Email Templates In Outlook.

After using Dreamweaver to make some email templates. I spent the better part of an afternoon trying to figure out how to get them to work in Outlook 2007. Fun!

I was just about to give up and use Thunderbird for sending HTML emails but I rely heavily on Outlook when it comes to PIM (personal information management). With the plethora of devices and apps out there that sync with outlook, it wasn’t really a choice to dump it. Which is a shame as Outlook 2007 can be awful at times.
So here it is a guide on how to make and create an email template to use with Outlook 2007.
The first step is to create the templates. There are a lot to choose from if you search online. It is possible to create it in Word and save it as an .oft file (an outlook template). Just by clicking on this newly created file will then launch a new email all ready to edit! This is the easiest way but can be problematic. Word isn’t too good at producing HTML and it may not work well if the email recipient doesn’t use outlook. Another method is to create a new mail message in Outlook and then save it as a template once your editing is done. Before you do this check If you are using word as your email editor as you will have to turn this off for now, go to Tools | Options | Mail Format | Remove check mark next to “Use Microsoft Office Word …” You can turn it back on once you are finished making you template.
Of course you can buy the templates for me or have me design them for you. These templates are specially designed to have the most compatibility with different mail apps, are easy to use and easy to edit. More details here.
After you have obtained/created a template you can navigate to the where the files is saved and execute it. Or you can create a menu in Outlook which is what I am going show you how to do.
Step One: locate and name your template.
If you saved your template using Outlook, it will be located in:
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\example.oft

You should remember the location and full file name. You will need this.

Name the file to something easy to remember. For example a file name like ‘eml1.oft’ means ‘email one’. You will see why this will come in handy later.

Step Two: customise the Outlook toolbar.

• Open Outlook 2007.
• Choose View | Toolbars | Customize
• Choose the Commands tab, scroll to the bottom of the Categories list, drag the “New Menu” item to the menu line — or to the toolbar.
• Right-click the new button, and give it a new Name, e.g. “&4. Jan’s Templates” (the ampersand makes Alt-4 a hotkey to the menu)
• Choose View | Toolbars | Customize

• Drag any button from the Commands tab of the Customize dialog to a new item under the new menu item

• Right-click the new button, and enter a new Name (use ampersand (&) to create a hotkey)

• Choose Assign Hyperlink | Open | Navigate to the .oft file you created remember that location I told you to remember?

• If the button’s name or icon isn’t showing and you want it to, right-click the button again and select the “Image and text” style