Email Guide

A guide for Jaws users, written by Chorlton Workshop for hsbp.

Email addresses

The format of an email address is something@somethingelse, and it's entirely lower case.

Components of an email

• The To field. One or more email addresses you want to send the email to.
• The Cc field. This stands for carbon copy, and the email is also sent to any addresses in this field.
• The Bcc field. This stands for blind carbon copy. As with Cc, the email is also sent to the addresses in this field, but the addresses in this field cannot be seen in any of the emails that are received.
• Subject field. A meaningful title for the email.
• The message.
• Attachments. One or more files can be attached to an email and are known as attachments. An attachment can be any type of file, for example, word documents for pictures.

Accessing email

There are two methods of accessing email:

• Using an email program ( sometimes called an email client ). Examples of email programs are Outlook Express, and Mozilla Thunderbird.
• Using an interface on a web page on the internet.

For Jaws users, email programs are easier to use than a web page interfaces, and Jaws has been designed to work with Outlook Express.

Suppliers of email accounts

You can get an email account from:

• Your internet service supplier ( ISP ). Normally you can use an account with Outlook Express, and a web interface is provided for times when you're away from home.
• Independent suppliers, such as Yahoo, Fastmail, Gmail, and Hotmail.

Sending and receiving email using an email client

If someone sends an email to your email address, then it initially goes to the incoming mail server for your account. It is stored there until you download it using Outlook Express.

When you send an email, it first goes to your account's outgoing mail server, which then sends it to the mail server which looks after the destination email address.