You will find the preferences in the EDIT Menu or with the shortcut "cmd - ;".

Double-clicking in the folder list opens new window - This will allow you to open a separate message window for this folder.

Use Microsoft Office keyboard shortcuts for text editing - Check this box if you want to have the keyboard shortcuts which are available to MS Office. You can find out what they are in the online help in Reference Information.

Always show HTML formatting toolbar in message composition window - If you write your e-mail in HTML this will make the HTML toolbar available to you. If you write in text only keep this box clear and you will have a bit more room for your text window.

Display close box in main browser window - This allows you to have a close box in the top left hand corner of the main window as you are used to in most other Mac programs.

Fonts - Here you can choose language font and the display and printer fonts. It is generally best to leave them as they are.

After deleting or filing an open message - you have the choice to either close the message window or open the next message.

Mark messages as read when viewed in the preview pane - Here you choose whether you want OE to mark messages that you have opened as read or not and how long a delay after opening you consider it read. As I often just peek at some messages, I have set mine to 10 seconds.

Languages - Choose the character set for creating new messages.

IMAP - Choose to hide deleted IMAP messages or not.

Check names on message recipient - OE will check names with your default directory service if they are not found in your address book.

Save a copy of sent messages in the "Sent Items" folder - Leave this unchecked if you don't want to save a copy of the mails you have sent out.

Message Format - Two choices... HTML or Plain Text.

Attachment defaults - Choose the default settings for all attachments. You can change these for individual attachments when you are creating new mail.

Include entire message in reply - If left unchecked nothing will be quoted. Either way you can always highlight the portion you would like to quote and hit reply. That portion will be quoted.

Use quoting when forwarding - Check this if you often add your comments on forwards and would like those comments to be obvious.

Reply to messages in the format they were sent - With this box checked if you reply to a message which was sent in HTML format your message will also be in HTML. The same for message you receive in text format.

Always reply using the default account - If you leave this unchecked the reply window will have the account which the message was sent to.

Place insertion point - If you want to include a quoting attribution line in your reply you must choose after the insertion point. You can edit the attribution line if you check "Prefix my mail reply with"

Prefix my news reply with - Replies to newsgroups always are sent with an attribution line. Here is where you can edit yours.

On this page of preferences you can make your choices as to how your windows look. You can change colors, show attached pictures immediately, show or hide the toolbars and whether the popup text (ToolTips) appears.

The internal spell checking is through Office 98. If you have Office 98 you set your spell checking in the preferences. If you don't there are other options.

I use SpellCatcher from Casady & Greene. It will spell check interactively in most every program on a Mac even instant message programs like ICQ and AIM. It also has many other features like a Thesaurus, auto expansion and text clean-up. I love it.

Excalibur is a freeware spell checking program that uses the clipboard and also will work with OE5. It can be found at http://www.zdnet.com/mac/download.html.

Do understand that OE5 is free in hopes of creating more sales of Office 98 and the integration is seamless between them.

This is where you how you would like to be notified of certain actions within OE.

Require confirmation when deleting - The only time OE5 truly deletes your mail is when you tell it to by making a schedule for emptying the deleted items folder. As a default OE5 has a schedule set to empty the "deleted items" folder when you quit OE5 and that is when you will see the dialog. If you hate those confirmation dialogs, uncheck this one.

Reset confirmation dialogs - If you have clicked the "don't show me this dialog again" in any of the dialogs this will reset them.

When new mail arrives - The icon is the active application icon in the top right of your screen. Bringing the application to the front can be a bit distracting if you are trying to get work done.

Sounds - here you can tell OE5 which sounds you would like to hear. You can listen to each by clicking on the speaker and mark the ones you want. You can also change sets. OE5 comes with just 2 sets, but you can get many at Soundset Central.com . You also can make your own with Omar Shahine's OE Sound Set Creator which can be found on the utilities page at MacEmail. All you need to do is to place these sets in the "Sound Sets" folder found in that folder. 

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