". Just TAB down them to view their contents. Note: To be honest, these property sheet and dialogue boxes do not behave in the standard way that such Windows elements normally behave, as ARROWING right and left causes them to jump around in the sheets instead of just moving from sheet heading/tab to heading as should happen. 9. Whichever method of searching you use and however narrow you make the search, if such a contact exists in your contacts list, the contact(s) will be found for you to press ENTER on and open up for reading. If several items meet the search conditions, they will all be displayed in a list. Note: for more on using the Advanced Find feature, see "Finding an E-Mail Message" in Section 4. 9.5.2. Simple Contacts Search Feature in Outlook XP There is a quick and simple Fine feature as well in Outlook to find contacts via the senders first, second or both names in the contacts folder. Use this by pressing the F3 key and then typing the name in, TABBING to "Find Now" and pressing ENTER. You can now ARROW up and down the found contacts and press ENTER on any of them to open it. 9.6. Using a Contact to Create an E-Mail Message To open a blank e-mail message with the "To:" editfield automatically completed with the contact's e-mail address for you: 1. In the contacts folder list, ARROW to the contact in question. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then M (for New Message to Contact. 3. The "To:" field will have been completed for you and you will be on the "Subject" lien to type in the title for the e-mail message. 4. Then TAB to the message body and type this as normal. 5. After finishing the message, press ALT S to save and send it. If it does not go, use CONTROL M to get the message sent. 9.7. Using a Contact to Create a Meeting Request, a Journal Entry, a task request or a New Appointment To open a blank meeting request, appointment, Journal entry or task request with the "To:" editfield automatically completed with the contact's e-mail address for you: 1. In the contacts folder list, ARROW to the contact in question. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then ARROW down the menu and press ENTER on either "New Meeting Request to Contact", "New Appointment with Contact", "New Task for Contact" or "New Journal Entry for Contact" and press ENTER. 3. The "To:" field will have been completed for you with the contact's e-mail address and you will be on the "Subject" lien to type in the title for the e-mail message. In the case of a Journal entry, you will be in the Journal notes editfield. 4. Then TAB or SHIFT TAB through the other standard options and editfields and complete these as normal (see the corresponding sub-sections in the foregoing sections for a detailed explanation of how to do this). 5. After finishing the item, press ALT S to save and close the dialogue. Send it as normal with ALT S, F9 or CONTROL M. 9.8. Keeping Track of Files and Items Associated with or Linked to a Contact You can associate e-mail messages, appointments, tasks, documents and other items with or relate them to a contact. You can make these associations with current contacts or as you create new contacts by creating links between them. Any future actions taken with those linked items will be tracked and can then be viewed by using the "Activities" button when you have a given contact open. 9.8.1. Linking/Associating Items to a Contact To link your current contacts to items: 1. Open the contact you wish to link to one or more items, e.g. to e-mails, task requests, notes, etc. 2. Press A (for Actions), I (for Link) and then press ENTER on "Items". 3. In the next dialogue, in the list you are currently in, ARROW to the folder which contains the items you wish to associate with this contact, e.g. Inbox, notes, tasks, etc. 4. Next TAB once to the "Items" list and ARROW to the item you wish to have associated with this contact and in future automatically linked to the contact. 5. Now either TAB to the "OK" button and press ENTER if you have finished or TAB to the "Apply" button to apply that link and then do the same for any other folders and items you wish to link, using the "Apply" button on each link. After creating all of the associations/links, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. Note 1: You can also link a file to a contact by activating the "File" dialogue within Actions, Link. Just type the path and filename of the file you wish to associate or use the "Look In" button to browse to it. Note 2: There is a way to link new contacts to items as you create the item but this is much more troublesome from a keyboard point of view, so I recommend that you create your contact first and then link it afterwards as above. 9.8.2. Finding and Viewing Linked Items After linking items to contacts you can view them as follows: 1. Open the contact you wish to view the linked items for. 2. In mouse mode, go to the top of the screen and then come down a line or two to a line of buttons with a "Activities" button and press ENTER or left click on this. 3. The list you will be in will be on "Show All Items" which you can accept if you want to see all linked items to this contact; otherwise you can ARROW down to one of the other choices, such as Inbox, E-Mail, Journal, etc, or whatever you selected to have available when you linked this contact to various folders and items. 4. TAB once to a list of the items in the selected folder to view what is associated with and linked to this contact. In this way, you can easily find everything you want about what you have been doing with the contact in question and you can press ENTER on any of the items to open it up and examine its contents. 5. Close the links list by pressing ESCAPE. 9.9. Using Contacts to Dial a Phone Number for You If you cannot remember a contact's phone number or find this dialling feature more convenient than using your phone keypad, you can get Outlook to do the phone number dialling for you via a voice phone line, from the contact's phone number you entered in his/her contacts file. This should work OK for you without having to do any extra configuring as long as you are already set up to use your MODEM for dialling, which you should be. If this does not work for you due to not being set up correctly, you will need to look into the Outlook help system (in the Contacts topic) and in the MODEM topics in Microsoft Windows help for set up and configuration instructions, as these can vary from machine to machine and from one type of phone line to another. Additionally, you can dial people who are not in your contacts list by providing their names and phone numbers. Outlook will then remember these names and numbers and provide you with a list of them for future redialling purposes. These phone number-only names and numbers are not added to your contacts folder list. To use the contacts voice phone dialler: 1. From the contacts folder list, go to the contact you wish to call and press ENTER to open it. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions), A (for Call Contact) and then ARROW to whichever phone number you have listed for this contact you wish to use. You could have up to three or four listed, e.g. for business, home, mobile, etc, and press ENTER. 3. You can now simply press ENTER on the phone number and then TAB in the dialogue which opens up to the "Start Call" button and press ENTER to get your computer to dial the contact's phone number. You should be able to hear the MODEM dialling out. As soon s the dialling has completed, you then pick up your phone handset and wait for the contact to answer as normal. 4. If no one answers or the line is engaged, you can press ESCAPe or ENTER on an "End Call" button to disconnect. You may have to SHIFT TAB first before you can TAB to this End Call button. 7. If, before you press ENTER on the "Start Call" button, you press SPACEBAR on the "Create New Journal Entry When Starting New Call" checkbox, the Journal will record in the normal way the number of minutes taken on the call for such purposes as later billing of this client. The Journal recording timer will start automatically as soon as you start the call and when you end the call the Journal will also automatically stop recording. Whilst you are making the call, you will be in the Journal notes editing field so you can type notes in here as you make your call and you can SHIFT TAB backwards once to the "Pause Timer" button to pause recording at any time. After disconnecting from the phone line, you will have to press ALT S or ESCAPE to close the Journal and save it to your standard Journal list. 8. To view and check your country code and other phone details, have a look in the "Dialling Properties" dialogue and if you would like to set up speed dialling activate the "Dialling Options" dialogue. In this latter dialogue, you need only type the contact's name again to get the speed dialling phone number automatically entered for you, when you can then TAB to "Add" and press ENTER, followed by ENTER on "OK". 9.10. Phoning Someone not in Your Contacts List 1. Either press ALT A (for Actions), A (for Call Contact) and press ENTER on "New Call" or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT D to open the New Call dialogue. Remember that if you are using Window-Eyes you will have to use the INSERT B bypass hot key before pressing CONTROL SHIFT D. 2. Either: A. In the editfield you come into, if the contact does happen to be in your contacts list, type the contact's name and this contact's phone number will be found and placed in the next editfield below. or B. If the person you are calling is not in your contacts list, just type their name into the first editfield and then their phone number into the second field in the standard format. 3. You can simply now TAB to the "Start Call" button and press ENTER to get your computer to dial the contact's phone number but see the other options as outlined from step 3 in the previous sub-section. 9.11. Redialling a Contact or Non-Contact If you wish to redial someone who you have previously dialled either from your contacts list or by simply entering their name and phone number in the New Call dialogue: 1. Press ALT A (for Actions) and A (for Call Contact). 2. ARROW down to either "Redial" or "Speed Dial" and press ENTER. 3. All of your previously dialled names and numbers will become available to ARROW to and press ENTRE on to redial them including those you have dialled but which are not in your contacts list. Note: You can configure your calls to use a calling card via the Actions menu, Call Contact, New Call, Dialling Properties and the "Calling Card" sub-dialogue. 9.12. Connect to a Contact Using Netmeeting To be able to connect to a contact via Netmeeting, you will have to have had your Netmeeting settings set up correctly. Provided that they are: 1. in the contacts list open a contact. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then ARROW down to "Connect Using Netmeeting" and press ENTER. 3. You will be connected to that contact for a Netmeeting conference. 9.13. Flagging a Contact as a Reminder for later Action You can flag (mark) a contact in order to be reminded of later action which you wish to take in respect of that contact, e.g. to follow it up on a certain date and time by phone call, to send an e-mail, to arrange a meeting, etc. Some screenreaders can then announce, when you ARROW to a flagged contact, that it is flagged by saying such as "Flagged". Then, on the date and at the time you specify for the contact to have further action taken on it, Outlook will provide an automatic reminder, such as a musical note, to inform you that action on a contact is due. To flag a contact for follow-up action: 1. In your contacts list open the contact in question, then press ALT A (for Actions) and then U (for Follow UP) or use the shortcut of CONTROL SHIFT G. 2. You fall into a list of follow-up choices/reasons, such as to later call some one, send an e-mail or letter, etc, so leave focus on the appropriate option. 3. Either: A. In Outlook 2000, TAB once to a "Do By" editfield and type in both the date and time you wish to follow this up by in the following format: 20/5/03 14:30 Note that if you do not provide a time, Outlook will default to its standard end of the working day time of 1700. B. In Outlook XP, TAB once to "Do By" and type in the future date you want to effect the selected type of follow-up on, e.g. 7/4/03. Then TAB again and type in a time to do the follow-up by, e.g. 1300 hours. 4.TAB to "Completed" and note that this will not be checked as you have not yet dealt with the follow-up action. When you receive the follow-up reminder, you can TAB to this checkbox and you can press SPACEBAR to check this on and clear it so that no further reminders will be generated to you to say this follow-up action is outstanding. The flag marker will be removed from the contact's name. 5. TAB to and press ENTER on "OK" to complete the flagging. 9.14. Viewing Journal Entries for a contact You can view all Journal entries for a contact by: 1. Open the contact in question. 2. Press ENTER on the "Activities" button (for details about how to do this, see the earlier sub-section in this section entitled "Finding and Viewing Linked Items"). 9.15. Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact To use this feature, see the above sub-section in Section 7 entitled "Recording the Date and Time Taken Whilst Working with a Contact". 9.16. Using vCards with Contacts a vCard is the Internet standard for creating and sharing virtual business cards. You can save a contact's information as a vCard and send it to someone attached to an e-mail message. 9.16.1. Sending a vCard to a Contact To do this: 1. From the contacts folder, open the contact you want to send as a vCard. 2. Press ALT A (for Actions) and then V (for Forward as vCard) or you could use the basic "Forward" command. 3. The standard e-mail form will load in and you complete the "To:" and other editfield as normal. The vCard will be attached under the Subject line as usual. 4. Send the message and card by pressing ALT S or CONTROL M. 9.16.2. Saving an Attached Vcard to Your Contacts Folder List 1. Open the message e-mail with the attached card on it. 2. SHIFT TAB back to the vCard attachment which will have a .vcf extension and press ENTER to open it or use the "Save Attachments" option in the File menu. 3. TAB to a "Save" button and press ENTER. You may also have a second "Save" button to activate as well. 4. A new vCard file will be inserted into your contacts list with that contact's details. ******** >SECTION 10 THE MICROSOFT OUTLOOK HELP SYSTEM Tip You could simply listen to the help text you open up with the below procedures and try to remember it whilst practising what you learned. Alternatively, you could employ a dictaphone or tape recorder to record the help text and use this to take you through as you are learning a new topic. You can also print out a screen of help text. Use whatever method you find the most convenient or any other procedure which you might prefer. 10.1. The Outlook 2000 Contents, Index and Answer Wizard Help System 10.1.1. General Overview Outlook 2000 help has all of the elements of Outlook 97/98 help, if you are familiar with this, namely the Contents tab, the Index tab and similar context-sensitive help functions. However, it also has the "Answer Wizard". It is recommended that you turn the Office Assistant off and also do not try to access it via the help system. To turn the Office Assistant off: Press F1, then ALT O (for Options, followed by ALT U (for Use the Office Assistant) to check it off and then press ENTER. Then go into the Help menu with ALT H, ARROW down to "Hide the Office Assistant", if it is there, and press ENTER to turn it off in here as well. Outlook 2000 help is a little messier to use than that of its predecessor, as it has more steps to go through and presents its help screens in HTML formatting similar to the way a Web browser does. When you first start Outlook help by pressing ALT H and ENTER or F1, it usually opens with the "Ways to Get Assistance While You Work" page. To move to the Contents tab, press ALT C. to move to the Index tab, press ALT I. to move to the Answer Wizard, press ALT A. 10.1.2. Help Contents To get into the Outlook 2000 Contents hierarchy of help books/topics you either press F1 or ALT H and then press ENTER on "Microsoft Outlook Help". You navigate the books, sub-books and topics and read them in a normal tree and list view way by pressing your right ARROW key to open a topic with sub-topics in it and you ARROW to and press ENTER on a topic you wish to view (if your screenreader does not speak the topics as you ARROW through them, use its read current line hot key to hear them). You will then have to press F6 to move to the text in the help screen and your screenreader may automatically start reading it out or you may have to ARROW down the Text to hear it or use your screenreader's read to end command to get it red out. Pressing PAGE down reveals the next page of text if there is one. To return to the tree view where the help topics are listed, press F6 again and to close a list of sub-topics press left ARROW when at the top of the list. To go back one stage in the process (to the last HTML page of links, etc, you were on), press ALT left ARROW and to move forward to a previous page you have already been to use ALT right ARROw. Use ALT F4 to leave help. During your screenreader's reading of the page)s) of help text, you are likely to hear the word "link" spoken frequently. Whilst the word link may be on the screen from time to time, most of these "link" announcements will not be part of the help text but rather your screenreader alerting you to the fact that links or hyperlinks exist at several places embedded in the help text. This can be a little off-putting to listen to but you will have to try to filter these link reports out in your mind or turn off your screenreader's announce links feature, although if you do this you may then miss out on valuable follow-on linked information. TABBING or SHIFT TABBING to any of these embedded links and pressing ENTER on them will reveal more textual information specific to that part of the current topic. Note: Very occasionally, you may find that when you ARROW to a help topic, either in help Contents or in the Index or Wizard, instead of letting you open it up and view it by pressing F6 in the normal way, the help system attempts to take you online to the Microsoft help Knowledge Base or some other help topics resource via your Web browser. In these cases, you will only be able to access such help topics if you are prepared to go online, as the regular help files on your PC do not hold this topic of help. This could be because the amount of help is very large or because it is of a sensitive nature, such as with adult material topics. Either let it take you online by pressing ENTER or press ALT F4 to close things down and, if you still want to examine some help topics, reopen help. If you want to go to a topic just after the one which just tried to take you online, you will have to note where that topic is and ARROW past it very quickly because, if you pause on it, it will put you back in the go online or come out of help scenario again. 10.1.2. Help Index To use the Index feature of Outlook 2000 help, after launching help with ALT H, ENTER, you maximise the screen with ALT SPACEBAR AND X and then you press ALT I, then type the word(s) in to the editfield you want to have information found on, press ALT S (for Search) and then SHIFT TAB back once to the list of found topics, ARROW down them and press ENTRE on one of them to get the text displayed. However, before you obtain any help text, you may first get other pages with links on them of sub-topics, so ARROW or TAB through these and press ENTER on the one you want. You may now get more links or the text and, if it is not read out automatically, press F6 to start the reading or use your ARROW keys to cursor through the help information or use your screenreader's document continuous read feature. Press F6 to return to the tree view of topics and use ALT E to clear the editfield and type something else in to find. Press ALT F4 to leave help. 10.1.3. Help Answer Wizard To use the Answer Wizard you would press ALT A and then type a phrase in the "What Would You Like to Do" editfield which you would like information searching for, e.g. "use a filter", then press ALT S (for Search). Then SHIFT TAB backwards to a list of topics and use your ARROW keys to find what you want. In this case, you should find "About Filters" amongst a list of other filter-related topics, so leave focus on that line and press F6 to move to the text pane and read the information. Press F6 again to return to the search editfield if you want to type another search string in to be found and use ALT F4 to leave the wizard. 10.1.4. Help Options You can access an Options list of commands by pressing ALT O when Outlook 2000 help is activated, which allows you to ARROW up or down and press ENTER on several buttons, such as "Back", "Home" and "Print". "Print" obviously will send a copy of the help screen text to your printer, whereas "Home" takes you to a page giving general information about Windows help itself. If you activate the "Internet" button, you will fall in a property sheet which you can TAB down to "Fonts" and "Colours buttons, which you can use to change the default background and foreground colours of the help screens and the type and size of font used for those who can benefit from the use of a monitor. 10.1.5. Context-Sensitive Help Outlook has a context sensitive help feature. If you are on such as a menu option or an element in a dialogue box, you can press SHIFT F1 to get a screen of help about that option or element if one exists. Press ESCAPE to leave this help message and return to where you were. 10.1.6. Printing Out or Reading Help Information in a Word- Processor If you or your screenreader are not comfortable reading help information in this HTML environment, with the page of information opened up on screen, in the right-hand pane, you can always copy it to the Clipboard and then paste it into a standard MS Word document screen for reading as a normal Word page. You can also view it in Notepad or Wordpad in this way. For instance, with the information pane highlighted, press CONTROL A to highlight the whole page, then press CONTROL C, close Outlook help, and then paste the Clipboard contents into the Word document screen with CONTROL V. You could then save it to a filename of your own choice for later viewing if you want. Note: Some screenreader's I have tested with do not read the topic titles in Outlook help as you ARROW down them but if you use the read current line hot key you should obtain this information, e.g. INSERT NumPad 8 with JAWS. 10.2. The Outlook XP Contents, Index and Answer Wizard Help System 10.2.1. General Overview and Differences Between Outlook 2000 and Xp Help There is no significant difference in how Outlook Xp and Outlook 2000 work from a help point of view. They have the same HTML help pages and the same Contents, Index and Wizard features, so read the last sub-section and then come back to this one. When Outlook XP help first opens, you can now TAB between several buttons to take you quickly to certain information, such as "What's New", "Getting Help" and "Keyboard Shortcuts". However, you are likely to have to use your screenreader's mouse mode to be able to activate one of these by left clicking on it but some screenreaders will achieve this with just a press of the ENTER key. After pressing ALT H, then ENTER, when you first press ALT C to get into the Contents page, you will be on a "Microsoft Outlook Help" book and will have to press ENTER or right ARROW to open up the rest of the help books and topics. If your particular screenreader does not read the individual topic and sub-topic titles within the Contents book, you should use your screenreader's read current line feature to read the topic's title, e.g. INSERT NumPad 8 with JAWS. One thing to remember, though, when you have opened a page of textual information, is that if your screenreader is not reading the expandable links on Outlook XP help pages very well, you might get better results if you TAB to and then press ENTER on the "Show All" link which now appears at the top of most help information pages, when it will become a "Hide All" link. The text on some pages will only be readable if this Show All button is depressed and yet other pages will read better without this being activated, depending on the construction of the help page and the links on it. Otherwise, use Outlook Xp help as you would Outlook 2000 help explained in the last sub-section. You may also find that help works better if you have Internet Explorer 6 installed, rather than an earlier version. The same Index, Answer Wizard and context sensitive features are also included in Outlook XP as in Outlook 2000. ******** >APPENDIX 1 COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF OUTLOOK SHORTCUTS FOR ALL FEATURES (N.B.: Several of the below key combinations may clash with your screenreader's default hot keys unless you remap some of them. This will especially be so with Window-Eyes. Remember that your screenreader will have a bypass or allow next shortcut through hot key to alleviate this problem, e.g. INSERT B with Window- Eyes, left SHIFT Numpad / with HAL and INSERT 3 with jaws.) General: F1: To bring up the help system To turn the Office Assistant off: Press F1, then ALT O (for Options, followed by ALT U (for Use the Office Assistant) to check it off and then press ENTER. Then go into the Help menu with ALT H, ARROW down to "Hide the Office Assistant", if it is there, and press ENTER to turn it off in here. Shortcuts for basic navigation: Press To CONTROL COMMA: Next item (with item open) CONTROL PERIOD: Previous item (with item open) F6 or CONTROL SHIFT TAB: Switch between the Folder List and the main Outlook window CONTROL Y: Go to a different folder PLUS or MINUS SIGN on the numeric keypad: Expand/collapse a group (with a group selected) To create an item or file: CONTROL SHIFT A: Appointment CONTROL SHIFT C: Contact CONTROL SHIFT L: Distribution list CONTROL SHIFT E: Folder CONTROL SHIFT J: Journal entry CONTROL SHIFT Q: Meeting request CONTROL SHIFT M: Message CONTROL SHIFT N: Note CONTROL SHIFT H: new Office document CONTROL SHIFT S: Post in this folder CONTROL SHIFT K: Task CONTROL SHIFT U: Task request For all items: SHIFT F1: Display Screen Tip for the active element CONTROL S or SHIFT F12: Save ALT S: Save and Close, Send F12: Save As CONTROL Z or ALT BACKSPACE: Undo CONTROL D: Delete CONTROL P: Print CONTROL SHIFT Y: Copy item CONTROL SHIFT V: Move item ALT K (with Word as e-mail editor): Check names CONTROL K (using the Outlook e-mail editor): Check names F7: Check spelling CONTROL SHIFT G: Flag for follow-up CONTROL F: Forward CONTROL ENTER (Outlook e-mail editor only): Send/post/invite all F3 or CONTROL E: Find items F4: Search for text in items SHIFT F4: Find next during text search CONTROL SHIFT F: Use Advanced Find F2: Turn on editing in a field (except icon view) For e-mail: CONTROL SHIFT I: Switch to Inbox CONTROL SHIFT O: Switch to Outbox CONTROL TAB (with focus on the To line) and then TAB to the Accounts button: Choose the account from which to send a message CONTROL R: Reply to a message CONTROL SHIFT R: Reply all to a message CONTROL SHIFT S: Post to a folder CONTROL M, F5 or F9: Check for new mail CONTROL N: Open a received message CONTROL SHIFT B: Display the Address Book CONTROL SHIFT O: Convert an HTML or RTF message to plain text CONTROL Q: Mark as read For Calendar: ALT C: Accept ALT D: Decline For contacts: CONTROL SHIFT D: Dial F11: Enter a name in the Find a contact box For tasks: ALT C: Accept ALT D: Decline To format text: ALT O: Display the Format menu SHIFT F3: Switch case (with text selected) CONTROL B: Add bold CONTROL SHIFT L: Add bullets CONTROL I: Add italics CONTROL T: Increase indent CONTROL SHIFT T: Decrease indent CONTROL L: Left align CONTROL E: Centre CONTROL U: Underline CONTROL ]: Increase font size CONTROL [: Decrease font size CONTROL X or SHIFT DELETE: Cut CONTROL C or CONTROL INSERT: Copy CONTROL V or SHIFT INSERT: Paste CONTROL SHIFT Z or CONTROL SPACEBAR: Clear formatting To add Web information to items: CONTROL left mouse button: Edit a URL in the body of an item SHIFT left mouse button: Specify a Web browser CONTROL K (When using Word as e-mail editor only): Insert a hyperlink For print preview: CONTROL F2: Open print preview ALT P: Print a print preview ALT S or ALT U: Print preview page setup ALT Z: Zoom ALT C: Close print preview Views Table view For general use: ENTER: Open an item CONTROL A: Select all items PAGE DOWN: Go to the item at the bottom of the screen PAGE UP: Go to the item at the top of the screen SHIFT UP ARROW or SHIFT DOWN ARROW: Extend or reduce the selected items by one item CONTROL UP ARROW or CONTROL DOWN ARROW: Go to the next or previous item without extending the selection CONTROL SPACEBAR: Select or unselect the active item CONTROL HOME or CONTROL END (with in-cell editing disabled): Move every item in the selection to the top or bottom in the list order With a group selected: ENTER or RIGHT ARROW: Expand the group ENTER or LEFT ARROW: Collapse the group UP ARROW: Select the previous group DOWN ARROW: Select the next group HOME: Select the first group END: Select the last group RIGHT ARROW: Select the first item on screen in an expanded group or the first item off screen to the right Day/Week/Month view For all three: ALT key for number of days: View from 1 through 9 days ALT 0 (ZERO): View 10 days ALT HYPHEN SIGN: Switch to weeks ALT EQUAL SIGN: Switch to months CONTROL TAB or F6: Move between Calendar, Task Pad, and the Folder List SHIFT TAB: Select the previous appointment LEFT ARROW: Go to the previous day RIGHT ARROW: Go to the next day ALT LEFT ARROW: Move selected item to the previous day when multiple days appear ALT RIGHT ARROW: Move selected item to the next day when multiple days appear ALT DOWN ARROW: Go to the same day in the next week ALT UP ARROW: Go to the same day in the previous week For Day view: HOME: Select the time that begins your work day END: Select the time that ends your work day UP ARROW: Select the previous block of time DOWN ARROW: Select the next block of time PAGE UP: Select the block of time at the top of the screen PAGE DOWN: Select the block of time at the bottom of the screen SHIFT UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW: Extend or reduce the selected time With the cursor in the appointment, ALT UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW: Move an appointment With the cursor in the appointment, ALT SHIFT UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW: Change an appointment start or end time ALT DOWN ARROW: Move selected item to the same day in the next week ALT UP ARROW: Move selected item to the same day in the previous week For Week or Month views: HOME: Go to the first day of the week END: Go to the last day of the week PAGE UP: Go to the same day of the week in the previous week (or 5 weeks previous if viewing by month) PAGE DOWN: Go to the same day of the week in the next week (or 5 weeks ahead if viewing by month) ALT UP, DOWN, LEFT, or RIGHT ARROW: Move the appointment up, down, left, or right SHIFT LEFT, RIGHT, UP, or DOWN ARROW; or SHIFT HOME or END: Change the duration of the selected block of time For Date Navigator: ALT HOME: Go to the first day of the current week ALT END: Go to the last day of the current week ALT UP ARROW: Go to the same day in the previous week ALT DOWN ARROW: Go to the same day in the next week ALT PAGE UP: Go to the first day of the month ALT PAGE DOWN: Go to the last day of the month For address card views For general use: Type one or more letters of the name the card is filed under or of the field you are sorting by: Select a specific card in the list UP ARROW: Select the previous card DOWN ARROW: Select the next card HOME: Select the first card in the list END: Select the last card in the list PAGE UP: Select the first card on the current page PAGE DOWN: Select the first card on the next page RIGHT ARROW: Select the closest card in the next column LEFT ARROW: Select the closest card in the previous column CONTROL SPACEBAR: Select or unselect the active card SHIFT UP ARROW: Extend the selection to the previous card and unselect cards after the starting point SHIFT DOWN ARROW: Extend the selection to the next card and unselect cards before the starting point CONTROL SHIFT UP ARROW: Extend the selection to the previous card, regardless of the starting point CONTROL SHIFT DOWN ARROW: Extend the selection to the next card, regardless of the starting point SHIFT HOME: Extend the selection to the first card in the list SHIFT END: Extend the selection to the last card in the list SHIFT PAGE UP: Extend the selection to the first card on the previous page SHIFT PAGE DOWN: Extend the selection to the last card on the last page To move between cards without changing the selection: To use the following keys, make sure a card is selected. To select a card, click the card heading. CONTROL DOWN ARROW: To the next card CONTROL UP ARROW: To the previous card CONTROL HOME: To the first card in the list CONTROL END: To the last card in the list CONTROL PAGE UP: To the first card on the previous page CONTROL PAGE DOWN: To the first card on the next page CONTROL LEFT ARROW: To the closest card in the previous column CONTROL RIGHT ARROW: To the closest card in the next column F2: To a field in the active card To move between fields in a card: To use the following keys, make sure a field in a card is selected. To select a field when a card is selected, click the field or press F2. TAB: Move to the next field and, from the last field of a card, move to the first field in the next card SHIFT TAB: Move to the previous field and, from the first field of a card, move to the last field in the previous card ENTER: Move to the next field, or add a line to a multi-line field SHIFT ENTER: Move to the previous field without leaving the active card F2: Display the insertion point in the active field to edit text To move between characters in a field: To use the following keys, make sure a field in a card is selected. To select a field when a card is selected, click the field or press F2. ENTER: Add a line in a multi-line field HOME: Move to the beginning of a line END: Move to the end of a line PAGE UP: Move to the beginning of a multi-line field PAGE DOWN: Move to the end of a multi-line field UP ARROW: Move to the previous line in a multi-line field DOWN ARROW: Move to the next line in a multi-line field LEFT ARROW: Move to the previous character in a field RIGHT ARROW: Move to the next character in a field For Timeline view (tasks or Journal) When an item is selected: LEFT ARROW: Select the previous item RIGHT ARROW: Select the next item SHIFT LEFT ARROW or SHIFT RIGHT ARROW: Select several adjacent items CONTROL LEFT ARROW SPACEBAR or CONTROL RIGHT ARROW SPACEBAR: Select several non-adjacent items ENTER: Open the selected items PAGE UP: Display the items one screen above the items on screen PAGE DOWN: Display the items one screen below the items on screen HOME: Select the first item on the timeline (if items are not grouped) or the first item in the group END: Select the last item on the timeline (if items are not grouped) or the last item in the group CONTROL HOME: Display (without selecting) the first item on the timeline (if items are not grouped) or the first item in the group CONTROL END: Display (without selecting) the last item on the timeline (if items are not grouped) or the last item in the group When a group is selected: ENTER or RIGHT ARROW: Expand the group ENTER or LEFT ARROW: Collapse the group UP ARROW: Select the previous group DOWN ARROW: Select the next group HOME: Select the first group on the timeline END: Select the last group on the timeline RIGHT ARROW: Select the first item on screen in an expanded group or the first item off screen to the right When a unit of time on the time scale for days is selected: LEFT ARROW: Move back in increments of time that are the same as those shown on the time scale RIGHT ARROW: Move forward in increments of time that are the same as those shown on the time scale SHIFT TAB: When the lower time scale is selected, select the upper time scale TAB: When the upper time scale is selected, select the lower time scale TAB: When the lower time scale is selected, select the first item on screen or the first group on screen if items are grouped ******** >APPENDIX 2 JAWS, HAL AND WINDOW-EYES SCREENREADER HOT KEYS FOR OUTLOOK 1. Main JAWS Hot Keys Press INSERT A: To move the focus to the attachments list Press Insert S: To hear the contents of the Status Line Press INSERT T: To read the Title Bar and name of the feature/folder/item which is running Press ALT SHIFT 9: To select the Address button in the contacts folder when you have a contact open and bring up the Check Address dialogue Press ALT SHIFT 4: To select the CC button and bring up the Select Names Dialogue in an e-mail message where you can either type in a new e-mail address or select one from an existing list of e-mail addresses Press ALT SHIFT 7: To select the Reminder Sound button in the task folder with a task open that brings up the Reminder Sound dialogue where you can attach a sound to a reminder Press ALT SHIFT 3: To select the TO button in a newly created e-mail and bring up the Select Names dialogue. You can either enter a new e-mail address or choose one from an existing list Press CONTROL INSERT F4: To close the Office Assistant if it is visible Press ALT `: To change to the PC cursor and place this cursor in the text body of an open e-mail message or task Press CONTROL D: To delete a message. After deleting the message, the From and Subject fields will be read Press CONTROL , (comma): To move back one item at a time. This will also call the Say Focused Window Press CONTROL . (full stop): To move forward by one item at a time. This will also call the Say Focused Window Press ALT 1: This keystroke reads the first field in a custom form, or the From field in a message. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press ALT 2: This keystroke reads the second field in a custom form, or the Sent field in a message. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press ALT 3: This keystroke reads the third field in a custom form, or the To field in a message. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press ALT 4: This keystroke reads the fourth field in a custom form, or the CC field in a message. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press ALT 5:This keystroke reads the fifth field in a custom form, or the Subject field in a message. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press ALT 6: This keystroke reads the sixth field in a custom form. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press ALT 7 through 0: To read the seventh to tenth fields in a custom form. Pressing the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field. Note that in a standard e-mail message form pressing these and the above and below hot keys will result in nothing being available, as e-mails do not generally have fields past number 6, although other forms may have Press ALT = (equals sign): This keystroke reads the eleventh field in a custom form. Press the keystroke twice quickly to move to this field Press F7: to initiate a spell-check in an e-mail message body or tasks or other notes editfield Press INSERT F7: Speaks and spells the misspelled word and the first suggestion in the spelling dialogue Press CONTROL PAGE DOWN: After performing a PAGE DOWN, the JAWS cursor reads the text on the screen Press CONTROL PAGE UP: After performing a PAGE UP, the JAWS cursor reads the text on the screen Press CONTROL INSERT DOWN ARROW: The JAWS cursor reads the text on the screen Press control insert w: Reads the fields indicating whether or not a meeting has been accepted or declined when running Exchange Server Press CONTROL INSERT D: Says the current date in Day/Week/Month view in the Calendar Press INSERT TAB: Speaks the selected controls that have focus such as links, edit fields, and list boxes 2. Main Window-Eyes Hot Keys Press ALT W: To enable weekly view Press UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys: To move through the dates on the Calendar if you are using daily/weekly/monthly view. Press your TAB key to move through the list of events on that day Press F6: To take you to the attachments list in a message containing an attachment Press ALT SHIFT F10: to bring up a Context Menu for Smart Tags. However, WE will automatically announce Smart Tags when ARROWING through the text in a message Press CONTROL ALT A: to toggle MSAA mode on and off (not the normal CONTROL SHIFT A) Press CONTROL ALT S or CONTROL INSERT S: To read the Status Line Press CONTROL SHIFT T: To read the Title Bar and name of the feature/folder/item which is running Press F7: To invoke the spell-checker for e-mail body messages and tasks and other notes editfields. Then use the following hot keys in the spell-checker: Press ALT M: To read the mis-spelled word Press ALT T: To read the change to word Press ALT S: to hear the suggested replacement word spelled out Press ALT I: to ignore the word which has been stopped on Press ALT C: to change the word to the change to word Press ALT A: To add the word to the dictionary 3. Main HAL Hot keys HAL has few special hot keys for using Microsoft Outlook. You have to suffice with the general Outlook shortcuts and HALs general hot keys and you may, from time to time, find that you need to go into HALs navigation or virtual mode to read information. The general HAL hot keys you may find the most helpful are: Press TAB or SHIFT TAB: To move forward or backwards through message headers and links Press NumPad 2: To hear the contents of the Status Line Press NumPad INSERT: To hear the current control announced Press NumPad 7: To hear on-screen details, starting with the Title Bar and its contents Note: Having said that HAL has few special hot keys for Outlook, the online help in HAL says that it has left CONTROL SHIFT NumPad 7 to read a message's From and Subject lines and left CONTROL SHIFT NumPad 8 to read all of the headers in a message but neither of these Worked when I tried them with HAL 5.2. Perhaps they will for you! With the advent of HAL 6 and later, left SHIFT Numpad 7 now reads the contents of the Subject Line and left SHIFT Numpad 8 reads message headers. Additionally, when spell-checking, pressing left SHIFT Numpad 5 will read the wrongly spelled word to you and pressing it several times will spell the word out in a straightforward and then a phonetic manner. ******** >APPENDIX 3 LIST OF OTHER TUTORIALS BY THIS AUTHOR All of the below titles are available as plain text files as downloads from my Website at: http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard Tutorial titles and brief descriptions 1. "Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard", Volume 1, covering Web and e-mail protocols, Web Search engines, navigating the Internet with Internet Explorer 5.0/5.5/6.0, e-mailing with Outlook Express 5.0/5.5/6.0, Downloading files and programs from the Net, using a range of Internet search engines, Joining Internet newsgroups with Free Agent 1.92, configuration and hints and tips for screenreader users, and much more. 2. "Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard", Volume 2, covering hints and customisation, Download Managers, Online Auctions, Internet Chat Rooms, RealAudio, Internet Shopping and Internet Banking. 3. A selection of separate and individual manuals instructing visually impaired people how to use off-the-shelf print scanning/reading programs via screenreaders and the keyboard, including TextBridge Pro 98, TextBridge Pro 9 and Millennium, Omnipage Pro 10, 11 and 12, ReadIRIS Pro 6, TypeReader Pro 6 and Abby FineReader Pro 5, 6 and 7. Each scanner tutorial is an independent manual in its own right. For example, the titles of the principal two of these scanner tutorials are entitled: "Using OmniPage Pro 10, 11 and 12 from the Keyboard to Scan Print" and "Using FineReader Pro 5, 6 and 7 from the Keyboard to Scan Print". 4. "Audio Playing, Copying and Sound Editing From the Keyboard", Edition 1. This covers Easy CD Creator 4, Sound forge 4.5, Windows Media Player 6, Windows Recorder, Winamp 2.72, Freerip.mp3, RealPlayer 8 Basic, and much more. 5. "Audio Playing, Copying and Sound Editing From the Keyboard", Edition 2. This covers Winamp 5.0X, GoldWave audio editor 5.06, CDEX ripper 1.51, Basics of burning with Nero 5.5 and much more introductory and general sound-related information. 6. "Nero Burning-ROM Versions 4,5 and 5.5 from the Keyboard" (includes Nero INCD 3.3 and Nero Media Player). This covers burning of data and audio CDs and DVDs withe Nero Burning-ROM and the Nero Wizard, Saving and reopening compilation templates, Using Nero online help, burning/cloning whole hard disks and partitions to CD or DVD, converting MP3 files to other formats, a good deal of specific configuration and general information on CD and DVD burning drives and CD and DVD disks, using Windows Volume Control, and much more. 7. "Nero Burning-ROM 6 Ultra and Enterprise Editions from the Keyboard" (includes Nero INCD 4). This covers burning of data and audio CDs and DVDs withe Nero Burning-ROM and the Nero StartSmart interfaces, Saving and reopening compilation templates, Using Nero online help, burning/cloning whole hard disks and partitions or folders to CD or DVD, converting MP3 files to other formats, ripping sound files to MP3 or MP3 Pro files, a good deal of specific configuration and general information on CD and DVD burning drives and CD and DVD disks, using Windows Volume Control, and much more. 8. "Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 from the Keyboard". This takes spreadsheet users from the beginner stages of Excel through much intermediate material and also covers a few more advanced features. It will give you the skills to use Excel for home accounting purposes, for keeping self-employed small business records and for use in the employment workplace. 9. "Microsoft Outlook 2000 and 2002/XP from the Keyboard". This is a tutorial instructing on how to use the richly-featured suite of programs which is a must for anyone seeking employment or wanting to do advanced e-mailing or calendar and other related tasks at home or at work. It covers all of the main features of MS Outlook and many other more technical topics. Covered is: E-mailing, Calendar, Journal, Tasks, Notes, Contacts, arranging appointments and meetings, searching, plus customising Outlook for visually impaired and blind users and appendices of Outlook general shortcuts and HAL, JAWS AND Window-Eyes hot keys and much more. 10. "Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 from the Keyboard". Available as a plain text file and instructs on how to use over 45 separate skills in these powerful leading word-processors for use at home or in the workplace to make you highly productive and efficient. ******** The End.