34. Compose an Email Message  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 33 About Email and Text Messages
 SEE ALSO 27 Compose an Email Message Using the Web Client 36 Send a PIN Message 37 Send an SMS Message
Composing an email message on your device is straightforward and primarily involves getting comfortable typing on the compact BlackBerry 7100 keyboard. You can address an email message to multiple recipients and use familiar addressing options such as Cc and Bcc. The standard Messages client email application also supports email attachments, albeit somewhat limited attachmentsyou are only allowed to attach address book contacts to email messages. Even though you can't create a new email with an attachment other than an address book attachment, you are allowed to forward emails with other types of attachments. As an example, even though you can't compose an email message on your device and attach an image to it, you can receive an email with an image attachment and then forward it with the attachment intact. The image attachment can be forwarded even if your wireless service doesn't support the viewing of image attachments. | 1. | Open the Messages Screen
Scroll to the Messages icon on the Home screen and click the trackwheel. The Messages screen appears, displaying a list of messages that have been sent and received on your device. Initially, no messages appear if you are just starting to use email with your device.
| | 2. | Start Composing a New Message Click the trackwheel to open the Messages menu and scroll to select Compose Email . Click the trackwheel to select the menu item and begin composing a new email message. The Select Address screen appears.  TIP An even quicker way to begin composing a new email message is to simply press the L key while viewing the Messages screen. Just be sure you then select Email Recipient Name from the menu that appears. 34. Compose an Email Message  | | 3. | Specify the Message Recipient(s) The Select Address screen is where you enter the email address of the message recipient(s). By default, the first entry in your Address Book is selected. Scroll with the trackwheel to select the message recipient, or select Use Once to enter an email address directly. The idea behind the Use Once designation is that you are specifying an email address you don't want to bother adding to your Address Book as a new contact. To select an existing contact, just click the trackwheel after scrolling to select it. The menu changes to show a list of options you can select from regarding the email address you've chosenin this case, click the selected menu item ( Email Darin Masters ) to begin composing the email message. You might see other messaging options such as SMS Recipient Name or PIN Recipient Name , so be sure you select Email Recipient Name to indicate that you want to send an email message instead of an SMS or PIN message. TIP If you opt to enter an email address by selecting Use Once when choosing the email recipient, here's a handy trick you can use to enter the @ and . characters in the email address. While typing the email address, when you get to the point in the address where the @ symbol is required, just press the Space key and the @ symbol is automatically inserted. As you continue entering the address, press the Space key again when you want to insert the . (dot) in the domain name. As an example, to enter the email address parcells@cowboys.com, type the name parcells followed by the Space key, then cowboys followed by another space, and then com . You can only add a single message recipient on the Select Address screen when you first begin composing a new message. To add more recipients, click the trackwheel after the new message appears and then select Add To:, Add Cc: , or Add Bcc: from the menu. NOTE The Add To:, Add Cc: , and Add Bcc: options for specifying new message recipients follow the standard To, Cc (carbon copy), and Bcc (blind carbon copy) email designations. The To designation applies to recipients who are directly receiving the message, and Cc is used to designate recipients who will receive the message but aren't the direct targets. Bcc is similar to Cc except that none of the other recipients can see the Bcc recipient, including any other Bcc recipientshence, the name blind carbon copy. In addition to specifying more than one recipient for the email message, you can also attach a contact to the message as an attachment. To do this, click the trackwheel with the new message visible and then select Attach Address from the menu. You are prompted to select a contact from the Address Bookthe contact is then sent along with the email message as an attachment. NOTE If you're sending a contact through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server or directly to another BlackBerry device, the contact is sent as a vCard attachment that can be easily opened and added to a contact list. If you're sending the contact to another kind of device, the contact data might get packaged into a generic data file (a .dat file extension) that the recipient has to open in a text editor to extract the contact information. | | 4. | Enter the Message Subject
After specifying the message's recipients, enter the message subject, which is the text that describes the message. You can enter any text you choose. When you're satisfied with the message subject, press the Enter key or scroll the trackwheel down to begin entering the text of the message body.
| | 5. | Enter the Message Body The message body is the heart of your email message and is where you enter the actual message text. You can enter any text you want as the body of the message. Just keep in mind that BlackBerry email messages are composed as raw text messages with no special formatting. TIP You can use several typing shortcuts while entering text on your BlackBerry device. For example, to make the most of the SureType feature, type the entire word letter by letter before attempting to select from the list of corrections. If you must make a correction using the SureType pop-up window, press the Next key ( * ) or scroll the trackwheel to highlight the correction, and then click. To capitalize a letter, hold the letter key until the capitalized letter appears. To scroll through all the available characters for a given key, hold the key and scroll the trackwheel. To insert a period at the end of a sentence , press the Space key twice. To turn NUM LOCK on, hold down the Shift key ( # ) and press the Alt key; to turn NUM LOCK off, press the Alt key by itself. And finally, to switch between SureType and traditional multitap modes, hold down the Next key ( * ). If you don't have time to finish entering the message body or want to wait and finish it later, you can save the message instead of sending it. To save the message without sending it, click the trackwheel, select Save Draft from the menu that appears, and then click once more. The message appears in the message list with a special icon next to it to indicate that it is a draft message that has yet to be sent. | | 6. | Send the Message
When you're ready to send a message, click the trackwheel with the message open and select Send from the menu that appears. Click the trackwheel to flag the message for sending. I say that the message is flagged instead of actually being sent because the actual sending of the message depends on your device having access to the wireless network. If you have the radio turned off on your device or are out of the wireless coverage area, the message isn't sent immediately. When you turn the radio back on or regain wireless coverage, the message is automatically sent.
| NOTES A message that is queued for later delivery pending network access is displayed with a small icon of a clock next to it. A small broadcast icon is shown while the message is being sent. And finally, a check mark appears next to the message after it has been successfully delivered. You might deliberately choose to compose messages offline when you are on an airplane and then send them later. Most airlines prohibit the use of wireless radios during flight, which means you must turn off the radio on your device. However, you can still compose new messages and respond to messages; they just won't be sent until you turn the radio back on. This is a useful way to accomplish work even when you don't have wireless network access.
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