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A few issues back I wrote about some of my least-favorite default settings in Office XP and explained how to override them. There's another default setting that I didn't like at first, but have come to appreciate: the "Windows in Task Bar" option. This week I'll take a look at this option, plus a handy new tool in Outlook that makes it easier to keep your mailbox tidy.

Word: Manage Multiple Documents Without Clutter

After all these years, Microsoft is still grappling with this whole windows concept. I'll admit, it is tricky to make application and document windows convenient, without cluttering up the joint. Nowadays, when you're likely to have multiple applications open, including a browser, e-mail program, and one or more Office applications as well, things can get mighty confusing. Office XP brings more flexibility to how you display documents in windows than previous versions provided. If you upgraded to Office XP from Office 97 or earlier, you're used to having only one Task Bar icon for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in your Windows Task Bar. You switch between the programs using the application's Window menu. If you upgraded from Office 2000, you're used to an extra Task Bar icon for each open document in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Clicking the document's icon in the Windows Task Bar brings that document to the screen.

Fortunately, Office XP gives you more choices: The default Office XP setting for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word is to display a separate icon in the Windows Task Bar for each open document. That's handy and somewhat less confusing because using two different toggle methods (Task Bar and the Window menu) can wear out a feeble mind like mine. But if you routinely work with several open documents at once, the Windows Task Bar can get pretty messy. If you like to keep your Windows Task Bar tidy and you prefer the Office 97 way, you can change the setting in any of these apps by choosing Tools, Options, clicking the View tab, then going to the Show section of the dialog box and clicking to turn off the option called "Windows in Task Bar."

Another option: Ctrl-F6 lets you toggle between documents, so if you like to keep your Task Bar uncluttered, try turning off "Windows in Task Bar." However, if you don't have the memory (the kind in your head) to memorize keyboard commands, you'll have to use the application's Window menu to toggle between docs. Personally, I prefer the Task Bar for toggling, so I keep "Windows in Task Bar" turned on.

If you like to work with multiple documents visible on screen at once, also consider turning off "Windows in Task Bar." By displaying multiple documents in one application window, you need to use only one set of icons, rulers, and so on, which frees up screen space for text or data. In fact, if you work this way only occasionally, you might consider using this option only as needed.

Here are a couple of other things to keep in mind: When you turn off "Windows in Task Bar," your application adds an extra set of Minimize and Maximize icons in the upper-right corner for each document. Finally, if you go the Task Bar route and you want to quickly shut down all open files, you don't have to switch between them and close them all down--File, Exit lets you close everything with one command.

Outlook: Clean Out That Mail Box

So long as we're on the topic of tidying things up, I thought I'd point out a new tool in Outlook 2002: the Mailbox Cleanup command. If you're an e-mail junkie (and who isn't these days?) your in-box can get messy pretty quickly. The Mailbox Cleanup dialog box comes to the rescue with several helpful features. Choose Tools, Mailbox Cleanup to have a look. The dialog box offers a couple of Click Here buttons, one that shows you how much space your mailbox takes up on your drive, including a handy count by subfolders, and another that shows you the same stats for your Deleted Items folder.

The dialog box also offers an AutoArchive option that lets you archive old e-mail messages to a log file elsewhere on your computer. This feature is turned on by default, so you don't need to run it from this dialog box unless you override the default setting and prefer to archive manually. I'll cover AutoArchive in more depth in a future issue.

Ready to start tidying things up? Mailbox Cleanup really becomes useful with its Find features, which allow you to find items older than a date or larger than a file size you specify. Deleting or moving items by file size or date is a great way to quickly clean things up. Just set the date or size of the items you want to isolate and click Find. When you do, Outlook 2002 will open the Advanced Find dialog box and present a list of those items, no matter what folder they're in. To delete items, just select them and press the Delete key. If you want to move or copy them, select them and choose Edit, Move to Folder or Edit, Copy to Folder.

Mailbox Cleanup has one more trick up its sleeve: the Empty button, which empties the Deleted Items folder. You can also accomplish this task by choosing Edit, Empty Deleted Items Folder. Ah, now isn't that better?

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