Microsoft Outlook
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 Outlook 2010 running on Vista |
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| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
| Stable release | 2010 (14.0.4760.1000) / June 15, 2010 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Personal information manager |
| License | Proprietary EULA |
| Website | Microsoft Office Outlook Homepage |
Microsoft Outlook, formerly Microsoft Office Outlook, is a personal information manager from Microsoft, available both as a separate application as well as a part of the Microsoft Office suite. The current version is Microsoft Outlook 2010 for Windows.
Although often used mainly as an e-mail application, it also includes a Calendar, Task Manager, Contact Manager, note taking, a journal and web browsing.
It can be used as a stand-alone application, or can work with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for multiple users in an organization, such as shared mailboxes and calendars, Exchange public folders, SharePoint lists and meeting schedules. There are third-party add-on applications that integrate Outlook with devices such as BlackBerry mobile phones and with other software like Office & Skype internet communication. Developers can also create their own custom software that works with Outlook and Office components using Microsoft Visual Studio.[1] In addition, Windows Mobile devices can synchronize almost all Outlook data to Outlook Mobile.
Contents |
Versions
Outlook has replaced Microsoft's previous scheduling and mail program, Schedule+ and Exchange Client.
Versions of Microsoft Outlook include:
| Name | Version Number[2] | Release Date[3] | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outlook for MS-DOS | - | - | Bundled with Exchange Server 5.5 |
| Outlook for Windows 3.1x[4] | - | - | Bundled with Exchange Server 5.5 |
| Outlook for Macintosh | - | - | Bundled with Exchange Server 5.5 |
| Outlook 97 | 8.0 | January 16, 1997 | Included in Office 97 and also bundled with Exchange Server 5.5. |
| Outlook 98 | 8.5 | June 21, 1998 | Freely distributed with books and magazines for coping with newest Internet standard such as HTML mail[5] |
| Outlook 2000 | 9.0 | June 7, 1999 | Included in Office 2000 and also bundled with Exchange 2000 Server. |
| Outlook 2002 | 10 | May 31, 2001 | Included in Office XP. |
| Office Outlook 2003 | 11 | October 21, 2003 | Included in Office 2003 (incl. Standard Edition for Students and Teachers) and also bundled with Exchange Server 2003. |
| Office Outlook 2007 | 12 | November 30, 2006 | Included in Office 2007, except Office Home and Student edition. |
| Outlook 2010 | 14 | April 15, 2010 | Included in Office 2010 Home and Business, Standard, Professional, and Professional Plus. |
Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 could be installed in one of two configurations:
- Internet Mail Only or IMO mode: A lighter application mode with specific emphasis on POP3 accounts and IMAP accounts and including a lightweight Fax application.
- Corporate Workgroup or CW mode: A full MAPI client with specific emphasis on Microsoft Exchange accounts.
Macintosh
Microsoft also released several versions of Outlook for Mac OS, though it was only for use with Exchange servers and not provided as a component of Microsoft Office for Mac, instead available to users from administrators or by download. The final version was Outlook for Mac 2001, which was fairly similar to Outlook 2000 and 2002 apart from being exclusively for Exchange users. Microsoft Entourage was introduced as an Outlook-like application for Mac OS in Office 2001, but it lacked Exchange connectivity. Partial support for Exchange server became available natively in Mac OS X with Entourage 2004 Service Pack 2. Entourage is not directly equivalent to Outlook in terms of design or operation; rather, it is a distinct application which has several overlapping features including Exchange client capabilities. Somewhat improved Exchange support was added in Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition. Entourage is being replaced by Outlook for Mac 2011, which will feature greater compatilbity and parity with Outlook for Windows than Entourage offers. It will be the first native version of Outlook for Mac OS X.
Windows
Outlook 2007
Outlook 2007 was available in retail stores at the end of January 2007. Features that debuted in Outlook 2007 include:[6]
- A to-do bar added to the shell UI that shows a snapshot of the user's upcoming appointments and active tasks for better time and project management
- Improved calendar views that display the tasks due below each day on the week view and supports overlaying multiple calendars
- Send your calendar information with calendar snapshots, which creates an HTML representation of your calendar so you can share this information with anyone
- Ability to publish calendars in Internet Calendar format to Microsoft Office Online or to a WebDAV server
- Send text and picture messages from Outlook with Outlook Mobile Service to a mobile phone. Forward Outlook e-mail messages, contacts, appointments, and tasks as text messages. Automatically send e-mail messages, reminders, and your daily calendar as text messages to a mobile phone
- Integrated RSS aggregator
- 'Instant Search' through a context indexer based search engine with Windows Desktop Search
- Enhanced integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server
- New programmability features[7]
- Preview Handler extension for previewing email attachment without leaving Outlook
- Ability to add a picture or company logo to a contact or electronic business card[8]
- Office Fluent user interface (though not for the main window)
- Color Categories give you an easy, visual way to distinguish any type of information from one another, so it's easy to organize your data and search your information
- Save as PDF or XPS
- Discontinuation of Common User Access cut and paste support
- Improved anti-phishing filters
- Office Outlook 2007 E-mail Postmark is designed to make it very time-consuming and technologically detrimental for users to send mass e-mail like spam, yet they do not change the user experience of sending e-mail.
- Information Rights Management (IRM) restricts and/or expires distribution of email using Windows Server 2003 or later running Windows Rights Management Services (RMS)
- Managed policy compliance features integration with Exchange Server 2007
Outlook 2010
- All features of Outlook 2007
- Ribbon interface in all views
- Grouping of conversations
- Social Networking features
Internet standards compliance
HTML rendering
Outlook 2007 was the first Outlook to switch from Internet Explorer HTML rendering to Microsoft Word 2007 HTML rendering. This means HTML and CSS items not handled by Word are no longer supported. On the other hand, HTML messages composed in Word will look more or less as they appeared to the author.[9]
This affects publishing newsletters and HTML/CSS reports, because they frequently use intricate HTML and/or CSS to form their layout. For example, forms can no longer be embedded in e-mail.
Microsoft Entourage is the only modern form of Outlook that properly supports CSS and allows for seamless rendering between web browsers and email clients with little to no modifications to the original HTML or CSS code.[10]
Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format
Outlook uses a proprietary attachment format called Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) when editing messages in Rich Text Format, utilizing embedded (OLE) documents or Outlook-specific features. It is usually present in a form of attached files winmail.dat or win.dat in the message. These files may also contain any regular files attached to the message.
TNEF is not RFC compliant. In addition, no e-mail clients other than Outlook support it natively, although numerous tools for decoding TNEF files exist.
Calendar compatibility
Outlook does not fully support data and syncing specifications for calendaring and contacts, such as iCalendar, CalDAV, SyncML and vCard 3.0. Outlook 2007 claims to be fully iCalendar compliant; however, it does not support all core objects, such as VTODO, VJOURNAL.[11] Also, Outlook supports vCard 2.1 and does not support multiple contacts in the vCard format as a single file. Outlook has also been criticized for having proprietary "Outlook extensions" to these Internet standards.
Security concerns
As part of its Trustworthy Computing initiative, Microsoft took corrective steps to fix Outlook's reputation in Office Outlook 2003. Among the most publicized security features are that Office Outlook 2003 does not automatically load images in HTML e-mails or permit opening executable attachments by default, and includes a built-in Junk Mail filter.[12] Service Pack 2 has augmented these features and adds an anti-Phishing filter.[13]
Outlook Add-ins
(Other possible and frequently used names: Microsoft Outlook add-ons, Microsoft Outlook plug-ins, Microsoft Outlook extensions, etc)
Outlook Add-ins are small helping programs for the Microsoft Outlook application. The main purpose of the add-ins is to add new functional capabilities into Microsoft Outlook and automate some routine operations. Add-in also refers to programs where the main function is to work on Outlook files such as synchronisation or backup utilities.
From Outlook 97 on, Exchange Client Extensions are supported in Outlook. Outlook 2000 and later support specific COM components called Outlook AddIns. The exact supported features (such as .NET components) for later generations were extended with each release.
Outlook Express
Outlook Express is an e-mail, newsgroup, and contact management application that Microsoft made available at no charge with older versions of its Internet Explorer web browser. Other than the similar name there is no connection between the two products and they originate from different divisions of Microsoft. While both offer access to POP3 and IMAP4 e-mail accounts, only Outlook offers client access (MAPI) to Microsoft Exchange. Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) does not include an e-mail client, however, and Windows Vista (which includes IE7) replaces Outlook Express with Windows Mail. In Windows 7, Windows Live Mail replaces Windows Mail. For Windows XP, Outlook Express has also been succeeded by Windows Live Mail.
Importing from other email clients
Currently, Outlook supports importing messages from Outlook Express and Lotus Notes. There are some ways to get the emails from Thunderbird: the first is to use a tool[14] that can convert a Thunderbird folder to a format that can be imported from Outlook Express. This method must be processed folder by folder. The other method is to use a couple of free tools that keep the original folder structure.[15]
See also
- Comparison of e-mail clients
- List of personal information managers
- Outlook Web Access
- Windows Calendar
- Comparison of office suites
- Comparison of feed aggregators
References
- ↑ Top 10 Reasons to Use Outlook - Business Center - PC World
- ↑ The version numbers follows the Office numbers.
- ↑ Release dates are for US product launches.
- ↑ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/178124
- ↑ HTML Mail with Microsoft Outlook
- ↑ Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 product overview
- ↑ What's New for Developers in Outlook 2007 (Part 1 of 2)
- ↑ Add, change, or remove a picture for a contact
- ↑ http://www.email-standards.org/clients/microsoft-outlook-2007/
- ↑ http://www.email-standards.org/clients/entourage/
- ↑ "Microsoft Office 2003 editions comparison". Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/compare.mspx#EBAA. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ↑ "MS-STANOICAL - v1.01 Outlook iCalendar Standards Compliance" (PDF). Microsoft. http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/3/3/D334A189-E51B-47FF-B0E8-C0479AFB0E3C/%5BMS-STANOICAL%5D.pdf. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
- ↑ Microsoft 'Security at Home' website
- ↑ IMAPSize
- ↑ Export messages and folders from Thunderbird to Outlook / Outlook Express / Windows Mail
External links
- Official Microsoft Outlook site
- Office 2010 product guide
- Outlook Developer Portal
- Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog
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