Composing E-Mails

Reading e-mail is fun, but the real value is in the conversation. In Thunderbird, you can compose a new e-mail by clicking the Write button on the toolbar. To respond to an e-mail that somebody sent you, ensure that the e-mail is selected in the List pane and then click the Reply button. You can also forward an e-mail you receive to somebody else to show it to her by selecting the message and clicking the Forward button.

Tip 

If you click Reply, your response is sent only to the sender of the original e-mail and not to any other recipients. To respond to both the sender and all of the e-mail's recipients (such as in a team conversation where every member should be kept in the loop), click the Reply All button on the Thunderbird toolbar.

In each of the cases, the powerful Compose window appears (as shown in Figure 10-6) so you can type, format, and send your message. The Compose window is organized into three primary sections to fill out before sending an e-mail, which I discuss in the following sections. I also tell you about attaching files to e-mails, spell-checking, and sending e-mails on their way.

Figure 10-6: The Compose window.

The Firefox connection

Thunderbird is designed to feel comfortable to Firefox users. Its interface sports a similar menu bar and theme as Firefox, and also contains a Search Box in the upper-right corner. If Firefox and Thunderbird are your computer's default browsing and e-mail programs (as I discuss at the end of this sidebar), they also work together seamlessly to provide a complete Internet experience.

When you're in Firefox, you can access your Thunderbird mail quickly by choosing Tools Read Mail. You can also open an e-mail compose window (without even launching Thunderbird) by choosing Tools New Message. To provide faster access to these commands, Firefox offers a Mail button that you can add to one of your Firefox toolbars, as I discuss in Chapter 18.

If you come across a link in a Thunderbird e-mail, you can click it to load the linked page in Firefox. By default, the link opens in a new tab of the last Firefox window you used, but you can configure this behavior from the Tabs category of the Firefox Options window, as I discuss in Chapter 7.

Note that the Firefox mail commands and the Thunderbird launch-in-browser feature work with your computer's default e-mail and browsing programs, respectively. If they aren't already, your defaults, you can make Firefox and Thunderbird your default browsing and e-mail programs by using the General category of each application's Options window (Tools Options).

Addressing e-mails

The first section you should fill out is the addressing area, where you indicate to whom the e-mail is being sent and in what way. The addressing area contains a list of rows in which you specify the addresses of the recipients. Each row that is in use begins with a drop-down list that contains the possible address types. Thunderbird supports the following forms of addressing e-mail:

• To: Sends e-mail directly to a recipient, who is the primary target of the e-mail.

• Cc: Sends a carbon copy to a recipient who might be interested in the e-mail but who is not its primary audience.

• Bcc: Sends a blind carbon copy to a recipient (which means that other recipients don't know that he or she is receiving it).

• Reply-To: Specifies the return address that recipients should use when responding to your e-mail. By default, the return address is the same address as the one you use to send the e-mail, but you might want to indicate a different one if you use multiple e-mail accounts or if the responses should go to a superior in your organization, to another e-mail member, or to some other party.

• Newsgroup: Specifies a newsgroup (an online forum) on which to post the e-mail message. This is an advanced feature that's beyond the scope of this chapter.

• Followup-To: This is to newsgroups what Reply-To is to e-mail: It redirects the conversation to a different newsgroup. This is an advanced feature that's beyond the scope of this book.

Begin by typing the To e-mail addresses into the top row. Separate multiple e-mail addresses by using a comma (for example, [e-mail], [e-mail]).

If you want to specify additional types of recipients (such as Cc or Bcc), click Enter to insert a new row, and then use the drop-down list to the left of the row to specify the address type. Figure 10-6, earlier in this chapter, shows an e-mail addressed to a handful of recipients.

As you enter e-mail addresses, Thunderbird makes suggestions based on your address book. In fact, if you entered the recipient's name into your address book, you can start typing that instead, and Thunderbird can still recommend the right address. You can also add recipients from your address book manually by clicking the Compose window's Contacts button to open the Contacts Sidebar (shown in Figure 10-7), then double-clicking the recipients in the sidebar list. See "Creating an Address Book" later in this chapter for more information about creating an address book.

Figure 10-7: The Contacts Sidebar helps you address an e-mail quickly.

Specifying an e-mail subject

Sending a new e-mail to someone is like beginning a conversation. It's a good idea to use the Subject line of the e-mail to indicate what you want to talk about (for example, "This week's sales meeting"). If, on the other hand, you're responding to or forwarding an e-mail you received, Thunderbird automatically uses the original e-mail's subject line, prefixed by Re: or Fwd:, respectively. You can still change the subject line, but I recommend you stick to these tried-and-true e-mail conventions.

Filling out the e-mail body

You've come to the fun part: typing the e-mail itself! If you're responding to an e-mail you received, Thunderbird automatically quotes the original e-mail in the message body, and you can type your response above or even within the quoted original. Otherwise, if you're starting fresh, you have a daunting white box to fill. Don't worry — Thunderbird offers a variety of handy tools to fill that box in interesting ways.

Thunderbird allows you to compose and send e-mails rich with colors, font styles, and images, much as Microsoft Word allows you to create stylized documents. These options are available on the Formatting Toolbar, as shown earlier in Figure 10-6, and might be familiar to you from other word-processing programs.

REMEMBER 

Composing an e-mail worthy of Van Gogh doesn't necessarily mean the recipients will receive it in all its glory. Your recipients' e-mail programs must support the so-called rich e-mail format that enables colors, fonts, and images to appear. These days, it's a pretty safe bet that this will be the case. However, if you use an unusual font that a recipient doesn't have, he or she will see your text in a plain font – so it's a good idea to stick to common fonts.

Attaching files

If you need to send a file along with an e-mail, you can attach it, and the recipients of the e-mail can download the file to their own computers when they receive the e-mail. To attach one or more files in Thunderbird, follow these simple steps:

1. Click the Attach button on the toolbar of the Compose window.

   The Attach File window appears so you can find and select the files to attach.

2. Navigate to the folder containing the files to attach.

3. Select the file(s) to attach.

   To select more than one file, hold Ctrl (Windows) or (Mac) while clicking. To select a range of files at one time, hold Shift while clicking.

Thunderbird displays the e-mail's current attachments list in a box in the corner. (This box appears only when at least one file is attached, so don't worry if you don't see it yet.) You can add or remove files from the list at any time before sending the e-mail. To add files, repeat the preceding steps. To remove files, select the files in the list and press Delete. Removing an attachment does not, of course, delete or otherwise affect the file on your computer.

Spell-checking

So your e-mail is beautifully tricked out in colors and styles, and even contains some interesting prose, too. There's just one problem — that spelling of mundain doesn't look quite right, but you'd rather not use a more, uh, boring word. Fortunately, Thunderbird offers integrated spell-checking. Now you can focus on the e-mail itself, and not minor nuisances like the English language. Thunderbird identifies misspelled words as you type, and it can also guide you through the spell-checking process, which comes in handy for longer e-mails with more misspellings. I discuss both methods in the following two sections.

Spell-checking as you type

Like Microsoft Word and many other word processors, Thunderbird automatically checks your spelling as you type and underlines misspelled words with a dotted red line. When you right-click the word, Thunderbird displays a list of suggestions at the top of the contextual menu, as shown in Figure 10-8. You can choose a suggestion to replace the misspelled word or fix the word manually.

Figure 10-8: Thunderbird's integrated spell-checking feature helps you avoid sloppy e-mails.

Sometimes Thunderbird complains about words that are actually spelled correctly, such as slang, names, or other proper nouns. To prevent Thunderbird from complaining about occurrences of the word in this particular e-mail, right-click the word and choose Ignore Word from the contextual menu. To prevent Thunderbird from identifying the word as misspelled in this and all future e-mails, choose Add to Dictionary to add it to Thunderbird's dictionary.

Using the guided spell-checking feature

The method I describe in the preceding section is handy for a misspelled word or two, but might be cumbersome for long e-mails with many misspellings. If you prefer to have Thunderbird guide you through the spell-checking process, follow these simple steps:

1. Click the Spell button on the toolbar.

   The Check Spelling window appears to indicate the status of the spell-checking process, If Thunderbird finds no misspelled words, it says so.

   In that case, click Close to close the window, and skip the remaining instructions. Otherwise, Thunderbird displays the first misspelled word in bold and offers a list of suggested corrections.

2. If the word is in fact misspelled, select one of Thunderbird's suggested corrections, or type in your own correction in the Replace With text box.

   I say "if the word is in fact misspelled" because Thunderbird doesn't know your mother-in-law's name (and maybe that's a good thing) and some pop-culture lingo. You can use the Ignore buttons to ignore these words for this e-mail only. If you use the words often and don't want the spell-check feature to complain about them again, click the Add Word button to add the word to Thunderbird's dictionary.

   Tip 

   If you enter your own correction, you can spell-check it by clicking the Check Word button.

3. After you correct or ignore the misspelled word, click the Recheck Page button to continue spell-checking the rest of the e-mail. Repeat until Thunderbird indicates No misspelled words.

Sending your e-mail

When your e-mail is spell-checked and ready to go, simply click the Send button to send it.

To send an e-mail quickly by using the keyboard, press Ctrl+Enter (or +Enter on the Mac). When you send an e-mail this way, Thunderbird asks you to confirm the send to make sure you didn't press those keys accidentally, so click Send in the confirmation window or press Enter. A check box in the window allows you to turn off the confirmation window for future sending.