Now you just have 15 minutes to salvage something out of nothing and impress the boss/wife/colleague/all of the above.

Don’t want to get caught out again?  Apart from memorising your entire calendar every morning and keeping an eagle eye on you watch (unlikely)… why don’t we just increase the default reminder time.

Its quite simple actually!  In Outlook 2007, all you need to do is:

1. Click on "Actions"
2. Click on "Options"
3. Look on the "Preferences" tab, in the "Calendar" section (second from the top)
4. Select your preferred reminder time from the drop down box.
5. Click ok

If you think you are a hotshot… set the reminder to 0 minutes.  If you are a lost cause, maybe 2 weeks is more appropriate

’till next time!

TNP

Are you like me and need more than 15 minutes to prepare for those meetings you ALWAYS forget about?

Guess what - you might be already!

Microsoft have released an extra section on Microsoft Office Online called Lighten up: Reduce your carbon footprint and workplace costs.

Obviously they left one tip for reducing your impact on the environment… instead of investing in all those Office 2007 self help books, why not just bookmark your favourite Office 2007 help, tips, tricks and tutorial site!

’till next time!

TNP

One of them is Alistair Speirs, a Office Technology Specialst at Microsoft Australia.  If you want to dive deep into everything office (beyond the tutorials from yours truely!) then you should check out his blog…

http://blogs.msdn.com/alspeirs/

Check out some of his posts on Business Desktop Deployment, Enterprise Search, Office Busines Applications, OpenXML, and one he stole from me… Random text in Word

TNP and Alistair go way back… he knows his stuff!

’till next time!
TNP

Instead of “Hi all”, what about “Hi Bill”, “Hi Jane” etc?

You can, with email merge in Word 2007.

Email merge works exactly the same as a standard mail merge… except for one big difference.  Instead of printing individual letters or envelopes or labels… Word 2007 will generate individual emails, send them to your Outlook 2007 outbox, and then when you are next online in Outlook, Outlook will send each your personalised emails to each addressee.

Kicking off a email merge in Word 2007 is easy.

1. Open up Word 2007
2. Type your email in Word 2007
3. Click on the “Mailings” tab in the ribbon
4. In the “Start Mail Merge” grouping, click on the “Start Mail Merge” button.  It will show a list of mail merge options available.  You can choose Letters, E-Mail Messages, Envelopes, Labels or Directory.  In this case as we want to send an email… click on “E-Mail Messages”
   
5. Next you need to select the recipients of your email merge.  These names could come from any number or sources… maybe an Excel 2007 spreadsheet?  maybe your Outlook 2007 Contacts… or you could just type them yourself.  

   To do that, click on the “Select Recipients” box in the “Start Mail Merge” group.  Either find your data source, your outlook contacts, or create a new list.

6. If you want to edit any of the recipients in the list, now is the time to click on “Edit Recipient List” in the “Start Mail Merge” group.
7. The next step is to add the appropriate fields to personalise the greeting, the recipients name, or to add any other piece of data you might have on the contact anywhere throughout your recipient list.  

   You can find the appropriate fields in the “Write & Insert Fields” group (still on the “Mailings” tab).

   More than likely you will want to add at least a greeting line (Dear Bill… or something like that).  To do that click on the “Greeting Line” button in the “Write & Insert Fields” group.  The following dialog box appears
   

8. Once you are happy with your greeting line format, click “OK”.  Word 2007 will now drop the field into your document.
9. Now you can preview your results to ensure that everyone’s name is coming up correctly.  Click the “Preview Results” button in the “Preview Results” group… then use the forward and back arrows beside it to run through your recipient list.
10. If you are happy with the preview, not is the time to finish things off and compete the merge.  In the “Finish” group on the “Mailings tab” you will see a button called “Finish & Merge”.  Click on it, and then click “Send E-mail Messages…” 

    

11. Now Word 2007 automatically generates all the individual emails, and sends them to your Outlook 2007 outbox (or your default email client).
12. Open up Outlook or your email client, and watch all your emails be sent!

So there you have it… your 12 step guide to Email Merge in Word 2007!

’till next time,
TNP

The good news is that there is a way to automatically spell check your email when you send it in Outlook 2007.

1. Go to the menu and click “Tools”, and then “Options”
2. Click on the “Spelling” tab
3. Check the box beside “Always check spelling before sending”

Too easy… now you will not look like an idiot for all those spelling mistakes in that email you sent to your boss!

’till next time
TNP

1. Got to Tools, then Options in the menu
2. On the preferences tab, in the E-mail section click on the “E-mail Options…” button
3. Then click on the “Advanced E-mail Options…” button
4. Then click on the “Desktop Alert Settings…” button

From this window you can control how long your Desktop Alerts appear for, and how transparent they are.

By default, your email notification/popup/desktop alert/toast will appear for 7 seconds.  The minimum you can set this to is 3 seconds, the maximum is 30 seconds.

As for transparency, the default is 20%.  It can be solid (0%) or can go to a maximum of 80% transparency.  Any more and you couldn’t see it!

If you don’t want desktop alerts at all… read about how you can turn them off in an earlier article I wrote - How to turn on or off new email notifications in Outlook 2007

’till next time
TNP

How to turn on or off email notifications in Outlook 2007

1. In the menu, click on Tools, then Options.
2. On the preferences tab, in the E-mail section, click on the “E-mail Options…” button
3. Click on the “Advanced E-mail Options…” button
4. Look for the “When new items arrive in my Inbox” area…
5. Tick or untick all the notifications you want to receive.

Note that there are four notifications that Outlook can give you when you receive an email in your Inbox

• Play a sound
• Briefly change the mouse cursor
• Show an envelope icon in the notification area
• Display a New Mail Desktop Alert (default Inbox only)

From the Advanced E-mail Options window, you can control each of these as you wish.  Now you wont get distracted by email when you want to be productive… or you know how to turn the notifications back on if you don’t feel like doing any work!

’till next time
TNP

First step is to visit the 2007 Microsoft Office System Plan and Deploy with Confidence site.  This site includes Webcasts (from level 100 through to 400), Virtual Labs, and Podcasts to help you get you complete your deployment successfully.

Secondly, check out some of the articles on deployment from media outlets such as Computerworld.  These start to give you a real world perspective on the types of issues you might face during your deployment.

Thirdly, if you are ready to go now, check out articles from experts in the community, just like Aaron Parker’s post on Deploying Office 2007 with Group Policy Startup Scripts.

Finally, once your deployment is complete, make sure you let everyone in your organisation know about Thenewpaperclip.com - so they can get up to speed quickly with the new features of Office 2007!  Remember… the key to a successful deployment is not the deployment itself, but the training and adoption that takes place afterwards.

’till next time,
TNP

To keep track of all the emails that you have flagged in your inbox, make sure you have the “To-Do” bar open.  All your flagged items appear in your task list (with all your other formal task that you may have created, or had assigned to you).  You can then manage your flagged emails by either assigning a follow up date, or marking them as complete.

 To assign a follow up date to a email that you have flagged… double click on the entry in your task list in the “To-Do” bar to open the email, and then in the “Options” group on the Ribbon, click on “Follow Up”.  By clicking on this menu you can select a due date for when you need to follow up this email, be it today, tomorrow, this week, or next week.

There you have it - easy email follow up task management in Outlook 2007.

’till next time,
TNP

“How do you set the default font in Outlook 2007?”

It is easy in Word 2007… but in Outlook 2007 it is a little different… but here is how!

1. Click “Tools” -> “Options”
2. Select the “Mail Format” tab
3. Click “Stationery and Fonts…”
4. On the Signatures and Stationery dialog box that appears, ensure that you are on the “Personal Stationery” tab
5. Click “Font…”

Then select your favourite font, style, size, colour, and effects… and then click OK half a dozen times

Cheers,
TNP