Do you find yourself typing the same text over and over again in certain types of Outlook e-mail messages? You may change some of the content based on the situation or the recipient, but for the most part the text is basically the same. For example, you may regularly send technical notifications to network users that provide new information along with a series of precautionary steps that almost never change. The typical way to handle this type of boilerplate text is with a copy and paste operation. But why go through all those steps when there's an easier way?
Just like its Office mates, Outlook provides support for templates. This allows you to design templates that you can use to create boilerplate e-mail messages. Another feature in Outlook will then allow you to create a toolbar button that instantly brings up a new message window that includes your boilerplate text. You can then focus on typing in the new information and simply incorporate the boilerplate text as you create a customized message.
I'll show you how to go about creating an e-mail message template in Outlook. I'll then show you how to create a toolbar, along with a button that instantly brings up a new message window that includes your boilerplate text.
Using the Outlook e-mail editor
If you’re like many Outlook users, chances are that you’ve configured Outlook to use Word as your e-mail editor. Doing so provides you with all sorts of additional features when creating e-mail messages. However, when it comes to creating Outlook e-mail templates, Word is clueless. As such, before you can create Outlook e-mail templates, you first have to revert to the Outlook e-mail editor. Once you’ve created your e-mail templates, you can switch back to using Word as your e-mail editor, and it will work just fine with the existing templates.
Just in case you don’t remember the steps required to change the Outlook e-mail editor, let’s take a quick refresher course. To begin, pull down the Tools menu and select the Options command. When you see the Options dialog box, select the Mail Format tab. Now, in the Message Format panel, simply clear the Use Microsoft Word To Edit E-mail Messages check box, as shown in Figure A. Then, click OK. Finally, close and reopen Outlook, just to make sure that the change is complete.
Figure A: In order to initially create e-mail templates, you must be using the default Outlook e-mail editor.
If you want to switch back to using Word to edit e-mails, you’ll simply reverse this operation once you create your e-mail templates.
Creating your templates
Creating Outlook templates is a pretty straightforward operation, once you understand the technique. To begin, open a new message window as you normally would. For example, you can click the New Mail Message button on the toolbar.
Once the message window opens, you can type, or copy and paste, the boilerplate text into the body of the message. If the message template will contain the same words in the subject line, you can fill in the Subject field as well. You can also fill in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields with addresses, if you will always be sending the message to some of the same people (the Cc and Bcc fields are the most likely candidates for this).
Now, pull down the File menu and select the Save As command. When you see the Save As dialog box, click the Save As Type drop-down arrow and select Outlook Template (*.oft) from the list of options, as shown in Figure B.
Figure B: You’ll select Outlook Template (*.oft) from the Save As Type drop-down list.
Then, give the template a filename and take note of the folder in which the template is being saved. In the case of my example system with Outlook XP running on Windows XP, I specified that Outlook save the template in the C:\Documents and Settings\Greg Shultz\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder along with all my other Office templates. I selected this folder because I already have my backup program configured to back up these files.
Once you save the e-mail message template, the new message window remains on the screen. You don’t really need this window for anything further so you can close it and click No when asked if you want to save changes.
If you have Outlook configured to AutoSave unsent messages, you’ll find a copy of the message in the Outbox. You can simply access the Outbox and delete the message. You’ll then repeat these steps to create as many Outlook e-mail templates as you need.
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A very well written article.
I've made an meeting request but have a "little" problem.
After locating the wanted date for a meeting I want to just click this new meeting-icon. But the default dates are the values saved in the template (naturally).
I want the dates to be the same as the dates in the calender (- the highligted/chosen day from where I active the meeting request)?
Hope you understand my question and naturally can help me solve the problem.
Regards
Jens Asger Nielsen
Denmark
Posted by Jens Asger Nielsen on Wednesday, August 18 2004 03:41 PM