Author Archives: Kim Laursen

Tiny text/large text in Outlook

Posted by on March 28th, 2013
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Question: This week we had some say their text when typing email messages was very tiny. Then another said their Outlook web mail was large.

Answer:  More than likely you accidentally touched the roller on your mouse when holding your control key which zooms text in and out. To zoom larger, hold the Ctrl key and move the roller on the mouse to get the desired size. If you have a Mac, press Ctrl and + or – keys to zoom in and out.

Rules and Tools to Manage your Outlook Mail

Posted by on March 26th, 2013
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Question: I am getting a message that my email is full and I need to delete things.  I usually delete 80% of all email I receive. Some things, however, I have to keep regarding funding, etc. from other colleagues, etc.  Is there a way I can get more space in my email, or can you help me with reorganizing things.  I would appreciate any help/suggestions regarding this matter.

Answer: There are a number of things you can do to manage your mail and clear space.

  1. First, check what part of your mail is taking up the most space. In Outlook 2010 you can go to File > Info > Mailbox Cleanup and click View Mailbox size. You’ll see the various parts of your email to determine which folder is taking up the most space. In most cases it is the inbox or sent folders.
  2. Then go to those folders and sort by size. You’ll see the largest messages (usually with attachments) listed at the top. To get the most space quickly, you can delete those messages, or just remove the attachments from the message if the attachment is no longer needed, or you can save the attachment first into a folder on your computer and then delete the message or attachment. Doing this for very large messages will save you much space.
  3. You can also move messages to a computer network folder and then delete the messages from your email. You are unable to move folders to the network, but you can create a folder on the network drive and then move several messages to it (by sleecting messages using Shift or Ctrl when clicking). If you need to refer to the message at a later time, you would need to have the Outlook client on your computer in order to open those messages from the network drive. After deleting those “enormous” messages from your Mail, it can significantly reduce the size of your mailbox. (Gotcha: when you move messages to the network drive, the dates associated with the file is the date you moved the messages, so you won’t be able to sort by date of the message). You can, however, still search for dates or other text in the messages.
  4. An even better option is to convert messages to PDF. This saves messages on individual pages of a PDF, along with any attachments. It does not require the Outlook client to open the messages. You must have Adobe Acrobat X installed (not Adobe Reader). Once the messages are converted to PDF, you can delete the messages from your email.

For more cleanup and management tips, come to ITS’ Outlook Tools and Rules on April Fools, 4/1 from 1-2 p.m. Click here to register or email csttrain@unmc.edu or 402-559-7284. You can find more tips here.

All Outlook objects open at once

Posted by on March 26th, 2013
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Question: Is there a way to have the outlook Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks all open at once? I have two monitors and keep my mail open on the left and my tasks, calendar and contacts open on the right.  Each has a designated corner to which I drag them so that a piece of each window is always open and easy to click.

Answer: What a great question! A lot of people don’t realize you can have more than one window open at once. You can do this by right clicking on Calendar (or Contacts or Tasks) and select Open in New Window. but then you have to move the windows where you want. We discovered that if you first arrange the windows as you desire, and then instead of clicking on the X in the upper right to close Outlook, you instead select File > Exit. It will reopen the windows as you intended.

For these and more Outlook tips, come to our Outlook Rules and Tools on April Fools, 4/1 from 1-2 in the ITS training room, 8011 Wittson Hall. To register, click here or email csttrain@unmc.edu or call 402-559-7284.

Printing Comments in Excel

Posted by on February 28th, 2013
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Question: I would like to print comments in an Excel spreadsheet. I can’t seem to find a way to do this. Any ideas?
Answer: Yes, you may need to verify that your comments are showing on your spreadsheet first (go to File > Options and click Advanced. Then scroll down to Display and select Comments and Indicators under “For cells with comments show.” Then click ok.

Then to print comments, go to File > Print and click Page Setup (bottom) and click the Sheet tab. Change Comments: to show “As displayed on sheet.” Click OK, and your comments should print.

Create OneNote Pages from Excel List

Posted by on February 26th, 2013
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Question: I have an Excel spreadsheet with 3000 names that I would like to create folders for on my shared network drive. We need to keep files and other information for these people and would like to have the names stored in folders by As, Bs, etc. . Is there an easy way to do that?

Answer: There may be a procedure to do that, but I think a more efficient way to keep track of names and subsequent information for them would be to create a OneNote2010 notebook on a shared network drive. This is a perfect project to show the powerful capabilities of OneNote.

Create sections of the OneNote notebook with the Letters of the Alphabet and then create pages for each student. Within these pages you can create subpages which can hold files, notes, images, recording, etc. You can create this in just a few minutes by Importing the list from Excel into Outlook 2010 Contacts, and then select the “A” contacts and click OneNote in the ribbon. This will send the Contact information to OneNote pages. Do this for each section. See more detailed steps below:

  1. In your Excel file, make sure your workbook contains only one worksheet with headings at the top. It is best to have headings Name and E-Mail for it to import correctly into Outlook.
  2. Name your data range in Excel and save the file in 2003 (.xls) format.
  3. Go to your Outlook contacts view and and right click on Contacts to create new folder – call it something like “Students”
  4. Click File > Open > Import > Import from another program or file.
  5. Verify that the names imported correctly into your Outlook Contacts.
  6. Create a OneNote Notebook on your shared network drive.
  7. Create sections for the letters of the Alphabet.
  8. Go back to your Outlook contacts and select the names you wish to place in the A section (using Shift or Ctrl to select the names) and click OneNote in the ribbon and place in the appropriate notebook section. Continue this for each section of names. You could also select all Contacts and click OneNote, sending all names at once. Then create new pages for each letter of the alphabet and indent the contact pages by dragging slightly to the right, creating subpages.
  9. You can now add notes, drawings, images, files, Outlook messages, appointments and even recordings into OneNote pages. You can also create lists or tags which you can search on.

Learn more about OneNote 2010 in our basics class coming up 4/22 from 1-3 p.m. which you can sign up for by going to www.unmc.edu/its/training.htm . You can find several other tutorials and resources on OneNote at Microsoft, including: