0Get rid of the outlook reading pane

One of the most irrit­at­ing things in MS Out­look is the read­ing pane. Not only is it turned on by default, but accord­ing to Microsoft there is no way to change this default. Well, I beg to differ.…

Below are spe­cif­ic instruc­tions for Out­look 2007. Oth­er ver­sions of out­look will no doubt dif­fer slightly, but it should be pos­sible to find the same settings

1. Open out­look
2. Select the main / root folder for your emails (usu­ally the inbox)
3. Open the “views” menu, and expand the “cur­rent view” menu
4. At the bot­tom click on “define views”
5. Select the line which says “mes­sages” (or if you use imap select the “imap mes­sages” line)
6. click on modify
7. click the “oth­er set­tings” button
8. change the radio but­ton option for the read­ing pane to “off” (by default it is set to “right”)
9. click ok / apply to each win­dow in turn

Cred­it to about.com and vari­ous posters on ask-leo.com