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    July 23rd, 2010

    ♫ You know its gonna make it that much better

    Wouldn’t it be nice …♫

    Music and Lyrics by: Brian Wilson, Tony Asher, Mike Love, recorded by The Beach Boys.

    Reba Nance

    Reba Nance

    This is a “Tip” from my colleague and friend, Reba Nance, who is a fellow PMA (Practice Management Advisor) for the Colorado Bar Association:

    How to compose and send an E-Mail Without Ever Leaving Microsoft Word from Word 2007, 2003 and 2000:

    Many of us spend much of our time in Word. Wouldn’t it be nice to easily compose and send an e-mail in Word rather than having to minimize Word, open Outlook to send the message, and then go back to Word? Here’s how to do it in Word 2003 and earlier versions:

    For Word 2003 and earlier versions:

    1. Open a new Word document and type the text of the e-mail as a normal Word document
    2. Click on the E-mail button on Word’s standard toolbar (you’ve probably never noticed it). To find it, hover your mouse over the icons until you see the word E-mail appear (the button will say Send to Mail Recipient in Word 2007)
    3. Enter the recipient’s e-mail address, just as you would if you were typing in Outlook
    4. Click on Send a Copy

    Word will automatically paste the text of the Word document (where you typed the text of your e-mail) into the Introduction area of the box on top, send your e-mail via Outlook, and then return you to the Word document containing the text of your e-mail. You can then exit the Word document without saving it, and go back to your original Word document.

    For Word 2007 – If you use Word 2007, the E-Mail icon is not on the toolbar. You must first add it:

    1. Click the Microsoft Office Button (the graphic in the upper left-hand corner), and then click Word Options
    2. Click Customize on the left, and then in the Choose commands from box, click on the down arrow (the default is Popular Commands)
    3. Choose All Commands from the drop-down menu
    4. Now scroll down the list until you see Send to Mail Recipient. Highlight it and then click Add (in the middle of the page) to add the command to the Quick Access Toolbar
    5. Click OK
    6. The E-mail button should now be on the far right-hand side of Quick Access Toolbar (Look for Save, Undo, Open, etc. It should be the one on the far right-hand side of that list and say Send to Mail Recipient. It will now be there any time you open Word (so you won’t have to do this again).
    7. Then, repeat steps 1 through 4 above.

    If you have any questions, contact Reba Nance at reban@cobar.org.

    Reba J. Nance is the Director of Law Practice and Risk Management for the Colorado Bar Association, 1900 Grant Street, Ninth Floor, Denver, CO 80203, (303) 824-5320 – Direct.

    Thanks Reba for this tip that will make it a little bit better…

    This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 10:18 am and is filed under Make it Work!, Technology, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    3 Responses to “Tip: Composing an E-Mail Without Leaving MS Word”
    1. B downs Says:

      can you do this with Word Perfect ?

    2. Marc W Braun Says:

      Dear Reba: I found the link to your post while cruising thru some old posts by Jim Calloway on his blog. I just sent an email like you said without leaving Word 2007. I thought you might be interested in my initial reaction:
      PRO: Overall I love this idea. On a 10 point scale, it’s an 8 for sure. I prefer using Word to Outlook when drafting emails; Word has more tools and I’m just more comfortable using it. (Not a surprise after 22 years of using word processing programs to draft documents, letters, etc. and having been forced to convert from Word Perfect to Word in 1998.)
      CON: The only serious drawback that I have found is that my standard email “signature/contact information/disclaimer” sections never gets added to the emailed message. The only solution I have thought of is to create a dedicated Word document just for emails that has my standard “signature/contact information/disclaimer” sections already in the document and just reuse the same document over and over. Do you have any other ideas or suggestions?

    3. Marc W Braun Says:

      Oops: Sorry. I should have said “Dear David”. Forgot that the blog post was yours, not Reba’s. Marc

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