Parkers Mailbox
~~Parker
Renaud, IT Manager, Colliers Keenan, Inc.
Personal Distribution Lists in Outlook
One of the most convenient features of
Outlook is the ability to create personal distribution lists. Personal
distribution lists are personalized lists of contacts which provide an
easy way to send messages to groups of people.
For example, if you frequently send messages
to the sales staff, you can create a distribution list called Sales Staff
that contains the names of all members of the sales staff. A message sent
to this distribution list goes to all recipients listed in the
distribution list.
You can do the same thing with your family,
a club, a team, etc. The recipients can be on AOL, Hotmail, or a corporate
e-mail system. They can use Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, or a
proprietary e-mail system. It does not matter what they use. Once you set
them up in a distribution list, you can send an e-mail to all of them with
a mouse click or two.
You can use distribution lists in messages,
task requests, meeting requests, and other personal distribution lists.
You can easily add and delete names from a distribution list, send the
list to others, or print it.
For the first time this month I will give
different instructions for those with either of the commonly used
versions of Microsoft Outlook: Outlook 97 or Outlook 2000, since the
procedures are so totally different in the two versions.
Outlook 97
To create a personal distribution list you
must first create a personal address book.
To create a personal address book:
- Open Outlook, click on Tools; Services; Add; Personal Address Book.
- Close Outlook and re-start.
- Once re-started, click on Tools; Address Book; File; New Entry.
- In
the New Entry dialog box, select Personal Distribution List.
- Give the list a meaningful name, such as Sales Staff, and click on
Add/Remove Members. You can now add members from any address list in
Outlook. When you have added all of the members, click OK, OK again,
then File; Close.
To send a message to your new
distribution list:
Open a new message window and click “To” like you would for any message.
Scroll down through the choice of lists in the Show Names From box.
Click on Personal Address Book and the distribution list(s) will show up
in the left window. Highlight the name of the distribution list and send
as you normally would.
To add or remove names from the list:
Click on Tools; Address Book.
In
the Show Names from box, scroll down until you find Personal Address
Book. Any distribution lists available will appear in the large window.
Double click on a distribution list and the Properties dialog box will
open. You can then add and delete names in the same manner as you did
when you created the list.
Outlook 2000
To create a personal distribution list:
- Open Outlook, click File; New; Distribution List; and
the Distribution List dialog box opens.
- Give the list a meaningful name, such as “Sales
Staff”, and click Select Members.
- You can now add members from any address list in
Outlook. (If the person you wish to add is not in one of your address
lists, you can simply type their address into the blank.) When you have
added all of the members, click OK, then click Save and Close.
Outlook 2000 stores the distribution list(s)
alphabetically in your Contacts folder.
To send a message to your new distribution list:
- Open a new message window and click “To” like you would for any message.
- Scroll down through the choice of lists in the “Show names from” box.
To
add or remove names from the list:
Open Contacts and double click on the name of the
list.
Then use the Add New and Remove buttons to add or
remove names. When finished, click Save and Close.
As
with many other features and procedures, this is much easier to accomplish
in Outlook 2000 than in Outlook 97. If you have not updated your Office
suite yet, maybe this will make you at least think about it!
Parker Renaud is the one-man IT
department at Colliers Keenan where he manages 90 PCs on 5 servers.
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