In the left frame of the Web Mail client main page, click on the "New message" link and the Web Mail client automatically opens a new window with a form for creating a new email. There you can select the following settings:
Enter the email address of the intended recipient here. Recipients in the "To" line can see which other recipients were entered in the "To" and "CC" fields. The recipients entered under "To" cannot, however, see any recipients who are entered into the "BCC" field.
CC stands for carbon copy. Accordingly, you can enter the email addresses of people you want to send a copy of the current email for information. If you want to enter multiple email addresses, you have to separate them by commas. Recipients entered in the CC line can see the addresses of the other recipients. The recipients entered under CC cannot, however, see any recipients who are entered into the BCC field.
BCC stands for blind carbon copy. Accordingly, you can enter the email addresses of people you want to send a copy of the current email for information. If you want to enter multiple email addresses, you have to separate them by commas. Recipients entered into the BCC line are not visible to the recipients in the To and CC fields.
When creating a new email, click on one of the three buttons To, CC or BCC. This opens an address book with the email addresses for all the contacts you have permission to select. The selections you choose appear in the lower half of the screen, which can also be used to enter the recipient information, CC and BCC recipients. The Magic bar at the top of the screen allows you to search the address database for specific contacts. You can also use wildcards to help you in your search. Select a specific area from list field to the right of the text field – internal system users, global address book or private contacts entered into the groupware contact administrator – to specify your search. Once you have entered a search term and selected an address location in the list field, start the search by pressing the return key. This produces a list of contact sorted alphabetically below the search field. Click on the contacts you want to send the email to in this list. Decide whether you want these in the To, CC or BCC lines. Then click on the Insert button. If you change your mind after making a selection, click on the Clear button. Close the browser popup window. The contacts you chose are now inserted into the To, CC or BCC fields in the window New message.
You can enter any text you wish into the Subject line to describe the contents of the email you are writing. To maintain clarity, you should try to write a subject that is short and to the point, helping the recipient understand what subject matter your email contains.
The latest version of the Web Mailer offers you the option of using a web HTML editor when you compose your emails. This means you can format the contents of your message however you want. Simply use the mouse to mark the section of text you want to format and then click on the button with the desired HTML effect. Please note that you only have the HTML editor available to you if the corresponding function is activated for your account in the Web Mailer options and if you are using one of the following browsers:
Internet Explorer 5 and later |
Netscape 6 and later |
Mozilla 1.3 and later |
The following HTML formatting effects are available in the HTML interface:
The web HTML editor offers several templates for specific entries. They allow you to choose the appropriate titles or addresses for your email.
This drop-down list lets you manually set the font within an HTML email. As default fonts, the web HTML editor gives you the choice of Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman and Verdana.
You can define the font point size of a text section using the third drop-down list in the HTML editor. You can choose from font sizes ranging from 1 to 7 for the preinstalled fonts.
This list helps you determine whether you want to create a text or an HTML email. Optionally, an email can include a formatted HTML message and a plain-text message at the same time.
![]() | BoldYou can use this button to mark individual text sections in your email in boldface. To do this, the HTML editor uses the tags <Strong> and </Strong>. |
![]() | Italic You can use this button to mark individual text sections in your email in italics. To do this, the HTML editor uses the tags <EM> and </EM>. |
![]() | Underline You can use this button to underline individual text sections in your email. To do this, the HTML editor uses the tags <U> and </U>. |
![]() | Left align You can use this button to align individual text sections against the left margin. To do this, the HTML editor uses the tags <P align=left> and </P>. |
![]() | Centered You can use this button to center individual text sections. To do this, the HTML editor uses the tags <P align=center> and </P>. |
![]() | Right align You can use this button to align individual text sections against the right margin. To do this, the HTML editor uses the tags <P align=right> and </P>. |
![]() | Numbering You can use this button to number lines of text. To do this, the Web Mail HTML editor uses the tags <OL> and </OL> to turn numbering on and off for the text section to be numbered. Each text section to be numbered is also place between the tags <LI> and </LI>. |
![]() | Bullets You can use this button to place lines of text in a bullet list. To do this, the Web Mail HTML editor uses the tags <UL> and </UL> to turn numbering on and off for the text section to be numbered. Each text section to be listed with bullets is also place between the tags <LI> and </LI>. |
![]() ![]() | Decrease/Increase Indentation Unfortunately, you cannot use the Tab key when writing an email in HTML mode. As an alternative, you can use the buttons Increase indent and Decrease indent to achieve the effect. The former is nearly the same as pressing the Tab key. The latter deletes or decreases the indentation previously added to the email. |
![]() | Font Color You can use this button to change the color of the font in sections of text. First mark the section of text you want in a different color and then press this button. Then choose one of the 70 colors offered by the color chart that opens up. The Web Mail HTML editor uses the command tags <P><FONT color=hex;> and </FONT></P>. The hexadecimal number is a typical six-figure hexadecimal number. By manually editing the source text, you can choose from an even wider range of text colors. |
![]() | Background color You can use this button to change the background color for sections of text. First mark the section of text you want in a different color and then press this button. Then choose one of the 70 colors offered by the color chart that opens up. To create this formatting, the HTML editor uses the tags <style"BACKGROUND-COLOR: hex;> and </span>. The hexadecimal number is a typical six-figure hexadecimal number. By manually editing the source text, you can choose from an even wider range of background colors. |
![]() | Hyperlink To add working internet or email addresses to your text, use the "Hyperlink" button. Clicking on the button opens a small window where you can enter the new address. Click on the OK button for the link to be inserted into your HTML email. |
Some browsers, including Internet Explorer, have an internal spell checker program. To use this rather than the ISpell checker on the Open-Xchange Server, click on the button External spell checker. If this feature is not installed on your computer, the Web Mailer asks if you would like to download and install it to your PC. Now you can use the feature directly by clicking on the button. Be sure not to confuse this spell checker with the spell checker on the Open-Xchange Server. The two spell checkers have their own databases that are maintained independently of one another.
Use these buttons to undo changes you have made to your email or to redo the changes you just undid. The HTML editor always saves the latest changes you made to your messages in the background. This also makes it possible to undo or redo several changes made in editing.
Activate this check box to view the source text of the email created using the Web Mail HTML editor. This allows you to made additional changes, such as adding more complex HTML effects and creating tables. Consult the manual to find more information on this option.
You enter the actual text of your email in this large text box. Emails are normally structured exactly like normal mail letters. You can, of course, vary this format anyway you like. In your own workgroup, it will most likely be more common to exchange short notes via email rather than more formal messages. But you should probably maintain a certain degree of formality in your style when communicating with business partners.
You can set the value for your sender domain in this field. Normally you should leave the preset placed by the groupware as it is here.
This field lets you set a priority level for you email. You can choose from five priority levels ranging from very high to very low. The default setting is normal. Some email clients, such as the Open-Xchange Server Web Mail client, show emails with a higher priority with special markings. But please note that not all email clients support this function and than only a small fraction of users pays any attention to the priority of an email.
Place a checkmark in this box to add your personal business card as an attachment to the email you are writing. This vCard makes it quick and easy for the recipient to add your address to his contacts.
This option allows you to add another function to the email you are writing. If you activate the check box, the email client sends you a notification message as soon as the recipient opens your email. But you should be aware when you use this function that the recipient has the ultimate decision as to whether or not the notification is sent.
This option allows you to add a signature to your email. Signatures are a type of footer to your text that appears after the body of the email. Signatures normally contain information that you may always want to include in your messages. A signature could, for instance, include information such as the name of your company, your bank details or your telephone number. The Web Mail client allows you to create and save different signatures for various purposes. But you can only choose from among existing signature entries when you create an email using the form. To select the signature, select the one you want from the list. Many users use signatures not only to add important information, but also to include minor ASCII artwork. Many users have a large collection of various signatures intended for different purposes. You can find out more about creating your own signatures in the subchapter Managing signatures.
The Open-Xchange Server Web Mail client allows you to create email distribution lists. These mailing lists are lists of email addresses that you can compile into groups. You can find out more about creating distribution lists in the subchapter Managing mailing lists. You can use the address book to select distribution lists that have already been created. The email you create is then sent automatically to all the participants in the mailing list you have selected.
You can add an unlimited number of files as attachments to an email you create. To attach an individual file to your email, simply click on the "Browse" button and then use the file manager to choose the desired file to attach to your email. Once you have selected the file, click on the "Attach" button to add it to your email. If you wish to add more attachments, complete these steps for each additional file. If the files you want to attach contain a very large quantity of data, it may be useful to compress them using a zip program such as gzip. If the size of the attached files exceeds a certain limit, your recipient may not receive the message if his email inbox is not allowed to exceed a certain amount of data or if his email server is set to reject incoming files above a certain size. Otherwise, you may want to use archiving programs like tar if you want to attach a large number of small files to your email. This allows you to save multiple files in a single archive file. When you use the Web Mail client later on, you can then simply select this archive file as the attachment and save yourself a lot of effort.
After composing your email, simply click on the Check button and the Web Mailer conveniently checks your spelling. The program displays your whole text in the upper part of the window. Unknown or misspelled words are marked in red. Now the spell checker goes through your text word by word. Each active word is marked with a red background. Words that have been checked are shown in turquoise. The program offers different options for each misspelled word.
To replace a word with one of the suggestions shown, click on the entry you want from the list of suggested words. Next click on the Replace button to replace the word marked in your text with the suggestion. If you want to replace the same word throughout your text, click on the Replace all button. If you would like to replace the misspelled word with your own suggestion, in a situation where no suitable suggestion is offered for instance, enter the desired text manually under Replace with and then click on either the Replace or the Replace all button.
If you wish to ignore the detected error, for instance because the word is not really misspelled, click on the Ignore button. If you want the spell checker program to ignore the same word throughout your text, click on the Ignore all button.
If the spell checker is unfamiliar with a word you often use, you can teach this word to the software. Simply click on the Learn button. This spelling will now always be recognized as correct by the spell checker.
Do you wish the suggestions list contained some additional entries? You can add them manually. Simply click on the Edit button and add other entries to the dictionary in the popup window that opens. The longer you use the spell checker, the dictionary will become more and more adapted to the texts you write and will continue to get better.
If you want to return to the last word checked, use your mouse to click on the Back button. If you want to return to a previous word any time during the spell check, click on the Back button as often as needed.
To cancel the spell checking without accepting the changes made so far, simply click on the Cancel button.