Launching your email program

You can start your email program in one of several ways.

Perhaps the easiest is to click on the Mail toolbar button within the Internet Explorer Web browser and select the Read Mail option.

Alternatively, you can select the Internet Mail or Outlook Express icon from the program manager (in Windows 95/98/3.x) or the Outlook Express icon on the desktop on Macintosh.

Lastly, if you are using Windows 95/98, you can click the Internet Mail/Outlook Express taskbar icon.

Composing a message
To compose an email message, click the New Message toolbar button (titled 'New Mail' in Outlook Express).

A window titled New Message will be displayed, ready for you to compose your email message. There are several fields that you need to complete to properly address your message.

The recipient's email address
Your first task will be to type the complete email address of the recipient in the To: field. The cursor should be automatically positioned in the To: field, ready to accept input. If it isn't, click in the box with your mouse.

The subject header
Next, you should complete the Subject: field. This is quite an important habit to get into.  Be sure to give all your email messages a meaningful subject header.

You can get to the Subject: field by using the TAB key, or pointing your mouse pointer and clicking on it.

The CC: Option
In between these two fields is the CC: or Carbon Copy field. This is where you enter the email addresses of any other persons to whom you wish to send a copy of your email. Make sure a comma separates each address.

The body of the message
Once you have completed the necessary fields, you can start writing your message. Either tab across to the message area, or use your mouse.

Enter the text of your message just as you would type a letter on your word processor. The software will automatically handle line and word wrapping.

The Outbox
Once you've checked your email message to see that it has been correctly addressed, has a relevant subject, and contains no glaring spelling mistakes, you can prepare it for sending. Click the Mail or Send button (depending on which version you are running), located on the window toolbar.

Your email message will then be queued in the OutBox, where it will remain until you select to transmit it.

You may be wondering why the email is queued in the OutBox, rather than sent immediately. This is so users can compose email offline; that is, compose email without first having to connect to the Internet.

This is handy if you are a slow typist, or want to spend some time composing and editing your email - you don't have to keep an eye on the meter! Only when all your email is ready for distribution do you need to connect to the Internet. Thus you need only connect for the few seconds it takes to send your email and not the minutes or hours the messages may take to compose!

Sending messages
Once you have composed and 'sent' a test message addressed to yourself, it is time to see if you did it correctly.

Within the main email program window, click the Send/Receive toolbar button. Your email program will then attempt to send all email queued in the OutBox. Again, you need to be connected to the Internet to do this. If you are not connected, you will be prompted to connect so the messages can be sent.

Once the program has finished sending the messages, it will also check to see if there are any new messages waiting for you.

If you correctly addressed the test email message, the program should immediately download and display it in your list of email in the InBox (it literally only takes a few seconds for the message to be sent, then received).

To announce the arrival of new email, your computer will give a little beep, and (for Windows 95/98 users) a small email icon will appear in the far right corner of your Task Bar.

You can preview the email message within the main window by clicking on it once. The first paragraph or so of text will be displayed in a separate pane immediately beneath the list of email messages in your InBox.

Replying to email
Replying to an email message is as simple as clicking on the Reply or Reply to Author toolbar button.

The new message composition window will appear, and your reply will be automatically addressed to the sender of the original message. It will also include the original subject, preceded by Re: (which indicates that it is a reply).

To assist you in composing your response, a copy of the text of the original email message will be included in the composition box, which you can edit as you would any other text.

Once you have composed your response, simply click on the appropriate Send icon. Your message will be queued in the OutBox ready for transmission.

Forwarding a message
On occasion you may receive an email message which you would like to pass on to someone else - for example, a funny joke or an important news item. This is easily achieved.

Highlight the email message that you wish to forward by clicking on it once. Then click the Forward toolbar button.

The original text of the message will again be copied into a new message ready to be edited if necessary. This time you will be required to supply the full email address of the person(s) to whom you wish to forward the message.

The subject header of the original message will be kept, but this time preceded by the 'Fw:' (short for Forward) prefix.

Once you have finished adding any remarks, click on the appropriate Send button. Your message will be queued in the OutBox ready for transmission.