1. Change text size while browsing
While browsing, you may come across web pages that use too small or too large a text size to be comfortably readable. To change the size of the text, click View and then Text Size. Click the text size that you’d like from the options available.
2. Open links in new Internet Explorer windows
When you right-click a link on a Web page, it will open in a new Internet Explorer window. Another way of doing this is to press the SHIFT key and then left-click the link.
3. Set a home page of your choice
You can choose which website you’d like to view—such as your e-mail account, a favorite portal, your organization’ s website, and so on—every time you start Internet Explorer. Go to Tools and click Internet Options. Under Home page on the General tab, type or copy-paste the URL of the website. Click Use Blank if you want to start with a blank page. Click Apply and then OK.
4. Type URLs quickly
When you’re visiting a website for the first time, you don’t need to type the whole www.thiswebsite. com in the Internet Explorer address bar. Instead, just type the name of the website (such as msn) and press CTRL and ENTER together. However, this works only with .com pages, not with others like .org, .net, or .in.
5. Navigate Web pages quicker
In a long browsing session, you may find yourself going back and forth between Web pages to revisit what you saw a while ago. To simplify this task, right-click the Back button to see all the pages that you’d seen before the current page, and click the one that you want to visit. Similarly, you can right-click the Forward button to see the Web pages you visited from the current Web page.
6. Clear the Web cache
Internet Explorer stores frequently visited Web pages in a cache, so that if they haven’t changed since the last time you visited them, they are opened from your hard disk for faster access. However, if the cache becomes too full, IE may become slow. To clear the cache, click Tools and then Internet Options. On the General tab, under Temporary Internet files, click Delete Files. Click the checkbox against ‘Delete all offline content’ if you want to delete content that you’ve stored offline. Click OK and wait for your cursor to change from the hourglass to the arrow icon again. Then, click OK.
7. Open and close new IE windows quickly
If you like to surf for long hours, here are some keyboard shortcuts to open and close new windows for Web browsing. To open a new window in Internet Explorer, click CTRL and N. To close each window, click the ALT key and the F4 key together; or click CTRL and W.
8. Create Desktop shortcuts to your Favorite websites
If you have websites in your Favorites folder that you like to visit very frequently, you can create shortcuts to them on your Desktop. Open Internet Explorer and shrink its size using the square icon on the top-right corner, so that you can see your Desktop. Click Favorites and go to the saved link for your website. Drag the icon for this website and drop it to your Desktop. Your shortcut is ready.
9. Rename or delete Favorites quickly
You can organize the links stored in your Favorites list without going to Organize Favorites. Open Internet Explorer and click Favorites. Right-click the link that you want to rename or delete; and choose the desired option from the menu.
10. Arrange your Favorites in alphabetical order
You can sort your list of links under Favorites alphabetically. Open Internet Explorer and click Favorites. Right-click and link and then click Sort by name on the menu.
11. Make your Favorites pages available offline
If you have some existing links in the Favorites list that you’d like to make available for offline viewing, click Favorites and go to the link. Right-click and then click Make available offline in the menu.
12. Turn off alert for permanently deleting messages
When you decide to delete messages in your Deleted Items folder in Outlook, you are asked whether you’re sure you want to delete these messages. If you want to turn off this notification, click Tools, then Options, and go to the Other tab. Click Advanced Options here, and click the checkbox against ‘Warn before permanently deleting items’.
13. Remove messages from Outlook as you delete them
If you’d like to clear your Deleted Items folder daily, click Tools, then Options and go to the Other tab. Click the checkbox against the option ‘Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting’. Every time you close Outlook, all the items in your Deleted Items folder will be cleared.
14. Determine when to mark messages as read
If you view messages in the Reading Pane in Outlook, you can decide when the messages that you’ve read should be marked as such. Click Tools, then Options and go to the Other tab. Click Reading Pane. Click the checkbox against ‘Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane’, and enter the number of seconds to wait before marking the message. Or, you can click the checkbox against ‘Mark item as read when selection changes’ if you want to mark the message as read when you move to another message. Click OK and then OK again.
15. Add or remove a column in Outlook 2007
In the main Outlook window, you can see lots of columns for your message list, such as Date, Subject and so on. To add or remove any of these columns, click View, go to Current View and then click Customize Current View. Click Fields. In the Available fields list, click the required field, and click Add or Remove.
16. Move a column in Outlook 2007
To change the order of columns that appear in the main Outlook window, click View, go to Current View and then click Customize Current View. Click Fields and go to the Show these fields in this order list. Click the required field, and then click Move Up or Move Down to change the field’s position.
