Customize Outlook's Contact display

Contacts are entries for people you communicate with using Outlook. When you create a contact, you can store more than an email address. For instance, you can store a customer’s address and phone number. You can even store your spouse’s birthday or an anniversary.

To view existing contacts, click the Contacts shortcut in the Navigation Pane. Then, view detailed information about a specific contact by double-clicking a contact’s name.

By default, Outlook sorts contacts by first names and then last names, which won’t always be efficient. For example, you might remember a contact only by his or her company name. In a list sorted by first names, how would you find a person whose name you can’t remember?

Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can view all that contact information. In the Navigation Pane, Outlook offers an impressive list of possibilities. Simply click the appropriate field to re-sort your contacts. For instance, click By Company if you can remember a company affiliation but not a person’s name.

If your needs are a bit more complex, click the Customize Current View link to display the Customize View dialog box. Specifically, click Fields to add or delete information that Outlook displays. To change the way Outlook arranges contacts, click Sort.

There are so many possibilities, it might take a bit of experimenting to get just the right mix — but it’s worth it. Displaying contact information just the way you need it will help you work more efficiently.