When designing Outlook 2010, we worked hard to ensure that the colors, shapes, and text used within the product provide a pleasant experience and make it easy for you to get work done. We have done this by redesigning parts of the user interface to give Outlook a clean, crisp, high-quality look that is free from distracting visual elements. By simplifying many parts of the user interface, we’ve allowed your e-mail messages and meetings to shine in the foreground better than ever before! Let’s...

Update: We have heard that some Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta users are experiencing crashes when trying to use the new Outlook Social Connector (OSC) Beta (February Update) that was released today along with the LinkedIn Provider for Outlook. The OSC that was included with the Outlook 2010 Beta must be uninstalled before installing the new OSC Beta (February Update). After the February OSC update is installed, the LinkedIn Provider for Outlook can then be installed. This information is included on...

People often ask how to copy Outlook signatures between multiple computers. In this post, I’ll describe how to accomplish that task using a little known keyboard shortcut. 1. On the Tools menu, click Options , and select the Mail Format tab 2. Hold down <ctrl> key while clicking the Signatures… button 3. The folder containing your signatures will open 4. Copy all of the files and folders in the Signatures folder to the location where you back up your files (e.g. flash drive, external...

Hello Office 2010 beta users! My name is Michael Affronti and I'm a Program Manager on the Outlook product team here in Redmond. We now have the opportunity to talk with all of you about Outlook 2010 and the amazing features we've been hard at work on over the last two years! Over the next couple months we'll be revealing a bunch of the changes and updates in Outlook 2010 right here on the Outlook Team Blog. Let's start with your Inbox in Outlook 2010. For a long, long time your Inbox has been a...

This morning we became aware of a Twitter campaign run from the website http://fixoutlook.org . This campaign is intended to provide Microsoft with feedback about our decision to continue to use Microsoft Word for composing and displaying e-mail in the upcoming release of Microsoft Outlook 2010. The Email Standards Project , which developed the website that promotes the current Twitter campaign, is backed by the maker of “email marketing campaign” software . First, while we don’t yet have a broadly...

Outlook 2003 introduced integration with SharePoint, allowing you to see some SharePoint information (like calendars) in Outlook alongside your personal information. In Outlook 2007, we made this a whole lot better. Here we’ll focus on the new Document Library syncing capability that allows you to easily access, preview, search, and edit your SharePoint document libraries in Outlook. To begin, let’s start by syncing an existing Document Library to Outlook: 1. First, navigate to a SharePoint...

The purpose of the Ribbon in Outlook is to help you become more efficient in getting your work done – be that processing e-mail in your Inbox (Mail Home Tab), managing your Calendar (Calendar Home Tab), or doing work in Tasks (Tasks Home Tab). In designing the Ribbons, we strove for consistency so that you’ll always be able to look to the left side to create a new item or to the right side to find a contact – and to the middle to get what you need to do - done. In Mail, the center...

If you’re a fan of the Outlook 2007 To-Do Bar, but wish your upcoming appointments and tasks could be shown even when Outlook was minimized, I’ve got great news for you, you can do this today with the Outlook Sidebar Gadgets. One of the new features introduced in Windows Vista is the Windows Sidebar, an application that allows gadgets—small applications that provide quick access to useful information or commands—to be displayed on your desktop or in the Sidebar. The Sidebar presented a great opportunity...

Recently, we received the follow question and I thought I would share the answer with everyone: Is there a way to change the baby blue color to something more customized or at least revert back to the same color scheme of Outlook 2003? To change your Office theme, click “Tools” in the toolbar, then “Options”, and then on the “Mail Format” tab, click “Editor Options” as shown below: Then select a different theme (Blue, Silver or Black) next to “Color...

One of the more popular features for Outlook’s calendar is the capability to add your country or region’s holidays into your calendar. This way, you’ll never miss the next holiday. Adding holiday items to your calendar is pretty easy: From the Tools menu, click Options, then click Calendar Options. Click the Add Holidays button under Calendar options. Select the check box next to your location, and any other location you might be interested in, and then click OK. Note for Outlook...