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TECH TIPS
Insider technology tips, resources, and information for MCPS staff, students, and parents

Sharing Contacts

Have you ever been asked to provide detailed contact information about yourself? If you have created a contact entry in Outlook about yourself, it’s easy to share with others. Here is how:

• Create a contact entry for yourself in Outlook if you don’t already have one.
• Open an e-mail and address it to the person to whom you want to send your contact information.
• From the Insert menu, choose “Attach Item.”
• Browse to “Contacts.” 
• Select the “Contact” to send, and click “OK.”  
• Send the e-mail.

When the receiver gets the e-mail with the inserted contact, he or she simply needs to left click, hold and drag the contact to the contacts shortcut button on the navigation menu.  The contact will now appear with all information in the receiver’s contact list.

Adding Calendar Events to Outlook

Have you ever paged through the print copy of the MCPS Comprehensive Calendar and then entered events into your Outlook calendar? If you have, this Tech Tip will save you time!

1. Open Outlook.
2. Click Folder List in the left hand navigation pan.
3. Click the + next to Public Folders.
4. Click the + next to All Public Folders.
5. Click the + next to Calendars.
6. Click the calendar icon next to 2008–2009 Comprehensive Calendar.
7. Find an event you want to add to your Outlook calendar. Click, hold and drag that event to your Calendar icon near the top of the left hand navigation pane.
8. Click your Calendar icon to see that the event is now on your calendar.
9. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you have added all the events you want on your calendar.

Documents to go

If you find browsing for a document to attach to an e-mail labor intensive, this tech tip is for you. You can send a single attachment directly from the Microsoft Office applications Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Here’s how to do it:

• When working within the document you want to send, select “FILE” from the Main Menu.
• Select “SEND”.
• Select “SEND AS ATTACHMENT”.
• An Outlook Message will open.

Follow procedures for sending a message. A copy of the message will be in your Sent Items.

Sending to a Group Within a School

Would you like to send an email to multiple people in a school, but don’t need or want to create a distribution list? Here is how to do it:

1. Begin a new message.
2. Click on the To button to access the Global Address list.  
3. In the upper right corner, click on Advanced Find.  
4. In the “Office” field enter the school’s five digit number (for example, elementary 02XXX, middle 03XXX, and high 04XXX) then click OK. 
5. A list of staff members for that school will appear.
6. Click on each name you need to send your message to and OK again. You are done!

Organizing Your Inbox

Did you know you can have mail messages automatically file themselves in folders you create? You can do this by creating a rule for certain messages. Here is how to do it! Right click the message that you want to base the rule on, and then click Create Rule on the shortcut menu.

1. In the Create Rule dialog box, select the check boxes for the options that are already filled in with information from your selected message.
2. Select the Move email to folder check box.
3. Click an existing folder or click New to create a new folder to store the messages.
4. To add more conditions, actions or exceptions to the rule, click Advanced Options, and then follow the rest of the instructions in the Rules and Alerts Wizard.

Tip—To run the rule as soon as you create it, select the Run this Rule now on the messages already in folder check box on the last page of the Rules and Alerts Wizard.

Creating Shortcuts

Would you like a shortcut for certain phrases that you use frequently when typing? In Word 2003, click Tools>AutoCorrect Options. Type an abbreviation for the phrase in the “Replace:” box, and type the complete phrase in the “With:” box, then click OK. In Word 2007, click the Office button>Word Options button> Proofing>AutoCorrect Options and follow the steps above. The next time you type the abbreviation followed by a space, the entire phrase will appear—like magic!

The Drag of Dragging

If you have a hard time clicking and dragging to highlight text, this tech tip is for you. To highlight an entire word, double click on the word. To highlight an entire paragraph or section of text, triple click on any word within the paragraph or section of text.

The Sticky that Keeps on Sticking

Are you tired of having sticky notes all over your desk? If so, use the notes feature in Outlook to store that hard to remember information.

• Click the NOTES icon
• Click the NEW button
• Type the information you need to remember
• Click the X to close the window

Your note will save automatically until you delete it. more

Updated August 19, 2009 | Maintained by Technology Consulting Team