Conditional formatting for Outlook email templates

This tutorial demonstrates how to automate font color changes in Outlook email templates using macros and HTML. It's perfect for users needing to send similar emails with varying highlighted phrases, eliminating repetitive manual formatting. Even beginners can follow along!

What We'll Achieve:

Imagine sending three project deadline reminders: 14 days, 7 days, and 1 day before the deadline. The text remains identical except for the time phrase, which will be brightly colored, changing based on the remaining time.

Example: "Dear all, ... You should be done in 14 days / 7 days / tomorrow."

We'll build an Outlook template enabling this "conditional formatting."

Let's start with simpler steps to build our skills.

Coloring Text in a Template:

The ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER macro, usually for adding email body content, helps create a color palette for quick font color changes. The following steps show how to color text using this macro:

Step 1: Create a Color Dropdown:

1. Choose a template in the Shared Email Templates pane.
2. Edit the template (either "Edit" or "Edit in Browser").
3. Place your cursor before the text to color, then click "Insert Macro."
4. Select ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER, choose "Dropdown list," set the "Window title" (e.g., "Color"), and list your colors under "Items." Remember to click "Insert."

The ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER macro appears in your template. This is only half the process! HTML editing is crucial.

Step 2: Edit the HTML Code:

1. Open the HTML code editor ("View HTML").
2. Place the ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER macro and the text to color between <span></span> tags. The correctly formatted code will look like this: ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER[blue;green;red;{title:'Color'}]";> Remember to replace the double quotes in {title:"Color"} with single quotes.
3. Ensure the complete HTML code is correctly structured. Double-check for typos!
4. Click "OK" and "Save."

This method works for paragraphs, sentences, words, list items, and table cells. Errors during saving often indicate incorrect single quote usage in the {title:'Color'} section.

Coloring Paragraphs, Sentences, Words, List Items, and Table Cells:

The process is identical for each element. Simply place the macro before the target text, create your color palette, and modify the HTML code accordingly. Examples of the correctly formatted HTML code for each element are shown in the original article.

Conditional Formatting for Outlook Emails:

Now, let's tackle the deadline reminder challenge. We'll use the ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER macro twice: once for the time phrase selection and again for color selection.

1. Create a new template with the example text.
2. Add the ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER macro before the period, creating a dropdown for time phrases ("When").
3. Add another ~%WHAT_TO_ENTER macro before the first one, creating a color dropdown ("Color").
4. Edit the HTML code to integrate both macros correctly, ensuring single quotes are used in the title attribute. The corrected HTML code is shown in the original article.
5. Save your changes.

Now, when using the template, two dropdown lists appear, allowing you to select both the time phrase and its color.

This completes the tutorial. Feel free to experiment and share your feedback!

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