Create and format a new message

- It's time to start writing some e-mail. To create a new e-mail message from the home ribbon tab, click new e-mail on the left hand side. The first thing we need to do is decide who the e-mail is going to be sent from. If I have more than one account in Outlook, I can click the from button and choose from the dropdown list which e-mail account I want the message sent from. I'll click inside the to field to start addressing my e-mail. I can start typing as much or as little as I know about the e-mail address.

If I have sent or received an e-mail from somebody they will show up in the auto-fill list. I can click on the name and it gets populated. If I don't know the e-mail address but it's in my company's address book or my contact list, I can click To. This is going to pop up a dialogue box in which I can search for a name or scroll through it. Once I click on a name in the view, I need to decide whether they're going to be added to the To field of the e-mail, the CC field, or the blind carbon copy field. In which anybody in this field won't know who else is getting a copy of the e-mail, also.

I'll add Sharon to the To field. I'll click Okay and my e-mail is addressed. I could continue adding names by adding a semicolon and adding more e-mail addresses. I can remove any name from the To field by clicking my mouse directly after their name and hitting the delete key. Now I can type in a meaningful subject line, and then I can start typing the body of my e-mail. I'll click inside the body and type the content.

I can click and drag and highlight any text or all of it and alter it just like I could in a Word document or any other Office Software. I can change the color of the text. I can change the font, the size. I can make it bold faced. I can even use styles. In fact all the way at the top, I have a bigger list. I can center the text. I can add indents, bullets and numbering. I can also attach a file. From the ribbon I'll click attach file and I can choose from recent items that I've used.

I can browse web locations such as OneDrive or I can choose a file that's on my PC. It's going to bring me to my computers browse dialogue box. I can find a picture or a document or an Excel file or any other type of file that I need to attach in the e-mail. It doesn't matter what it is. And then I can click insert. Once it's been attached I can see the icon containing the attachment in the file size. It's important to note, the larger the size of your attachment, the longer it will take to send your e-mail.

And in some cases, if it's too big, it can't send at all. If you're done typing your e-mail, there's a few things you could do. You could send the e-mail right away by clicking the send button and that's probably what you'll be doing most of the time. Or you can click the disc icon on the top left hand side to save it as a draft. You can then close out of it by clicking the X on the right hand side. Your e-mail gets put in the drafts folder. Which is found in the favorites bar or in the drafts folder of whatever e-mail account you created it with.

Here's our e-mail. I can double click on it to work on a larger screen. Or I can edit it inline directly right on this side. When I'm ready, I can click the send button and my message will be removed from the drafts folder and placed into sent items.