{"id":2406,"date":"2013-12-12T14:03:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T22:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oneminutetodolist.com\/blog\/?p=2406"},"modified":"2013-12-12T15:14:38","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T23:14:38","slug":"extract-from-outlook-book-edition-4-better-outlook-searches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/extract-from-outlook-book-edition-4-better-outlook-searches\/","title":{"rendered":"Extract from Outlook Book Edition 4: Better Outlook Searches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dec. 12, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is an extract from the new 4th Edition of my Outlook book. This extract is on how to use Window Outlook Instant Search in a more powerful way. Instant Search is simply the search box that sits above the Inbox in Outlook. There is a lot more power hidden in this box than you realize! This extract comes from pages 127-129 in the new book.<\/p>\n

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Why read this? Effective use of Outlook search saves you a lot of time. And once you get good at this, you can do a lot less topic-based filing (which also saves you considerable time). Macintosh Users: the book shows you how to use Mac’s Outlook 2011 search tool as well; I just don’t show the extract here.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Using Field-Based Instant Searches in Outlook 2007, 2010, and 2013<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I showed you earlier how to use AND and OR to narrow your search results. An even better way to narrow your results is to use field-based searches. I find if I use these I can nearly always find an item I am looking for, even if my first simple search yields far too many results.<\/p>\n

Figure 5 5. 2010 Search tab; 2013 is similar.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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For example, let\u2019s say you are looking for a bill you received and Instant Search returned too many results on the word Invoice. It occurs to you that you know this particular vendor probably puts the word Invoice in the subject (title) of all its e-mails. Wouldn\u2019t it be great if you could search only on e-mails with Invoice in the Subject field? You can.<\/p>\n

In Outlook 2007<\/strong> you do that by opening the Query Builder; you reach it by clicking the down-pointing chevron at the right of the search box\u2014that results in Figure 5.6 (notice the chevron highlighted in that figure).<\/p>\n

Figure 5.6 Instant Search Query Builder.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Here you can limit the search by entering additional search terms specific for various e-mail fields. For example, in Figure 5.6, you could enter person\u2019s name in the From box and a keyword in the Subject box. The default field list you see may be different from that in Figure 5.6. You control that either by using the Add Criteria button at the bottom, or by changing the title of any existing field with the drop-down arrow next to each. I recommend you play with this query tool and teach yourself how to search on various field combinations; it\u2019s fairly intuitive.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0If the extra fields just described for Outlook 2007, or the More button in 2010 (which I describe ahead), are grayed out, see the section ahead \u201cTroubleshooting Windows Instant Search.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Outlook 2010 and 2013<\/strong>, you can pick specific field values with the commands in the Refine group on the Search tab (see Figure 5.5). You can indicate that you want to search on the From field, Subject field, on particular date ranges, and so on. But I don\u2019t like the way these buttons work because the design forces you to edit the values in the search box and that can be confusing. I prefer using the older Outlook 2007 interface that gives you a separate box for each search criterion (as in Figure 5.6). You can get to that in Outlook 2010 and 2013, too, by clicking the More button at the lower right of the Refine group on the Search tab (it should have a green plus sign next to it as in Figure 5.5) and selecting a field name from the context menu. You can click that More button several times to add multiple fields to narrow the search even more.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0If you use More fields often in Outlook 2010, I recommend turning off Search While Typing because that feature can lead to frustrating behavior when entering field values. For example, if you pause too long, the cursor jumps out of the box you are entering.<\/p>\n

Narrowing the search as just described (with Query Builder in 2007 or the More fields in 2010 and 2013) actually edits the search phrase itself in the search box. You\u2019ll see a phrase like \u201ciPad received:this week\u201d where iPad is the search term, received refers to the date field, and this week is the date value. What you are doing is building a text-based query. The various fields and controls you click are just helping you do that. You can then edit that query directly. In fact, you can build that entire query manually, by typing the query directly in the search box, with the Instant Search query syntax. Let\u2019s look at that now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(End of extract from 4th Edition, Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, Copyright 2013, Michael Linenberger)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dec. 12, 2013 Here is an extract from the new 4th Edition of my Outlook book. This extract is on how to use Window Outlook Instant Search in a more powerful way. Instant Search is simply the search box that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2406"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2418,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions\/2418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}