Writing an email in a business environment is vastly different than jotting off a quick note to your best friend about having lunch next week. You need to keep many things in mind these days, such as inclusiveness, formality, and clarity. In order to help you out, you can use Microsoft Editor in Outlook on the Web to get grammar suggestions and hints that can make your writing better suited to your style and environment. Here’s how it works…
To get to the Editor settings, open a new email and click on the ellipsis to find the Editor option (note… if you don’t see the option here, you can go to the settings in Outlook Settings > Mail > Compose and Reply… scroll to the bottom of that screen):
The Microsoft Editor Settings will allow you to set and refine the types of text you want to be notified of (as well as whether you want to see type-ahead Text Predictions):
For instance, I turned on the Contractions check under Formality. When I used the contraction It’s, it let me know that for more formal communication, it’s recommended to spell out each word. I can either select the It is option to make that change, or click Ignore to remove the blue dashed line under It’s:
For this feature, I decided to turn on all the notifications to get a feel for how bad my writing was. 🙂 I then turned off certain notifications that I didn’t find helpful or relevant. For more information about this feature, check out How Microsoft Editor Can Make Your OWA Messages More Polite.
Please note… this feature is only available in Outlook on the Web. It is not available in the Outlook desktop client.
One Minute Office Magic 