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Switching from Apple Mail to Entourage
Contributed by Michel Bintener, Microsoft MVP
Part 2: Frequently asked questions
Column headers
In Mail, the typical layout of the main window has the preview pane shown below the message list, and this message list has column headers that display details such as the name of the sender, the exact moment in which the message was sent or received, and other details, such as the number of attachments or the size of the message, can also be displayed. In Entourage’s default view, the preview pane is on the right, and the message list only seems to display some details, making it for instance impossible to determine what size a message is.
However, these details can also be displayed in Entourage’s main window. The column headers only appear if the preview pane is either below the message list or switched off altogether. To make this change, click on View>Preview Pane>Below List or View>Preview Pane>None. Once you have done that, you can click on View>Columns to add those columns that you find important. Furthermore, you can then click on the column headers to quickly sort the messages in descending order, or click once again to sort them in ascending order.
Creating rich HTML messages
Mail allows you to create rich HTML messages, even though it hides this option. You can of course use the stationery that was introduced in Mac OS X 10.5, and you can create masked hyperlinks by selecting some text and choosing Edit>Link>Add. You can also paste formatted tables from Numbers, Keynote, and Pages into a new Mail message, or edit complex HTML quoted in a message. All these options are not available in Entourage, unfortunately.
However, there is one workaround that tends to get overlooked because its implementation is not very intuitive. If Entourage is set as your default e-mail application (if you do not know how to do this, check this section on preferences), you can simply write your e-mail in Word. Open Word and type your message; you can also include tables, masked hyperlinks, graphs, and almost any feature that you know of. Once you are done with the message, click on File>Send To>Mail Recipient (as HTML). This command will convert the document and pass it on to Entourage, which will then open and show you the newly created message. There is one downside to this method; because of Entourage’s limited capacity for dealing with complex HTML, you can no longer edit this message, either by changing the text and its formatting, or by adding an attachment. You can only add a subject line, one or more recipients and choose the account through which you want to send the message.
Forwarding complex HTML messages
When you receive a complex HTML message in Mail, you can simply hit the reply or forward button and see the message quoted in the body of the reply, with all its formatting preserved. In Entourage, you will encounter an entirely different scenario; the message will in most cases be stripped of its formatting and not look at all like the original message. This is caused by the fact that while Entourage uses a very advanced engine to display HTML messages (in Entourage 2008, it is WebKit, the same engine that is also used by Safari and Mail), the engine which it uses to create HTML messages is not very sophisticated and does not allow anything other than the basic formatting of text and the insertion of pictures, movies, and backgrounds.
How then can you forward those complex HTML messages? The solution is nowhere near as complicated as the problem might suggest; simply select the original message, then click Message>Forward as Attachment. This procedure tells Entourage to leave the original message alone, whereas the simple Forward command would have instructed it to re-encode the complex HTML message using its restricted HTML creation engine.
Manage Inboxes
Separate Inboxes
If you use a number of different POP accounts, any incoming messages will be stored in the Inbox folder in the “On My Computer” section of Entourage’s folder list. If you want these messages to go into different folders, i.e. have one Inbox per account, you can instruct Entourage to do this using rules. First of all, select the local Inbox, ctrl-/right-click it and create subfolders, one for each Inbox you would like to have. When you are done, create a number of new POP rules that look as follows:
If account is [name of your first POP account]
Then move message to [name of the Inbox for the first account]
Save the rule, then repeat this procedure as many times as necessary until you have set up one rule for each POP account. If you want your sent messages to be treated the same way, create new subfolders and build similar rules; just make sure you are creating outgoing rules instead of POP rules.
Unified Inbox
If you have POP, IMAP and Exchange accounts, Mail shows you all the messages in one single unified Inbox, while also giving you the option to view messages on a per account basis. Entourage uses a different approach, keeping the different mailboxes separate and regrouping them by account. However, you can easily create such a unified Inbox using a Saved Search. Create a new Saved Search (File>New>Saved Search) and enter the following criteria:
Search: All Messages
Match if any criteria are met
Folder is [name of Inbox for account 1]
Folder is [name of Inbox for account 2]
Folder is [name of Inbox for account 3] (etc.)
Click on the Save button and give your Saved Search a name. You can now access this unified Inbox though the Mail Views section in Entourage’s mail folder list. See this example.
Note: the above tip shows how to include POP, IMAP and Exchange accounts in one view. POP e-mail messages all go into Entourage’s local Inbox, which is in the On My Computer section of the folder list. More info on the Inbox
Smart Mailboxes
You can use Spotlight in Mail to find messages very quickly, and these searches can be saved as Smart Mailboxes, meaning that you can access them like regular folders. Entourage has a similar feature called Saved Search. To create a new Saved Search, click on File>New>Saved Search, enter your criteria in the orange field that shows up above the message list, and when you are done entering, click the Save button. Saved Searches can be accessed in the Mail Views section of the folder list on the left side of the Entourage main window. Note that you can also create Saved Searches that include elements other than mail messages, such as contacts and tasks. These global Saved Searches (Custom Views) can be accessed from within the Project Centre module of Entourage. More info on custom views.
Using hyperlinks
Another frequently requested feature that is available in many e-mail applications is the creation of masked hyperlinks. In case you are not familiar with masked hyperlinks: these hyperlinks are simple strings of text that “hide” a hyperlink. For example, you might want to write some text that says “Click here” and add a link to your home page without the entire URL address showing. You can find a couple of masked hyperlinks in this article, and, as a matter of fact, on virtually every single web page you are likely to visit. However, for the same reasons mentioned in the section on forwarding complex HTML messages, this is not possible in Entourage. For a potential solution, see Creating rich HTML messages. More info on using HTML in Entourage. For answers to why URLs aren't blue and how to insert a URL from a browser into a message see URL FAQs.
