Tony Dye

Guidelines for Outbound Email

I debated posting this tip because it is so extremely Perimeter specific. But, maybe others deal with these types of issues too. Our goal is to have good email communication. We happen to use some technologies to help reinforce the goal. It is one of our most controversial issues, and a frequent subject of helpdesk requests. Note that there are several internal links below. If you really want those documents, let me know…

 - Tony

From: LaBarr, Jim
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:12 AM
To: _Announcements - Intranet
Cc: LaBarr, Jim
Subject: Outbound Email Messages need to follow specific guidelines

Although the reasons that email messages would be blocked were communicated several weeks ago, there was only partial enforcement. Now that the messages are being blocked if they exceed the maximum number of recipients, I have been asked to list again the reasons for the guidelines, and the specific guidelines.  

Question: Since item 3 says there cannot be more than 9 names in the TO: field, does that mean that you cannot communicate with your volunteer leadership team of 12 people?

Answer: No, put the names in the BCC field. Item 2 says the TOTAL names (BCC and TO and CC) must be 25 or less.  

Jim

From: LaBarr, Jim
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 10:29 PM
To: _Announcements - Intranet
Cc: LaBarr, Jim
Subject: Reasons that certain Outbound Email Messages are Blocked

What Are the Goals for Outbound Messages from Perimeter?

1. To communicate politely, in other words, to use good email etiquette.
2. To avoid the appearance of Spam in messages we send.
3. To protect the privacy of the recipients of our email message.
4. To encourage the use of the Intranet to send messages that go to a lot of addresses. This helps us to keep our Shelby database up to date.

What Items Could Cause an Outbound Message to Be Blocked?

1 - There is no Subject line. Or you are trying to Forward or Reply to a message that had no Subject line.

2 - There are more than 25 TOTAL names in the TO line, the CC line, and the BCC lines. Notice that this is different than the next reason.

3 - There are more than 9 names in the TO line or the CC line. Notice that this is different than the previous reason. Put those names into the BCC field.

4 - A Distribution List is counts as the number of names it contains. If you put 30 names into 1 personal Distribution List in the Bcc field, they still are counted as 30 names, and the message is blocked.

5 - If a message is over 3.5M in size, it will be blocked with a message such as, "The message being sent exceeds the message size established for this user." For several ideas on how to deal with this situation, read this document P:\KnowledgeBase\FAQ\MessageSizeLimitOutbound.doc

6 – There are several miscellaneous reasons such as crude language, or a Subject of "Hi" or "Hey" or "Hello."

7 - The words [Spam/Warning] or [QUAR] were in the Subject line of a message you received, and you are trying to Forward or Reply to that message. Even though you didn't put those tags into the Subject line, they will cause your outgoing message to be blocked.

Even though there are other reasons, nearly all of our blocks are for one of the reasons above.

If you Reply to or Forward an email that exhibits any of the issues listed above, the message will be blocked, even if you didn't create the problems.

Shown below is the message you will get if your message is blocked before leaving Perimeter. The body of the non-delivery message is confusing and misleading when it says, "You do not have permission to send to this recipient." In reality, the problem could be any one of the various issues listed above. The Subject of the NDR (Non-Delivery Report) is always "Undeliverable: **Message blocked by Perimeter's outbound mail filter**"

To learn more about size limits, P:\KnowledgeBase\FAQ\MessageSizeLimitOutbound.doc

To learn more about all the other reasons a message could be blocked,

P:\KnowledgeBase\FAQ\OutboundBarracuda.doc

How to Make Your Word Icons Appear (or Disappear)

_____________________________________________
From: LaBarr, Jim
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 10:29 AM
To: Announcements - Intranet
Cc: LaBarr, Jim
Subject: How to make your Word icons appear (or disappear)

One of the biggest changes in Office 2007 is the Ribbon at the top of the program windows. Rather than trying to squeeze all the important icons into 2 tiny rows, there are now seven sets of icons. To access the different sets of icons, just click on the Tab name at the top (Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc.). Most people like having all these icons available. But there are a few who say these icons take up too much space.

How to make your Word icons appear (or disappear) 

Double click on Home, or one of the other Tab names. This makes the icons disappear (or appear). If the icons are not visible when you Close Word, that setting will be remembered the next time you launch Word.

This works on any of the Office programs that use the Ribbon (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and part of Outlook).

__ 

Jim LaBarr

Microsoft Whirred has a knew Spell Checker option

(Jim LaBarr posted this tip at Perimeter way back on 8/31/2007)

Microsoft Whirred has a knew Spell Checker option

The Subject of this message includes two examples of a problem that has always existed with Spell Checkers in word processing software. If you mistype a word, but the word you typed happens to be another correctly spelled word, the Spell Checker won't catch it.

The new Word 2007 has a "contextual spelling" checker that tries its best to determine if a word is out of place, even if it is spelled correctly. The new feature is not perfect, but it is a big improvement. After turning on this option, the words "whirred" and "knew" above would be underlined in blue.

Word 2007 will catch errors in each of the sentences below, not just the first two. As always, the red squiggly underline indicates a spelling error and the green squiggly underline indicates a grammar error. Now we've got blue squiggly underlines to flag words that are likely inappropriate given their context. In the third sentence, when you right-click on "loose" the program suggests "lose".

 

Before turning on this option, you should verify that your computer can handle it. Microsoft recommends this option only for computers with 1Gigabyte or more of RAM. The memory figure is shown in the center of the blue Windows Desktop. The user of the computer shown below should not use this option, since the 4^th line of information indicates that this computer has only 512MB, about half the 1GB that is recommended.

How do you turn on the contextual spelling option?

Follow these options in Word. Follow them again in Outlook if you want contextual spell checking in that program as well.

• Click on Office button in the upper left corner.
• Click on Word Options button in the lower right corner (or the Editor Options button for Outlook).
• Click on the Proofing group in the pane at the left side.
• Put a check mark in the checkbox named "Use contextual spelling."
• Click on OK.

For more information, read this Microsoft blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_office_word/archive/2006/10/25/contextual-spell-checking.aspx

Contextual limitation of traditional Spell Checkers is epitomized by the anonymously authored poem "Ode to My Spell Checker." The new contextual spell checker only catches 4 or the more than 30 errors in this poem.

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marks four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word and weight for it to say
Weather eye yam wrong oar write.
It shows me strait a weigh as soon as a mist ache is maid.
It nose bee fore two long and eye can put the error rite.
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it,
I am shore your pleased to no.
Its letter perfect awl the way.
My checker told me sew.

Here are a couple more sentences whose contextual spelling errors will be caught by Word.

I bought a pear of shoes yesterday.

The are now going to Monday Night for Men each week.

Set Out of Office Reply after you've left for a trip using OWA (Outlook Web Access)

(Originally posted on 5/2/2008 at Perimeter, by Jim LaBarr)

Using OWA to Set Your Out of Office Assistant

What if you forget to set your Out of Office Assistant before leaving Perimeter?

Occasionally Helpdesk receives a request to set someone's Out of Office Reply, because they forgot to do it before leaving. But due to privacy considerations, the IT Department will not go into your account. Now there is a way for you to set your reply message from any computer that has an Internet connection.

Background on Out of Office Assistant

The Out of Office Assistant makes it easy to setup an automatic reply message. People who send mail to your account while the message is turned on will receive an email reply with whatever text you have written. The message is dispatched only once to each email address that sends mail to your account.

To Setup an "Out of Office" message using OWA:

1. To launch OWA, go to http://mail.perimeter.org and enter your usual Username and Password.
2. Click on the Options icon or the word Options at the bottom of the Folder List at the left. The Options icon looks like a sheet of paper.
3. Click on the radio button next to I'm currently out of the office,
4. Type the text of your message in the box titled AutoReply only once to each sender with the following text:. Include your name in the message.
5. Click the Save and Close icon at the top.
6. After you're done, click on Log Off.

How & Why to turn on the BCC field for email messages

(Jim originally posted this tip on April 1, 2008. No fooling!)

How & Why to turn on the BCC field for email messages (Blind Carbon Copy)

The reason to use Bcc is to keep other people's email addresses private, and to keep them from falling into the hands of spammers.

Use the Bcc Blind Carbon Copy Field in Email Messages

How to turn on the Bcc field

• To begin, create a New Message.
• Click on the Options Tab at the top of the message.
• Click on the Show Bcc icon.

The Bcc field will remain available on all new messages, as well as Forwards or Replies, unless you repeat these steps to turn it off.

Before Bcc is turned on. Notice the Options Tab is the third one.

After turning on the Bcc field. Notice the Show Bcc icon on Ribbon for the Options Tab.

Office 2007 Training Handouts

Jim LaBarr has made several Office 2007 training handouts available on our download site.  If they're potentially useful for you, grab them and do with as you please (other than selling and such).  If you make good improvements, would you share them back?

The new ones are:

• 2007 Office Reference
• 2007 Word Mail Merge
• 2007 Excel Introduction Summary
• 2007 Excel Pivot Table
• Shelby Mail Merge

Your Commonly used Office 2007 icons

(originally posted at Perimeter by Jim LaBarr, 3/4/2008)

Your Commonly used Office 2007 icons should be visible at all times, with no need for multiple clicks

If you can't see the Print Preview icon, the Close icon, or other commands / icons that you use frequently, follow the directions below. By putting these icons on the Quick Access Toolbar, they are visible all the time. That way you won't have to click on the Office Button, or click on another Tab, to get to the commands you need.

There are multiple ways to add icons. The Toolbar must be customized separately for each one of the Office programs. Citrix/ProNet users may find that the icons disappear.

Before customizing - 3 icons After customizing - 9 icons. Click on the triangle (pull down).

Method 1 - Here is the fastest way to add several of the old File Menu commands or Toolbar commands.

• At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, click on the down arrow. (When you hover over this triangle, the Tip says Customize the Quick Access Toolbar.)
• Click in front of one of the icons that you want to add or delete.
• Repeat this process for each of the visible commands that you want to add or delete. At a minimum, you will want to add New, Open, Close, Quick Print, and Print Preview.

Method 2 - Another way to add a command.

• Find that command in the Ribbon.
• Right click on the command.
• Choose "Add to Quick Access Toolbar."

Method 3 - The most flexible way to add icons in Microsoft Word

• At the right end of the Quick Access Toolbar, click on the down arrow.
• Click on More Commands. (Or click on the Office Button, Word Options, Customize.)
• Choose Popular or one of the other lists at the left.
• Highlight the command that you want to Add or Delete.
• If desired, use the arrows to change the sequence of the icons.

Delete icons from the Quick Access Toolbar

Just right click on that icon, and then choose Delete.

Put the Quick Access Toolbar underneath the Ribbon, where it is closer to your document:

Right click on the Quick Access Toolbar, then choose Show Below the Ribbon.

What happened to old Office 2003 Commands - Here's how to find them

(originally posted 3/3/2008 at Perimeter by Jim LaBarr)

Even though Perimeter has been using Office 2007 for over 6 months, there are still times when I look for a command and can't find it on the new Ribbon. This happens most often with seldom used features. In case this also happens to you, follow the directions below.

Here is a quick way to get to an "interactive cross reference" for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and portions of Outlook. This Web site allows you to click on the old command or icon, and then the screen shows you where to find it in the 2007 program.

To get to the guide:

• Click on the Help icon for that program. The Help icon is a blue circle with a question mark, at the top right of the program window.
• Click on the Getting Help section.
• Click on Interactive: __ 2003 to __ 2007 command reference guide where __ is the program you are using.
• Click on the Start button.
• Point to the 2003 feature. Click on the 2003 feature.

Quickly Copy a Word Document to PowerPoint

(Originally posted at Perimeter 2/27/2008)

Quickly Copy a Word Document to PowerPoint

Using this method, you must manually move the text to the appropriate Slides. But this can be done quickly using the Outline Tab. These directions "build" on the Announcement of a few days ago of rearranging Bullets and Titles within a PowerPoint Presentation. That material is included at the end.

• In Word, Copy all the desired text.
• In PowerPoint, Paste the text to the Text area of a Slide (not the Title area). Do this even though it won't all "fit" onto one Slide.
• Quickly separate the text to multiple Slides. Use the Outline Tab at the left side of the PowerPoint Window to separate the text to multiple Slides. Shift+Tab promotes a Bullet to a Title of a New Slide. Tab demotes text. Refer to the section named "Quickly Rearrange the Text in an Existing PowerPoint Presentation" for more details.
• If each paragraph in Word will be the Title of its own Slide, the process can be very fast. In Outline View, highlight all of the text, then press Shift+Tab.

  Notes

• Blank paragraphs in Word will create a blank Slide in PowerPoint.
• Contact JimL for a method to Format your Word document so that the Titles and Bullets are automatically separated onto the correct Slides, with no cleanup required.

After Copying in Word and Pasting to the Text area of a PowerPoint Slide, all the Word text is crammed onto that single slide. The Word paragraphs can be seen as Bullets in the Outline Tab at the left.	On the Outline Tab at the left, press Shift+Tab to promote the appropriate Bullets to a Title on a New Slide. Holy Bible, Old Testament, and New Testament were promoted. The remaining Bullets automatically move to the newly created Slide.

Quickly Rearrange the Text in an Existing PowerPoint Presentation

It's usually a lot harder to rearrange the Bullets and Titles in 5 PowerPoint Slides, than it would be to edit a Word document that contained the same information. Why? Because all the Word text is in 1 place, whereas the PowerPoint information is scattered in 10 places (5 Title Placeholders and 5 Bullet Placeholders).

So PowerPoint rearranging can be tedious task. But by using the Outline Tab, the process can be done quickly and easily. Everyone one knows that pressing Tab moves text to the right. We intuitively think of Bullets that are moved to the right (indented) as being less important. In Word and PowerPoint there is an increase Indent icon that performs a function similar to Tab. . The keyboard combination of Shift+Tab moves text to the left, the opposite of Tab. The Decrease Indent icon is similar to Shift+Tab.

At the top left of the PowerPoint Window are two tabs, one for Slides, and one for Outline. Use the Outline Tab on the left side of the screen to change the text in your presentation. You can use the Slides Tab to change the sequence of Slides.

To demote text, use the Tab key, or the Increase Indent icon.

To promote text, use the Shift+Tab keys, or the Decrease Indent icon.

Using the Outline Tab in PowerPoint

Promote a Bullet to become the Title of a New Slide.

Click on the Bullet text, then click on the Decrease Indent icon on the Formatting Toolbar.

Demote a Title to Text (Bullet) at the End of the previous Slide.

Click on the Title, then click on the Increase Indent icon on the Formatting Toolbar.

Demote a Bullet to a second level Bullet.

Click on the Bullet text. Press Tab or click on the Increase Indent icon. . There are usually five levels of Bullets (Text). They are distinguished from each other by their indention and their Bullet icon. (This also works on the Slide itself, if you click at the beginning of the Bullet text.)

Edit text in the Outline Tab. The same way you would edit text in Word.

Promote or demote multiple paragraphs by selecting them as a group.

Move a Bullet from one Slide to another.

Put your cursor in the Bullet text in the Outline Tab Hold down Ctrl+Shift+UpArrow to move up one line. Hold down Ctrl+Shift+DownArrow to move down. The movement occurs one line at a time, including moving to other Slides. On the Slide itself, you can move Bullets up and down, but you can't move them to other Slides, or to the Title area.)

Change the sequence of Slides.

Drag the slide icon in Outline View. (Or drag the Slide in the Slide Tab at the left. Or switch to Slide Sorter View and drag the highlighted Slide or Slides.) (Use the Ctrl key or the Shift key to highlight multiple Slides.)

To Insert a New Slide, press Ctrl+m.

To Duplicate the current Slide, press Ctrl+Shift+d.

The Outline Tab only shows text that was created in the Text Placeholder. If a Slide contains text created in a manually inserted Text Box, that text will not be visible in the Outline Tab.

Word has an Outline View that is similar to the Outline Tab in PowerPoint. Word uses the Increase Indent icon, the Decrease Indent icon and Alt+Shift+UpArrow.

Here is an example.

Change these 3 Slides…………...to these 3 with no New Slides, Copying, Cutting, or Pasting.

Here's what the same changes look like On the Outline Tab, where the changes were made very quickly. Press Shift+Tab with the cursor on Title 2 and Title 1, to promote them to New Slides. Press Tab on Bullet 1 and Bullet 2, to demote them to Bullets on the previous Slide (Title 3).

Change these 3 Slides…………...to these 3

Quickly Rearrange the Bullets and Titles in an Existing PowerPoint Presentation

(originally distributed at Perimeter 2/20/2008)

Quickly Rearrange the Text in an Existing PowerPoint Presentation

It's usually a lot harder to rearrange the Bullets and Titles in 5 PowerPoint Slides, than it would be to edit a Word document that contained the same information. Why? Because all the Word text is in 1 place, whereas the PowerPoint information is scattered in 10 places (5 Title Placeholders and 5 Bullet Placeholders).

So PowerPoint rearranging can be tedious task. But by using the Outline Tab, the process can be done quickly and easily. Everyone one knows that pressing Tab moves text to the right. We intuitively think of Bullets that are moved to the right (indented) as being less important. In Word and PowerPoint there is an increase Indent icon that performs a function similar to Tab. . The keyboard combination of Shift+Tab moves text to the left, the opposite of Tab. The Decrease Indent icon is similar to Shift+Tab.

At the top left of the PowerPoint Window are two tabs, one for Slides, and one for Outline. Use the Outline Tab on the left side of the screen to change the text in your presentation. You can use the Slides Tab to change the sequence of Slides.

To demote text, use the Tab key, or the Increase Indent icon.

To promote text, use the Shift+Tab keys, or the Decrease Indent icon.

Using the Outline Tab in PowerPoint

Promote a Bullet to become the Title of a New Slide.

Click on the Bullet text, then click on the Decrease Indent icon on the Formatting Toolbar.

Demote a Title to Text (Bullet) at the End of the previous Slide.

Click on the Title, then click on the Increase Indent icon on the Formatting Toolbar.

Demote a Bullet to a second level Bullet.

Click on the Bullet text. Press Tab or click on the Increase Indent icon. . There are usually five levels of Bullets (Text). They are distinguished from each other by their indention and their Bullet icon. (This also works on the Slide itself, if you click at the beginning of the Bullet text.)

Edit text in the Outline Tab. The same way you would edit text in Word.

Promote or demote multiple paragraphs by selecting them as a group.

Move a Bullet from one Slide to another.

Put your cursor in the Bullet text in the Outline Tab Hold down Ctrl+Shift+UpArrow to move up one line. Hold down Ctrl+Shift+DownArrow to move down. The movement occurs one line at a time, including moving to other Slides. On the Slide itself, you can move Bullets up and down, but you can't move them to other Slides, or to the Title area.)

Change the sequence of Slides.

Drag the slide icon in Outline View. (Or drag the Slide in the Slide Tab at the left. Or switch to Slide Sorter View and drag the highlighted Slide or Slides.) (Use the Ctrl key or the Shift key to highlight multiple Slides.)

To Insert a New Slide, press Ctrl+m.

To Duplicate the current Slide, press Ctrl+Shift+d.

The Outline Tab only shows text that was created in the Text Placeholder. If a Slide contains text created in a manually inserted Text Box, that text will not be visible in the Outline Tab.

Word has an Outline View that is similar to the Outline Tab in PowerPoint. Word uses the Increase Indent icon, the Decrease Indent icon and Alt+Shift+UpArrow.

Here is an example.

Change these 3 Slides…………...to these 3 with no New Slides, Copying, Cutting, or Pasting.

Here's what the same changes look like On the Outline Tab, where the changes were made very quickly. Press Tab with the cursor on Title 2 and Title e, to promote them to New Slides. Press Shift+Tab on Bullet 1 and Bullet 2, to demote them to Bullets on the previous Slide (Title 3).

Change these 3 Slides…………...to these 3