By Stephanie Krieger

Applies to
Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 Microsoft Office Word 2003 Microsoft Office Excel® 2003 Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2003

So much of the written communication that we exchange today is in e-mail. And yet e-mail messages are most often just plain, unformatted text that can be cumbersome to read. When you use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 for e-mail and Microsoft Office Word 2003 as your e-mail editor, however, you don't have to leave it at that. You might be pleasantly surprised to see that your e-mail messages can be great-looking professional documents.

This article introduces you to the similarities between Word documents and Word-edited e-mail messages. It also helps you effectively incorporate styles, tables, and even graphics into your e-mail messages for professional, effective results.

Using Word to format Outlook e-mail messages

When you want to use Word to format your e-mail messages, first confirm that Outlook is using Word as its e-mail editor and that Outlook is using a message format that allows formatting.

To set message format and e-mail editor options

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab.
2. For best results with formatted e-mail messages, click HTML in the Compose in this message format list.
3. To set Word as your e-mail editor, select the Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages check box.

Important  To set these options, your Outlook Inbox folder, Calendar folder, or a page such as Outlook Today must be open. If a message is open, the Mail Format tab in the Options dialog box might not be available.

Note  If you reply to or forward a message that was composed in a different message format, your message reply or forwarded message will retain the original message format. To change the format of an individual message from Rich Text or Plain Text to HTML, click HTML in the Message format list at the top of the message.

Using Word to create great e-mail documents

After you set Word as your e-mail editor, e-mail messages that you create are Word documents. So you can use most of the same formatting that you would when creating any document in Word. However, because formatted e-mail messages are usually sent over the Internet in HTML format, there are some differences.

Important  The insertion point must be placed in the body of the e-mail message for any of the options discussed later in the article to be available. Word formatting is not available for message header fields such as the To and Subject fields.

Importance of best practices for Word formatting

A well-crafted document always makes a stronger statement than one created by using overly complicated workarounds. When you do more work than Word requires (such as typing dozens of spaces to move text in from the margin instead of using an indent), the result never looks as good, and you always spend more time getting it done. Using best practices for document formatting is especially important for complex documents created as e-mail messages; if they're sent in HTML format, your e-mail program needs to translate the Word formatting to HTML.

If you ever had a formatted e-mail message that looked perfect in your outbox but appeared messed up in the recipient's inbox, the reason might be that the recipient's e-mail program could not interpret formatting created with a workaround. For best results, take advantage of the appropriate features that are provided in Word to accomplish the formatting you need. For example:

• When you want to use a bulleted or numbered list, set the list format by using the Bullets and Numbering command on the Format menu.
• When you need content arranged in rows and columns or in almost any type of complex page layout, use a table.
• When you need multiple text and paragraph formats in the same message, apply that formatting consistently by using styles.
• By default, formatting marks and table gridlines are not visible when you compose e-mail messages. However, when you use document-style formatting in your messages, your work can be much easier if you display formatting marks and table gridlines:

  To display formatting marks, click Show\Hide ¶ on the Formatting toolbar.

  To display table gridlines, click Show Gridlines on the Table menu.

For more information about the preceding examples, see the See Also section.

Using Web Layout view

Unlike a traditional document that's viewed page by page, an e-mail message is usually viewed as one continuous Web page. In fact, when you create a new e-mail message and click the View menu, you'll see that the document is using Web Layout view in Word. This is important both because it affects the way that your document appears to readers and because some Word features are displayed differently in Web Layout view. The following are a few key examples:

• Although the Header and Footer command is available on the View menu when you're creating an e-mail message, headers and footers are not displayed in the message.
• Although the text of footnotes is not displayed when you create an e-mail message, footnote text is visible to the recipient. The footnote reference is converted to a hyperlink.
• Page borders are not displayed in the message.
• Paragraph width is determined by the width of the message window, which can be much wider than the width of your paper. However, when you create a table in an e-mail message, it's created to the width of your paper size.

  Note  A table pasted from another document into an e-mail message might expand to fit the full width of the message window, depending upon the AutoFit setting of the table.

• Keep in mind that an e-mail message is a Word document, so it contains Page Setup settings such as paper size, even if they are not visible in the message in Web Layout view.

Using styles

Just as in any Word document, you can create and use styles in an e-mail message to keep formatting consistent and to save time.

To use styles

1. First, place the insertion point in the body of the e-mail message.
2. Then on the Format menu, click Styles and Formatting to open the Styles and Formatting task pane.

When you use styles in your e-mail messages, the font formatting in the styles overrides the default font settings selected on the Mail Format tab in the Options dialog box in Outlook.

Note  If you've ever pressed ENTER or BACKSPACE in an e-mail message only to have the font change style and size, you've seen what happens when the Normal paragraph style in your Word-edited message overrode the e-mail message font. To always stay in control of font formatting in your Word-edited e-mail messages, apply styles throughout the message body. Also note that to ensure compatibility with any e-mail program that might be used to receive your message, it's a good idea to keep font choices simple. Using fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana, which are standard in most e-mail programs, will help ensure that the formatting in the message you send matches the formatting in the message the recipient opens.

Using tables

In addition to being useful when you need data organized in columns and rows, tables are one of the easiest and fastest ways to create complex page layouts in Word. In fact, as you might notice when browsing the Web, it's extremely common for Web pages to be created by using tables to organize their layouts. Like your e-mail message, Web pages are HTML documents and HTML is very friendly to the use of tables.

To insert a table into an e-mail message

1. Place the insertion point in the body of the message where you want the table to appear.
2. On the Table menu, point to Insert, and then click Table.
3. In the Insert Table dialog box, specify the numbers of columns and rows that you want in the table, and then click OK.

Note  You can use alternative methods for adding tables to Word documents, such as clicking the Insert Table button on the Standard toolbar instead of the Insert command on the Table menu.

Using graphics

You can paste or insert a graphic into an e-mail message just as you would into any Word document. To keep graphics looking great and to minimize file size, always consider the graphic format and layout. Paste graphics in the picture format that provides the smallest file size for the best quality. For example, the picture format Enhanced Metafile will usually provide the smallest file size and the best resolution for graphics copied from other Microsoft Office System programs, such as Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003.

When pasting a graphic into any Word document, choose from available picture types by clicking Paste Special on the Edit menu.

For the easiest-to-manage formatting, apply the In Line With Text layout option to any graphic in your e-mail message.

To position a graphic in line with text

1. Click the graphic.
2. On the Format menu, click Picture (or click Object), and then click the Layout tab.
3. Click In line with text, and then click OK.

You can use this layout option to format and align your graphic as simply as text. To easily place other content beside your graphic when using this option, place the graphic inside a table cell.

For more information about using styles, tables, and graphics effectively in any complex Word document, see the See Also section.

Reviewing your formatted e-mail message

After you completed formatting your e-mail message, you might consider sending it to yourself before sending it to the intended recipient to be sure that the formatting you used achieved the desired results. Particularly if you're new to using Word formatting when creating e-mail messages, reviewing the formatting will help you become comfortable with the types of formatting that work most effectively in documents sent by e-mail.

About the author   Stephanie Krieger is a Microsoft MVP and a document production expert with more than 10 years of consulting experience, as well as the author of the book Microsoft Office Document Designer. Stephanie writes for several pages on the Microsoft Web site, including Microsoft At Work and Office Online, and regularly delivers Microsoft Office tips and tricks webcasts.