MS WordMail 97 White Paper

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Microsoft Word 97 gives you everything you need to create professional-looking documents, communicate your ideas, and share information — on the printed page or across intranets and the Internet. The innovative new tools in Word 97 make it easy to get powerful results fast! Now you can use this tool to create professional e-mail as well. Simply select Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor with Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange, and you can start using the familiar tools of Microsoft Word with your e-mail. From then on, when you create or read your messages, you are using WordMail with Word's functionality. Add muscle to your mail with WordMail 97.

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Microsoft WordMail 97
Summary

Microsoft WordMail 97

When it comes to unleashing the power of your words, no other word processor is more powerful or easier to use than Microsoft Word 97. Now you can use Word's familiarity and functionality to create professional e-mail as well, by selecting Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor in either Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook.

This whitepaper details and demonstrates many of the improvements to Wordmail in the new Wordmail 97 version, shows you examples of exciting e-mail you can create, and tells you how to select Word 97 as your e-mail editor.

WordMail Improvements

WordMail was one of the key technological innovations in Microsoft Word 95 and included functionalities such as:

  • AutoCorrect as you type

  • Using the IntelliSense driven background spelling checker

  • Highlighting key parts of a message

WordMail is extended in Microsoft Word 97 to integrate seamlessly with both the Microsoft Exchange e-mail client and Outlook and include new functionalities as follows:

  • WordMail 97's background proofing IntelliSense has been extended to include automatic grammar checking to complement the spelling checker.

  • AutoSummarize will quickly highlight the key segments of long messages.

  • WordMail automatically scans a user's incoming messages for extended characters that are not mapped correctly to ASCII, such as "=" and replaces them with the corresponding ANSI character therefore, users do not see garbage in their messages.

  • Formatting ordinary text with new text effects such as Animated Text.

  • WordMail 97 uses Office technology with Office Art, which allows the user to add WordArt and 3-D shapes for effect.

  • WordMail 97 uses Word technology with tables to quickly draw tables in e-mail with the new Table Drawing toolbar.

  • WordMail scans a user's messages for text patterns that match Internet addresses, such as www.microsoft.com, network addresses, such as \\server1\sharename and e-mail addresses, such as username@company.com, and automatically converts them to live hyperlinks.

  • Word 97 automatically detects if a message contains a long conversation thread, and using AutoFormat, picks out the sender of each message and displays the sender's name in the Document Map. With the Document Map, users can go directly to comments made by any user without having to scroll or page down through the entire message.

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  • WordMail allows users to right-click a name anywhere in a message and use the "Who Is" command to bring up address book information about the person. This eliminates the need to go to the address book and type in the person's name to get more details.

  • WordMail automatically formats plain-text WordMail messages making it easier to follow message threads by stylizing headers and indenting message threads.

  • WordMail automatically hides plain text prefix formatting often found in threaded messages and replaces it with color and indents. For example, ">>" is often used as a prefix to indicate an "original" message. When a user of WordMail receives a message containing these types of embedded prefixes, Microsoft Word hides that formatting and instead displays the hierarchy by varying the indentation and color of each message. The indentation and color is proportional to the number of prefixes.

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  • E-mail becomes visual appealing with the new backgrounds and professionally designed e-mail templates.

Examples:

WordMail 97 comes with several custom templates that you can choose from, including the following "Rain Template:

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You can also use 3-D Word-art, 3-D Office Art, and custom backgrounds to make your e-mail visually appealing:

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(WordArt and graphics are only visible to other WordMail users unless the user changes the graphics from being "floating" to in-line. To do so, simply right-click on the object, choose Format Picture (or WordArt, or Drawing Object depending on what it is) and clear the "Float over text" checkbox).

How to select Microsoft Word 97 as your E-mail editor

To use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor, go to the tools menu of Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Exchange and select options. In the options dialog box, select the "Use Microsoft Word as the e-mail editor" checkbox.

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Summary

When it comes unleashing the power of your words, no other word processor is more powerful or easier to use than Microsoft Word 97. Now unleash the power of your e-mail as well, with WordMail 97. Select Microsoft Word 97 as your e-mail editor and start adding muscle to your mail.