This is the 3rd of our 4 part series on what’s new or cool with Microsoft Office 2013. This week our focus is on Outlook 2013.
I probably use Outlook more during my day than any other application so I was eager to see how it looked and what was new.
Below is a 4” video for you where I take you all around Outlook to the backstage view, and the account settings where you can get your email accounts set up and configured as well as add personalization settings and get signed into your Microsoft account. When you sign into your Microsoft account, then any settings from other Office applications are preserved and there for you. If you have more than one Microsoft account, you can switch over to it quickly– nice.
Features of Outlook 2013
1. Backstage view-here are shots from the Info and the Office Account views. Here’s where you configure your email accounts, adjust settings and get connected to social services (LinkedIn, Facebook and your cloud storage).
2. Calendar Peek – Hover your mouse over your Calendar and a small calendar will pop up showing you the current month. You’ll have the option to arrow either or ahead one month at a time. You can click to pop it out and keep the current month up. Some have noticed that they can no longer have 3-4 months of calendars open anymore. That feature is not available anymore with this version of Outlook.
3. To Do Panel – In this section of the ribbon, you can show or hide your tasks, calendar (one month) and favorite people.
4. In-line Reply to messages. This is a time saving feature. Perhaps you need to send a quick reply to someone. Instead of double-clicking to open the message and clicking the reply, simply hit reply from your in-box and you’ll be able to quickly reply and send your message. This is very nice. While you’re composing, you’ll see ‘Draft’ over to the side of your in-box so you don’t lose track of your message.
5. Cool new Insert Feature when composing an email – as in Word & PowerPoint, you can insert pictures not only from your computer, but Outlook will take you to your SkyDrive folder, Office Bing and SharePoint (if you have Office 365).
6. Move Outlook Folders Around. I was excited about this one. You can now move your folders closer to the top of your folder list or group things together in a way that makes sense to you. You’re not restricted by having them alphabetically anymore – yay!