View your messages the way you want to in Outlook (2000/2002/2003)

In Outlook 2003, Microsoft renamed the Preview Pane to "Reading Pane," and added an option to move it from the bottom of the Outlook window to along the right side. This format allows more information to be seen at a given time. You can move it to the bottom of the screen by choosing View | Reading Pane | Bottom. Or, you can get rid of it entirely by choosing View | Reading Pane | Off. If you choose View | AutoPreview, you can see a portion of the message directly under the message header itself.

To hide the Preview Pane in versions 2000 and 2002, just select View | Preview Pane. These versions also have the neat AutoPreview feature, which gives you a preview of the first few lines of the message directly under its header in the email list. Choose View | AutoPreview to activate it. You can even have both the Preview Pane and the AutoPreview feature activated for information overload.