Composing Mail in Gmail

Video Transcript

"So, now we are going to show you how to do the most basic function in any email program, compose mail. So right up here, right at the top is the link for "Compose Mail" and we can click on it and it brings up our mailbox right here. Just off the top, if you like to compose your mail at a different window, you can click right here and it brings up a whole new window. Or you can shift click and you get "Compose mail", also bringing up a different window. So this is what our mail would look like and we have got our "To" box and Gmail has a "Auto Complete" feature, so as you start typing, it is going to bring up the "Contact list" which is nice. So you can either tab or enter a new address just like that or you can also click when it brings up the "Auto Complete". If you would like to add a "CC" or add a "BCC", you click right here and this also works with the "Auto Complete". Then your "Subject line", you got the option here to attach a file and you can attach multiple files. Right now the file size limit is twenty megabytes but it could change in the future. Here is where we can type our message and you have got just some regular word processing options here so, you have got just your bold, italic, underline. You can turn them off and on. You have got your "Font Type", they offer these font types right here, "Normal, Times New Roman, Courier New, and all these others right here. You have got "Text Size" right here and you can change text color and then you can highlight the text as well. You can see it right there. This next option is the "Hyperlink", which really comes in handy when you want to send somebody a link. But instead of just pasting a really long link in an email, you can copy the link from your web browser and then "Hyperlink" whatever you want to link. Then you would just either enter the address right here or just copy and paste it, especially when it is a really long address. You can also have it linked to an email address, which means if you type in an email address right there, when the person clicked on it, their default mail application on there would bring up an email address to that person. But if you put in a web address their default web browser will bring up that link. Then you can see it has "hyperlinked" it and it also has a little "Go this link, Change, Remove" option, if you need to change anything. Some other features, just a one, two, three option, a numbered list, hit space and you are going to go down and get an easy numbered list. Then they also have an option for "Bullets", works the same way, pretty simple. The next options you have for the "Indent list" and "Indent More" and basically if you are typing along and on the next line you want to indent, you just "Indent More" and then it would look like that. So that is pretty basic. Then there is also this "Quote" function, which will make a little line like that, it is kind of like a quotation. Then you have "Align Left, Align Center, Align Right and this little "T" with the "x" at the bottom is how clear formatting. So you see I have done tons of stuff to this "Hey Bob" right here, i want to get rid of it all, I can just clear it all and it will get rid of it. If you do not want to compose your mail in this "rich text "formatting, you can switch back to "plain text" right here. You will get a little error message but it goes back and you cannot format at all. Rich formatting is pretty useful. Then one thing that is really useful is the "Spell check" right here, which is right here. So you hit "Check Spelling" and then all your misspelled words will highlight yellow like this and to correct a word, you just click on it and then it will bring up suggestions like most spell check programs and then you correct it. There is a little arrow right here for different languages as well. When you are done, you click done. When you are done with your message, you have got your "Send" button to just go ahead and send it. You can "Save Now" and save it as a draft in your "Draft" section. Gmail will also "Auto-Save" it as a draft like as you are typing, which is pretty nice. Your last option is to discard it. These options are at the top and bottom. So that is basically how you can compose an email in Gmail"