Tip #4207 - Outlook Express Formatting
Printer Friendly Version | E-Mail This Tip
Q:
I use Outlook Express for most of my e-mailing and sometimes I would
like to do some formatting (headers, line spacing, etc.) in my e-mails,
but I can never figure out how to do it. Please help!
A:
I sure can! That really is an excellent question
and I'm sure you're not the only one who has wondered about it. It
must be very frustrating when you go to type out an e-mail and all
you want to do is add an indent, but you can't figure out how to do
it. And that's just one example! I can't even imagine all the other
things you could have done with your e-mails if you only knew where
to look. Well, I for one, do not want you all to go another second
without knowing how to format your e-mails. If you're using Outlook
Express, the process is super easy and I'm sure all of you will get
the hang of it right away. Alright, let's get down to it!
The
first thing you need to do is start a new e-mail, so in Outlook Express,
click on Create Mail and then place your mouse cursor
in the e-mail body with just one click. It's important to click into
the e-mail first, because that activates all of the formatting options
for you. When you're ready to start, go up to the Format menu
and choose what you would like to do. A few of the options you'll
see are Style, Font, Paragraph, Background, Encoding and so on. I
recommend that you take some time to go over all the choices and familiarize
yourself with them. If you do that, you will know better where to
go to get done what you want to do.
For
example, the Style option is where you'll find most of your choices.
From within the Style menu, you can do everything
from change your font to adding a double space to your lines to adding
headers to starting a new paragraph to adding bullets and numbers
and so on. If you want to add double spacing to your e-mail, go to
Format, Style and choose Formatted.
You can then begin typing out your e-mail and each line will come
with a double space in between. Or, if you'd like to add a bulleted
list to your e-mail, go to Format, Style
and click on the Bulleted List choice. That will
automatically add some bullets to your e-mail and you can then start
typing.
Alright, now let's
say you want to change the Font of your e-mail. If so, go to Format,
Font and the Font dialogue box will pop up. From
there, you can change the font design, the style, the text size and
you can even choose a color to type in if you'd like. When you're
done making your selections, just click OK and all
of that formatting will then cross over into your e-mail. Once you
start typing, you will see all of your changes come alive!
Also from the
Format menu, you can add a background to your e-mails. Go to Format,
Background and then select either Picture,
Color or Sound. If you want to add
one of your pictures to the background of your e-mail, choose Picture.
You can then browse through your picture files and add one to the
e-mail you're going to send out. Or, you can choose Color
and change the whole color scheme of your e-mail. Maybe you're
sending out invitations to a football party you're having and you'd
like to use the team colors of your favorite team. If it were me,
I would want to do scarlet and gray for the Ohio State Buckeyes (Go
Bucks!), so I would choose an all gray background and then use the
Font method from up above to make my text red. It
looks so cool 8like that!
The Format menu
is also where you can change your text from Plain Text to
Rich Text (HTML) or vice versa. Or, if you'd like
to add some stationery to your e-mail, you can do that from here as
well. Just go to Format, Stationery
and then choose the one you'd like to use. It's as simple as that!
So, as you can see, the Format menu gives you the power to do just
about anything with the e-mails you send out. If you want to spice
your e-mails up a bit, the Format menu is the place to go. Or, if
you just want to do some simple formatting, it's there for you. Whatever
you need to do, the Format menu is there for your rescue!
Now, unfortunately,
I have not been able to find a way where you can keep the same formatting
for every e-mail you send out, so you will have to redo everything
for each new e-mail you send. I know that's a bit of a pain, but it's
really not that bad, because you'll probably want to do something
different for each one anyway. Either way, the Format menu is a great
tool to familiarize yourself with in Outlook Express. It holds the
power to make your e-mails look just the way you want them. Check
it out today!
~ Erin
Want To Comment On This Tip? Click Here! We'd love to hear from you :-)
Like These Tips? Get 'Em Free In Your E-mail
