Personalizing the Appearance of Messages

By default, the content of an Outlook message appears in black, 10-point Calibri (a very readable sans serif font that is new in this release of the Office system), arranged in left-aligned paragraphs on a white background. You can change the appearance of a message either by applying local formatting (text or paragraph attributes) or global formatting (a theme or style).

The local formatting options available in Outlook 2007 are largely the same as those available in Word and other programs in the 2007 Office system, and you might already be familiar with them from working with those programs. Here's a quick review of the types of formatting changes you can make:

• Font, size, and color. More than 220 fonts in a range of sizes and in a virtually unlimited selection of colors.

• Font style. Regular, bold, italic, or bold italic.

• Underline style and color. Plain, multiple, dotted, dashed, wavy, and many combinations thereof, in every color of the rainbow.

• Effects. Strikethrough, superscript, subscript, shadow, outline, emboss, engrave, small caps, all caps, or hidden.

• Character spacing. Scale, spacing, position, and kerning.

• Paragraph attributes. Alignment, indentation, and spacing.

The global formatting options are sets of local formatting that you can apply with a couple of clicks. You use a theme to apply a pre-selected combination of several formatting options to the entire message. In addition, the 2007 Office system introduces a handy new set of formatting options called Quick Styles that you can apply to individual elements of a message.

You are more likely to use Quick Styles when working in Word documents than in messages, but we'll give you an overview and you can investigate further on your own. Within a message window, Quick Styles are available in the Styles group on the Format Text tab. They include a number of standard styles for titles, headings, lists, quotes, emphasis, and so on. You can see a live preview of the effect of a style on your text by pointing to the style in the Quick Styles gallery.

You can change the appearance of all the styles in the Quick Styles gallery by selecting any of the 11 available style sets (or creating your own). Selecting a style set changes the appearance of all the text in the current document, as well as the appearance of the icons in the Quick Style gallery. You can select or preview a style set, color scheme, or font set by clicking the Change Styles button in the Styles group on the Format Text tab and then pointing to Style Set, Colors, or Fonts.

See Also For more information about Quick Styles, style sets, color schemes, and font sets, refer to Microsoft Office Word 2007 Step by Step (ISBN 0-7356-2302-3) by Joyce Cox and Joan Preppernau (Microsoft Press, 2007).

In this exercise, you will experiment with some of the formatting features that are new or improved in this version of Outlook while changing the font and background color of an e-mail message. Then you will apply a theme to the same message, overwriting the local formatting. There are no practice files for this exercise.

BE SURE TO start Outlook and display the Inbox before beginning this exercise.

OPEN a new message window.

1. In the content pane, type

   Looking forward to seeing you next week at the celebration!

2. Select the sentence you just typed by pointing to its left edge until the pointer becomes an arrow (pointing at the paragraph), and then clicking once.

   The Mini toolbar appears.

   

   This context-sensitive toolbar makes several common formatting options immediately available when you select a letter, word, or phrase by using the mouse. When the toolbar first appears, it is nearly transparent, and it disappears in a short time if you don't activate it by pointing to it.

3. On the Mini toolbar, click the Font arrow.

   

   Tip 

   If the Mini toolbar is not visible, you can find the Font box in the Basic Text group on the Message tab, and in the Font group on the Format Text tab.

   Many more fonts are available in Outlook 2007 than in previous versions of Outlook. The name of each font appears in the list in that font, so you can easily select a font that appeals to you.

4. Scroll the Font list, noting the many available fonts, and then click Franklin Gothic Medium.

   The font of the selected text changes.

5. On the Mini toolbar or in the Font group on the Format Text tab, click the Font Size arrow, and in the list, click 12.

   The size of the selected text changes.

6. Click once in the word next, without selecting any letters. Then on the Format Text tab, in the Font group, click the Font Color arrow.

   

   Outlook 2007 offers a new palette of theme colors (which change depending on the selected theme) and standard colors.

7. In the Font Color gallery, under Standard Colors, click the Red box.

   The font color of the word next changes to red. Notice that the entire word changes even though you didn't select it. This is a new feature of Outlook 2007.

8. Double-click the word next, and on the Mini toolbar (or in the Clipboard group), click the Format Painter button. Then click once in the word week.

   Outlook copies the formatting of the word next to the word week. By using the Format Painter, you can copy formatting from one item to any other item. To copy formatting to multiple items, double-click the Format Painter button to turn it on and then click it again to turn it off after you're finished applying the formatting.

9. On the Options tab, in the Themes group, click the Page Color button.

   The Page Color gallery includes the same theme colors and standard colors as the Font Color gallery.

10. In the Page Color gallery, point to any color.

    Outlook displays a live preview of the color in the message window.

    

11. In the Page Color gallery, in the color gradient area, click the second shade down in the fifth column from the left (Accent 1, Lighter 60%).

    The message background changes to the selected color.

12. In the Themes group, click the Themes button.

    Outlook displays a gallery of themes. In each theme icon, the theme colors appear across the bottom, and the presentation background appears on the right.

    

13. In the Themes gallery, click Oriel.

    The message background and font change to those of the theme.

    Notice that the colors displayed on the Colors button in the Themes group have changed.

14. In the Themes group, click the Page Color button. In the list, compare the new page background to the new set of colors displayed in the color gradient area. The page background color is still Accent 1, Lighter 60% (the shade you selected in Step 11).

    Tip 

    The formatting changes you make in this exercise apply only to the active message, and will not be automatically applied to other messages.

15. Enter your own e-mail address in the To box; type SBS Festival Reminder in the Subject box, and then send the message.

    When you receive the message in your Inbox, leave it there for use in a later exercise.

    Tip 

    You can change the colors, fonts, and effects associated with a theme by clicking those buttons in the Themes group on the Options tab. You might want to experiment with different combinations on your own. However, Outlook offers such an extensive selection of themes that you will more than likely find that one of these ready-made combinations fits your needs.