156. Send a Message  SEE ALSO 157 Reply or Forward a Message 159 Add New Contacts
When you have a quick message or important news to share, you can send out an email . To send an email message, you'll need to know the recipient's email address. Typically, you're sending email to people who've already sent you a message, so this is usually no problem. After you send an email to someone, their address is automatically copied to the Contacts list (address book), making it easier to address and send messages to friends and colleagues. You can also add addresses to the Contacts list manually, before sending an email message. Also, you can import existing addresses and contact data from your old email program. See 159 Add New Contacts for help. | 1. | Click Write Button
To reply to or forward a message you've just been sent, see 157 Reply or Forward a Message for help. To begin composing a new message, click the Write button on the Mail toolbar. The Compose window appears.
| | 2. | Type To Address Your default email address appears at the top of the window. If you have more than one address, you can open the From list and select a different address if desired. 156. Send a Message  Click in the To box and type the address to which you want to send this message. If this person's address is in the Contacts list (because you've sent them an email before, or because you added the address to the Contacts list yourself), you'll probably only need to type a few letters before the Address Autocompletion feature completes the address for you. In such a case, press Enter to accept the suggested address. If Address Autocompletion displays multiple addresses that match what you've typed, use the arrow keys to select the address you want, or just click it. Enter additional email addresses by repeating this step. Each email address is entered on its own To line, which appears as soon as you press Enter to complete an address.  TIPS If for some reason Address Autocompletion suggests the wrong address or none at all, you can display the Contacts list (by clicking the Contacts button at the top of the Compose window) and insert the correct address yourself (by selecting the address from those listed and clicking the Add to To button at the bottom of the Contacts sidebar. You can also drag and drop the address in the To box within the Compose window. To send a copy of this message to someone else, click the arrow on the To button and select Cc . To send a blind carbon copy of this message, select Bcc instead. | | 3. | Type Subject
Click in the Subject box and type a short description of the message topic.
| | 4. | Type Message
Type your message in the message area. Assuming that your recipient uses an HTML compatible email program (most are), you can add formatting to your text as desired using the tools on the Formatting toolbar.
You can create a signature file (a text file that typically contains your name , address, and phone number) and have its contents added to all your messages automatically. A signature file saves you the trouble of adding common information at the bottom of your email messages. After creating the text file in Writer (be sure to save the file in text format with the .txt file extension), choose Tools, Account Settings , and click the name of the email account for which you created the signature. Enable the Attach this signature option, click Choose , select your text file, and click Open .
| | 5. | Click Send
If you want to attach a file to the message, do so now. See 158 Attach a File to a Message for help. Click the Send button to send the message. If prompted, select the message format to use: text, HTML, or both. Copies of messages you send are placed in the Sent folder unless you've configured Thunderbird to do something else with your sent messages. To configure Thunderbird to behave differently, choose Tools, Account Settings , display the Copies & Folders page for the account you want to change, and in the When sending messages, automatically section, choose the option you want to apply to messages you send.
Optionally, instead of clicking Send , you can click Save , which saves the message in the Drafts folder. Later you can change to the Drafts folder by selecting it from the Folders list in the main Thunderbird window, double-click the message to open it, make additional edits, and click Send to send it.
You can also choose File, Send Later instead of clicking Send . This command places the message in the Unsent Messages folder. To send such messages, choose File, Send Unsent Messages from the main Thunderbird menu.
| TIP Click the Spell button to check your spelling before sending the message. Better yet, set up Thunderbird to check the spelling of all messages automatically. Choose Tools, Options , display the Composition page, and enable the Check spelling before sending option.
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