Overview Transcript

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Change fonts for email messages that you send, forward, or reply to. Add hyperlinks, and adjust settings for the spelling and grammar checkers and AutoCorrect.

Want more?

Change the message format to HTML, Rich Text Format, or plain text

AutoCorrect spelling, and insert text and symbols

Automatically change incoming message colors and fonts based on sender, subject, or recipients

Spelling or grammar checker isn't checking words in a different language correctly

With Outlook, you don't have to settle for plain-looking text.

Click the MESSAGE tab, and check out your basic formatting options.

Start by selecting some text you want to format. Then, click an option.

For example, we can click Bold to make this text bold. Then, select this text, and click Bullets to add bullets.

Click the Font Size arrow to select a different font size.

You can also select Font to change the font style, and justify or indent paragraphs.

If you don't know what a button does, hold the mouse pointer over an option and read the screen tip.

If you are in a hurry, right-click a selection and use the mini-toolbar that pops up.

To see what an option looks like, select some text and start clicking.

If you don't like the way something looks, press Ctrl+Z to undo the change.

Or click Undo on the Quick Access Toolbar.

If you want to quickly remove all formatting, select the text, and click Clear All Formatting.

Now, if you can't find the formatting option you want, click the FORMAT TEXT tab.

This tab has all the formatting options found on the MESSAGE tab and more. Let's select some text and try a few.

With Change Case, you can make all the letters upper case, or capitalize each word.

You also have more Paragraph options.

These lines of text look kind of squished together now, but we can change that by selecting the text and using a Line Spacing option.

Let's try adding a space after each paragraph. Much better.

And let's select this bulleted text. Then, click the arrow next to Shading and pick a shading color.

You can also add a border around paragraphs, or sort a list.

See the course summary at the end of this course to get more details on all the formatting options.

If you use Microsoft Word, you may know about these options, called Styles.

Click the More button in the Styles group to open the Style gallery.

You can use the built-in styles, or create your own. They combine several formatting options in one click.

Currently, the Normal style is selected for the heading.

But you can hold the mouse pointer over other styles to get a preview of what they look like.

Since this is a heading, we can use a Heading Style to make the text stand out with a larger font and color.

To do even more with Styles, click Change Styles.

Here, you can quickly change the overall look of your email, including font and paragraph styles, and colors.

So, that's the basics of formatting email in Outlook. But there is one more thing you should be aware of.

At some point, you may go to add formatting and notice that none of the buttons work.

Here's what to do. Go to the FORMAT TEXT tab and check the Format group.

Chances are you reply to an email sent to you using plain text.

This format is great for sending basic email, but if you want to use formatting, you need to change to either Rich Text or HTML.

HTML is best because it is compatible with most email apps, including most smartphones.

As soon as you select HTML, you can start formatting.

So, check the course summary at the end of this course for more details about formatting options, or click an option and see what it does.

Remember, you can always press Ctrl+Z to undo a change.

Up next, we'll format fonts for all messages.