Mail Keyboard Shortcuts (Outlook 2007)

Note: If you are looking for Outlook 2003 mail keyboard shortcuts, click here

With the introduction of the Ribbon in Outlook 2007, the number of available keyboard shortcuts has grown tremendously. The old keyboard shortcuts from Outlook 2003 and earlier still work, but there are a bunch of new ones you can use when working in places within Outlook that use the Ribbon, such as the New Message window.

Ribbon shortcuts differ from the old-style ones in that they all begin by pressing and releasing the ALT key, instead of holding it down while pressing another key. When you press and release the ALT key while the Ribbon is visible, little Key Tip badges appear on the screen to show you what pressing each key will do.

This figure shows a few of these Key Tips.

Key Tips show you what you can do next as you enter a keyboard shortcut.

Outlook treats the next several keys you press as part of the shortcut, and each time you press one, the Key Tips on the screen change to reflect the keys you can press next.

Note: If you want to cancel a shortcut you are entering, press and release the ALT key again.

The following table contains several Ribbon-style keyboard shortcuts that are useful when you are editing e-mail messages:

Shortcut Action
ALT, H, A, C Center the selected paragraph
ALT, H, A, L Align the selected paragraph with the left margin
ALT, H, U Open the Bullet Library so you can turn the selected paragraphs into a bulleted list
ALT, H, N Open the Numbering Library to turn the selected paragraphs into a numbered list
ALT, H, M Check the email addresses in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields to see that they match one of your contacts or are at least properly formed.
ALT, H, F, F Select the Font list. Use the DOWN ARROW to open the list and ENTER to switch to the selected font
ALT, H, A, I Increase the indentation of the selected paragraph
ALT, H, A, O Decrease the indentation of the selected paragraph
ALT, H, S, S Start the spelling checker
ALT, O, Q Open the Zoom dialog box to zoom in or out on the editing area. Useful for those of us who need reading glasses!
ALT, O, F, Y Display a list of styles to apply to the selected text
ALT, H, A, A Select the Insert Business Card option
ALT, N, P Open the Insert Picture dialog box to insert a picture at the location of the cursor.
ALT, N, A, M Open the Insert Item dialog box to attach an Outlook item to the message.
ALT, N, A, F Open the Insert File dialog box to attach a document or other file to the message.

Shortcut Master at Work

Mastering individual keyboard shortcuts is effective, but if you want to get the full benefit, you can go one step further. You can learn to do entire routines using only the keyboard. Once you make this a habit, you can really fly. For an example of this kind of keyboard shortcut mastery, see this page on using only keyboard shortcuts to send email

Try it yourself and see the real benefits of using keyboard shortcuts.

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