The new, easy-to-use Navigation Pane provides centralized navigation to all parts of Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, and makes it easy to see your information the way you want to see it.
E-mail folders that you frequently use can be added to Favorite Folders, along with Search Folders, and both are displayed at the top of the Mail pane in the Navigation Pane. In the Calendar pane, you can view other people’s shared calendars side-by-side with your own calendar, and you can click the Share My Calendar link to quickly share your own calendar. In the Contacts, Tasks, Notes, and Journal panes, you can use the Share My links to quickly share your folder or open another person's shared folder. You can also easily switch views by clicking a different view in the views displayed under Current View. The Shortcuts pane contains links to Outlook Today and Outlook Update. Shortcuts or shortcut groups that you previously added to the Outlook Bar for files or locations outside of Outlook, such as Microsoft Excel files or Web sites, will be automatically migrated to the Shortcuts pane when you upgrade to Outlook 2003. Shortcuts to Outlook folders will also be automatically migrated to the corresponding pane. For example, a calendar shortcut will be added to the Calendar pane.
The new, top-level Go menu makes it easy to quickly switch between panes in the Navigation Pane. If you prefer to navigate by using keyboard shortcuts, you can use the documented shortcut keys on the Go menu, such as CTRL+1 for Mail, CTRL+2 for Calendar, and CTRL+3 for Contacts.
The Preview Pane found in earlier versions of Outlook has been redesigned and optimized for reading e-mail messages. Like a piece of paper, the Reading Pane is laid out vertically and, when used with the new multi-line layout, displays nearly twice as much information on the screen as the Preview Pane did. Other enhancements include the ability to respond to meeting requests and to use voting buttons without having to open the messages first.
Messages can be displayed by using either single-line layout or multi-line layout. In the new multi-line layout, four fields (From, Subject, Date, and Icon) normally are displayed in a vertical column. If the message list in multi-line layout is not displaying all the column headings about an item, you can pause on the item to display a ScreenTip containing all the information, or you can specify that additional fields appear on additional lines when you pause on an item.
An arrangement is a pre-defined pairing of a grouping and a sort. There are 13 pre-defined standard arrangements, and they help you see your messages in different ways. To quickly change from one predefined standard arrangement to another, click the Arranged By column heading, and then select the arrangement you want.
If you receive a lot of e-mail messages, you can now group messages in an e-mail conversation together in an arrangement that makes it easier to find and respond to conversations or "threads." To help you read your messages quickly, this arrangement initially displays only unread and Quick Flagged messages. With one click, you can expand the group to see the entire conversation, including messages you have already read. Because all messages in one conversation are presented together, you can avoid responding to an e-mail message only to discover later that someone else had already responded.
The Calendar view has been streamlined, and you can now view multiple calendars at once. In this view, the TaskPad is hidden (but can be easily shown by clicking TaskPad on the View menu), and the Date Navigator now is displayed in the Navigation Pane. A new indicator make it easy to quickly see the current day and time.