Hi, this is Andrea Kalli of Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant. Your number one resource for Outlook and SharePoint training and support. Also, a podcasting production and support services.
Today’s tip is regarding the manipulation of how you see the context in your address book. And when I say that, what I am really referring to is when you go to do a new email and you click on the two buttons to populate the two fields, that pops-up your address books. Many people want to know how to manipulate what they see in the address book when they do that. There are really two features that I am going to talk about today.
Let us get started on the first one. First things first, what we are going to do is open up the address book by using this little icon right that looks like a book. It is on the standard tool bar and it just a tiny little tool bar button so click on that.
[Demo]
And it opens up the address book area. And notice that it defaults to company contact which is just one of many of the contact folders that I have in my Outlook. Well, perhaps that is not what I want to see, perhaps I want to see a different address book, be the first one of the default one that comes up. Perhaps I want to see the customers list, be the first one to come up.
Let us show you how to change that. When this address book window is open you are going to go up to the Tools menu. You click on Options and where it says “show this address list first.” We are going to change it from company contacts to the customers address book.
[Demo]
And then, we are going to go ahead and click OK.
[Demo]
So next time, I am going to open up this address book, it should default to customers instead of company contacts. Let us make sure that is what happens. Close that, let us open the backup again.
[Demo]
And it defaults to customers, that is exactly what we wanted. So, that is one of the tips that I want to show you, it is how to manipulate the address book this way. Now, another thing I want to show you is how do I want my Outlook address books or my multiple contacts folders to be displayed. Do I want it to be first name last, last name first, do I want it to be by company name and you have a few options.
Let me show you where you set those up. I am going to close this. And we are actually going to go to Tools and that is going to be in Account Settings. And under address books–
[Demo]
I want to change and manipulate the look of the Outlook address book area. So I am going to say change. And notice that my two options are, I only have two options, First Last or File As. Now, when you enter in a contact record, you have the ability to choose what the File As field is like. So you want to be consistent, but if you normally like to File As like as the end of File As an index card. If you normally want to file your context by company name first and then perhaps the contact name in parenthesis, then be consistent when you enter in and select your File As field. So, you got two choices, First Name Last or File As, those are your two choices. So, if I say close.
Close Outlook and reopen for the change to take effect.
So now, let us see how that turned out when I went ahead and change the address book folder. So I am going to click on the address book and notice that the display name now is with the File As field. In other words, most of mine I have last name, first name. so let us go ahead and right click on that. I am going to the properties, which will open up the contact record and notice that it is sorted by the last name, first name which is the File As field.
[Demo]
So, those are two different ways to manipulate what you see when the address book area is launched. First tip, I showed you how to change the default contact list that shows up when you click on the two fields to add to address and email. And then the second tip, I showed you how to manipulate the way that this list is being viewed to you by other first name and last name or by the File As field.
So, I hope you enjoyed this tip. I hope it helps you in your daily work. Thanks so much
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