[NFBCS] Creating a More Usable Contacts View in Microsoft Outlook

[Curtis Chong]

Greetings everyone:

 

If any of you struggle with viewing and managing Contacts in Outlook, you might be interested in the following procedure which will create a customized view which works a whole lot better than the default views which are provided with Microsoft Outlook. What you get is a list of names and email addresses that is sorted according to how you want it to be sorted. I prefer sorting my email list in first-last name order. So, if I have George Smith in my Contacts, I can type “geo” and my focus moves right to George Smith. If interested, read on.

 

<Begin Procedure>

 

Here are the steps you can use to create for yourself a Name-Email view in Outlook to simplify the navigation of Outlook’s Contacts Folder. You may know that if you use the CTRL+SHIFT+B keyboard command to get into Outlook’s address book, only entries with an email address will be displayed. If, however, you get into your Contacts folder with the keyboard shortcut CTRL+3, you will see all of your Outlook contacts, including contacts without email addresses.

 

In my Outlook system, I sort my contacts by full name (first, middle, last), and I set my File As default to save new entries that way as well. This is not a requirement for what I am about to tell you, merely a convenience for yours truly and possibly for no one else😀.

 

1.         Go to the Outlook Contacts Folder. The easiest way to do this is to enter the command CTRL+3. The JAWS command INSERT+T should inform you that you are in your Contacts folder.

 

2.         Press ALT+V to open the View Tab. Tab once to get to “Change View” and press Enter to activate this.

 

3.         Tab to “Manage Views...” and press Enter. Then, tab once to “New...” and again, press Enter. You should now be in the field which is called Name of New View. I typed in Name-Email, but feel free to use whatever name suits you.

 

4.         After entering the name of the new view, press Enter to start tinkering with this view. If everything has worked, your focus should be on a button called “Columns...”. Press Space to open this dialog.

 

5.         You need to SHIFT+TAB three times to get to a list of the columns that you want to show up in this view. JAWS should now say something like, “Show Columns Show these columns in this order: MultiSelect ListBox Not Selected Icon 1 of 14”.

 

6.         The two items you want left in this list are “Full Name” (the fourth item), and Email (item number 12). All of the other items need to be removed. Here’s how.

 

7.         Using your up/down arrow keys, focus on the first item to be removed. This is called “Icon”. Once focused on “Icon”, press SHIFT+TAB once; you should now be focused on a button called “<- Remove”. Press Space to activate the button.

 

8.         Repeat the above step 7, remembering not to remove the Full Name or the Email fields. When done, you should have only two items left in the list.

 

9.         Now, tab to and activate the OK button to get out of the Columns dialog.

 

10.       Now, tab to and activate the Other Settings button. Tab three times to get to the Allow In-Cell Editing. The box is checked by default. Press Space to uncheck this box.

 

11.       Tab four times to get to the set of buttons which control the Reading Pane. I choose to turn this off, but the choice is up to you.

 

12.       Tab to and activate the OK button. You should now be back in the original dialog.

 

13.       Tab to and activate the OK button.

 

14.       At this point, you are still in the Manage Views dialog. You want to get out of this. Tab to and activate the Close button.

 

15.       At this point, you have your new view created, but you haven’t switched to it yet. Press ALT+V again to get into the View tab. Press Tab to focus on Change View, and press Enter to activate this. You are now in a grid. Use your right arrow key to focus on the new view you have created and press Enter to select it.

 

When all of this is done, what you have when you press CTRL+3 should be a list of your contacts arranged vertically. You should now be able to type the first or second letter of a contact you are trying to find, and your focus should move directly to that contact. You can then edit the contact by pressing Enter.

 

<End of Procedure>

 

Kindly,

 

Curtis Chong

 

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