Reading email in Outlook is a “pane”

A: What you are describing is referred to as the Reading Pane in Outlook. It allows you to single click an email in the Inbox which immediately shows you the contents of the email either to the right or the bottom of the Inbox.

With the Reading Pane turned off, you have to double-click each email which, as you described, opens the email in a new window.

Before I tell you how to re-enable the Reading Pane let me quick tell you that even with the Reading Pane turned off you can still cycle through your emails without having to open and close each one individually. To do this, just open the first email and look for the up and down arrows near the top of the email. Clicking these arrows will go to the previous and next emails respectively in your Inbox.

To re-enable the Reading Pane in Outlook, use the View menu and look for the menu item titled Reading Pane. Clicking on that will reveal three choices: Right, Bottom and Off. The Off option should be highlighted and you simply need to click on the Right or Bottom option, depending on your preference, to re-enable the Reading Pane.

This post was originally broadcast Friday, April 27, 2007 on Tech Talk with Noobie, a weekly radio show on WCBK 102.3 FM in Martinsville, Indiana. Tech Talk with Noobie airs every Friday between 11:30 a.m. and noon. If you have a question you would like Noobie to answer on the air, simply e-mail your question to .