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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week –
10/12/2005 |
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Creating Automatic Outlook Signatures – Last week
I talked about how you can use your Microsoft office products to get higher
productivity, by using the macro or automated procedures functions built into
them, which most people don’t use. A macro
lets you record a series of keystrokes, like you typing your signature, and then
being able to have this information retyped for you automatically. Last week
we created a Word Macro, to automatically type your signature, and today
we’ll look at doing a similar thing using Outlook, Microsoft’s
email program which is part of Microsoft office, and which is probably the
most used email program in the industry. I’m
using Outlook 2003, and if you have a different version, there might be some
slight differences in the procedure. Open
Outlook, and then click on Tools – Options - Mail Format – And a
Mail Format menu pops up -
On the
bottom of this menu you’ll see a Signatures section, and a button named
Signatures. If you click on this button, another screen will pop up, which
lets you create, edit, or delete your automated signatures:
I’ll
click on NEW and you’re
asked to give it a name –
you can
name it anything, in this case I’m naming it Ima for Ima Bigshot, and
then click next, and a blank screen pops up for you to type a signature –
and then I'll click on the Finish Button, and then ok. Outlook
gives you a choice of two default signatures it will automatically type for
you. You can
use one as your choice of signatures for all new messages, which might be
your formal long business signature, and the other can be a shorter less
formal signature for when you are replying to emails, or forwarding an email. But in
addition to these 2 default signatures, you can choose from any signature you
have created and want to use simply by clicking on the signature icon on the
toolbar, and then clicking on the signature you want to use. Seeing as
your default signature will already be in the email, if you highlight it
first and then click on the Signature icon to select a new signature for this
email, it will then be completely replaced by the signature you select. So Now
you can have Outlook automatically type the signatures you want to use for
different emails, either by default or by your choice. Outlook
also has a true macro capability to Microsoft word, they call it Spelling auto-correct using macros, which will let you
assign a paragraph to be typed simply by typing in a couple keystrokes. This
might be another advanced Outlook feature you might want to look into. A
transcript of this show with all the screenshots of how to create Outlook signatures is
available on my Raw Bytes website. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2005 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html (509)624-7230 |
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