OL2000: Communicating with E-Mail: Part 4: Attaching Files to Messages

The information covered in this article is provided by: Microsoft Press (http://mspress.microsoft.com/) .

This article is part 4 of a series of thirteen articles that explain how to use Outlook 2000 to communicate through e-mail. To view the other articles in this series, please see the "Additional Resources" section later in this article.

This information is an excerpt from the Quick Course in Microsoft Outlook 2000 book, Chapter 3: "Communicating with E-Mail".

Attaching Files to Messages

With Outlook, you can send files with your messages. Suppose you want to send a letter created in Word to a colleague. The following steps, which use your own e-mail address instead of a colleague's, demonstrate the process:

1. With the Inbox active, click the New Mail Message button and then either type your e-mail address in the To edit box or use the To button to insert the address.
2. In the Subject box, type Letter sent to Al Pine on June 4 and press TAB.
3. Next, in the message area, type Here is the letter I sent to Al about the annual report deadline.
4. Press ENTER twice to add some space, and then click the Insert File button on the toolbar.
   
   
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   Insert File button
   
   E-mailing contacts
   
   To send an e-mail message to one of your contacts, simply right-click the appropriate address card in Contacts and then choose New Message To Contact from the shortcut menu. Outlook displays a Message window with the contact's e-mail address already entered in the To edit box. Complete the other edit boxes in the Message window, type the message, and then click the Send button to send the message.
   
   Using distribution lists
   
   If you frequently send messages to a specific group of people, you can set up a distribution list so that typing the list's name in the To box of the Message window sends the message to everyone on the list. To set up a list, click the Address Book button on the toolbar and then click the New Entry button on the Address Book window's toolbar. In the New Entry dialog box, select New Distribution List and click OK. Then in the Distribution List window, type a name for the list, click Select Members, select each person, click Add, and then click OK. Click the Save And Close button to close the Distribution List window and then close the Address Book window. To create a message addressed to the people on the list, open a new Message window, click the To button, double-click the distribution list name, and click OK. When you click the Send button, Outlook sends a copy of the message to everyone on the list.
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   Select a short document and click Insert. (You can click the arrow to the right of the Insert button to insert the document as text in the message, or to attach a shortcut to the document, rather than attaching the document itself.) Outlook inserts a file icon, similar to the one shown here:
   
   
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5. Click the Send button.

Plain Text and HTML attachments

If you attach a file to a message in Plain Text or HTML format, the attachment appears in a separate pane at the bottom of the message window, instead of as part of the message.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For additional information, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

The information in this article is an excerpt from the Quick Course in Microsoft Outlook 2000 book, published by Microsoft Press.

(http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/4556.asp#SampleChapter)

Learn More About Quick Course in Microsoft Outlook 2000 (http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=chapter%20url)

For more information about this publication and other Microsoft Press titles, see http://mspress.microsoft.com (http://mspress.microsoft.com) .