Some things to try if emails aren’t getting through to you

One of my readers is not receiving emails from one of her clients at a major Australian university. She uses Outlook and Windows 10, and has a Bigpond email address (part of Telstra in Australia). She asked if I could help her. She added this: ‘Telstra has advised that it looks as if the problem is at their [the university’s] end. The [university’s] domain is added as a safe contact in my email system, and the emails are not going to junk. It appears they’re stuck somewhere. My [university] colleagues have received messages to say that the server is busy. Do you think the problem is at their end? Is there anything you could recommend I try?’

My first response applies to everyone reading this—I am NOT an expert in Outlook and email systems in general; I’m just a user. However, I’ve learned over the years that the first step in a situation like this is to try to figure out where the problem is—is it at her end (Outlook)? is it at the Telstra (Bigpond) end? Is it at the university’s end (the information about the ‘busy server’ might indicate a bigger problem at their end)? or is it somewhere in between? If you paid someone to look at this, they could well spend 30 or more minutes testing things you can test yourself, before they get down to more in-depth troubleshooting.

My response to her (you would substitute Bigpond and your client’s email addresses, of course):

Do you have another email address they can try sending to, such as a free Gmail address? You need to establish where the problem is.

1. Let’s eliminate Outlook first: Check your Junk email options in Outlook—on the Home tab, click the drop-down arrow for Junk and select Junk email options. Make sure you haven’t set ‘permanently delete’ and also check all the Safe Senders and Blocked Senders lists to see if the university’s email addresses and/or domain are listed in Safe and not in Blocked. If Outlook isn’t blocking anything, then set up a free Gmail address (or use one you already have).
2. Once you set up a Gmail address keep Gmail open in your browser at the inbox page, then go to Outlook and send a test email from your usual Bigpond email address to that Gmail address. Check the Gmail inbox to make sure it gets through—it may take a minute or so.
3. Next, from within Gmail, compose a test email and send it to your Bigpond address. Check Outlook to see if it comes through. If it goes to junk, then allow that Gmail address and re-test to see if it’s not treated as junk the second time.
4. Next, set up Gmail to auto forward to your Bigpond address anything sent to that Gmail address (cog icon in top right corner for settings, then See all settings, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP – on that page in the first section, click Forward a copy… then add your Bigpond address and select Keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox).
5. Send another test email from Outlook to your Gmail address, wait a minute or so to see if it comes back into your Outlook via your Bigpond address. If it does, then that’s working and any emails sent to that Gmail address should come to you.
6. Now you need to get someone at the university to send a test email to your Gmail address.
   • If it arrives in your Gmail inbox, it’s not a university issue.
   • If it gets forwarded from Gmail to your Bigpond address (in Outlook), it’s also likely not a university issue.
   • If it doesn’t get forwarded, then the issue is likely with Telstra—it’s likely some (or all?) university emails are blacklisted somewhere.

Bottom line: If the university emails can’t get to a Gmail address, then the issue is likely at the university’s end. If their email can get to your Gmail address, but then NOT get auto forwarded to your Bigpond address, then the issue is likely with Telstra.

It may take a bit of effort and several test emails to try to nut out where the problem is—the university, Telstra, or even Outlook itself (even though you’ve set them up as a trusted domain). And then, once you’ve figured out where the problem is, you’ll need to contact someone at either place to see what they can do at their end… good luck with that! (the university will have an IT department, but dealing with Telstra can be a nightmare).

Another suggestion, particularly once you’ve figured out where the problem is but can’t go further, is to contact an IT company that offers support to small businesses, sole traders, individuals etc. There are bound to be plenty in your state, so ask friends, colleagues, family for recommendations. Be aware that you’ll be paying upwards of $100/hour for their help, so figuring out as much as you can beforehand will save you some money. Document everything you’ve tried if you’re emailing them.

Of course, if the Gmail solution works, then you may just go with that and get your client to send emails to your Gmail address.

Windows: Can’t see files in folders

I was freaking out a few minutes ago thinking I’d lost ALL my files on the server. I could see the folders, but NO files. I checked the various drives with the same result—folders, but no files. What on Earth had happened to them?

I was getting ready to call my IT people to restore all the files from a backup. And then I realised I was navigating the folder structure via a ‘Save all attachments’ window from Outlook! As soon as I closed that navigation window, everything was available to me again. But it certainly gave me a scare!!!

 

Office: Read-aloud functions

Earlier versions of Word (and possibly other Microsoft Office programs) had basic text-to-speech options. In Word for Windows 2010 to 2016, this was under the ‘Speak’ icon (see: https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/word-get-your-computer-to-read-your-document/). However, Microsoft has improved text-to-speech options in Office, and has put the ‘read-aloud option on the Review ribbon where you can find it easily.

Instead of writing up all the Windows and Office 365 settings for customising text-to-speech (male or female voice, accent, reading speed etc.), Office-Watch (a newsletter I highly recommend) covered all the bases in some recent articles:

• Word 365 and 2019 for Windows: https://office-watch.com/2020/read-aloud-word-365-2019/
• Word for Mac: https://office-watch.com/2020/read-aloud-in-word-for-mac/
• Word on iPhone / iPad: https://office-watch.com/2020/read-aloud-word-iphone-ipad/
• Word 2010, 2013, and 2016: https://office-watch.com/2020/hear-document-speak-in-word-2016-2013-2010/
• PowerPoint: https://office-watch.com/2020/powerpoint-speaks-aloud-in-office-365-2019-2016-and-earlier/
• Excel: https://office-watch.com/2020/excel-speaks-aloud-cells/
• Excel on iPhone / iPad: https://office-watch.com/2020/excel-mobile-read-aloud-iphone-ipad/

[Links last checked August 2020]

 

 

F12 to save as

I hate the way Microsoft Office has been removing (or more likely, hiding) functions that power users have used for many years. It smacks of ‘dumbing down’, to me.

Office 365 programs allow you to ‘save as’ but to get the full set of ‘save as’ options (such as the settings under the Tools drop-down arrow) you have to click the More options link under the file path where they want you to save the document.

There’s a quicker way if you have a keyboard with all the function keys—press F12 to open the Save As dialog box. Done.

(By the way, F12 to ‘save as’ works with many other programs too.)

Outlook 365: Temperature on the calendar

I noticed this morning that today’s temperature is displayed at the top of the calendar view in Outlook 365. The problem was that the temperature was for somewhere hot (and in Fahrenheit), and I’m in the middle of winter (and use Celsius)! So Outlook obviously wasn’t taking any of the Windows region settings into account.

A quick search on Google and I found out how to change the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius (File > Options > Calendar, scroll to the bottom for the weather settings) (found here: https://www.howtogeek.com/367936/how-to-automatically-show-the-weather-in-the-outlook-calendar/).

However, the instructions for changing the location by clicking the little arrow next to the default Washington DC location didn’t work for me—I couldn’t see even see ‘Washington DC’ let alone the arrow. I have Outlook open in my portrait-oriented monitor, so I moved it to my landscape monitor and resized the window. Ah! now I could see both Washington DC and the arrow and could change my location. When I moved it back into the portrait monitor and resized the window, I lost the location information and the drop-down arrow, but the temperature values (and in Celsius) for my location was now displayed correctly.

I call that a win!

Outlook: Spellcheck not working

I was working on my laptop, which has Office 2016 installed on it. Spellcheck worked fine in Word, but when I was in Outlook, no spelling errors were flagged. When I looked at the spellcheck settings in Outlook, all options were greyed out and unavailable. I couldn’t turn it on or off, or change anything else.

I consulted Dr Google, and found that a possible reason was a different version of Outlook and Word (see https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_outlook-mso_other-mso_2016/outlook-2016-spellcheck-option-greyed-out/13c5c4f6-3735-4836-9e74-61eb9a6ddae5)

But I had installed Office 2016, so they should be the same version, right? And then I remembered something from way back when… When I installed Office 2016 on my laptop, I couldn’t connect to Exchange Server (which is part of Small Business Server [SBS] 2008) from Outlook. My IT guys told me the reason was that Outlook 2016 was incompatible with Exchange Server 2008, so with their help I’d uninstalled Outlook 2016 and reinstalled my earlier Outlook 2013.

I checked the properties of both Outlook and Word to see which version I was using. Unfortunately, Microsoft no longer has an ‘About’ option; instead, go to File > Account or Help and you should be able to find your version. If they are different (i.e. Outlook’s version starts with 14 [Office 2010], or 15 [Office 2013] and the Word version starts with 16 [Office 2016]), you now know that spellcheck won’t work in Outlook.

Personally, I think this is a bug. If the proofing tools (i.e. spellcheck) are associated with a version folder on the PC, then it shouldn’t matter whether you’ve opened Word or Outlook—the programs should use the proofing tools specific to that version. Yes, the words you’ve added to each may not be available to the other, but they should still point to the applicable proofing tools for the version. However, according to the information in the link above, it’s winword.exe that’s loaded for the spellcheck, NOT the proofing tools. So if winword.exe is in a different Office folder to Outlook (e.g. office 16 versus Office 15), Outlook can’t find the spellcheck tools. Go figure.

[Links last checked September 2018]

 

Word: The things you learn – scroll tabs on the ribbon

Just when I thought there wasn’t much new to learn about the Word for Office for Windows interface… (NOTE: I tested this technique in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel, and it works the same in all of them, so it must be a Microsoft Office thing.)

Over on an editors’ Facebook group today, one of the members posted a trick that was new to her—it’s new to me too, but may well have been in Office for Windows ever since the ribbon interface came in with Office 2007.

That trick is quickly moving between tabs on the ribbon by hovering over one tab, then rolling the scroll wheel of your mouse. It’s another way to minimise wrist movements using a mouse.

Whether you go left to right through the tabs, or vice versa, depends on which way you roll the scroll wheel—roll it towards you and you go from left to right; roll it forward and you go from right to left. You can only roll to the first or last tab; further rolling doesn’t ‘wrap’ around the tabs.

 

Outlook: Lost the preview pane and minimized to the title bar only

Something went askew with my Outlook — I only had a title bar when minimized, so had to maximize the window to see my emails. And instead of getting a list of emails with a preview of each in the lower part of the screen as I clicked on each one, I could only get the list of emails OR the current email fully displayed, not how I had it before. I don’t know what happened or why, but I was able to solve both issues with a bit of Googling.

Resize the Outlook window

I could maximize the window fully, but when I restored the window size it went to just a title bar. I could drag a handle to make the title bar wider or narrower, but I couldn’t pull down the corners to display the window.

Solution: Drag the title bar to either the right or left edge of the window. You get a ghost outline of the new window dimensions, so release the mouse. You should now have a workable window you can resize to your requirements.

Restore the Preview pane

No matter what I set in Outlook’s View tab > Reading Pane settings, I could only get either ALL my emails listed (with the unread ones showing about 3 lines of the email) , or get a single email listed with the details of the sender in the lower half of the window. My usual way of viewing emails is a single line list on the right (whether read or not; #1 in the screenshot below), a preview of the email in the middle part of the screen (#2), and the sender’s details and other communications in the lower part of the screen (#3). No matter what I set, I couldn’t get my usual view back.

I found the solution that worked for me here: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/198544-outlook-reading-pane-turns-off-each-time-outlook-is-closed

In case this webpage ever goes missing, here’s what to do:

1. Close Outlook.
2. From the Start button (I’m using Windows 7, so vary this for the version of Windows you’re running), type Run then click the Run program.
3. In the Open field on the Run dialog box, type outlook.exe /cleanviews (Note: there’s a space after exe but no other spaces).
4. Click OK.
5. If this works for you as it did for me, Outlook should reopen with your preview pane back as it was. Adjust the heights of the preview pane elements to suit.

How big?

In computer terms, what we think of as ‘big’ has changed a lot over time. Things that were unimaginably big only a few years ago are now considered tiny.

For example, when I bought my first computer system in 1994 (with the printer, modem monitor etc., it cost more than $7000 at the time!), I had a ‘top of the wozza, future-proof’ system. I recall that the hard drive was a massive 384 MB, and I think it had 512 KB of RAM — really fast for the day.  Now, I can buy an external 3 TB hard drive for around $100, and laptops that are more powerful than those used to get us to the moon and back cost less than $1000.

But it’s data size I want to talk about. Specifically, what Microsoft Outlook 2010 considers ‘big’.

I was cleaning out some of my sent items, and decided to sort by size. And this is when I found out that Outlook 2010 considers anything over 5 MB to be ‘enormous’; between 1 and 5 MB ‘huge’, and between 500 KB and 1 MB ‘very large’. These seem such an antiquated descriptions in 2015, and I wonder if this aspect of the interface just hasn’t been looked at in a long time.

Note: I checked the same sent items in Outlook 2013, and it seems Microsoft have changed what they consider big — 5 to 10 MB is now considered ‘very large’, and 1 to 5 MB is ‘large’.

 

 

Email etiquette at work

Based on a writing tip I wrote recently for my work colleagues.

*********

Brad asked:

Do you have any information on etiquette/guidelines/best practise for emails, specifically when not to CC people who may have been on an original email? I see a lot of emails that start off as a simple one-way communication, i.e. not necessarily expecting a conversation, where people are CC’ed (managers or supervisors usually) that then escalates into a back and forth discussion, not necessarily in a bad way, but where all original participants are retained.

Good question, Brad.

Below I’ve compiled a list of etiquette rules for internal email that I gleaned from several websites that deal with this question (see the links at the end). I haven’t ranked them in any particular order, and I haven’t expanded too much on any of them as they should be self-explanatory (if you need more detail, see the links):

• Begin with a simple greeting, and end with ‘Thanks’, ‘Regards’ or similar as well as your signature (set up an automated signature in Outlook 2007 by going to Tools > Options > Mail Format tab > Signatures button)
• Make sure the subject line reflects the contents of the email
• Be as concise as possible; use bullet points or short paragraphs, with just one idea per paragraph or bullet point
• Ask permission before forwarding another person’s email
• Reply in a timely fashion
• Send personal emails from your PERSONAL account, not the company’s
• All work email (even deleted mail) is the property of the company and is NOT private
• Don’t send chain mail, forwards, hoaxes, jokes, or other unprofessional emails to your work colleagues (see link below for urban legends and hoaxes)
• Before clicking ‘Send’, re-read your message and check the list of recipients. Check the recipients again – do they ALL need to get the email?
• Don’t ‘Reply all’ out of habit – ‘Reply’ is usually sufficient; if you do ‘Reply all’, check the list of recipients first and delete those who don’t need the information
• Delete any unwanted ‘threads’ in the email before replying  – only reply to what you’ve been asked; trim out the unnecessary bits of previous conversations
• Don’t send huge attachments – link to the document or folder on the network instead; typically, you can’t attach files to an email that are more than about 5 MB in total
• Use standard English and punctuation; use acronyms sparingly; avoid sarcasm and irony as they don’t translate well in words; avoid emoticons (smileys) and ‘text-speak’; curb your use of exclamation points
• Use standard fonts, font sizes, colours, and sentence case
• Use the CC line for those who need to get a copy of the email, but who aren’t the main recipient; use the BCC line for those whose email addresses you don’t want to disclose (don’t forget – assume that every email you send from the company account is NOT private, whether you use BCC or not); be judicious in who you add to the CC/BCC lists – not everyone has to see everything, and ‘reply all’ threads become very cumbersome
• If you and the recipient are in a long email chain trying to get your message understood, pick up the phone and call them, or meet them face to face
• Set up Inbox folders and learn how to use ‘rules’ to route emails into those folders (Tools > Rules and Alerts)

More information:

• How to write an internal email: http://www.worketiquette.co.uk/how-to-write-an-internal-email.html  (there’s some good stuff about work etiquette in general at this website: http://www.worketiquette.co.uk/)
• Email etiquette: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/email-etiquette/
• Modern Etiquette: Email etiquette at work and home: http://www.mindfood.com/at-modern-etiquette-email-etiquette-at-work-and-home.seo
• Email etiquette at work: http://ezinearticles.com/?Email-Etiquette-at-Work&id=5042388
• Email Etiquette: 26 Rules to Follow: http://email.about.com/od/emailnetiquette/tp/core_netiquette.htm
• How to Use Proper Email Etiquette at Work: http://www.ehow.com/how_2293051_use-proper-email-etiquette-work.html
• Urban legends and hoaxes (best place to find out if the email you’ve been sent about a credit card scam or similar is legitimate or is a hoax): http://www.snopes.com

[Links last checked February 2013]