One of the reasons I started this blog was to find a place for snippets that don’t fit well in my site, Geekgirl’s Plain English Computing. So far, I’ve been writing reviews and commentary in the blog; today, it’s time I started sharing some tips. This one is for those of you who use Microsoft Outlook.

Outlook comes with a collection of command-line switches which let you determine how the program starts. By default, Outlook opens to either your Inbox or the Outlook Today page, using a command-line that looks something like this:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE”  /recycle

The /recycle at the end of that line is a switch which tells Outlook to start up in an existing Outlook window if one is available. Essentially, it tells Outlook to open once only and to switch to the existing Outlook window if you try to run a second copy.

Often it’s handy to have both the Outlook email folders and the Outlook Calendar displayed side by side. A simple way to do this is to create a separate Outlook shortcut using the /select outlook:calendar switch. The following shortcut opens a new Outlook window and displays the Calendar:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE” /select outlook:calendar

Editing Outlook’s start up command line

This assumes you’re using Office 2003, installed in the default folders.

Here’s a simple way to create a customised shortcut regardless of which version of Outlook you use:

1. Make a copy of the Outlook shortcut in the Quick Launch bar by holding down the Ctrl key while you drag the shortcut icon onto an empty spot on your desktop. (Note: If you can’t see the Quick Launch bar, right-click the taskbar, select Toolbars from the pop-up menu and click Quick Launch.)
2. Right-click the Outlook shortcut you’ve just created on the desktop and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
3. On the Shortcut tab of the Properties dialog box, in the Target box delete /recycle at the end of the command line and replace it with /select outlook:calendar. Make sure you leave a space between the first part of the command and /select.
4. Click the Change Icon button. You’ll see a bunch of icons included in the Outlook program file. Click the Calendar icon and click OK.
5. Click the General tab and change the text in the first box to read Launch the Outlook Calendar, then click OK.
6. Drag the shortcut icon onto the Quick Launch bar, if you like.