Special Edition Using® Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003

Choosing the Account That's Right for You

Now that you know a little about the different protocols Outlook supports and the options for accessing mail, you need to decide what type of account(s) you want to set up and how you want to access those accounts. Your ISP or system administrator might automatically make this decision for you.

Choosing a Mail Protocol

If you can choose the protocol you use to access mail, you'll need to carefully examine the pros and cons of each protocol. First though, you need to determine which access method you want to use: online, offline, or disconnected.

• Offline— Outlook retrieves messages from the mail server and downloads them to the local machine.

• Online— Messages remain on the mail server and the Outlook ...