Adding contact pictures to Outlook

Anyone with a Windows Mobile 5 device (SmartPhone or PDA) will have seen how incredibly useful Contact pictures become. Each time you receive an email from someone on your contact list for whom you have a contact picture, a thumbnail of their photo will appear. In Outlook 2007, this capability is also embedded in the main Outlook client so you also get to see a picture of the sender whenever you have their photo on file in their contact information.

If you're planning on upgrading to either of these technologies now is a good time to start collecting contact photos. SmartPhones make this easy to do by allowing you to photograph someone and then assign that picture to a contact. Then when you synchronise with Outlook the pictures get brought in to the main client and become accessible from anywhere.

To add a picture to a contact, first open the contact you wish to update in Outlook and click the Add Picture button. Now locate the picture file you wish to use and click OK. Outlook automatically resizes the picture to the correct resolution. If you later need to change a picture you can do so by simply double-clicking the picture.

Contacts photos will very soon be a standard feature of many applications. Spending a little time now updating your personal "rogue's gallery" will pay dividends very soon.