February 1, 2002

Creating a Personal Distribution List in Microsoft Outlook

By Teresa Lightle- Computer Training Coordinator

Users often have a need to send email to a certain group. This group may be a list of teachers on a committee or a group of staff members in a particular department. Whatever the reason, a distribution list can be a big help.  

The first thing you need to know is that any person who will be included in your distribution list must be listed in one of the following places: the Global Address List, your Personal Address Book or in Contacts. For a review of how to add names to your Contacts, please see Tech Tips dated December 1, 2001. 

Note: In Outlook 97, Distribution Lists are stored in the Personal Address Book. In Outlook 2000 they are stored in Contacts.

Once all of the group members are located in any one of these places you can bring them all together by creating a distribution list. 

To Create a New Distribution List 

• At the main Outlook screen, Click on the Address Book icon in the toolbar .

• Click on the icon for new entry or choose File, New Entry in the menu bar.

• Select Distribution List.

• Click on OK.

In Outlook 97 Distribution Lists are created in the Personal Address Book.

In Outlook 2000 - All Distribution Lists are created in Contacts

This will bring up the Untitled Distribution List dialogue box. (97 and 2000 look very similar)

Give your Distribution List a unique name. I.E. Payroll Staff, or Tech Committee. Stay away from using first names such as Teresa's List. Unique names will help make searching for your list easier when using the name check feature.

Key in the unique name for your Distribution List in the 'Name' text box. 

Next Click on the Button:
    Outlook 97 - Add/Remove Members
    Outlook 2000- Select Members

This will launch the Address Book - You can select names from any of the address books listed and click the
    Outlook 97 - "members"
    Outlook 2000- "Add"

Once you have added all of the names to your list:
    Outlook 97 - Click OK
    Outlook 2000- Click Save and Close

To use the Distribution List
Begin a new e-mail message
In the To: line key in the distribution list name and use the name check feature to check the name.
or
In the To: Line open the global address book and view names from the
    Outlook 97 - Personal Address Book
    Outlook 2000- Contacts

Distribution Lists appear in bold with a special icon as shown below.

This is the only information which needs to appear in the address line. This will send an e-mail to all those in the list.

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For Questions or Comments about this newsletter please contact: tlightle@bcoe.org

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