In many cases, we need to send messages like Daily Reports, work summary which include information that infrequently changes from message to message. Using message templates can be a great way to save time when composing emails or answering repeated requests. Outlook offers several methods to work with message templates to be more productive.
1. Outlook Template(.oft)
Normally, we use .oft file which is a typical file type used for Outlook message template. It is unsent Outlook message that is saved outside of Outlook.
We can create it via following steps:
- On the Home tab, in the New group, click New E-mail.
- In the message body, enter the content that you want.
- In the message window, click the File tab.
- Click Save As.
- In the Save As dialog box, in the Save as type list, click Outlook Template.
- In the File name box, type a name for your template, and then click Save.
When selecting *.oft as the Save As type, Outlook will default to your Templates folder. Normally, templates are saved in the following location:
c:\users\username\appdata\roaming\microsoft\templates
To use an email message template, check the steps below:
- Select New Items> More Items> Choose Form.
- In Look In, click User Templates in File System.
(The default templates folder is opened. If your template is saved in a different folder, click Browse, and then select the template.)
- Select the template, and then click Open.
- Make any additions or revisions to the recipients in the To, Cc, or Bcc boxes and any changes to the subject and message body.
- Click Send.
Changes made aren’t saved to the template. If you use the Save command, this will create a draft of your message in Drafts folder but won’t update the template.
To update the template, we have to follow the steps above to create a new template. Choose the original template when selecting File > Save As. Click Yes in the following window.
2. Outlook Message Format (.msg)
Similar to creating .oft file, we can refer to the steps above. However, when clicking Save As, choose Outlook Message Format (.msg) as the type. To open it, just directly double click it.
Different from .oft file, if we click Save, changes will be saved to the .msg template. Outlook won’t create a draft in Drafts folder. If we directly click Send button, the original .msg file won’t be updated.
3. Quick Steps
Quick Steps is a feature which allows you to define your own commands which performs one or multiple actions. One of these actions is to create a new email message, reply to a message or forward a message and predefine various fields such as the To and Subject line but also the message body.
To create a new template message, click “Create New” within the Quick Steps gallery on the Home tab and choose one of the following actions from the list:
- New Message
- Forward
- Reply
- Reply All
- Reply with Meeting
- Forward message as an attachment
Once you’ve created your Quick Step, it will automatically show in the Quick Steps gallery. Just click on it to execute it.
Quick Steps are stored within your mailbox. When you use an Exchange or Outlook.com account, your Quick Steps will be available to you on all computers on which you have added your account to Outlook.
To change the template, simply right click on the Quick Step and choose: Edit <your Quick Step name>. We can also click the dropdown button shown in the screenshot and choose Manage Quick Steps.
New Quick Steps appear at the top of the Quick Steps group. You can rearrange them in Manage Quick Steps.
Reference: Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps
Hope the above information can be helpful. If you need further assistance on this, feel free to post a question with all details to our forum (via clicking “Ask a question” at the top left of this page), we’ll look further into the issue and try our best to help you.
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