Like most of the tutorials I put up here, I was recently asked how to do something. So, I’m putting it up here for posterity. This might be outdated soon, with the adoption of MS Office ’07 gaining momentum.
Anyways, in case you don’t know; a distribution list is a quick way to send an e-mail out to a bunch of people at one time, without having to put all of their names in the ‘To:’ fields of outlook. So, if you find yourself writing emails to the same people often, it’s a good idea to have a distribution list setup to make your life a little easier.
So, fire up Outlook 2003 and navigate to the ‘Contacts’ folder. Click the down arrow next to ‘New’ and find the menu item, ‘Distribution List’:
Select the ‘Distribution List’ option, which will give you a new window, which will be similar to the following:
Now, Click on the ‘Select Members…’ button. This should give you yet another window, which should look similar to the following:
Now, go through your contact list as you choose. It’s worth noting that the picture above shows that I was selecting contacts in the ‘Global Address List’. This is a list available throughout your network. It’s not important that you understand the concept of that, but it is important that you know you can change where you’re looking up people from.
If you select the drop down box that has ‘Global Address List’ in it, you will see other places for you to find contacts in. The most likely place you’re going to want to find other contacts is in YOUR contacts folder. So go ahead and select that, and find the ones you want. Just double click the names to add them to the list.
When your done, review your list of contacts, and give the list a name. I named min ‘Tutorial’. Here’s what I have:
Select ‘Save and Close’ and you’re done.
Keep in mind, all Distribution lists are saved in YOUR contact folder! So, in order to use them, you’ll have to find the contact in your contact folder. To illustrate this, write a new message, and select the ‘To:’ button. Then switch where you’re looking for contacts, to your ‘Contacts’ folder. Finally, find the name of the Distribution list you’re looking for. All distribution lists are bolded, which makes them a bit easier to find. Here’s mine:
And that’s it! As always, I welcome your comments!