THEORY- 111 :- OUTLOOK

 MS Outlook is a personal information manager which was introduced in 1997 by Microsoft. It was later included as a part of the MS Office suite and is mainly an email client.

One of the biggest advantages of using MS Outlook is that it can serve the purpose of both, a stand-alone application and also a multi-user software. It can be used by an individual as an email client-server and also by an Organization which requires shared features like a mailbox, calendar, appointments, etc.

History and Evolution of MS Outlook

Evolution of MS Outlook
Version	Specification
Outlook 97	Released on January 16, 1997 It had replaced the existing Microsoft’s email clients including Exchange Client, Schedule+ etc.
Outlook 98	Released on June 21, 1998 It was freely distributed with books and magazines to cope up with the latest Internet standard Involved usage of HTML mail
Outlook 2002	Released on May 31, 2001 Introduced in Office XP Brought in new features like colored tables, hyperlinks, autocomplete and MSN messenger integration
Outlook 2003	Released on June 27, 1999 Desktop alerts for emails were introduced Filtering of mails to skip spam Expandable distribution list Unicode support
Outlook 2007	Released on January 27, 2007 Feature to preview the attachments was introduced Excel, Word, PowerPoint files were now supported by Outlook Features like calendar sharing, export of PDF and XLS files, unified messaging support, etc. were also added to the application
Outlook 2010	Released on July 15, 2010 Group messages could now be shared The feature of social connector, where the files could be shared on social networking platforms was introduced
Outlook 2013	Released on January 29, 2013 A reminder to ask the user to attach files with mail was introduced People hub Compression of Outlook data file Improvement in start up performances
Outlook 2016	Released on September 22, 2015 Almost similar features, only cloud computing was added
Outlook 2019	Released on September 24, 2018 Filtering and sorting of mails became easier Supported a focused inbox Multiple time zones could be added

Functions of MS Outlook

This program of the MS Office suite allows you to send emails, arrange meetings, give appointments, etc. can be used by a single individual or a group of people. 

 

The major functions of MS Outlook have, however, been discussed in detail below:

1. It makes communication easy and sending emails is just a click away. Various attachments in different formats can be added to these mails
2. Since it is an organizing and managing application, it provides features to set up appointments and meeting using calendar and setting up reminders for the same
3. All the mails sent or received can easily be tracked if the correct settings have been added to the application
4. For Organizations, setting up activities as a team is easy with Outlook. You can easily share and collaborate with other members of your team or group
5. Similar mails are interlinked automatically which forms a mail thread of such emails

Components of MS Outlook

The image above shows the MS Outlook Ribbon where all the components and options which can be used to work on this application are given. This Ribbon is based on the latest version of MS Outlook and made the program more useful and interactive for its users.

Options to create new mains, set up calendars or appointments, replying or forwarding a mail etc. can all be done using the features present of the ribbon.

There are also options like “New” and “Delete” where new mails or meetings can be set and deleting the existing or old and junk mails can be done.

But, one must know to use MS Outlook, a proper set is required and logging in using an email id is also mandatory. If the application is being used by an Organization or a group of people, the setup is already done. But for individual or personal usage, MS Outlook needs to be set up as per the user’s requirement.

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Basic MS Outlook Shortcut Keys

MS Outlook – Shortcut Keys
Shortcut Keys	Function
Alt+H	Go to Home tab
Alt+S	Send a message
Ctrl+2	Go to calendar
Ctrl+M	Check for new messages
Ctrl+1	Switch to mail view
Ctrl+3	Switch to the contacts view
Ctrl+Shift+B	Open the Address Book
Ctrl+Shift+A	To create an appointment
Ctrl+Shift+L	To create a contact group
Ctrl+Shift+Q	Create a meeting request
Ctrl+Shift+N	To create a note

 

There are certain shortcut keys which make using MS Outlook even more convenient and quicker. Given below are such navigation, functional and formatting shortcut keys: