The first thing you’ll want to do is to log into your Gmail account and click on the Settings icon at the top right, then click on Mail Settings.

Next, click on Fowarding and POP/IMAP and make sure that IMAP is enabled. I would recommend disabling POP as it’s not nearly are powerful as the IMAP protocol. The preferred choice nowadays is IMAP. It keeps the client and the server in sync rather than having two separate copies of your email.

The next thing you’ll want to do is fire up Outlook 2010 and then click on the File menu option at the top. Click on the Account Settings button and then click on Account Settings.

Now under the Email tab, you’re going to want to click the New button.

A dialog will pop up where you can enter the email account info. Just type in your name, your Gmail address and your password. If you are setup with 2-step verification, go to your Gmail settings and create a new application password for Outlook. Then just copy and paste the application password in Outlook.

Click Next and Outlook 2010 will do the rest for you! Yes, it’s really that simple! It will login for you and even send you a test email on your Gmail account to verify everything is working properly.

You’ll now see the new Gmail account setup in Outlook 2010 as shown below.

That’s it! Now it will download all your labels, which will be represented as folder in Outlook 2010. The middle pane will show the emails and the reading pane on the right will have the content of the current email just like a normal email setup in Outlook.

You should be all set at this point. The main things to remember are to enable IMAP on your Gmail account and to create a new application password if you are using 2-step verification with Gmail. Now whenever you delete an email in Outlook, it will delete from your Gmail account and vice versa.

If you have any questions or you are getting an error during the process, post a comment here with the details and I’ll try to help you! Enjoy!

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Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.

I hadn’t run into any problems with Office on my machine before, so this was a little strange. I had installed a few apps and installed some Windows updates,  but other than that, everything was the same. If you’re having the same problem, read the possible solutions below and see if it works for you.

Method 1 – Corrupt Profile

There is a file called profilename.xml that stores the settings for the Navigation Pane in Outlook. If this becomes corrupted (it might be 0 kb), then it can cause Outlook not to open properly. The location of the file on Windows XP and Windows Vista/7 is:

XP - C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Vista/7 - C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

To fix the problem, you just have to reset the nav pane file. You can do this by going to Start and then Run or in Windows 7, clicking on Start and then typing in Run in the search box. Then type in the following command:

Now go ahead and try to startup Outlook again and see if the issue has gone away. If not, continue to try the other possible solutions below.

Method 2 – Turn Off Cached Exchange Mode

If you are in an office environment and you’re using Exchange with Outlook, then this problem can be caused by something called Cached Exchange Mode. This basically stores a local copy of your Exchange mailbox, which is useful on a laptop, but not on a desktop that is always connected. If you don’t need a local copy cached, then turn this off and you should no longer get the error. Below are the links to turn off Cached Exchange Mode in Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010.

Outlook 2010 - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/turn-on-or-off-cached-exchange-mode-HP010355560.aspx

Outlook 2007 - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/turn-on-or-off-cached-exchange-mode-HP001232935.aspx

Outlook 2003 - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/turn-on-or-off-cached-exchange-mode-HP001022343.aspx

You may also get this “Exchange” error when you don’t even use Microsoft Exchange. Then you can safely turn off the cached mode and things will work fine.

Method 3 – Use ScanPST.exe

If the two methods above didn’t work for you, then you might have a problem with your actual PST file. In this case, scanPST is your best option to repair the problem. You can read the following post which goes into great detail on how to use scanpst with Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010.

http://www.howto-outlook.com/faq/usingscanpst.htm

Method 4 – Create a New Profile

If you have a corrupt profile, you will keep getting this error until you create a new profile. You can do that by going to Control Panel and then Mail and then Show Profiles and then deleting all the current profiles. Before you delete any profiles, however, make sure you backup your PST file.

Method 5 – Start Outlook with No Extensions

Another issue could be a third-party add-in. You can test this out by starting Outlook with no extensions. You can do this by going to the Run dialog again like we did above and this time typing the following:

outlook.exe /noextensions

If Outlook starts fine, then you need to go into the add-in manager and disable all the add-ins and then re-enable them one at a time to see which one is causing the problem with Outlook.

Method 6 – Outlook Connector

You may also get a message that looks like this if you are trying to setup Windows Live Hotmail in Outlook:

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders cannot be opened. An unexpected error has occured. MAPI was unable to load the information service msncon.dll. Be sure the service is correctly installed and configured.

In this case, it’s a problem with the Outlook Connector. You have to uninstall it and reinstall it. You can download it here:

32-bit - http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24677

64-bit - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/microsoft-office-outlook-hotmail-connector-overview-HA010222518.aspx

That should definitely fix your problem for Hotmail users.

Method 7 – Default Gateway

You can also get this error if, for some reason, you don’t have a default gateway setup on your computer! Not really sure why that would matter, but apparently it does. Luckily, Microsoft already has a Fix It for you download that will add the appropriate registry key to your computer to fix the problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913843

Hopefully, one of the methods above fixes your problem. If not, post a comment here with your version of Office, OS, and any other relevant details. Enjoy!

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In this case, the issue may have been the result of a .docx document being saved in compatibility mode (as a .doc file), but we were unable to duplicate the problem with other similar documents. In this particular instance, the styles were corrupted, and many of the styles reverted to the default Microsoft Office 2007 default font (Calibri) with basic formatting, but some of the styles their attributes, like file size and spacing, while other attributes were lost.

Reformatting was not an option, because it was a 50 page document, and we did not have the time to do this. The most efficient solution was to import the styles from a previous (healthy) copy of the document.

1. Click on the Manage Styles button on the Styles sidebar.

2. Click on the Import/Export button at the bottom of the Manage Styles window.

3. When the Organizer window pops up, click on the Styles tab. On one side of the window, choose the file that has lost its formatting. Once you’ve chosen the correct file, it will display a list of all of the available styles. On the other side of the window, choose the known good file, and a list of its styles will appear.

4. Highlight all of the styles in the known good document, and click the Copy button (which will display an arrow directed toward the corrupt document’s styles), and Word will copy all of the styles from the good document to the document having problems. When Word prompts you to copy over existing styles, make sure you do that. This will replace the styles that have changed with the original styles.

5. Once you have confirmed that the document styles have been repaired, save the document as a new .docx file.

Even though we used this technique to rescue the formatting on a document and save hours of reformatting, you can use this same technique to copy formatting from one document to another.

For instance, if you created a document with styles you really liked, and you wanted to merge some of those styles into another document, you can use this technique to copy the styles from one document to another.

Instead of choosing all of the styles, you would only choose the ones you wanted to duplicate in the other document, and copy them over (overwriting the existing files if deemed necessary to do so).

This is an easy way to merge your favorite styles from several documents into one document, and you can also use this technique to copy your favorite styles into your Microsoft Word Normal.dot(m) file for everyday use.

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NOTE: This post shows you how to use UBitMenu in Office 2010; however, UBitMenu also works in Office 2007. We point out the differences as applicable.

Download UBitMenu from

http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/.

Download the version of UBitMenu for your desired language. You can find international versions of UBitMenu further down on the above web page. UBitMenu is free for personal use, and available at a very reasonable price for businesses.

To install UBitMenu, double-click the .exe file you downloaded.

If the Open File – Security Warning dialog box displays, click Run to continue with the installation.

If the User Account Control dialog box displays, click Yes to continue.

NOTE: You may not see this dialog box, depending on your User Account Control settings. See our post, Windows 7 – How to configure UAC (User Account Control), for more information.

The Welcome screen on the Setup Wizard displays. Click Next.

The installation should not take long. When it is done, the Completing the UBitMenu Setup Wizard screen displays. Click Finish to close the Setup Wizard.

When you open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in Office 2007 or 2010, you will notice a Menu tab has been added to the Ribbon.

Click the Menu tab to access a menu bar and toolbars that are similar to the classic menu bar and toolbars available in Office 2003.

The toolbars available on the Menu tab are very similar to what you are used to in Office 2003 programs.

Here is the menu bar and toolbars on the Menu tab in Excel 2010.

There is one limitation of UBitMenu we would like to point out. If you make the Word, Excel, or PowerPoint window smaller than 870 pixels wide, the menu bar and toolbars on the Menu tab are condensed to two drop-down buttons. Click these buttons to access the menu bar and toolbars. If you are going to use UBitMenu to have access to the classic Office 2003 menu bar and toolbars, we recommend you use the Office programs maximized.

If you only want to use the classic Office 2003 menu bar and toolbars on the Menu tab in Office 2010, you can hide the rest of the main tabs on the Ribbon.

NOTE: If you are using Word 2007, you cannot hide individual tabs on the Ribbon. You can, however, hide the Ribbon, showing only the tabs and the Quick Access Toolbar. To do this, see our post, Customize the Word 2007 Ribbon.

To hide tabs on the Ribbon, click the File tab and select Options in the left pane.

You can also select Word Options from the Tools menu on the Menu tab.

The Word Options dialog box displays. Click Customize Ribbon in the left pane.

On the right side of the dialog box, a list of Main Tabs displays with a check box to the left of each tab name. If you only want the new Menu tab available, select all the check boxes so there are no check marks in any of them.

NOTE: The File tab cannot be hidden.

Once you have turned off the check boxes for the tabs you want to hide, click OK to close the Word Options dialog box.

Now the File tab and the Menu tab are the only tabs available on the Ribbon. If you decide you want to display other tabs, simply access the Customize Ribbon screen on the Word Options dialog box again and select the check boxes for the tabs you want to display so there is a check mark in each check box.

NOTE: To reduce the visible tabs to only the File and Menu tabs in Excel and PowerPoint as well, you need to turn off the Main Tabs on the Customize Ribbon screen on the Word Options dialog box in those programs separately. Follow the same steps as you did for Word.

The extra functionality added to Office 2007 and 2010 is also available in the classic menus on the Menu tab. If you install UBitMenu in Office 2007 and then upgrade to Office 2010 in the future, UBitMenu is automatically integrated into Office 2010. You do not need to reinstall UBitMenu.

by Lori Kaufman

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The trick involves running a macro, called ListCommands, that is built-in to these versions of Word. A macro is a series of commands recorded for playback at a later time. Word comes with many pre-recorded macros to perform various tasks. You can also record your own custom macros if there are tasks you perform often that are not part of the list of built-in Word macros.

This post shows you how to access the Macros dialog box in the three latest versions of Word and how to access and run the ListCommands macro to generate a list of Word keyboard shortcuts.

Access Macros in Word 2003

To access the Macros dialog box in Word 2003, select Macro | Macros from the Tools menu.

Access Macros in Word 2007

To access the Macros dialog box in Word 2007, you must first activate the Developer tab if it is not available on the Ribbon already. To do this, click the Office button and click Word Options at the bottom of the Office menu.

The Popular screen should display by default on the Word Options dialog box. On that screen, click the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box so there is a check mark in the box.

Click OK to close the Word Options dialog box.

Click the Developer tab on the Ribbon.

Click the Macros button in the Code section of the Developer tab.

Access Macros in Word 2010

Accessing the Macros dialog box in Word 2010 is very similar to accessing it in Word 2007. Some of the options are named differently and are located in slightly different places, but the procedure is essentially the same. You must first activate the Developer tab if it is not available on the Ribbon already. To do this, click the Office button and click Word Options at the bottom of the Office menu.

On the Word Options dialog box, click the Customize Ribbon option in the list on the left.

On the Customize Ribbon screen, select the Developer check box under Customize the Ribbon drop-down list so there is a check mark in the box.

Click OK to close the Word Options dialog box.

Click the Developer tab on the Ribbon.

Click the Macros button in the Code section of the Developer tab.

Run the ListCommands Macro

At this point, once you have opened the Macros dialog box, the procedure is the same for all three versions of Word. Select Word commands from the Macros in drop-down list.

Start typing “ListCommands” (without the quotes) in the Macro name edit box to find the macro in the list.

Once you find the ListCommands macro, select it in the list and click Run.

The List Commands dialog box displays. Select whether you want to generate a list of only Current keyboard settings or All Word commands. Click OK.

NOTE: Be warned that when we generated a list of All Word commands, it turned out to be 81 pages in Word 2010. Selecting Current keyboard settings generated a list that took up 11 pages in Word 2010. The number of pages was less in Word 2003 because the default spacing in the table cells was smaller than in Word 2007 and Word 2010.

NOTE: The Current keyboard settings option on the List Commands dialog box in Word 2003 is called Current menu and keyboard settings.

A table is generated containing all commands listed alphabetically by the name, with the keyboard shortcuts listed in the Modifiers column, as applicable, and the Key column. Modifiers are other keys that must be pressed before pressing the main Key for the shortcut. Some shortcuts may not have any Modifiers.

NOTE: A new document in a new instance of Word is opened up when you run the ListCommands macro.

When you generate the list of commands in Word 2003, an additional column displays, that was taken out in Word 2007 and 2010. The Menu column shows you the menu option that corresponds to the command in Word.

Now you can save the Word file with the generated table of commands and have a handy reference allowing you to quickly find shortcuts to Word commands alphabetically by their name.

by Lori Kaufman

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