Using the Outlook Calendar!Thanks for the info on setting up the Calendar Paul. Having made your changes, the environment is now much more user-friendly. Paul D -----Original Message----- From: vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vip_students-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Paul Traynor Sent: 21 June 2007 09:21 To: vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [vip_students] Using the Outlook Calendar! Hi All, The outlook calendar can be very useful to those of us who use the Microsoft outlook program. This is an email program very similar to Outlook Express but with a lot more features. Below I try and outline what I personally consider a good layout for this Calendar so that it can be used well with screen readers or magnification programs. (Setting up the layout for the calendar) There are certain settings you have to tweak with it for to get a nice clean view of the calendar and here they are; Step 1. Go to the calendar by using the keys, "control + letter Y". Step 2. Arrow up or down through the resulting list or press the letter "C" till jaws says calendar or you see the calendar item then press the enter key. Step 3. In the calendar view which may look a little confusing especially to screen reader users go to the View menu and then arrow down to current view. Now right arrow in here once and you will have a list o choices such as the following; Note: Depending on the version of Outlook you have, I mean it could be outlook 2000, outlook XP or outlook 2003 you may have some slightly different choices here. List of choices in my current view sub menu. Day/Week/Month Day/Week/Month View With Auto Preview Events Annual Events *Recurring Appointments By Category Outlook Data Files Customize Current View... Define Views... Format Columns... Step 4. The view we are interested in here I have marked with an star which is "recurring appointments. To me this was the cleanest view I could get. Step 5. After you have hit enter on this option the view will change to a type of list format. Step 6. While in this list, use keys, "alt + spacebar" to maximise the calendar window which you should do for all applications you are in. So far this is what you need to do to get a view that works well with jaws so now lets move on and create a calendar entry. We will be returning to the subject of the views later on. (Creating a Calendar entry) Step 1. While in the calendar, use keys "control + N" to bring up a new appointment page. Note that just like you use keys "control + N" to open up a new blank email, this is also true for launching a new calendar entry. Step 2. Your new calendar entry page should look like the following; (Form Fields of the Calendar page) Subject: Hospital appointment. (In the subject field, we place a meaningful title for our appointment.) Location: Dublin (The location of where you have to be for your appointment) Start Date: Thu 21/06/2007 (The start date of your appointment. In this box you can change the date by just editing whatever is in there already.) Start time: 09:00 (Again, this is an editable field where you can change the time or simply arrow up or down to get a selection of times.) End Date: Thu 21/06/2007 (Same instructions as previous field) End time: 09:30 (Same as above) All day event, checkbox not checked. (This indicates to you if its going to be an all-day event so check this box with the spacebar if you feel it will be.) Notes: My test entry. (In the final edit box you can write in a little information about what your appointment is all about) Step 3. After you have filled in all the entries of the form you are ready to save it. Just press keys, "alt + F4" to begin the process. Outlook will ask if you wish to save the new appointment and you just press the enter key on "yes". Step 4. Now you will be back in the list view of your calendar. You can create a few more appointments and then use the arrow keys to move up or down through the list just like in your inbox to view the subject lines of your appointments. (Improving the views of the subject lines in list view) When you arrow up or down through the list of appointments you have created you may find that jaws or any other screen reader appears to not read the full subject line so you aren't sure what exactly it is. Here's how to fix this; Step 1. While in the list view of the calendar, press keys, alt + V and then arrow right into current view. Step 2. Arrow down to the option in this list that says "format columns and press the enter key. Step 3. Here you will find the following items; List box with contents. (This list box contains items such as the subject line for example which you can widen or shrink so that they fit better on the screen and so that a screen reader can read that Colum better. Use your arrow keys here to move up or down through this box. We are looking for the item, "subject") Label: (Depending on the item you have chosen, that items name will be reflected in this box but you can change the name of the items you selected from the first list by going in to this edit box and typing in a new name for it.) Width: Specific width radio button. (The width has a couple of radio buttons which you can move up or down depending on which action you want. The choices are "best fit or specific width". For this exercise we will use the Specific width setting.) Size edit box: 21.33 characters (Tab key once more and you will be in an edit box. In here you can determine what the width of the Colum will be for your subject lines. For me I have the above size and you can try it also to see if it works well for you. Please note that there is no specific width that works for all cases, its a matter of trial and error.) Alignment: Left Centre Right (Tab key again and you are on the alignment set of radio buttons. You have three choices here; . Left "which is the default" . * Right. . * centre. (I normally leave mine set to "left aligned".) OK Cancel (Finally you are on the choices of the OK or Cancel buttons, just hit enter on the OK button to complete the job. After reviewing the subject lines in your calendar list view and its not quite right, just go back in to the above settings and try altering the choices again till you get it the way you like it.) Important Note: I know many of you will be using the Microsoft Outlook email program within your workplace. In this case it is important that you have full administrator rights to that computer before you can make the above changes. However if you are not part of a network within work then you probably have full access to your machine. Its just that most workplaces lock down the computers in the work environment to try and improve security. If you try and make the above changes while you are just a normal user then they will not hold for future use. Let me know how you get on with this lesson. Regards, Paul. ******************************************************************** NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to delete it and any attachments from your system. NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However, it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments. 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