Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Office Reminders

After you’ve set up a reminder for an appointment or task in Entourage (or via a Flag as a To Do Item in any Office 2008 program), Office displays handy onscreen alerts when your reminders come due. You can instruct these alerts to go away or to return later, or you can use them for quick access to appropriate appointments, tasks, or messages.

Office 2008 uses a small add-on program called Microsoft Office Reminders to handle these tipoffs. (It’s in the Microsoft Office 2008 → Office folder, if you’re curious.) When an event or To Do item or comes due, Office Reminders appears as a separate item in the Mac OS X Dock. When you’ve dealt with any pending items, Office Reminders vanishes, reappearing when it’s time for the next reminder or follow-up.

It might sound complicated to deal with yet another program to handle alerts and notifications, but Office Reminders is straightforward. First, you can manage everything about alerts and notifications within Entourage, so you don’t really feel like you’re using a separate program. Second, using a separate tiny program to handle alerts and notifications means these alerts work all the time, even when no Office 2008 programs are running. (Of course, you can turn off Office Reminders at any time, so you won’t be interrupted as you demo your Photoshop techniques to a room full of artists who probably don’t really care that The Beverly Hillbillies is going to start in five minutes on Channel 64. Choose Office Reminders → Turn ...