Outlook Automatic Address Fill

 One of the features of Outlook that I happen to l-o-v-e is the automatic address fill.  I can just start typing a complicated email address in the address field and – whoosh – the rest of it magically appears.  Y’all are probably familiar with this. 

 

It can also be a bit tricky when several people have the same name or initials for their email.  As much as I enjoy getting Eric Stettin’s email and I’m quite sure he enjoys getting mine, especially the glowing compliments about IT (at least I hope that’s where they go as I’ve never actually received one) there are times when you want to be careful about that. 

 

Sometimes, though, the auto address fill doesn’t seem to work well or you forget how the complicated address started and have to figure it out the hard way or you end up actually sending that email making fun of opposing counsel to opposing counsel since he and your buddy have the same initial characters in their email address.  Whoops.  You laugh, but that has happened.  The worst one I ever saw was one criticizing a client while cc’ing the client…ouch.  Be careful of that reply all button, too, it can have some nasty consequences.

 

All this technology, you’d think there was a way to do an auto address the right the first time, every time.  There is.  All you gotta do is create (or edit) a contact card in Outlook.  Then, you can create a name for your contact that you can remember and get the right address every time, if you’re creative enough.

 

You see that field in my contact card down below that says “Display as”?  Yup.  You can put anything the heck you want in that box and that’s how it will appear in the email, even though the system still uses the true address.  So, for me, all you have to do is enter “office” or “geek” in the “To” field and it will show up automatically.  The same is true if I just changed it to “EPH” which is even easier (see the cc line in this email – that’s what I actually use for more professional communications).  Be careful with this one.  If you use the name “Idiot” for someone, that’s what will get sent with your email.  Maybe that’s good.  Maybe not.

 

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