Outlook Low Vision: Email Send Attachment

Hi I'm Vikki Vaughan and today we'll explore sending an attachment in Microsoft Outlook. This workshop is intended for users for low vision. If you use a screen reading program, be sure to check out our screen reading version of this workshop.

One of the greatest things about email conversations is that it's all about sharing. With emails we can share our thoughts, ideas, dreams, and plans. We can also share files, images, music, animations, and videos. We do this by sending attachments. Think of them as gifts that tag along on our email message ready to bring a smile to someone we hold dear.

Let's work through the steps that allow us to share something special on our computer with someone else. Let's say we want to share a recipe with a friend. We'll start with an open email message. I've typed my message and now I'm ready to attach the recipe. Our next step is to locate the attach file tool located in the ribbon at the top of our screen. When selected a list appears below the tool. It's called the recent items list. And it shows our most recently opened files.

Outlook is helpful in that it assumes we've likely opened in the recent past the file we wish to share. It just so happens that the file I was just sent, a recipe is at the top of my recent items list. Let's select it by clicking on it with our mouse pointer. And voila, our recipe is now attached to our email and ready to send. While we have this email open let's have a look at attaching an item that is not in our recent item list. I remember that Diane also loves cats so I'll send her a picture of a kitten that I think she will like. Let's select our attach file tool in our ribbon. Using our mouse pointer we'll scroll down to the bottom of our list to browse this PC. Let's click to select it.

We have a new dialog box called insert file and the focus is on the file name edit field. We see that we are in the documents folder. Now not to worry if your folders look different from mine. We'll use the same technique to find the desired items. The item we wish to attach today happens to be in the pictures folder. Let's go to the navigation pane on the left and scroll through our folders to locate our pictures folder. We'll click to select it. Now let's use our mouse pointer to scroll through our folder to locate a picture called kitten. When we click on the name it appears in the file name edit field below.

Our final step is to select the insert button. We're back to our email message and we now have two attachments. One is the recipe, the other a picture of a kitten. These two items are sure to bring a smile.

Today we explored sending email attachments in Microsoft Outlook. I'm Vikki Vaughan and I thank you for joining me. This is one in a series of workshops called Microsoft Outlook.