Microsoft Outlook 2003

Outlook 2003 provides an integrated solution for managing and organizing e-mail messages, schedules, tasks, notes, contacts, and other information. Outlook 2003 delivers innovations you can use to manage your communications, organize your work, and work better with others—all from one place.

Manage and Prioritize Your Communication
Organize information better to help save time and be more productive.

• Manage all your e-mail in one place. Access, send, and receive e-mail messages from multiple accounts—including work, personal, or Web-based e-mail accounts such as MSN Hotmail—within a single view.
• Print less, read more. Outlook 2003 makes it easier and more comfortable to read e-mail messages online, including long messages. The Reading Pane has been moved to the right side of the screen to display twice as much content and reduce scrolling when you read long messages online.
• Save time and find messages faster. Find e-mail messages more easily by grouping messages by date, size, conversation, subject, importance, or other criteria.
• Organize your Inbox. You no longer have to keep all e-mail messages in your Inbox to remind you of action items. Instead, use Quick Flags to flag messages by priority or time sensitivity and find them in whichever folder they reside.
• Automatically organize messages and receive reminders. Enhanced Rules and Alerts organize incoming e-mail messages according to your preferences and can automatically trigger alerts to remind or alert you when needed—such as when tasks are due or meetings are about to begin.
• Find messages easily. Save the results of commonly used searches as Search Folders instead of having to re-run common searches each time you need them. Search Folders provide an automated way to keep relevant e-mails together, without moving them to other folders. Search Folders require a connection to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Exchange 2003, or Exchange 5.5.
• Access your Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks quickly. Use the new Navigation Pane (or click Go on the menu bar), to access your Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Folders, Shortcuts, and Journal and find the information you need to answer e-mail messages, schedule appointments, and finish projects.

Let Outlook 2003 Do Work for You
Outlook 2003 can help you get the information you need—and block the information you don't need—to stay productive.

• Prevent junk mail. The new Junk E-Mail Filter can help you prevent junk e-mail messages from cluttering your Inbox. Learn more about preventing junk e-mail messages with Outlook 2003.
• Block unwanted attachments. To help prevent unwanted attachments and bulky files from taking up too much storage space, Outlook 2003 blocks e-mail messages and files from people not on your Safe Senders List. After you examine and approve the message, Outlook 2003 downloads the full message and file.
• Read e-mail messages regardless of the connection. The new Cached Exchange Mode downloads messages and other Outlook 2003 data to your computer so you can remain productive during network downtime. Cached Exchange Mode requires a connection to Exchange Server 2003.
• Connection awareness. Indicate if you have a fast or slow connection—or have Outlook 2003 detect it for you. Outlook 2003 adapts its performance by displaying either a preview of a message or the full message, depending on the network speed.
• Find facts quickly. No need to leave your e-mail to do research—the new Research task pane brings electronic dictionaries, thesauruses, and online research sites into Outlook 2003 so that you can find information and incorporate it into your messages. Some functionality in the Research task pane requires a connection to the Internet. Learn more about how to do research and reference in Office 2003 Editions.

Work with Others More Easily
Work together better and help protect against the misuse and unwanted distribution of key company information.

• Communicate instantly with others. No need to leave Outlook 2003 to find out if an instant messaging (IM) contact is online. Initiate IM conversations quickly in messages, Contacts, Calendar, and other areas in Outlook 2003.
• Control distribution of sensitive work. Help protect your company assets by preventing recipients from forwarding, copying, or printing important e-mail messages by using information rights management (IRM) functionality.
• Work together better. Save e-mail message attachments to shared workspaces where other team members can get the latest versions, check files in or out, or even save task lists, related files, links, and member lists. You can even tell whether team members are online and then use IM to send them a message. Shared workspaces require Windows Server 2003 running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.
• Spend less time coordinating schedules. Access shared team calendars in Outlook 2003 and view multiple calendars side by side to make scheduling meetings fast and more convenient. You can view your own work and personal calendars, calendars in Windows SharePoint Services, or the calendars of others who have granted you viewing rights. Sharing team calendars requires Windows Server 2003 running Windows SharePoint Services.
• Go mobile. If you own and use a Tablet PC, you can use ink markup to annotate e-mail messages in your own handwriting with a pen input device. You can write notes for personal use or e-mail messages to send to others.