When designing Outlook, Microsoft designed Word to serve as your primary email editor. There is tight integration between the two products as long as your versions of Word and Outlook are the same. Within Word, this means that you can edit new email messages or send documents you're already working on as email. It also means that, unless you specify otherwise, when you create a message within Microsoft Outlook 2003, Word opens to edit the message.
In the following sections, we'll review the different ways you can create an email from within Word.
When you want to send an email, you'll most likely open Microsoft Outlook first and create the email from there. However, you can create a new email message directly from Microsoft Word. To create a new, blank email message while working within Word, select New from the File menu and then click Blank Email Message on the Task pane. A new, blank email message is displayed in a separate window (see Figure 30.1).
NOTE
The buttons called out in this figure are referred to throughout this chapter.
In the preceding section, you learned how to create a blank email message from within Word. You can also create an email message directly from a document you're working on. To do so, display the document and either click the Email button on the Standard toolbar or choose File, Send To, Mail Recipient. This converts your document into an email message, displaying the same Word email editing window you saw in Figure 30.1, with one significant addition: an Introduction line that allows you to add information about your document without placing that information in the document itself (see Figure 30.2). The Introduction line appears in the message header only if the recipient's email client is Outlook 2003; otherwise, it appears at the top of the message body, separated from the document by a line.
NOTE
The Email button appears on the Standard toolbar only if you have installed Outlook 2003 or another email program.
Word 2002 introduced Smart Tags, which allow you to trigger actions based on marked text in your document. Word 2003 improves on these Smart Tags by adding more functionality. Some of the additional functionality includes the capability for developers to create SmartTags with cascading menus, and the capability to associate Smart Tags with specific content. In particular, the online Office Marketplace has a large number of new Smart Tags available for users to download or purchase. With the enhanced flexibility of Smart Tag development in Word 2003, you'll see many more custom Smart Tags available. As you edit a Word document, Word marks certain text with a Smart Tag, which appears in your document formatted with purple dotted underlining. For example, it flags all names it recognizes as the recipients of email you've sent recently, and you can send messages directly from Smart Tags marked in this fashion. |
NOTE
If you want, you can specify that Word should flag all names it finds in your document, not those it recognizes as your recent email correspondents.
Choose Tools, AutoCorrect Options, and choose the Smart Tags tab. Next, check the Person Names check box in the Recognizers scroll box, and click OK.
To send a message from a Smart Tag, follow these steps:
Hover the mouse pointer over a Smart Tag until the Smart Tag marker appears.
Click on the marker to display a shortcut menu of tasks you can perform (see Figure 30.3).
Click Send Mail to open a message with the recipient's name already displayed in the To box.
NOTE
If the name of the recipient is not in your Outlook 2003 Contacts list, you'll still have to add a correct email address.
However, as shown in Figure 30.3, you can also use Smart Tags to add a name to the Contacts list, displaying the Outlook 2003 Contact window and giving you an opportunity to add an email address to your Outlook 2003 Contacts list.
After you've added the email address to your Outlook 2003 Contacts list, Word provides the address whenever you create a new message to the recipient?whether or not you use a Smart Tag to do it.