Setting up Outlook 2013 to suit your personal needs

 Jan 09, 2015

When you move to a new version of Outlook, such as Outlook 2013, some of the programs settings and how the screen looks may change. Instead of just ‘putting up with’ certain options, here are some ways you can configure Outlook to make it work better for you. The following are my personal settings choices, so have a read and choose how you want your Outlook to look. Setting up Outlook 2013 to suit your personal needs Navigation Bar The navigation bar is the grey bar at the bottom left of the screen that lists ‘Mail,’ ‘Calendar,' etc. You can now hover over each word to get a sneak preview of that area. For example, you can hover the mouse over Calendar to see your appointments for today. Outlook-personal-needs-2It is good but, to me, it takes up too much space. It goes across the entire screen. Click on the three little dots at the end (officially called an ellipsis, if you want the official name) and choose 'Navigation Options' and there is a menu that looks like this: Outlook-personal-needs-3Tick the box that says 'Compact Navigation.' Notice, how the Navigation Bar doesn't have words but now it has symbols. I like this because it now takes up a lot less space and the symbols are pretty intuitive. Outlook-personal-needs-4 Reading Pane The Reading Pane is the preview pane that lets you read the body of the email without having click on it to open it. If you go: View – Layout – Reading Pane, you can choose to have the Reading Pane on the right, at the bottom, or turn it off.
  • Right: Having the Reading Pane on the right allows it to have a bit more of the screen, especially if you have a wide screen monitor, but I have found that some emails people send me with tables or other wide elements, like pictures, sometimes look a bit squished with this option.
  • Bottom: Having the Reading Pane down the bottom means that it takes up a little less space, but you do get to see the email laid out nicely and you can adjust the divider up and down. The big bonus here is that you can now see a lot more of the columns for your emails up the top.
  • Off: Turning off the Reading Pane means you have maximum space to see your emails, but it does mean you have to double click on an email to open it up.
To Do Bar The To Do Bar is an area that sits on the right hand side of the screen and allows you to see a preview of other areas of Outlook, like your calendar or your tasks. To turn it on, go View – Layout – To Do Bar. You can then tick one or more of these options: Calendar, People, and Tasks. I’d recommend ticking Calendar, and if you use tasks or follow up flags, tick Tasks as well. I’d only recommend ticking People if you use a particular contact a whole lot. It should look something like this: Outlook-personal-needs-5It takes up a bit of room, but the fact that I can see what’s in my calendar for today, and what tasks I need to do today without having to go to the actual Calendar area or Tasks area is really useful to me. I really like it. So there you go, some options to modify your Outlook to suit you.

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About the Author:

Matthew Goodall  

Matthew is a qualified Microsoft Office Specialist, Microsoft Certified Applications Specialist and a Microsoft Certified Trainer with over 11 years of hands-on experience in a training facilitation role. He is one of New Horizons most dynamic instructors who consistently receives high feedback scores from students. Matt enjoys helping students achieve real professional and personal growth through the courses he delivers. He is best known for creating “fans” of students, who regularly request him as an instructor for any future courses they undertake at New Horizons.

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