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This FAQ originally appeared in article format in the newsletter we published, The Naked PC. You can subscribe to this free email newsletter at the bottom of this page or click here to visit the TNPC Web site.
Here we list just the list, for a detailed drill-down on each item see the transcript of the chat which is available at: http://go.compuserve.com/EXCHANGE?SEC=3&FID=645 (Note: if you're a CompuServe member this link will take you directly to the transcript page. If you're not a member, when you see the Exchange Forum page look in the "Outlook Annoyances Conference" section and click the "Click Here to see the transcript" link.)
1. The all-powerful Journal.
The Journal facility supports 20 different entry types, tracks Office documents, and can auto-record Outlook activity for Contacts.
2. Easily transmogrify items between data types.
Outlook makes it easy to drag-and-drop any type of item onto any folder, thereby automatically creating a new item with pre-filled data based on the original item.
3. Get organized with the Organizer.
Our initial reaction was "pretty hokey" but it does have one redeeming quality: it makes it easy to create common rules for filtering and color coding email.
4. Email nicknames save time.
Creating a nickname is easy... once you know, but discovering how to do so is much too difficult.
5. Powerful programmability via Automation.
If you know Visual Basic or VBA (or any other language that supports Automation), you can access the information in Outlook from other applications -- like Excel or Word -- and do with it what you will, all by remote control. You can also have Outlook drive the Automation bus (meaning, send its data to Excel and Word).
6. Customizable toolbars.
In all of our Annoyances books we stress how important it is to put the tools you use most often on an application's toolbars and to remove those you don't use.
7. Use filtering to see only what you need to see.
Changing the filter of a view is as simple as switching to a different view from the View menu. Powerful advanced filtering is available too.
8. Categories help you track items regardless of what they are or where they're stored.
Categories work as keywords, letting you pull together items of different types.
9. Notes are the ultimate catchall.
Definitely the most underutilized facility in Outlook, the Note facility is a free-form database for bits and pieces of information that don't fit anywhere else. Remember Tornado?
10. Automatic date recognition is sensible IntelliSense.
When creating a date-related item, instead of typing a formatted date like 02/25/99 or picking a date off the cutesy calendar drop-down, type in something like "next Thursday" and Outlook automatically calculates the correct date.
1. Outlook's three multiple email personalities are confusing.
Outlook (98 and higher) offers three different email flavors: "Internet Only" (IO), "Corporate or Workgroup" (CW), and "No E- mail." But you can't choose the one to be installed in *all* cases, and core features are different between IO and CW.
2. The "kitchen sink" user interface is an impediment to productivity.
Outlook's labyrinthine user interface is distracting and confusing, especially to new users.
3. Telephony features are missing phone number descriptions.
Speed dial and other dialing options don't list the target phone number's description, leaving you completely bewildered as to which number is which.
4. Limited snooze intervals for reminders are frustrating.
Snoozing a reminder can only be done using Outlook's limited, pre-determined, and non-customizable time intervals: 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes; 1, 2, 4, 8 hours; 1, 2, 3, 4 days; and 1 week. This drives us crazy every single waking moment that we use Outlook.
5. New Journal items always default to "Phone call" type.
Create a new Journal item and it's always a "Phone call" entry type. This setting cannot be changed, not even with a Registry hack.
6. There are no built-in features for time billing.
The paltry text field labeled "Billing information" for Tasks is a joke. Zero billing infrastructure for Journal entries. Hello!? This is a PIM, remember?
7. It's very awkward to get a Contact's address information into Word.
Microsoft has saddled its customers with a bewildering array of address books, but no single address book lets you easily drop a name and address into a Word document.
8. Getting rid of a specific addressee's email nickname is too difficult.
You can delete your .NICK file but then you'll have to manually recreate all your other nicknames.
9. Outlook 98 doesn't natively support exporting to competing PIM formats, only to other Microsoft Office applications.
Although imports from its PIM competitors are supported, it's a one-way street.
10. Outlook 97 and 98 do not implement Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
Outlook uses VBScript as a development language and a souped-up Notepad as a development environment. VBA and its world-class development environment, which are consistently supported in Outlook's siblings -- Access (sort of), Excel, PowerPoint, and Word -- should have been the standard for Outlook too.
For more information about "Outlook Annoyances" click here:
http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/annoyances/outlookannoy.html?v2i5
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