Word Up

Q: How can I set my computer to use Word when composing email? I'm told it is more sophisticated and easy to use as Word is elsewhere. I use Thunderbird and Windows XP.
L. O’Leary
A: Using Microsoft Word to compose emails is one of the underutilized functions of Thunderbird. For those that are unaware, Thunderbird is an email program created by the makers of Mozilla/FireFox web browsers. It is similar to Microsoft Outlook.
Once your system is properly configured, it is relatively easy to use this compose feature. The configuration process is not that difficult either. The most important thing is that Thunderbird is set as the default email program on your system. On most Microsoft systems, Outlook is the default email program. Even if you don’t have the full version, Microsoft Outlook Express may be set as the default. Not having a default set would lead to possible contention for the same resources. In other words, you could run the risk of both email programs trying to use the same computer resources at the same time.
There are two ways to set Thunderbird as the default email program. One is through Thunderbird itself, and the other is if you use Mozilla as a web browser. From an open Thunderbird window select the Tools header. Next select Options. It is here that you can select the box next to the option that always checks to see if Thunderbird is the default email client at startup. Don’t forget to click the OK button.
From the Mozilla web browser, you start by clicking the Edit header. Next select the Preferences option. You should see a menu item called News & Mailgroups. It is here that you can elect to use Mozilla Mail as the default email client. For XP users like yourself, there is another option. You can download the Default Mail Utility at http://windowsxp.mvps.org/defaultmail.htm. This program will also set the default email client for you.
It is worth noting that as a rule of thumb, you don’t need to have Thunderbird set as the default in order to use it. Also, it may be necessary to not only insure that Thunderbird is the default email client, but it may be necessary to insure that other installed email clients are not set to default as well. In versions of MS Outlook you can normally do this by going to Default Messaging Programs on the General tab of the Options menu of the Tools header.
Once you have all of that taken care of, open a MS Word document and look under the File header you should see an item named Send To. Another sub-menu of options will appear. Among your options to integrate your MS Word document into your email are the options to mail to recipient, mail for review, or as an attachment. Select the first option. Otherwise, you can simply copy and paste the text from MS Word into your email.