Discussion on:

How do I... Create easy-to-use Outlook e-mail templates?

Do you use templates to save time in Outlook? What other customization tricks do you recommend to colleagues and end users?

What else I do is to create buttons on the standard toolbar, and name them for the most commonly used templates.
For less common ones I add them to a drop down menu. These save sooooo much time and I do not need to 'find to link them later', as the article suggests.

Everything worked fine, but unfortunately it puts my Signature ahead of the body of the message. I have to have my signature disabled for it to work properly. Any clues as to what I need to do.

I didn't have any problems with my signature appearing below the body of the text. I would suggest trying to recreate it with your signature in the email already. This seemed to work for me.

No matter how I create the template it throws my default signature at the bottom of the note

I created the template - which included my signature and found it added another oneat the end.

Work around: Tools > Options > Mail settings - in the 'Choose Default Signatures' area for 'New Messages' I had to select (None)

Sorry if the heading above aren't quite correct, I'm using Outlook 2010 now and it's totally different!

I was trying to figure out how to do this just the other day and it works just like I wanted to. The only problem I had was if you didn't get you Hyperlink assigned on the first try and went back to complete this step, I had to add another new message from the commands toolbar and then it would again bring up the shortcut menu which allowed me to delete the templates I didn't need and complete the process of linking it to the email message I had previously created.

Why not use the Signature picker in Outlook - open a new signature, paste in your template text and save it with meaningful name. The toolbar button is standard in the email - much simpler???

Instead of having to create a template and then create a new menu to get to the templates, I save the email as a Draft. Then to use it I just click on Drafts, select the draft I need, click Forward,enter any new text or recipients and send. Once I send the selected draft email the original is still in my Draft folder.

All these suggestions are excellent. Keep in mind that for the unchaning email, the template is excellent. When I need flexibility (the email may change from time to time) I use the Draft. Just save the new draft and delete the old one. I like the signature picker for identical text and signature in each message but changing Addressees. All three methods are good.
I use the copy and paste too. I create a word document (or any text software) that stores all the likely paragraps(boiler plate?)I will need. I use a third party software that stores the paragraphs I want. to paste in the email. Frank

Thanks.

That was pretty useful. Hadn't known about this. Good tip from TechRepublic in a looong time

Thanks for all of the good ideas (templates, toolbars, signature, drafts--remember to Forward so you don't lose the original, AutoText, etc). Don't forget to try Word Mail Merge (Tools> Letters and Mailings> Mail Merge). It works great if you want to send a customized/personalized e-mail message to multiple people. The only limitation that I have found is that the Subject field can't be customized in the mail merge wizard.

There are two critical components to a mail merge.
1. You need a database or spreadsheet of e-mail addresses and other fields of info that you want to insert into the body of your e-mail to personalize it.
2. You need a form letter with the body of info that you want to send to everyone.

Sending a personalized mail merge to 50 people sure beats sending 50 separate build-from-scratch e-mails.

I have a multi-page template that fails to open correctly unless I go through the menu system....what's going wrong?

If you only use one or a few templates, there's no need to create a while new menu to hold them - you can drop the "File/Mail Message" command straight onto the "New" menu under the first "New [Ctrl-N]" item.

You can also use the "&" notation in your new item's name to assign it a shortcut key (for menu navigation only, not an app-wide shortcut).

http://rapidshare.com/files/370940756/commands.jpg
http://rapidshare.com/files/370940682/toolbar.jpg

My question is that is it possible to have the above using VSTO (outlook 2007).

I am trying to build custom toolbar with lots of mail items for templates
or is there a way of building the whole lot in outlook as it is easy to setup(images attached) and then somehow export it as an addin or something else which can be easily distributed to other users.

It is strange that the ability to create these toolbars and commands doesn't exist in visual studio and i don't want to spend time creating this pro grammatically. Even VS 2010 doesn't have this option or i am looking in the wrong place.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Regards,

Vineet

How do you do this using outlook 2010? We have used the feature on outlook version 2007, but can't figure out how to add the templates to the 2010 toolbar.