Learn to love the Ribbon
At first, the Ribbon may be off-putting. But the truth is, once you learn how to use it, you'll find that it's far easier to use than the old Outlook interface. It puts features you might forget about within easy reach while cleaning up the interface. It does take some getting used to, though.
The default Outlook 2010 Ribbon in Mail. Click to view larger image.
By default, the Ribbon that you see in Outlook 2010's main window is divided into five tabs, with an optional sixth one (Developer). Each tab is organized into a series of groups that contain related commands for getting something done, such as sending and receiving mail. Inside each group is a set of what Microsoft calls command buttons, which carry out commands, display menus and so on.
There's also a small diagonal arrow in the bottom right corner of some groups that Microsoft calls a dialog box launcher. Click it to display more options related to the group.
In Outlook, the Ribbon's default tabs are context-sensitive, so that the options available on each of them vary according to whether you're in Mail, Calendar, Contacts or Tasks. Here's a rundown of the tabs and what each one does:
File (also known as Backstage): As you'll see later in the story, here's where you perform a variety of tasks such as managing your email accounts, printing, cleaning up your mailbox, customizing the Ribbon and more. No matter which view you're in, when you head to Backstage, it always looks the same.
Home: This contains commonly used Outlook tasks. So when you're in Mail, for example, here's where you compose emails, manage junk mail, reply and forward mail, mark mail for follow-up and create mail-managing rules, among other tasks.
In Calendar, the Home tab is where you create new appointments and meetings, change your calendar view (day, week, etc.), share your calendar with others and so on. In Contacts, you create new contacts and groups, delete contacts and other similar tasks. In Tasks, you create new tasks, delete tasks, and flag and prioritize tasks, for example.
Send/Receive: This is the place to turn for all actions having to do with sending and receiving mail, calendar items, contacts and tasks, depending on which application you're in.
Folder: In Mail, this tab controls creating new mail folders, cleaning up folders by moving duplicate messages to the Deleted Items folder, running rules on folders to automatically manage mail (moving all messages from a person to a specific folder, for example), marking mail in the folder as read, changing folder properties, and similar actions. In Calendar, Contacts and Tasks, the feature set is much more limited, allowing you to create new folders, along with some context-sensitive tasks, such as sharing contacts, a calendar or tasks with others.
View: In all four apps, you can use this tab to control the display of the Navigation pane, To-Do bar, Reading pane and People pane. In Mail, the tab also lets you filter your mail display by account, sender and so on, change the way in which conversations display and a lot more. In Calendar, you'll be able to change the view to daily, weekly and so on. Contacts has a limited feature set but includes filtering the view of contacts by category, phone number and other options. Tasks offers similar features, including arranging tasks by categories, start date and due date.
Developer: If you write code or create forms and applications for Outlook, this is your tab. It includes macro-handling, so power users might also want to visit here every once in a while.
The Developer tab is hidden by default. To display it, click the File tab and choose Options --> Customize Ribbon and then check the box next to Developer.
Additional context-sensitive tabs: The Ribbon has a few more tricks up its sleeve beyond its default tabs. Depending on what you're doing, it sometimes adds more tabs and subtabs.
For example, if you highlight a task in the To-Do bar, a new tab called Task List appears. It lets you remove tasks from the list, mark them as complete, show categories of tasks, filter them by date and perform other task management actions. Similarly, when you highlight a Calendar item, a new tab called Calendar Tools appears, giving you features such as inviting people to an appointment, changing the recurrence of the appointment, marking its importance as high or low, and so on.
If you type a search term in the Quick Search box at the top of the content area (the area that shows all of the emails in a folder, your calendar and so on), a Search tab appears with a variety of search tools, such as ones that let you perform date-specific searches and search only among messages with attachments.
The Outlook 2010 Ribbon also changes when you create a new mail message, read an existing mail message, create a new appointment, view an existing appointment, create a new contact, view an existing contact, create a new task or view an existing task. You'll find context-sensitive tabs, including a Message one when you read or compose an email message, that contain plenty of features you'll need, from basics like replying and forwarding mail to advanced features such as translating a message. And when creating a new contact, you can add a photo, search your Address Book and so on using the Contact tab.