10 Minute Guide to Lotus Notes Mail 4.5 - 11 - Replying to Mail In this lesson, you learn about options for replying to mail. You also learn how to add people to your address book. Understanding Replies Often, your mail messages require a response from you. Responding to mail is similar to creating a new mail message, that is, the form that you use is the same as the form you use when you create a new message. But when you reply to mail, you have several options, including the option to include the text from the mail message to which you are replying. When you do reply to a mail message, try to keep in mind the e-mail etiquette covered in Lesson 2. If the message to which you reply was originally sent to more than one person, you might consider sending your reply to all of the people on the original distribution. Using Reply Options You can find two buttons for replying to mail on the Action bar of your Inbox: Reply and Reply With History. To see these buttons, double-click the Mail database icon in your workspace; the mail Inbox opens. Double-click the mail message that you want to reply to. The mail message appears, similar to the one shown in Figure 11.1. There is a third option, Reply To All, that allows you to reply to all the recipients of the original mail message. You'll learn how to use all three reply options in the following sections. Figure 11.1 An opened mail message requiring a reply. Reply To respond to a message using the Reply option: 1. Click the Reply button located on the Action bar. A new mail message appears ready for you to fill in your reply (see Figure 11.2). The To field and the Subject line are already filled in with the recipients' names and the subject of the previous message. Figure 11.2 Replying to a mail message. 2. Fill in the body of the mail message; then click the Send button located on the Action bar to send the message. Since this particular message was one in which the sender asked a lot of questions, it might be helpful to see the original message on your screen while typing your reply. To view the original message while typing a response: 1. Open a message to which you want to reply by double-clicking it in your Inbox. 2. Position your cursor on the gray bar located at the top of the status bar (near the bottom of your screen). 3. When you see the double-arrow sizing pointer, click-and-drag the gray bar up the screen. 4. At about halfway up the screen, release the mouse button. 5. You can now see the original message on the bottom of your screen (see Figure 11.3) and your reply form on the top of the screen. In Figure 11.3, you can see the results of splitting your screen this way. It's now easier to remember what you want to say when you're replying to this piece of mail. Reply With History There is another way to reply to this particular piece of mail. You can save a lot of typing by answering questions with one word such as "yes" or "no." But if you respond in that way, the person receiving your response may not understand which questions you're responding to. Figure 11.3 Viewing the original mail message while replying. To keep your typing to a minimum and to help the original sender remember what this message was all about, you can select Reply With History on the Action bar or send your response back with the original message that was sent to you. Figure 11.4 shows the result of this option. You can complete the reply form, and the original memo will be sent along with your reply. Figure 11.4 Using the Reply With History option. After you complete the Reply With History, click the Send button located on the Action bar to send this message. Reply To All The third reply option, Reply To All, does not appear on the Action bar where you find Reply and Reply With History. In the example for this reply, Rob had sent a mail message to me and included Dorothy in the cc: field. Obviously, Rob wanted Dorothy to know that he was asking me for information. When I chose the Reply and the Reply With History options, only Rob's name (the sender) was filled in on my mail memo. If I chose Reply To All as my reply option, then Dorothy would have been included in the reply. Her name would again appear in the field in which the sender had originally included it, in this case, in the cc: field. The Reply To All option appears on the action bar after you select Reply or Reply To All. When the new mail message appears ready for a reply, the Action bar includes a Reply To All button. Click the Reply To All button, and all original recipients of this message will be automatically filled in. Figure 11.5 shows the results of choosing the Reply To All option once the New Reply form is on-screen. Figure 11.5 Selecting the Reply To All option fills in the recipients of the original mail message. Panic Button: Forget to Reply To All? It's easy to forget to use the Reply To All option since it does not appear on the first Action bar while reading mail. If you send your reply without using Reply To All, you can re-create your reply using Reply To All, or you can forward your saved copy to the others who were in the original distribution list. You learn about forwarding later in this lesson. Timesaver Tip: Adding a Sender The easiest way to add a person to your address book is while you're reading the mail message. Choose Actions, Mail Tools, and Add Sender to Address Book. A confirmation box appears. Click OK. For more information about Notes Mail address books, see Lesson 8. Forwarding Mail You may receive a mail message that you want to forward to someone else. To forward a mail message, open the message and click the Forward button on the Action bar. Fill in the address portion of the message, and include any message you want to send along with the original. Send the mail as you would any other piece of mail. In this lesson, you learned the options for replying to mail. In the next lesson, you learn how to delete mail and use folders.

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