BasicsThis is the first article of an article series detailing the basics of the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 application.  This article will give a brief overview of the new interface and how to navigate to some of the most common features.
Interface

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The fundamental use for Microsoft Outlook is most definitely the ability to configure it for various mail accounts.  As such the interface is primarily catered to this use.  The basic interface for Micrsoft Outlook is divided into 6 panes. 

  • The first pane relates to the entire organization for a particular email.  Through this pane you can gain access to mutliple email accounts that have been configured for Microsoft Outlook as well as the folders within each of the email accounts
  • The second pane is the primary navigation tool between Microsoft Outlook's various utilities.  Microsoft Outlook provides the following utlities
    • Mail - a robust email messaging system that can be used with a pre-configured email account
    • Calendar - the calendar is integrated in all of the utilities to provide the most efficient methods for scheduling appointments and events
    • Contacts - this is the address book that provides easy access to either a Global Address Book or the personal address book.  Individual contact items can store address, phone, email, business information
    • Tasks - a very simple utility that can be considered like a ToDo list
    • Notes - Instead of having Post-Its all over your screen, this utility will put electronic notes on your screen
  • The third pane provides the mail listing for the currently selected folder in pane 1.  By right-clicking the column headers in this pane, you can sort the emails based on a variety of criteria.
  • The fourth pane is the preview pane.  When an email is selected pane 3, pane 4 will display a preview of the email.  To fully interact with the email you will have to open the email by double-clicking on the mail item in pane 3.
  • The fifth pane shows how the calendar is integrated into various parts of Microsoft Outlook.  Pane 5 shows a full calendar along with appointments for the current day.
  • The sixth pane displays all the tasks that are stored in the previously mentioned Task utility.