Introduction & Opening | ICW and Outlook Interface | Configuring, Creating Folders & Receiving
Composing & Sending | Address Book | Accessing Newsgroups | Reading & Posting News
Automating Tasks | Outside Resources

Reading Messages From Newsgroups In Outlook Express:
Once you have configured your newsgroup settings, and connected to your news server, you can start to read messages. First you will have to subscribe to the newsgroups that you are interested in. To do that, you need to do the following:

1.) In the text field at the top of the newsgroup dialog box, type in a keyword or a topic that interests you.

2.) At this point, there should be a list of available newsgroups that you can subscribe to regarding the topic or keyword you've just entered.

3.) Highlight the newsgroup that you would like to subscribe to, and click on the Subscribe Button.

4.) If you wish to leave a particular newsgroup, you can do that by repeating step 3 above, and click the Unsubscribe Button instead.

5.) To refresh the list of newsgroups that you are looking at, click the Reset List Button.

Now that you have subscribed to a newsgroup, you can read all of the messages available in that particular newsgroup. After a while, you may want to mark some of the messages you've read, since there are a lot of messages to go through in any newsgroup unless it has recently been created.

Posting Messages to Newsgroups in Outlook Express:
Now, that you have received and read messages from newsgroups, you probably want to post a message to a newsgroup. To do this, you can use one of the following methods:

1.) Click on the New Post Button on the toolbar, or
2.) Click on the File Menu, Select New, and then click on Mail Message.

After using one of the above methods, you will see a blank message on your screen similar to when you created your first e-mail message. The basic elements of the newsgroup message you're composing are: Newsgroups, which is the field for the newsgroup(s) you are posting the message to, Cc, which is the field for the newsgroup(s) or person(s) you are sending a copy of the post to, Subject, which for the title or subject of the post you're sending, and finally, the body, which will contain the post itself.

Along the top of the newsgroup post you're composing will be a toolbar that consists of the following buttons: Send, Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Check and Spelling. Again, this format is the same as when you created your first e-mail message. These are basic tasks that you will perform during the creation of your e-mail. Above the toolbar, you will see the menu bar with the usual File, Edit, View, Tools, Message, and Help.

If you have set up Outlook Express to be in Rich Text Format, then beneath the To, Cc, and Subject fields and above the message or body portion of your news post, there are formatting tools such as Bold, Italics, and Alignment that will help you format your e-mail much like you would format a document in Microsoft Word. Finally, enter the message you want to send in your e-mail. You will notice that this too is similar to typing in a Microsoft Word Document.

Once you have finished composing your news message in Outlook Express, you are ready to send it to the newsgroup(s) that you want to send it to. To do this, you can either:

1.) Click the Send Button on the toolbar in your composed message, or
2.) In the File Menu on the menu bar, click Send Message.

There is also an option in Outlook Express that you can use if you do not want to post your message out right away. In the File Menu, click Send Later, and your e-mail will be placed in the Outbox to be sent at a later time.

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