Field Chooser Customizes Outlook Table Views

If you view Outlook data in table format, you need to know about Field Chooser. What do I mean by view Outlook data in table format? Have you ever used the Events view in Calendar, or the By Company view in Contacts? If so, you've been viewing Outlook data in table format.

If you synchronize your Outlook data with a PDA or smartphone, you may have used the Calendar Events view to eliminate the duplicate holiday entries that seem to crop up when moving data back and forth like that.

NOTE: If the views I'm talking about here are unfamiliar to you, I suggest you explore views a bit more. Go to Calendar, or Contacts, or any other section of Outlook and click View, then Arrange By, then Current View to see some of the possibilities.

Anyway, back to the Field Chooser. If you use table views, you may find that the default view doesn't include a field that you want to see. The Field Chooser lets you add or remove fields from a view by dragging and dropping them. It works differently than you are probably used to, but is really intuitive once you've done it a few times.

Start by navigating to the table view that you want to modify, then follow the instructions for adding or removing fields.

Adding Fields with Field Chooser

1. Right-click anywhere in the gray-colored header row of the table. This opens a shortcut menu.
   
   
2. In the shortcut menu, select Field Chooser to open the Field Chooser window.
   
   
   
   The Field Chooser window.
   
   
3. Find the name of the field you want to add in the Field Chooser window. The list at the top of the window controls which types of fields are visible in the rest of the window.
   
   NOTE: Only fields that are not already visible in the view appear in the window.
   
   
4. Use the mouse to drag the name of the field to the gray header bar.
   
   
5. As you drag the name across the header bar, arrows appear between existing headings. These show the location where the field you are dragging will appear if you drop it right now.
   
   
6. Drop the field name when you are satisfied with the location. The new field appears as a column in the table.
   
   
7. Use the mouse to drag the right edge of the new column's header to resize the column.

Removing Fields with Field Chooser

1. Right-click anywhere in the gray-colored header row of the table. This opens a shortcut menu.
   
   
2. In the shortcut menu, select Field Chooser to open the Field Chooser window.
   
   
3. Point the mouse at the name of the field you want to remove in the gray header bar.
   
   
4. Drag the header to the Field Chooser window and drop it. Outlook removes the field from the view, and automatically places the field name in the appropriate category in the window.