FirstClass Messages and Documents FIRSTCLASS DOCUMENTATION LIST: Find It FC: Click here to look up FirstClass Topics FirstClass Site Map What's New in FirstClass Printable "Getting Started" Basics Mailbox Rules Calendars Messages and Documents Controller's Guide Mobile Devices Frequently Asked Questions and Tips Off-Campus Connection Features Organizing Messages FirstClass on the Web POP Clients Installation - Windows Preferences Installation - Mac

Reading messages

Sending a new message

1. Click the New button on your toolbar. A New Message window will open with a header section, a message body section, a row of formatting tools and a ruler. To enter any field in the header or the body of the message, click or TAB between fields.
2. Type something informative in the Subject: field.
3. Address the message by typing or by using the Directory. (See the section Addressing messages.)
4. Enter your message in the body of the message window. You can paste text or images into the message and you can use editing tools to change the way your message looks. (See the section Message editing features.)
5. If you want to attach a file to your message, first be sure that you have a copy of the file on your computer or a removable disk and that the file has an appropriate extension. Click the paperclip button on the message window toolbar and navigate to the location of your file. Select the file and click Open. (See the section Attaching a file to a message.)
6. If you do not want to send the message at this time, close the message window. The unsent message will be marked with a white flag in your mailbox until you send it. You can open the unsent message to edit it at any time before sending it. (In version 9.106 and later, if you enter nothing at all, the message will automatically be deleted.)
7. When you are ready to send the message, click the Send/Send and Close button on the toolbar. A copy of your sent message will remain in your mailbox. If you open it again you will see an icon similar to a postage cancellation at the top right of the message header.
8. If you are sending a message to a conference, you may want to override the default expiry period for that conference. First send the message then select it in the conference and File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh) to change the expiry period.

Replying to a message

Replying to a message creates a new pre-addressed message that has the same subject as the one that you replied to, prefixed by Re:. Open the message you wish to reply to and click the Reply button on the toolbar. The triangle next to the reply button (circled in red in the picture) gives you pull-down menu with additional options. If you want to quote any part of the original message, select that text in the message before replying using any of the following methods.

• Reply - The message will be addressed as determined by the reply preference for your account. The reply preference can be changed in your account preferences. Choices are: Reply sender, Reply all or Automatic. (Automatic is equivalent to Reply Sender for messages in your mailbox).
• Reply All - The message will be addressed to everyone who was addressed in the original message, whether in the To: field, the CC: field or the Bcc: field.
• Reply Sender - The message will be addressed to the sender of the message only.
• Reply Conference - When replying to a conference message, it will be addressed to that conference.
• Reply with Quote - The message will be addressed as determined by the reply preference in your account, and the entire content of the message you are replying to will be included as a quote (highlighted in gray).
• Reply Original Author - The message will be addressed to the person who sent the original message, whether it was addressed to you, to another user, or to a conference.

No matter which option you choose, carefully check the header addresses in the new message. You can delete any address in the header before sending the message.

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Forwarding a message

To forward a message you receive, Message > Forward. Address the message as usual. If you like, you can add some explanatory text before you send the message. The original sender's address will be listed below your own in the From: field.

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Addressing messages

Messages are addressed in two ways: by typing the names of one or more recipients into the message header or by using the FirstClass Directory. Using either method you can enter names in the To: field and optionally in the Cc: and Bcc: fields.

Addressing a message by typing the recipient name(s) in the message header.

1. Type a destination address in the To: field. Then type the ENTER, RETURN or TAB key. The cursor will remain in the To: field so that you can enter another name if you wish. Names will appear side by side horizontally. To move to the next (Cc:) field, type the ENTER, RETURN or TAB key one more time, or else click in the field.
   
   The address can be in any of these forms:
   
   FirstClass name (first and last name). If you type the first letters of a name, FirstClass will complete it for you or will let you select from a list of names that match what you typed.
   
   Conference name. If a conference was open when you chose New Message, the message was automatically addressed to that conference.
   
   Internet email address (e.g. friend@college.edu) or anyone not in the Wellesley FirstClass system.
   
   Personal Address name or Personal Mail List name that you created and saved in your Contacts folder.
   
   
2. An icon will appear next to the address if it is correct. (FirstClass names need to match a user or conference name in the Directory. Internet addresses are only checked for proper format.) You can enter more than one address by pressing ENTER or RETURN after each, however you should not send to a long list of addresses. If you have a message that needs to be read by many people at Wellesley, post it to one or two appropriate conferences. This will keep the system from being bogged down and will avoid the annoyance of seeing the same message repeatedly.
3. If you like, you can enter addresses in the Cc: field as you did for the To: field. If you need to use a Bcc: (blind carbon copy) field, View > Show Bcc.

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Addressing a message by using the Directory

Method 1:

Click in the header of a new message then click the Directory button on the toolbar. The Directory will open with extra buttons for addressing messages.

Select any name then click the To:, Cc: or Bcc: button to put that name into the header of your new message.

Method 2:

Drag a name from the Directory or Contacts Folder into a header field.

Method 3:

Click in the header field you want to address (e.g. To: or Cc:) then double-click any name in the Directory.

Method 4:

Right-click a name in the Directory and choose Create Mail To. This method does not work with conferences or Personal Contacts entries.

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Message editing features

There is a toolbar of formatting buttons and pull-down menus just above the body of each message you create. These tools are also in the Format menu at the top of the window. Select your text and apply fonts, sizes, colors and styles using these tools.

Pasting text copied from other FirstClass messages or other applications

In most cases this is a standard and straightforward process (CONTROL-V or from the Edit menu choose Paste) however if your pasted text includes links or other formatting that you don't want, from the Edit menu choose Paste Plain Text.

Background

You can select a color or image for the background of your message. Click in the body of an unsent message and Format > Format Background.

Links

There are several ways to insert a web page link into a FirstClass message. The most straightforward way is to type the URL. While you are editing the message it will appear as normal text, but after you send the message it will become a blue underlined link. The reader can click on this link to open the page in a web browser. The second method creates a link similar to one on a web page. Type some text describing the link, highlight it, then click the Make Link button on the toolbar. Enter the URL in the Target URL field and click OK. You can make a link to a FirstClass conference by dragging the icon of a conference to the body of a FirstClass message and you can make a link to a web page by dragging the symbol from the browser location/address bar (e.g., ) to the message area. Double-click the Format Link button in the unsent message if you want to make a change.

If you click a URL in a message but it doesn't seem to open a browser, it may be because: 1) there is no default browser set up on the computer 2) you wrote this message but haven't sent it yet or 3) you are the controller of the conference where this message lives. (Controllers usually have the ability to edit the message text so links won't work when the controller double-clicks the URL.) You can, however, right-click (Windows) or hold down the mouse (Macintosh) on the link then choose Open Link from the pop-up menu.

Spell Check

Click the Spell Check button on the toolbar. Spell check checks word in both the message subject and the message body.

Images

You can drag an image to the body of your message but the image format must be JPG or PNG in order to work properly. If your image is some other format besides JPG or PNG (such as GIF), you can either convert it using an image editing program or you can copy it to your computer's clipboard then paste it into the FirstClass message body where it will be converted to a JPG file. Screen shots paste as PNG files. You can change the alignment of your image on the page or change its size by double-clicking the image and changing the settings in the Format Image dialog box. If you want to add a tool tip to the image (text that appears when you point to the image) add the text to the comments field. Image editing can be done using the keyserved version of Macromedia Fireworks on campus or with other similar programs such as Photoshop. You can resize an image that is in the body of a message by dragging its corner. This will not change the file size, so an image that you have dragged to be smaller will still use the same amount of space in your account.

 

Tables

To create a table, Edit > Table > Insert Table. A New Table form will appear, allowing you to enter the number of rows and columns you want. Click in any cell to enter text or to paste an image. To add or remove cells, Edit > Table then Insert or Delete Rows or Columns. To change the table or cell layout and the width and color of the borders Format > Format Table. To change the color of a cell, select the cell(s) then Format > Format Cell. You can copy and paste tables from Excel and Word files into FirstClass messages, however depending on the version of your FirstClass software you may be able to copy and paste tables from FirstClass messages into Word only, not Excel. In this case, copy and paste your table into Word, then copy and paste from Word into Excel. Also, formatting of tables (such as changes in color, font, text size) will only be preserved when you copy and paste from Word into FirstClass or vice versa. To preserve formatting done in Excel, you will need to copy and paste from Excel into Word, then from Word into your FirstClass message.

You can convert tabbed text to a table. Select the text and Edit > Table > Convert to table.

 

Foreign language text

See Sending email using foreign language keyboards.

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Attachments

Attachments increase the overall size of messages. Many institutions, including Wellesley, limit the size of messages in and out of the local email network. The limit at Wellesley is 10 MB. There is some over head in the message itself so you may find that an attachment, or multiple attachments in a message adding up to less that 10 MB still can not be sent. Other limits may be in place at the destination. There are other ways to send large files such as a free email account, or a web service for file transfer. Some attachments can be compressed.

Saving an attached file to your computer or removable disk without opening it:

One method for saving an attachment is to drag its name from the message header to your computer desktop (not the FirstClass Desktop). Another method is to follow this procedure:

1. Open a message with an attached file.
2. Click once on the attachment filename to select it.
3. File >Save Attachment.
4. Navigate to the location on your computer where you would like to save the file.
5. Rename the file, if you like, and click Save.
   
   

Opening an attachment before saving it:

For security reasons, when an attachment is opened within FirstClass by double-clicking the attachment name, it is not automatically saved on your computer. This is to avoid inadvertent saving of private files where they can be found by others. Certain file types such as Word and Excel are saved in a temporary folder called fcctemp and are deleted when you exit FirstClass. If you would like to edit an attachment and/or save it on your computer, you must choose a location other than the temporary folder using the instructions below.

1. Either double-click the attachment filename in the message header or click the filename once to select it, then File > View File. Note that your attachment is open but has not yet been saved to your computer. If you want to edit it or keep it, you must explicitly save it on your computer.
2. Certain file types such as JPEG and TXT open in a FirstClass window. For other file types, FirstClass attempts to find a program to open the attached file. If this is not successful, a message will display telling you that the file can not be opened. (This will happen if, for example, your attachment is a Word file but there is not a .doc extension on the file name. A Windows computer is not able to tell that this is a Word file without the extension.) If this happens, you can still save the attachment to your computer without opening it using the method above. Then launch a program that you think will open the file and File > Open.
3. To save the opened attachment on your computer or a removable disk, File > Save As then navigate to the location on your computer where you would like to save. Be sure that you DO NOT save in the fcctemp directory as everything in fcctemp is deleted when you exit from FirstClass.

Attaching a file to a message

Any type of file (e.g. text, image, sound, executable) can be attached to a FirstClass message. You can even attach a FirstClass Mail list. Because there are different kinds of computers, operating systems, and application software, you need to think about whether the recipient of your message will be able to use the attached file.

In order for Windows computers to recognize which program will open the file you should add a standard extension to the file name - a period followed by 3 or 4 characters. (Files created with Macintosh software usually do not have an extension by default so you will need to add it to the filename yourself.) For example a Word document might be named travel.doc. Some common extensions are in the following table.

File type	Extension
Microsoft Word	.doc or .docx
Microsoft Excel	.xls or .xlsx
Microsoft PowerPoint	.ppt
Web page	.html or .htm
QuickTime movie	.mov
Adobe Acrobat	.pdf

You may attach more than one file to a message by repeating the process of clicking the Attach file button and navigating to the file you want to attach. If you want to attach several files that are in a folder, navigate to that folder and select it. All individual files in the folder and its subfolders will be attached but the file structure (levels of folders) will not be retained. Be careful that you don't have duplicate filenames.

Another way to attach a file is to drag it from its location on your computer to the header of your unsent message. The file name will appear in the Attachments field in the header. Mail Lists can be attached this way as well. Just drag the icon from your Address Book to the header of an unsent message and it will be attached.

When sound files are attached to a message, a sound player pane may be added to the message header. The recipient's preferences may be set to automatically play sound files the first time the message is opened. If you wish to avoid this, you can embed the sound file in the body of your message instead of sending the file as an attachment. To do this, drag (or copy and paste) the file into the content portion of your message. The recipient may then download the file by clicking the icon in the message body.

There is a limit of 63 characters for attachment filenames. If your filename is longer it will be truncated.

It is helpful to describe the attachment in the message text. Because many people are justifiably concerned about receiving a virus with an email attachment, the message should address the recipient by name, include the sender's name and some information about the attachment. If you have an attachment that contains important time-sensitive information, it may be a good idea to include this information as text in the body of the email message in addition to or instead of the formatted attachment.

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Unsending messages

FirstClass allows you to unsend certain messages that were addressed to other FirstClass users and conferences. Although the message may have already been read by one or more people, the message will disappear from the mailbox or conference where it was sent. This will only work for messages that were sent to other FirstClass addresses, not Internet addresses. You should check the history of the message before unsending so you are aware of who may have read it.

To unsend a message sent to a FirstClass user or conference, open your copy of the message your mailbox, then Message > Unsend. A white flag will appear beside the message in your Mailbox. You can edit the message and send it again if you like.

You cannot unsend any message that was: 

• sent to a non-FirstClass account
• moved from the recipient's Mailbox to a folder
• deleted by the recipient
• deleted from your own mailbox (your sender copy)

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Message history

FirstClass keeps history data for every message that is created in or sent to a FirstClass address. You can view the history of any message in your Mailbox. You can sometimes view the history of conference messages. (The conference controller can choose whether or not to have the history feature turned on.) Because you don't know how others handled the message -- how it was received, downloaded or marked -- you should not strictly rely on the message history. For example, if someone opens a message then clicks the Reply button, the message history notes a reply, however the reply may have been re-addressed, deleted or left unsent.

1. Select the message in your Mailbox or a conference.
2. Message > History. The history window will tell you when a message was created, when it was sent, and the people within FirstClass who have opened, forwarded or downloaded the message. For messages sent to Internet addresses, the message history will indicate the time the message was routed to a remote server (indicating receipt of your message by that person's email system). Message history cannot tell you if or when a message on a remote system (non-Wellesley, non-FirstClass) has been opened. 

 

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Personal Stationery

If you repeatedly send similar messages and would like to have a partially pre-filled message saved, you can create personal stationery. You may save several different stationery messages.

1. Open a new message and enter information that you would like to save, such as a name or mailing list in the header, an introductory paragraph in the message area, a graphic etc.
2. Close your message without sending it.
3. Select the message in your mailbox and File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh). Check the box labeled Stationery.
4. If your mailbox is in a split window the stationery will move to the upper or left pane.
5. When you want to use the stationery, double-click it and a duplicate of the stationery will open for you to complete and send.

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Documents

Documents are different from messages in that they can't be addressed directly to another account or conference, but they can be named and saved to any folder in your account or in an open conference if you have the necessary permissions (such as controller). Documents do not expire and can have the same types of content that are used in messages - formatted text and images.

To create a new document, from the menu choose File > New > New Document, then select a template from the list. If you want the document to be saved in the current location, after adding your content and formatting, click the Save and Close button. You will be asked to name the document. If you want to save it elsewhere, from the menu choose File > Save or Save As so that you can navigate to the location you choose. You can open it for editing later.

You can add other information to the document such as a subject that will show if the document is displayed in list view. Drag the gray separator that is located below the Save and Close button.

Using a document for collaborative editing

If you need a place where several people can edit, a document can be set up for that purpose. To do so, a conference that will contain the shared document must be set up with special permissions allowing all members to edit items. (Usually only controllers have this permission.) This is not desirable in most conferences because members would have the ability to edit each others messages, so you should create a new conference that will hold only the document(s) that will be shared.

The conference controller should set up the permissions in the conference so that members have contributor access with one extra permission, Edit items, shown circled below. Click the Edit items icon to turn it on. When you do this, the access level of Contributor will change to Custom.

Within the conference create a document as described in the Documents section above.

Everyone who has access to the conference and permissions as shown should be able to edit the document. The document history lists each time the document has been edited.

Because this setting will allow users to delete files, you will want to set each editable file as "protected." In the conference with the files closed, select each one individually and from the menu choose File > Properties (Windows) or File > Get Info (Macintosh). Check the Protected box.

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• Becky Atwood, ratwood@wellesley.edu
• Information services
• Modified: 28 August, 2009