Stylish Printing from Outlook

Are you one of those people who like to print out emails? Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as you only print them out for good reasons and not because you're too bone-idle to read them from the screen! Here's how to get more out of printing from Outlook:

While printing emails is sometimes unavoidable you can customise the way they print to reduce paper and ink consumption. In Outlook go to File > Page Setup > Define Print Styles. In this dialog you can edit either of the default print styles which are Table Style (for printing multiple items in a table) and Memo Style (for printing each selected item separately). You can also create your own print styles if these don't suit your needs. The customisation screen looks like this (including the header/footer options that I use on my shared printer in the office for Table Style printouts):

Why might you want to change Outlook's print styles? If you print emails on a private printer (i.e. not used by anyone else) then there's little point printing your User Name in the footer of the email. That's just wasted ink. Or you could customise the margins to maximise the printed area on the page while ensuring that important words won't have holes punched through them to fit in your filing system. Or change the orientation or page layout to make better use of your chosen paper size. Or add some custom text to the header or footer so your printed emails can be returned if ever you lose them.

Whatever you do, try to reduce the amount of paper and ink you use to print email. That's another small step we've taken to saving the planet...