Outlook Tips

After yesterday’s tip on password protecting folders within a pst, an Outlook MVP in Germany reminded me of a utility that can password folders. It’s in German but it’s free… if you want to try LockOutlook, you can get it at http://www.add-in-world.com/katalog/ol-lockoutlook/

A subscriber wanted to know if there was a way to password protect the file folders in folder list.

No. You can password the pst file but not folders within a pst.

If you do use a password on the pst, you need to enter when you open Outlook and the contents of the pst will be accessible to anyone as long as Outlook is open. If security is a concern, get in the habit of locking your desktop when you walk away and create separate Windows accounts  for each user. (Use the Windows+L key combo to lock the desktop.)

We’ve had a few people complain that Outlook’s signature switching feature broken so I figured it was time for a refresher course on how it works.

If you are using Outlook 2003 with Word as your editor or Outlook 2007 and have multiple accounts, you can assign a signature to each account and Outlook will change signatures when you select the non-default account.

However – and this is important – you must assign a signature to the default account and should assign signatures to each secondary account. If a signature is not assigned to an account the capability to swap signatures is removed from the message when that account is selected. It won’t be restored when you switch to an account that has a signature assigned.

If you don’t want a signature on an account, create a blank signature that contains just two dashes ( -- ) so you can see where the signature begins.

The Email Standards Project, backed by CampaignMonitor and other email-marketers, is trying to use Twitter to convince Microsoft to change how Outlook renders HTML.

Outlook's broken - Let's fix it
http://fixoutlook.org/  

"It's not about you. It's mostly about the designers and developers having to cobble together hack included versions of already standards compliant collateral." - an email marketer to a user who said the solution was to not use HTML email.

That's right, FixOutlook.org is not about fixing areas where Outlook is broken (and there are many) - its solely about making it easier for email marketers to design email so that it has all the bells and whistles found on web pages and works perfectly in all email clients.

Focusing on the end-user experience is more important. I want Microsoft to fix what's really broken so end users, not email marketers, can be more productive. To that end, I set up a forum where everyone can share what they'd really like to see fixed in Outlook 2010.

http://forums.slipstick.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34

Recent updates to Outlook 2007 changed the behavior of tasks in the reminder window. In the past, reminders that fired at 10 AM showed due at 10 AM in the reminder window and an hour overdue at 11 AM.

Now, the reminder window shows the tasks due at the end of the workday (set in Tools, Options, Calendar options) so the same task that was overdue at 11 AM is now due in 2 hours.

If you aren’t sure where these times are seen, see http://www.outlook-tips.net/archives/2009/i/reminder.png

An Outlook user had this question: “Can I set the default due date for tasks in Outlook 2007 to "None". Most of the tasks I create (using the To-Do Bar’s Type a Task field) do not require a due date. The default seems to be "Today".”

None is the default for Tasks created using the New button (and can’t be changed). My default using your method is Tomorrow, so yes, you can change it.

The default Due date when you create a task from the To-do bar is the default quick click flag date. You can set the quick click flag to None or use buttons or shortcuts to open task forms. (Open a new task form with Ctrl+Shift+K when in any Outlook folder.)

To change the default Quick Flag, right click on the flag column and choose Set Quick Click from the bottom of the menu.

Outlook 2007 SP2 has a Contacts printing bug – if you try to print a selection of Contacts in any of the Card views, Outlook cashes. 

Until a fix is released, either print using a table view or copy the selection to a new folder and print All items.

A reader wanted to know how to cancel a task assigned to someone so that she could reassign to it someone else.

While you can’t recall the task, as long as you have a copy on your task list you can create an unassigned copy and assign the copy to someone else. Click Details tab or button to access the Unassigned Copy command. This effectively cancels the task as you will not receive updates to the task, but does not remove it from the recipient’s task list.

If you want to continue to receive updates you can Copy and Paste the assigned task to create a new, unassigned task with the same information.

We’re seeing more than the usual number of reports of “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer" errors when clicking hyperlinks in Outlook.

This is not an Outlook error – it’s caused by settings in Internet Explorer. You can fix it by resetting IE’s Internet settings in IE’s Tools, Internet Options (or Control panel, Internet Options). Go to the Advanced tab and click Reset. 

See http://www.slipstick.com/problems/link_restrict.htm for more information and other things you may need to do to fix it.

A reader asks: “I use Outlook 2003 and want my appointments to display the Start and End time of each appt, next to the title of each appointment, while I am in Work Week view.

Outlook does what I want it to if I create an appointment that starts/ends at an atypical time.  For example if I make an appt named Default Appt it will be displayed as a block that says "10:01am-11:01am Default Appt". However, if I create the appointment using a typical time (ex: 10:00am-11:00am), the title of the appointment in Work Week view only says "Default Appt" without displaying the start/end time of the appointment. I want all appointments to show the time”

Unfortunately, this is not possible. The only way to see the times that fit within the normal time scales is in the Week view (Outlook 2003 and older), not the Day or Work week view. 

Note that if the appointment length is not a multiple of the time scale you are viewing, the times will show. For example, if you use 1 hr scale and have a 30 min appointment, it shows the times, but not if you use the 6 min scale (because 30 is a multiple of 6).  A 45 min appointment shows the times if you use the 6, 10, 30 or 60 scale but not the 5 or 15 min scales.