Using Address Book to Manage Your Contacts

Windows includes a contact manager application, called the Address Book, that you can use to store information about your friends, family, and business associates. You can then import this contact information into Outlook Express (to send email), Microsoft Works Calendar (to remind you of birthdays), and Microsoft Word (to personalize letters and address envelopes and labels).

To add a new contact to your Address Book, click the New button on the Address Book toolbar, then select New Contact. Enter all the information you know (you don't have to fill in all the blanks), then click OK.

You can also add contacts from any email messages you receive. Just right-click the sender's name in the email message and select Add Sender to Address Book. This creates a new contact for that person; you can then go to the Address Book and add more detailed information lateras described next.

note

A Cc (carbon copy) message is one that is sent to someone other than the main recipient. A Bcc (blind carbon copy) is just like a Cc, except the Bcc recipient is hidden from the other recipients.

To send email to one of your contacts, all you have to do is click the To button in your new Outlook Express message. This displays the Select Recipients dialog box, shown in Figure 24.3. Select the contact(s) you want, then click either the To, Cc, or Bcc buttons. Click OK when you're done adding names.

Figure 24.3. Sending email to contacts in your Address Book.

The Absolute Minimum

Here are the key points to remember from this chapter:

• Email is a fast and easy way to send electronic letters over the Internet.

• You can send and receive email messages using the Outlook Express program, pre-installed on most new PCs.

• Sending a new message is as easy as clicking the Create Mail button; reading a message is as easy as selecting it in the Message pane (and viewing it in the Preview pane).

• Don't open any unexpected files attached to incoming email messagesthey might contain computer viruses!

• You can store frequently used email addresses in the Address Book utility.