Can I make a shortcut to Send Outlook Email from Template?

Using the information provided here, I was able to successfully create an email template and send a message using this template.

However, using this template is quite cumbersome - one must go to New Items->More Items->Choose Form...->Change "Look In" path to User Templates In File System->Open.

It's almost faster to just "Forward" a sent email and delete the extraneous forwarding metadata. Can anyone please tell me how to speed this up?

im so confused

Posted 2013-06-12T22:16:11.590

Reputation: 273

Answers

For email templates I use a lot, I simply place a shortcut on your desktop linked to the template. All you need to do is go find your template in Windows Explorer, right click on it and choose Sent to > Desktop (create shortcut)

As it is stated in the article, here are the paths to the templates locations (unless you saved your template elsewhere);

Windows 7 and Windows Vista
c:\users\username\appdata\roaming\microsoft\templates

Windows XP
c:\documents and settings\username\application data\microsoft\templates

Then all you have to do is use the shortcut to open your template in one step.

CharlieRB

Posted 2013-06-12T22:16:11.590

Reputation: 21 303

Well, like I said above, I prefer having a button to appear on the bar because it just feels more natural, but your way is much, much better - Especially perfect for multiple templates. Thanks! – im so confused – 2013-06-13T14:31:10.497

Glad you found this useful. Sorry, I don't see anything about a "button" in your question. – CharlieRB – 2013-06-14T11:39:21.870

I found some info about doing this with a macro, and it works in 2013, but I don't have 2010 to test it on.

If you don't have macros enabled, you will need to go into the Trust Center and enable all macros, which Outlook advises against doing because malicious code could run. Then you have to add a custom group to the ribbon and add macros to that custom group. Then you can get down to making the macro for a new message from a .oft template file. (more MSDN instructions here)

The macro code will look like this:

Sub TemplateName()
    Set msg = Application.CreateItemFromTemplate("C:\Users\xyz\Desktop\template.oft")
    msg.Display
End Sub

panhandel

Posted 2013-06-12T22:16:11.590

Reputation: 2 394

Office 2012? Did you mean 2013? 2011? – Karan – 2013-06-12T23:24:21.310

Hmm, yeah, 2013. Fat-finger. – panhandel – 2013-06-13T00:28:40.747

This is great - I love having "in-app" methods to do things - feels less like it's a "hack". I'll try this out and let you know how it goes in O2010! – im so confused – 2013-06-13T14:30:09.837

Thanks to "CharlieRB". You can further make it faster by adding a Global shortcut key as follows.

Add a Global Shortcut key to the item on the desktop as shown in the screenshot. Right click on the Desktop item-> Properties

Outlook Shortcut key to compose email from template

Debashis Panda

Posted 2013-06-12T22:16:11.590

Reputation: 101

1It looks like you were the person who submitted the anonymous edit to add this to CharlieRB's answer. You really should pick one route or the other to avoid duplication. Since this is actually a different solution, I'll roll back the edit on the other answer. – fixer1234 – 2016-01-22T18:01:18.287

If you find the template file in your filesystem (see CharlieRB's answer), then you can drag it to your Taskbar and add it to the Outlook quick menu, so it appears when you right-click. That way it appears next to the New Email and New Meeting shortcuts.

Craig.Nicol

Posted 2013-06-12T22:16:11.590

Reputation: 101