Introduction

Part of the Microsoft Office 2013 suite of programs, Microsoft Outlook 2013 is a sophisticated communication-management program that helps you quickly and efficiently manage messages, schedules, address books, and other information. Microsoft Outlook 2013 Step by Step offers a comprehensive look at the features of Outlook that most people will use most frequently.

Who this book is for

Microsoft Outlook 2013 Step by Step and other books in the Step by Step series are designed for beginning to intermediate-level computer users. Examples shown in the book generally pertain to small and medium-sized businesses but teach skills that can be used in organizations of any size. Whether you are already comfortable working in Outlook and want to learn about new features in Outlook 2013 or you are new to Outlook, this book provides invaluable hands-on experience so that you can manage communications and information with ease.

How this book is organized

This book is divided into three parts. Part I explores the everyday experience of working in Outlook 2013. Part II discusses ways of managing content within Outlook to maximize your productivity. Part III delves into the management of Outlook itself, and ways of customizing program functionality and the appearance of the program window to fit the way you work. This three-part structure allows readers who are new to the program to acquire basic skills and then build on them, whereas readers who are comfortable with Outlook 2013 basics can focus on material that is of the most interest to them.

Chapter 1 contains introductory information that will primarily be of interest to readers who are new to Outlook or aren’t familiar with the process of configuring Outlook to connect to an email account. If you are comfortable managing accounts in a recent version of Outlook, you might want to skip directly to Chapter 2.

This book has been designed to lead you step by step through all the tasks you’re most likely to want to perform with Outlook 2013. If you start at the beginning and work your way through all the exercises, you will gain enough proficiency to be able to manage communications, contacts, tasks, and calendars. However, each topic is self-contained, so you can jump in anywhere to acquire exactly the skills you need.

Download the practice files

Before you can complete the exercises in this book, you need to download the book’s practice files to your computer. These practice files can be downloaded from the following page:

http://aka.ms/Outlook2013sbs/files

IMPORTANT

The Outlook 2013 program is not available from this website. You should purchase and install that program before using this book.

As you work through the exercises in this book, you will create Outlook items that you will use as practice files in later exercises. If you do not complete the earlier exercises, you can substitute Outlook items of your own and modify the exercise settings to fit.

The following table lists the practice files for this book.

Chapter	Use these files and items	Create these files and items
Chapter 1	No practice files required	None
Chapter 2	No practice files required	None
Chapter 3	We provide: NaturalGardening.pptx Procedures.docx	SBS First Draft message series SBS Tradeshow Schedule message
Chapter 4	No practice files required	Contact records for Ben Miller, Dean Halstead, Jill Frank, Lola Jacobsen, and Sarah Jones
Chapter 5	No practice files required	SBS Lunch with Jane appointment SBS Pay Day event SBS Staff Meeting appointment SBS Study Session meeting
Chapter 6	You provide: SBS First Draft message SBS Tradeshow Schedule message	Flagged SBS First Draft message Flagged SBS Tradeshow Schedule message SBS Make Dinner Reservations task SBS Order Brochures task SBS Send Dinner Invitations task
Chapter 7	You provide: SBS First Draft message series SBS Tradeshow Schedule message	SBS Messages folder
Chapter 8	No practice files required	Secondary calendar
Chapter 9	We provide: JoanLambert.jpg SBSContacts.csv You provide: Contact records for Ben Miller, Dean Halstead, Jill Frank, Lola Jacobsen, and Sarah Jones	Contact records for Delphine Ribaute, Max Stevens, and Sara Davis SBS Contacts address book SBS Project Team contact group
Chapter 10	We provide: Lighthouse.jpg	Casual email signature SBS Development Process message SBS Picture Tools message
Chapter 11	No practice files required	None
Chapter 12	No practice files required	Flagged SBS Quick Message message SBS Messages folder SBS rule
Chapter 13	No practice files required	None

Your companion ebook

With the ebook edition of this book, you can do the following:

• Search the full text
• Print
• Copy and paste

To download your ebook, please see the instruction page at the back of the book.

Get support and give feedback

The following sections provide information about getting help with this book and contacting us to provide feedback or report errors.

Errata

We’ve made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this book and its companion content. Any errors that have been reported since this book was published are listed on our Microsoft Press site at oreilly.com, which you can find at:

http://aka.ms/Outlook2013sbs/errata

If you find an error that is not already listed, you can report it to us through the same page.

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Please note that product support for Microsoft software is not offered through the addresses above.

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