Hes also worked as a trainer, technical support person, delivery manager, system administrator, and in other roles that involve getting people and technology to work together.

Each of these is designed to make it easier to find, see, and manage things in Outlook.

When you click on a message in any folder, the pane displays the contents of that message, along with basic controls for replying and forwarding the message.

This was the traditional view before the advent of wide-screen monitors, and many people still favor it.

This is a useful option if youre clearing out mail, especially if you use it in conjunction with the View Message Preview function.

But if you set Message Preview to 1 Line, 2 Lines, or 3 Lines, youll also see 1, 2 or 3 lines of the content of each message, without needing the Reading pane.

It also determines how Outlook marks messages as read and lets you move through your messages using a single key.

By default, Outlook marks a mail as read once youve spent five seconds with it selected, but you can change this by going to View Reading Pane and selecting Options.

You can also go to File Options Mail Reading Pane (or Advanced Reading pane) to open the same options.

You can change this time to anything from zero (i.e., its marked as read immediately when you select it) to 999 seconds.

If you want Outlook to wait more than a few seconds then you might prefer the second option, Mark item as read when the selection changes.

This is an eitheror situation: you can tell Outlook to mark items as read after a particular time, or you can tell Outlook to mark items as read when you move to another item, but not both.

When you reach a message thats longer than the Reading pane can show, you can hit the space bar to move down a page in that message.

When you reach the end of the message, hitting spacebar moves to the next message.

This works well in conjunction with using the Up and Down arrows to navigate through your folderthey let you move through the folder, and the spacebar lets you move through the selected message.

This is for tablet users, and if its switched on then when your tablet is in portrait orientation, clicking a message minimizes the Navigation pane, hides the reading pane, and displays the selected message using the full screen.

This wont work if you select the message using the Up and Down arrows or the spacebaronly if you select the message using the trackpadmouse or your finger.

You can display the panes again by clicking the Normal mode icon.

Use the Zoom control at the bottom of the Reading pane to increase the size of the contents (or make it smaller if its too large).

This works on a per message basis, so if you increase the size of one message, the zoom level on the next message you select will still be 100.

They only work if the Reading pane is set to Right or Bottom.

If youve traditionally turned it off then now might be a good time to turn it back on and see if it can help make your workflow a little more pleasant and efficient.

Customize Outlook For Mac Color