Outlook Interface

Using the Outlook Interface

Discussion

Microsoft Outlook, like other Windows-based programs, opens within a window and includes the standard title bar with control buttons. A menu bar appears at the top of the window, which contains short and full menus. When you first select a menu, a short menu containing only a subset of the menu commands appears. You can use the arrows at the bottom of the short menu to display the full menu or wait a few seconds and the full menu will appear. When you choose a command on the full menu, it will appear on the short menu the next time you display it. The Standard toolbar appears under the menu bar and a status bar appears at the bottom of the window.

The Outlook Bar appears on the left side of the Outlook window and contains shortcuts to Outlook programs and folders. You can add and remove shortcuts, make the shortcuts small or large, and hide the Outlook Bar, if desired. The Outlook Bar contains two groups, Outlook Shortcuts and My Shortcuts, (and depending upon your setup, may also contain the Other Shortcuts group) to help organize your information. Clicking a group on the Outlook Bar displays the shortcuts within that group. You can also create your own groups, as well as move shortcuts to different groups within the Outlook Bar.

The information viewer occupies the majority of the Outlook window. It displays items in the selected folder, application, or shortcut. For example, when the Inbox folder is selected, the information viewer displays the items within the Inbox folder. You can change the way information appears in the information viewer by sorting, grouping, and filtering items, as well as by adding or removing columns.

The gray bar that spans the top of the information viewer is called the Folder Banner. The name of the current folder appears on the Folder Banner. When you click the folder name, a drop-down list of folders and shortcuts, called the Folder List, appears. The Folder List appears next to the Outlook Bar and displays folders, files, and shortcuts in a hierarchical tree format similar to Windows Explorer.