Create an Outlook Task for a Word document
In my previous tip I showed how you can quickly create a new task for any document or file that you are working on.
But did you know that if this happens to be a Word document, you can create an Outlook Task for this document directly from within Word as well?
Word has a command called “Create Microsoft Outlook Task” but this command is not visible by default. Depending on your version of Word, you can either add it to your Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) or Ribbon.
Quick Access Toolbar (QAT)
To add the command to the QAT;
- Press the Expand icon on the right end of the QAT and choose: More Commands…
An alternative method is to use: File-> Options-> Quick Access Toolbar - In the “Choose command from” list choose: Commands not in the Ribbon.
- In the command list select: Create Microsoft Outlook Task
- Press the Add>> button.
- Press OK to return to Word.
Creating an Outlook Task from Word via a QAT command.
Ribbon
To add the command to the Ribbon;
- Right click on the Ribbon and choose Customize the Ribbon…
An alternative method is to use: File-> Options-> Customize Ribbon. - On the right side select the tab where you want to add the command to (or create a new one) and click the “New Group” button.
- Name your new Ribbon Group.
- In the “Choose command from list” choose: Commands not in the Ribbon.
- In the command list select: Create Microsoft Outlook Task.
- Press the Add>> button.
- Press OK to return to Word.
Adding the Create Microsoft Outlook Task to a custom Ribbon group. (click on image to enlarge)
Note: The original document is not included in the Outlook Task item itself but only a hyperlink to it. In most cases, when assigning the task to somebody else (to further work on it), this hyperlink is kept so you want to make sure that the recipient can access the document in the same way as you did as well.
Or in other words; You both need to have access to the same network share that the document is stored in for the automatically created hyperlink to work.
